Beyond the Color

May 7, 2008

2008-05-07T12:56:00.000-07:00

I don't post to this blog anymore. . . ..

Week 32

2007-07-20T20:18:00.000-07:00

Week 31

2007-07-20T20:14:00.000-07:00

Week 30

2007-07-11T22:17:00.000-07:00

Week 29

2007-07-06T08:17:00.000-07:00

Week 28

2007-07-01T18:45:00.000-07:00

Week 27

2007-07-01T18:42:00.000-07:00

Week 26

2007-07-01T18:40:00.001-07:00

Week 25

2007-07-01T18:38:00.000-07:00

Week 24

2007-07-01T18:35:00.000-07:00

Week 23

2007-07-01T18:26:00.000-07:00

Week 22

2007-07-01T18:19:00.000-07:00

Week 21

2007-05-14T17:49:00.000-07:00

Week 20

2007-05-14T17:46:00.000-07:00

Week 19

2007-04-28T14:03:00.000-07:00

Week 18

2007-04-25T17:32:00.000-07:00

Week 17

2007-04-19T20:14:00.000-07:00

Week 16

2007-04-17T19:27:00.000-07:00

Originally shot for the insects challenge at dpc. HOWEVER, this is not even close to be legal for the "minimal" editing ruleset. Heck, it's not even legal for basic. :)

It is the wings of a dead (very dead) dragonfly that Bernard had stashed in the basement.

Week 15

2007-04-05T20:15:00.000-07:00

Again, I like the color one of this better. I saw a shot in the doctor's office that I liked a lot. It was a back lit dogwood that was so soft and elegant it was unbelievable. I started to take it off the wall, but then the dr. came in and I didn't think that would be a good idea. :)

This was attempt #1 at replicating it. However, this was shot in natural light, and I really need to use something a bit less harsh and more controllable. I liked the blue sky, though.

Update on Bernard
Bernard's MRI on Monday was completely normal, and he does indeed have a brain. :) No tumors, no strokes, no MS. YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We met today with Dr. Alan Johnson of Asheville Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery. As far as heart surgeries go, this is the easiest, most simple kind. That is good. His surgery will start around 11 and he should be finished around 2 and in an ICU room around 3. The actual surgery on the heart only takes about 15 minutes. The rest of it is getting Bernard to sleep and prepped for the surgery (I'll spare you the details, yuck. I'm so glad God didn't call me into medicine). He will be in ICU over night, then a regular room for 2 or 3 days, then home to recuperate for a couple of weeks. The most difficult part (according to Dr. Johnson and all other open heart patients I've talked to) is waiting for the sternum and ribs to heal. Apparently, that is a pretty painful little mess in there. Bernard is ready to do this and amazingly calm. I am to, on the outside.

So, Monday we go to Mission Hospital for pre-OP, Tuesday is a lovely day spent at Asheville Cardiology doing a catheterization, and Wednesday, bright and early, we will go to the hospital for the big day.

Thanks for remembering us, and I'll keep you updated as we go.

Oh yea, some have asked for specific ways to pray. Obviously, as God leads is cool, too.

1. Travis and Kristi to not be too completely whigged out by the whole thing. We are explaining bits and pieces to Trav, and Kristi is happily oblivious to the whole thing, for now.
2. The doctors. I know some of Bernard's docs are Christians, but I do not know about all of them. My prayer is that something we do or say or are plants a seed or waters a seed that has been planted.
3. That Bernard wake up from the surgery. :)
4. A quick and speedy recovery.

Week 14

2007-04-02T21:19:00.000-07:00

Week 13

2007-03-29T19:03:00.000-07:00

Week 12

2007-03-29T18:33:00.000-07:00

Week 11

2007-03-29T18:21:00.000-07:00

Week 10

2007-03-29T18:10:00.000-07:00

Week 9

2007-03-29T17:39:00.000-07:00

hehe.. The bw and color looked exactly the same. :)

Week 8

2007-02-21T22:18:00.000-08:00

Week 7

2007-02-14T17:43:00.000-08:00

Week 6

2007-02-08T22:06:00.000-08:00

I definitely like the color one best, though the black and white is growing on me.

The conversion of this one is simple enough, I suppose, but it took some doing to get it to where I liked it. I used the Channel Mixer, and had just read that if you set all values to 0, then, one at a time, set the other values to 100, you can get an idea of which channel you need to "work on" the most. So, I did that, and approached this more mathematically (keeping a sum of 100 on the three channels) than I normally do.

Week 5

2007-01-31T22:01:00.000-08:00

Blue Ridge Paper Mill

This one was converted using the channel mixer.

One of these next weeks, I'm going to get brave and tackle black and white portraits.
:/

Week 4

2007-01-26T07:37:00.000-08:00

Outside of my brother's barn.

Week 3

2007-01-17T20:57:00.000-08:00

Not as happy this week. The weather was gray and overcast, and there was NO detail in the sky. In that respect, I guess it works well for black and white.

This cemetary is one of the oldest, if not THE oldest, in the county. There are a lot of graves with civil war markers on them, and one whole section that dates back to the late 1700s, early 1800s. and there are always a bunch of ravens/crows (can't remember the difference) flying around, so even though it is in the middle of town, it can be kind of spooky.

Week Two

2007-01-09T22:33:00.000-08:00

Shattered Christmas Dreams

An idea that didn't execute as well as I would have liked. I dropped a Christmas ornament (yes, on purpose) then took pictures of it. At first, I started to clone out all the extraneous "stuff" (the ceiling fan, etc.) but then decided to leave it in because it looked more "natural" that way.

It kind of reminds me of all those Christmasses that don't go quite as planned. The stress, the arguments, etc. Fortunately, my family gets along wonderfully, and it doesn't "apply," but I have friends that *hate* the holidays.

The conversion for this one was done to the RAW image in Digital Photo Professional. Then, I adjusted the contrast and saturation (for the color one) on the JPEG. Also cropped and rotated it. I left the rotation for the two different, just to see if the impact is any different.

Week 1

2007-01-04T16:03:00.000-08:00

A local church

Before conversion, I used "soft light" to effectively dodge and burn (effectively meaning "in effect" not with effect). Then, follow fotomann forever's tutorial on dpc (www.dpchallenge.com---learn>---tutorials-->conversion from color to bw), I did one hue/saturation layer over the color one. Desaturated it to -100. Then, did another layer and adjusted the hue until I like it. Finally, merged the layers.

In the Beginning

2006-12-21T09:59:00.000-08:00

This will be a complimentary blog to my Photo a Day project started on January 1st, 2006, and to be continued into 2007.

This will be my attempt to learn how to create quality black and white images. Whether it be in chosing my subject or just figuring out the best method of post processing.