For those of you who don’t know, I love taking pictures of pokey things. I don’t know why. I guess I just really like the effect of something coming out at you while everything else is a blur in the background. So generally, if Cobalt and I go on a walk with my camera, I will take at least one pokey picture on our journey. Actually, that is pretty much the story of this picture.
Category: Black and White Photograph
Black and White: Now we’ll never know
For today’s black and white picture, I have this crazy picture for you. I like it because it looks like I took a boring picture of bars until you look at the stuff in the background…. which seems to not be oriented correctly. Actually, this is a good time to point out one of my favorite features about black and white pictures – the fact that you notice so much more of the details that you might not notice if the picture had color. For example, if I post a picture of me with green skin, you will probably notice the fact that I seem to look very sick but you might not notice the finer details of the picture besides my green skin. If the picture were black and white, you might not notice that my skin was a different color and you’d content yourself with looking at the rest of the details. That’s my theory at least…
So… today’s picture: So sneaky. So confusing! What is going on?!?!
Well… if you must know, then I guess I can tell you. I took a picture of a railing that was diagonal… but then I tilted the camera so that the railing appeared horizontal… thus tilting everything else in the picture and confusing you. Ahahaha…
Black and White: The Sun Has Gone to Bed
And so must I…
This weekend Cobalt and I went for a walk around my neighborhood. On our way back, we saw these poor dead sunflowers lurking over the top of a fence. Cobalt thought that they looked like nosy neighbors, looking over the fence to see what their next door “friends” are up to. I thought they looked like a giant claw coming up over the fence. I like the way this picture turned out – the fence is really neat and of course the sunflowers are epic… Good night sweet prince(s)… ;)
Black and White: Snow Flower
Today I am posting a picture of my Venus Fly Trap Severus Snape from earlier this year. Last winter, I let him live in my windowsill. Because of the way the sun shines in my room in the winter, the window sill gets really hot. So it would be snowing outside and Severus would be like “wooooo spring time!” and start flowering. Ha. I thought it would be fun to take a picture of him all ready for spring with snow outside.
Black and White: Something’s Coming…
For today’s black and white picture, I am posting a picture of a church I used to see every day on my way to and from work when I lived in New Mexico. One day, there were all these ominous clouds lurking over the top of the church and I decided to snap a picture. So ominous… I also think this picture is appropriate for today because yesterday around 3 pm, it got PITCH BLACK outside and then proceeded to rain/snow/be windy like crazy for the next 10 minutes. So something did come… No worries though, when something does attack, it usually takes off eventually… I also realized that my black and white pictures tend to be creepy. I should post a non creepy black and white picture one day…
As far as editing goes, I took this picture sometime in 2008 and used Paint Shop Pro instead of Photoshop so I actually don’t remember what I did to this picture. Sad days… but at least it looks cool!
Black and White: Riding out the Storm
For today’s black and white picture, I decided to post this semi creepy picture of what happens when all the leaves fall off the tree! I took this picture in May 2008 when I was visiting Fort Collins, CO with my family to get my sister settled into a summer program at CSU. That means I took this picture on my old old old point and shoot, my trusty Canon Powershot A75 probably about a month or so before it bit the dust. Man, that was the best and most loyal digital point and shoot I ever had; it hung around through three years of college insanity and then one year of fun in New Mexico. So A75, I salute you!
Anyway, I really like that the branches of the tree kind of look like a claw and that the bird is just sitting on this creepy claw being like “Yeah… just chillin’…”
Happy Wednesday everyone!
Black and White: Someone is watching you…
Welp, I know it’s only Tuesday but we get the black and white day a day early! This is because I have something a little special planned for tomorrow. Wait and see! :)
About today’s picture though: I was taking pictures around Boulder with my friends a few months ago and we decided to take pictures in the downtown Pearl St. area. For no apparent reason, I decided to shoot the whole day in black and white!
Anyway, we were wandering through this alley, when I noticed a mannequin staring at me through the back window of a wig shop. It totally caught me off guard and made me realize what an awesome creepy picture it could make. So there you have it… Someone’s watching you…
Photoshop
I didn’t do anything to this picture! I tried lightening up the wig model’s window a little but it just looked less creepy. So you get the original!
I hope you all are enjoying your Tuesdays! Also, don’t forget to vote today (if you haven’t already)!!!
Black and White: Pinhole Photograph
When I was in eighth grade, we did a photography unit in my science class. This unit is probably responsible for me being so excited about photography today so thank you, science class!
Anyway, in that class, we each got to make (and decorate – mine was black with shiny star stickers all over it!) our own pinhole cameras so we could learn about photography while getting to play with our own pictures. Pinhole cameras are probably about the simplest possible cameras ever. All you need is a closed box (doesn’t even have to be a square… you can have a round tube) that doesn’t let any light in except through one point – the pinhole. Then you slap a piece of photopaper in the back of the camera and voila! Go take a picture. You take a picture by exposing the pinhole to light/your subject for some exposure time (practice makes perfect) and then sealing up the pinhole again. Now, all you need to do is develop the photo paper and tada! A photo magically appears before your eyes.
In my class, we had to take a certain number of pictures over the course of the unit and keep a journal documenting each picture: what the subject was, how long you exposed the subject, improvements you could have made, what you expect the picture to look like, etc. We also had to sign up to volunteer in the class darkroom during some lunch breaks to help develop everyone’s pictures. I loved it. I was in the darkroom almost every lunch time, developing people’s pictures and restocking their cameras with fresh photopaper for the next day’s photos. I was so excited about it (as was my sister when it was her time to do the photo unit), that my parents collected a bunch of their old photography stuff, bought developing chemicals, and made us our own darkroom in our house! Unfortunately, I actually didn’t do much photography in high school (or in college) but I did manage to take this picture (with my star-covered camera) probably senior year of high school.
Photoshop
This picture was super fun to edit with photoshop. Considering the fact that pinhole pictures come out as negatives (see below to see the original picture), my first task was to invert the colors on my picture. Then I just did some photo maintenance. After all, I developed this picture at least 8 years ago and then it lived on my wall in California (thank you to my mom for scanning it in) since then. So I took care of some damage spots and darkened both the dolphin (yes… that is a dolphin. I got it when I was 6… it’s been well loved…) and the lobster a little. I darkened the trees in the background and the spiny tree in the right hand corner too. I also cropped it a little to get rid of some of the extra deck in the bottom of the picture. Ummmmm… yeah! I think that is all.
The original image:
Hope you all are having a wonderful Wednesday…
Potassium Photography 