The Padded Room

This image is from Worth's Team Photo Competition Round 1.
The theme was "Borders" and I decided to go the "Border of sanity" route, or I guess "Border of Insanity" route.
Either way, it's the same border, just a different direction.

DeTooning Robert Crumb - Mr. Natural

This is the only image on this blog that is not a photograph. I include it here, because I really like the result.

The contest objective was to De-Toon a Robert Crumb image, and creating as realistic image as possible. There were also requirements not to use controversial or offensive images which removed approximately 98% of Crumbs most popular drawings and characters. :)

Final - Mr. Natural


Original Source

Samir and his Baby

Well, this was my entry for the final contest, but I was too stupid to resize after adding my border, and took my 2nd DQ in a row. Dammit.

It was fun all, thanks for the month of motivation that this challenge provided, and the comments that helps me complete it.

Day 31 - The Last Photo.

I wasn't going to post a Day 31, and this was going to be my original H?H, but I have one I like better now, so it seemed a fitting way to end the Dirty 30.

It's over. ;)

Thanks for visiting.

Day 30 - Joey Sandulo

Joey Sandulo let me and a buddy (MyShutterBug) run around his gym taking pictures for a couple of hours today. He had never met us before, and he was all class, as he put up with a couple of amateur photogs, telling us great stories all the while. I doubt that he will ever see this, but if he does, Thank You.

Here are some facts about Joey's career:

Joe Sandulo is the president and head coach of the Ottawa Beaver Boxing Club.

He has assisted and coached several Canadian champions including Brian Brennan, Ian Clyde, Samir Loati and the club’s newest champion, Jill Perry.

At the age of 16, Mr. Sandulo became the youngest Canadian Amateur Boxing Champion (a record that will never be broken), and competed in the 1948 Olympic games.

He is a member of the Canadian Boxing and Ottawa Halls of Fame.

Day 27 - Optimism

Have a nice day. :)

Day 26 - Meathooks

"Detective, I think you need to see this..."



A write up on how this image was done can be found in my June Archive.

Day 25 - Wah Wah

Day 24 - Old Denim

Torn, tattered, patched, and faded. Perfection.

Day 23 - Bachelor Pad

It might be small, but at least it costs too much :)

Day 22 - Quick Change Artist

Most stressful image ever.

Not near enough time to make it the way I wanted, so bad at time management. Still taking reshoots at 11:30, and network won't connect when I attempt to login at 11:45. Thank God resetting router worked. Thought I'd be racing to work =/

Serenity now.

Day 21 - McShrimp

I thought I was making this up... until I googled it =/

Day 20 - Light Sleeper

I had a dream I was floating...

Day 19 - Visual Pollution

Day 18 - What the hell's a Lolcat?

Day 17 - On top of Ole Smokey

Day 16 - Old Lamp

A 40 watt bulb in a cheap lamp is the same as a 40 watt bulb in an expensive one.

Day 15 - Improv

Day 14 - Electricity

Day 13 - What could it be?

My niece's 6th birthday today, those presents didn't stand a chance.
This picture is of her ripping the tissue paper out of a gift bag to see what treasures lie within.

I got her a camera :)

Day 12 - Breakfast of Champions

Mmmm, Mmmm, Science.

Day 11 - Agony of Defeat

Actually, the agony is trying to get these things posted before midnight. :)

Day 10 - Are those carrots?

My nieces and a little buddy.

Day 9 - Snatched!

I'm not sure what to say about this one, but I like it :)

Day 8 - Mr. Hydrant

C'mon, admit it. Everyone has taken at least one photo of a fire hydrant.

Day 7 - Flash Gordon

Liked this shot better than the one I set it up for so, there ya go.

Day 6 - The Morning After...

Well, mission accomplished.
Drank myself stoopid, and am paying for it today.

Day 5 - The Night Before...

This is what I'm doing tonight, so "Day 6 - The Morning After..." pic may not be too creative, or quite possibly entirely too graphic :)

Day 4 - Monster of Rock

Cliche Alert: Yeah, I used Lens Flare, but I'm a rock and roll rebel!!! :)

Day 3 - Two Boots on a wire

Whew, with seconds to spare :)

These boots have been hanging on this wire for months, and this challenge was
enough motivation to finally pull over and get the shot.

Day 2 - The Light

A light in my buildings stairwell that I have always liked...
might be a freudian thing ;)

Day 1 - Old Number 4

Abandoned gas station south of Ottawa.

Making the Meathook...

I've been asked by a couple of fellow Worthians about my workflow, so I wrote this up.

The image I choose is MeatHook, probably cause it is new, and I still like it (and have all the steps still fresh in my mind) ;)

I can't really say where the idea came form, but I know I was pretty peaved after wasting about an hour trying to get my small apartment to behave like a big studio, so I had to give up on my initial idea, and thought I'd do something somewhat sick.

And this is what I came up with.



The camera set to f/8, 1/200, ISO 100, and the lens is at 20mm for these shots.
The flash is set fairly strong (1/4 power), and is fairly close to the subject (3 feet or so).

I took a pics of the shower, my left arm in place, and my right arm in place, and some hanging hooks. The camera was on a tripod so they would all match up when they were comp'd together - clearly I bumped it cuz they didn't match up, and set my flash to camera right with a blue gel on it to get a kinda erie "morgue"'ish color in the scene.

The pics I ended up choosing are the following (I had multiple hook shoots, but only showing one because they are all the same, just different angles):



In the EAW settings, I usually lower the Exposure a bit (- ~5), increasing the Blacks (+ ~5), and reducing Vibrance and saturation (- ~15-30). This gets the more gloomy, muted tones that I like. The other settings may be tweaked a bit too, but the above are almost always changed.

I also tweak the RAW's Temperature and Tint settings also, but values depend greatly on wether or not I add a gel to my flash, and what color it is. Pretty much guesswork. (Often the overall tone of my final result changes due to me finding a new color that I like playing in here).

I put all of the images in the same working file, and started masking out each arm, each arms shadows, and the the hook. Using the clone tool, and some painting I added the rest of the "Hook marks" from the pinch of skin in the left arm. Here's a WIP.



Once done, I flattened the image, add the wrinkles to the top of the arms:



At this point, the main work is done, and the remaining editing will adjust the overall image mood, and color.
I duplicate visible layers to a new layer (Cmd-option-shift-E), and convert it to black and white.



I do this step to most of my images to darken it a little more. I set the layer blending mode to overlay, (39% in this case), and masked out the shower curtain because I wanted it to remain a little brighter as it is closer to the light source. I again all layers to a new layer and run a HighPass filter over the new layer.



I set the Overlay layer to "Vivid Light" blending mode, and masked out the hands. (The highpass on vivid did not look good on the hands with big pore like artifacts appearing.)



At this point, it looks good enough to me (or at least I've spent too much time on it) so resize, Crop, add a vignette, border, and posted.

Roots

Rush Hour

Slow Hand

Motion

If you can make a '97 Cavalier look cool, you know it must be a good shot.



Looking at the setup for this shot, I should have been able to predict the, now obvious, outcome of right hand turns and road debris on my UV Filter.

Color Portrait

This image was created while testing a new flash and DIY Softbox and turned into my first Advanced Gold Trophy at Worth1000.

Sink or Swim

Short Stack Ninja

The Light Keeper

High Key Cow Skull