What do you reckon my cat Harley was thinking?

I since discovered that the effect was named for MIchael Orton. He sandwiched slides together. For each image, he would take two shots. One overexposed by two stops and one that was overexposed by one stop. This would produce an image that had an impressionistic sense to it. Nowadays, we don’t really need to use a tripod and take multiple shots. Most image editing programs have settings, plugins, addons and etc that could produce this same effect or it an be produced by adding layers onto an existing image.

In GIMP, the Orton Effect copies the image on two additional layers. In the first it overexposes the image and sharpens it, in the second it applies a gaussian blur.

In this photo I used the Orton Effect then added an alpha mask to the blurred layer to fade out the effect in the center of the flower allowing the sharpness to show through.

This image shows the Orton Effect without using an alpha mask.

If you have a favorite GIMP plugin or effect, please let us all know!

Creative Photography judge’s submission

The Pacific Black Duck, Anas superciliosa is a dabbling duck found in much of Indonesia, New Guinea, Australia, New Zealand, and many islands in the southwestern Pacific, reaching to the Caroline Islands in the north and French Polynesia in the east. It is usually called the Grey Duck or Pārera in New Zealand.

EXIF DATA

Camera:      Canon EOS 400D Digital
Exposure:     0.001 sec (1/1600)
Aperture:     f/5.6
Lens Type:     EF75-300mm f/4-5.6
Focal Length:     300 mm
ISO Speed:     400
Exposure Bias:     0/3 EV
Flash:     Flash did not fire

...

Hello, I’m the little red planet work horse. You rarely, no let me take that back, you NEVER get to see me cause I am the one that does all the grunt work behind the curtains here. To toot my own horn, I’m a Canon EOS 400D with 55mm and 300mm lenses. I’m pretty average on the digital SLR scale but what I lack in power and features, I more than make up for in ease of use and I’m light weight.That means my user doesn’t get tired lugging me around all day.

I like to shoot in AV mode most of the time. I always tweek my white balance and ISO before closing the shutter. I think my best attribute is my rich understanding of color. Yeah, that’s where I leave all them big bad boys in the dirt. I like color and I make sure it shows in my photos. If I could make any improvements I’d make my digital screen a bit bigger and maybe even add live shot to it. I know the newer models have made these adjustments.

My user drools at my more expensive brothers at the camera store but I’m not worried. I know that there’ll always be a place for me in the camera bag regardless. Hope you enjoy the fruits of my labor.

cheers

PS – You know, it’s not all about features, frames per second and all that jazz … it’s really about art.

Creative Photography Judge

Sometimes I am compelled to take a photo only to find that the photo is sub-standard. This is when I start thinking about why the shot is so compelling and how could I capture that essence on the camera. I keep thinking and experimenting until I get an image that works.

I came upon this boardwalk while walking around a nature reserve near my house. I really liked the look of this boardwalk cutting across this grassy/swampy area. After taking many photos, none really capture the essence of what I was seeing. I kept looking at it and then realised what intrigued me most was the line of the curve plus the muted contrast between boards and grass. I started experimenting with zoom and tilting my camera until I hit upon this image. This is what stopped me at this spot in the first place. Just tiliting my camera gave me that perfect perspective to show off the contrast and the curve.

EXIF Data

• Camera: Cannon EOS400D
• Exposure: 1/1600
• Aperture: f/5.6
• Focal Length: 18mm
• ISO Speed: 200
• Exposure Program: Aperture Priority
• Flash: Did not fire

Editing

• Gently Pulled the curve

The girls and I had a fun Saturday morning. Can you guess what we did by looking at this photo?

This photo is my entry into the Creative Photo contest. Be sure you check out the contest and all those who have entered.

On my last day of holiday, I decided to take a solitary photo safari. Not far from my house there’s a great little historic steam railway that runs through the Dandenong Ranges, the Puffing Billy. I took a stroll down the tracks of the Puffing Billy knowing that at some point, I’d meet the steam engine either coming or going.

The tracks wind through some great Mountain Ash and Fern Tree temperate rain forest complete with several species of brightly colored parrots. I captured the Puffing Billy as she rounded a bend alongside both the Ash and Tree Ferns. I liked this shot cause it helped put these Mountain Ash into perspective. These are massive trees, some can reach 45 feet (15m) girth and almost 300 feet (100m) tall. They are the worlds tallest flowering plant.

I got some interesting picts along the tracks, some of them are posted on my flickr account.

Today, I’ll be taking Willow to the park as soon as I finish this post so, no doubt, I’ll get some cute shots of her today too

Have a great weekend.

Chica at Photo Projectz has been without her beloved camera for a bit. She sought original digi images for editing and processing fun and excitement.  I passed along a pict of my little ones toes in the bath. She’s done excellent work on it … I’m very impressed and pleased with this result. You can see the before and after effects in her recent post. Thanks Chica!

Here’s a slice in time from my weekend. Saturday morning I took my youngest to the park. She had a blast while proudly flying the band-aid flag on her forehead. She has a little obession about band-aids and she is allowed to put on a new one each day after she takes the old one off. Saturday morning she insisted on the band-aid on her forehead. It was a beautiful weekend band-aids and all.

Chica at the Photo Projectz blog issued the following challenge:

I want no use of natural light, no use of flash, and no use of any big lamp lighting. use any other creative lighting you can find, be it a flame, a laser, or a flashlight. Whatever you can think of.

Here’s my fairly lamo attempt at a no light style photo. I set the shutter on 30 second exposure and used a small hand held red light to trace a vague outline of my body. I like the ghost like effect and tried to scare my 10 yo with this photo. I told her I was taking pictures of stars outside and when I downloaded my photos, this appeared. She bought it hook line and sinker. She loves a good ghost story and immediately got on the phone to tell others.

I had to finally fess up to my trick cause she was becoming too scared to go to sleep by herself in her room tonight .