I’ve given the photo used in Monday’s Shoot it, Sketch it the ‘tilt shift’ lens blur treatment.
P.S. My Blog Awards page has been updated — I’ve just been nominated for the Sunshine Award : )
Shoot it, Shrink it: Back in the neighbourhood
photography
Shoot it, Sketch it: The colour of snow
When Christchurch became a winter wonderland a couple of years ago, we hopped in the car, drove around the corner, took a few photos of the park looking as pretty as a picture, discovered the car was stuck in the snow, dug the car out of the snow (with a little help from the neighbours) and drove home again. The next time we get this much snow, I think I’ll venture out on foot.
I’ve never painted on stretched canvas before ― and I’m in love… with the woven texture, the way it bounces with every brush stroke and the way it takes layer after layer (after layer) of paint. I’m getting ready to paint my first commissioned artwork! It’s going to be a triptych on canvas and so a little practice beforehand seemed like a good idea.
Shoot it, Sketch it: Last minute
A last-minute sketch of the last minutes of a sunset in Hagley Park (because the acrylic painting I had planned to post today isn’t quite finished yet). I hope you’ll forgive the slightly blurry photo (my fault for not taking a tripod). Sunsets in the park can be spectacular at this time of year ― yes, we’re well and truly into autumn now in Christchurch.
Bagirl photo shoot
Meet Sandra Fleck a.k.a. bagirl, maker of bags (and other things). I wrote a post last year about designing Sandra’s logo, business cards and product tags and have finally persuaded her to start a WordPress blog. I only had about an hour and a half for the photo shoot ― and believe me, that’s not very long ― but we still managed to get some good shots. We must remember to put the tags on the bags next time!
Here’s a sneaky preview of what Sandra will be posting over the coming weeks. She has a real flair for thinking outside the box. To find out more and to read the stories behind the bags, visit my bagirl world.
Itty bitty boat
A photograph of the Hukafalls Jet on the Waikato River. No tourists, tour operators or boats were harmed in the miniaturisation of this image.
Focus
Last week, I had one of those ‘so that’s how they do it’ moments. I read about a clever piece of kit called a tilt-shift lens (used by photographers to control the way perspective appears in an image) and a way of mimicking the lens in Photoshop. With the right photo, you can digitally blur and manipulate it to make places and people look like miniatures. Even without the right photo, it’s still an interesting effect.
The latest version of Photoshop apparently has a ‘tilt shift’ blur feature but, really, it’s pretty straightforward: apply a reflected gradient and a lens blur so that parts of the image are out of focus, then adjust saturation and contrast to make the colours look more artificial.
The effect tends to work best with photos of people/vehicles/buildings taken from an elevated viewpoint. You don’t have to hire a helicopter to get a suitable photo… but climbing several flights of stairs to get just a little bit higher could make all the difference. With that in mind, I’m now on the hunt for really good photos to miniaturise : )
My thanks to Hovercraftdoggy for their inspirational We make models post (which includes a link to a tilt-shift photography Photoshop tutorial).
Anna Cull ~ Art & Music 