Saturday, November 17, 2012

A Technological Art


One of the things about my photographic style is the technology. Although I'm by no means an expert at Photoshop I'm certainly an avid fan. I like to try my best to keep up with some new styles of Photography (with things like Popular Photography magazine, and the Digital Rev TV YouTube channel) and so I like to give things a try every now and then. As you may know, I've given HDR
a few tries over the years, and I still find it a handy tool, but I've learned the hard way that the quality of your image is going to come down to the technology you are using. The first photo, Commute, is one of the first HDR images I've made with Adobe's CS5, and I'm rather impressed with the ability to make it look, well, not ridiculous. It's a combination of 4 images and shows a subway bridge passing over a street and all heading into downtown Toronto. The second image, Michael, is my first attempt at faux tilt-shift photography. (Tilt shift lenses are a terribly complex and I know I'm not qualified to explain them, but if you are interested, be sure to look them up.) This, like many of the images floating around is not a real tilt-shift lens, but a post-production trick. The point is to make the image look like it is tiny by faking a very small depth of field on the subject. Through that, it looks like a miniature train (hence why I named it after my father, a model train enthusiast). What do you think about these two? Feel free to comment and let me know, I'm always looking for opinions.
Archipelago Photography- islands of thought and image, connected with a name

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Colleagues

Being at school for photography has many perks. The premier being that I'm learning a whole ton of cool stuff about photography. But there are others. The next coolest might be meeting people. Since day 1 I've been meeting people who are a)interested in photography in the way that I am, and b)super talented in their own unique styles and niches. I've been hanging out a lot with a couple guys who couldn't be farther away in styles. My buddy Bobby (Link to his work) shoots very colourful, visually appealing images on the cutting edge of digital technology. Very cool stuff, believe me. But my other buddy Dylan MacArthur (Link here, duh) shoots nearly entirely B&W film, and most of it is street level, emotional, truthful stuff. I saw Dylan in action today and this guy is like a ninja. His skills with street photography are something that I am both very envious of, and looking to emulate.
I was thinking the other day, on one of my many 'wander Toronto, shooting and thinking' trips that if I want to move into Photojournalism when this is all said and done, that Street Photography is the thing I seriously need to work on; like a lot. So be prepared, I'll be posting some (crappy) street photos when they come in the next couple posts.
But if there's one thing I've learned recently it's that if you really want to take this seriously, carry your camera everywhere, and keep your eyes open; always.
Archipelago Photography