Julie's Art Blog

This was my first time in the studio taking portraits and what a great model I had! She obviously knew what facial expression she looked good in. Interestingly, when I directed her, the photos weren't nearly so good however whether that was my fault or hers, the jury is out! All the photos needed re-centred as I seem to photo to one side. One got the mild pinhole B&W treatment, the other two got minimal input.

 My solarcan was put up in my garden in early September and taken down in early January. It seemed to have survived Storm Ali and other weather although there was a slight wet patch towards the top. I chose not to move the camera half way through as I wanted to see how the view/silhouette of the land worked - it is a place where I sit and get the winter sun so I like the view. When the photographic paper came out the can the visible image looked quite exciting. I was introduced to photoshop for the first time and essentially just played around with it. I duplicated the copy first then changed it to RGB as I found it inverted better in that format than CMYK. I later changed it back to CMYK. I initially increased contrast to the full and decreased brightness - I later increased the contrast more and the brightness. My personal preference was for a dark foreground, I didn't like it when it was grey and blotchy. While I like the more vibrant and way out colours, I also preferred min...

 I am quite proud of this one, not that you can see it properly when it is so little. This is my first attempt at Astrophotography. I had read an article on how to photograph the Milky Way so I thought I would do it, i.e. photograph the Milky Way. I took my husband along to help - he is really into astronomy and takes some photos of the night sky himself. I had the DSLR, tripod and remote timer. We went to dark sky (i.e. out the village). To be honest, the skies weren't great over the holidays however this was one of the better nights but there still were some clouds. I set the tripod up under this really cool Scots Pine with  a squiggly trunk and pointed the camera upwards. The camera was set to bulb exposure, the lens was zoomed out as far as possible, ISO 3200, White balance was on auto, and f3.5. That was what the article had said and Peter agreed. It was on manual focus but as we were trying to get the tree we couldn't set it at infinity. We focussed by shining torch...

 For my penultimate photo I have submitted a sunset. My husband doesn't really like this one, but I do. But that is because I see photos as memories as well as pieces of art and for me this photo is a reminder of a wonderful walk in amazing winter sun up Peniel Heugh. I will understand if you don't really like it, you weren't there! I edited out the little light spot and I applied the lowest level of "dappled" - I had tried loads of different light effects and this was the one I liked best!

 This photo was taken of trees on a walk out of Bedrule. I took it with my camera phone. The day was beautiful and I was attracted to these trees as I liked the markings on the trunk. However they are not startling in their original form. However after applying high contrast then high definition black and white the detail on the trees and the shadows look great - in my opinion!

 Keeping with the colour theme this next photo is again of River Teviot. The colours were just stunning although I did strengthen them further by applying high contrast and high highlights. I found this helped make the white water pop out better. This photo is a bit messy in its grasses and ill defined trees in the background however the colours and the reflections won me over.

 This photo was taken with my camera phone as the sun was going down. I am never very sure whether it is good and the done thing to have light splodges on your picture but I really liked the effect so that is why I am submitting this photo. Regarding editing I just increased the contrast to darken the tree trunks and to define the splodges more.

 This photo was taken by my phone on a local walk round Ancrum. The sun was low (as is normal at this time of year) and behind some thin cloud. The original photo was a little dark so I increased the exposure first just a little bit. Then I applied a fairly low level pinhole black and white. The resulting photo is still fairly dark however if I lightened it more definition was lost in the sky. I liked it well enough to include it in my project.

 I had been watching youtube videos on how to take photos of Christmas lights and on Christmas Eve the weather looked perfect so I gave it a try. They talk about the sweet spot when the light is just right to show off the lights and also show the background to a degree - in this case the houses alongside one side of Ancrum Green. This meant I was out for ages taking lots of photos to make sure I didn't miss the sweet spot! I used my DSLR with a tripod and the remote. Obviously I used no flash. The ISO was set at 800 and I had the White Balance set to auto. I did try incandescent (as it said some people prefer this) but I found it too blue. The camera was set to S - shutter. I think I set the shutter speed for around 0.6sec but I did try a few different speeds to see what worked best. I admit Ancrum doesn't have the glitziest of Christmas lights but as an experiment I think it works well enough. I straightened the photo a little, the village green is slightly sloped and I d...

 My third photo is the view of the River Teviot at Monteviot Swing Bridge. The sun was getting low but it was an amazing winter's day with no wind. The reflection of the bridge and the trees in the water was very clear. I cropped this photo a little to reduce the amount of scraggy grass in the foreground, then applied a low level of vibrancy just to lift the colours a little, winter vegetation can be pale.  I find the vibrancy control can be a little risky as it doesn't take much to make a photo look artificial and I would normally have it on its lowest setting. This photo was taken on my phone.

 My next tree is a dead one just down from the top of Ruberslaw. I took it as I thought the shape was striking and it contrasted strongly with the living trees to the left of the photo. The foreground is fully silhouetted as it is taken against the light. This photo required very little editing - I just applied pinhole black and white. This really brought out the definition in the clouds and the darkness in the sky balances out the black foreground which wasn't the case in the original, This photo was taken with my phone.

 I was initially going to do my photography project on the broad subject of winter light (it made sense considering the time of year and I am most interested in landscape photography!) However I found all my winter light photos had trees in them so the topic of my project is trees. The above tree is on the road to the Gamekeeper's cottage on the way up to Peniel Heugh, the hill close to Ancrum. I thought the disappearing road created a bit of interest alongside the beautiful shadows on the tree. I initially changed the above original by increasing the contrast (I was using photoshop express) and applying a low vibrancy. I liked it as it brought out the yellow lichen on the tree more and it strengthened the reflection on the road so giving a nice blue/yellow complementary look.  I also tried it by increasing the contrast and applying pinhole black and white. I like pinhole as it really brings out the detail of e.g. the bark and the clouds in the sky (not obvious in this ...