A few vignettes from a stroll at UGA

“Vignette” has the meaning of a small image that provides an impressionistic glimpse of a scene or subject. Nowadays we use the term to mean a fade to dark border on a picture. Here I use both meanings quite literally. Enjoy some glimpses of the University of Georgia campus from an afternoon stroll. We set out to go to lunch, I snapped a few photos along the way. This was not a photo walk, I just used my smartphone. The photos were post-processed in Photo Gallery, PaintShop Pro and Picasa. Picasa supplied all the vignetting.

Picasa reconstructs the walk and the photo stops, and yes, you can tell where we took our meal – always a good place to eat.

.:.

© 2012 Ludwig Keck

Geese in the Kitchen

On cold, rainy days taking pictures can be outright unpleasant. That does not mean that you can’t have fun with photography. I recently joined a Google+ community that is “dedicated to learning the art of Black and White photography through weekly assignments, discussion, and critique”. It has been enjoyable and sometimes challenging.

A recent assignment was to shoot some photos of textures and patterns, followed with the task of combining a texture with a photo. I looked a my texture collection and then some recent photos of Canada geese came to mind. The weather was miserable when I set out to photograph the geese. It had rained, the water of the pond was murkier than usual. Then it started to rain again. I kept shooting until my camera was so wet I started to worry. The photos were no masterpieces. A little prank came to mind.

One of my texture pictures was of a restaurant floor. I tiled about eight images of this together into a large one. In PaintShop Pro I manipulated the image so the tiles would appear to be seen from an angle. One of the geese photos was superposed in a layer. I duplicated this layer and selected the geese, making the rest of the image transparent. Then I adjusted the transparency of the middle layer.

Of course it was not quite this simple as I did not get the tiles image right the first few times.

I had to include more tiles and make the edges match, then “tilt” the image so it would be similar as the plane of the pond water. It took me a lot longer than it would an expert, but I am sure that I had more fun.

Once the stack of images looked right I collapsed it into a single image, made the final corrections and added my signature. Now here is my masterpiece:

.:.

© 2012 Ludwig Keck

Color is where you find it

.:.

It was a dark and foggy night …

It was a dark and foggy night … visibility was a few yards, not many lights besides the streetlight to reveal any detail. Yes, my friends, this is a mystery story. But fear not, I will not bore you with dull and dreary prose, my flair is photography.

Even on the camera monitor this looked pretty dull and dreary. No photo masterpiece potential here. Maybe the “art department” can make something with these frames. Always a chuckle there.

So I decided to use flash. Now, mind you, I fully expected the result to be closer to a view of a photo gray card than a useful picture, but what I got surprised me. Let me show you. I enhanced the contrast so you can see better the object of my astonishment.

Are these ghosts, small-scale turbulences in the fog, condensation on the lens, ghosts, GHOSTS?

Have you ever photographed fog with on-camera flash? This is the way to bring out ghosts where there are none!

OK, have you figured it out yet? Inspect more closely. Note that the “ghosts” are made up of various sized uniform circles. Circles! Bokey circles, out-of-focus, blurred images of points of light. Yes, the fog consists of tiny drops of water. It was thick, as I told you. There were enough of these small drops floating in front of the camera to act as tiny bright specks, illuminated by the flash.

.:.

© 2012 Ludwig Keck

Creativity on Demand – Scheduled Periodic Posts

With the year coming to an end so is also my trek with “The Weekly Photo” and my “POW” posts (“Photo Of Week” and “Picture Of Week” on my other channels). It was an interesting attempt at coming up with an image every week. There were interruptions, but for the most part I am pleased with my efforts.

Before turning the leaf to a new venture, here the last of “The Weekly Photo” series.

Christmas Tree – The Weekly Photo

The idea of a scheduled post, be it daily, weekly, or some other interval, is to encourage keeping your camera with you and being alert for photo opportunities. For me that worked quite well, especially after I added a smartphone to my tool kit. The photo here, as so many in this collection, were spontaneous discoveries and photographed with my Nokia phone.

Being creative on demand is a much more stressful challenge. Maybe I will try it again sometime, but for 2013 I have a different project in mind with “aperiodic” posts. Sometimes individual photos, but also “essays”. To keep my enthusiasm active, I have given it a name: “Gallery EXP”. Yes, it will be an EXPeriment, but also an EXPloration, and hopefully also EXPansion of vision and skill. You will be able to see my EXPosition over on Silver Canvas. To get the gallery started I have included some favorite images. Where it will go – nobody knows.

I want to thank all who have commented on my posts, either by comment, email, or in person. Your kind words are very much appreciated.

Now let’s look forward: Happy New Year!

.:.

© 2012 Ludwig Keck

We won’t let go!

We did let go.

One of the glories of living in Georgia is raking leaves until March.

.:.

© 2012 Ludwig Keck

The Weekly Photo

My friends and loyal readers know how much I delight in playing with photos. “Café Art” is my term for my manipulated creations. This week in my “POW” posts –  there is one for photos, and one for “art” –  the two selections form an interesting combination. The photo selection looks more like my usual café art, while the manipulated photo seems almost realistic.

Together with “The Weekly Photo”, this project is almost concluded. I set out to post a “Picture of the Week” and a “Photo of the Week” almost a year ago. Some weeks were missed due to circumstances, but it was a lot of fun. Like most of my endeavors, there were multiple objectives. Few viewers discovered the POW pages behind the posts, and even fewer stumbled into the albums. These will be more accessible when my sites get “freshened up” in the new year.

Yes, of course, clicking on the images starts you on a trek. Enjoy the trips!

.:.

© 2012 Ludwig Keck