Abstract Photography Course - Images for 1-31-2017

I signed up to take an Abstract Photography course at GTCC for 6 weeks with Randy Harris as our Instructor.  I wanted some inspiration since flowers not really blooming now.  Also a chance to think outside the box.  My subjects to submit one image each were triangle and pink,.  I noticed the high voltage towers had triangles as I was driving around GSO.  I took this image on a cloudy day and under exposed to give silhouette effect and make the clouds darker.  The instructor said if you could combine the subjects that was a plus.  I bought some pink glow sticks at Wal-mart.  This was my first time working with them and 2 of the 12 did not light their crystals.  It was supposed to be a sphere but I decided to try to make an abstract pink triangle design.  I used a black turtle neck top on a commode seat in my dark guest bathroom to take the right image.  Image on right was cropped to a square which was allowed.  No PS or LR editing allowed. Both of the images were taken with an iPhone.  The one on the left with iPhone 6 and the one on the right iPhone 6S. Will probably post both of these images on Pinterest on Abstract Photography Board.  

Winterfest - Ice Skate Patterns

Greensboro has "Winterfest" from Nov. to Jan.  I went downtown to LeBauer Park to take some pictures but it was cloudy and late afternoon.  Sports photography is not my thing. Images of the skaters were not good.  I ended up taking images of the ice with skate etchings. The image has a blue cast because of late afternoon.  I also made it darker and enhanced the color. -- then increased shadows and sharpened to the max in PSE 11 to show more texture. May go back and try again with another camera and go when more daylight mid-afternoon. This was taken with my Nikon P600 P & S.

More White Peeled Paint Variations of Neighbor's Shed

This is the same image used in the previous post today of "Peeled Paint on my Neighbor's Shed". The original image on the left was rotated 180 degrees so you see more peeling texture.  Then used "Old Fashioned Photo" PSE filter to adjust the  hue, saturation, color sliders to give this effect. For this image on the right I used pencil drawing filter in PSE 11. Then I adjusted contrast more and increased darkness of lines more. I used color variance and increased the red color about 3x.

White Peeled Paint on Neighbor's Shed

These images were taken of some peeling white paint on a shed in my neighbor's yard. It was shot in color but subject was black & white.  It was about noon and a bright sunny day.  You can see the evidence of texture for this close up image.  The image on the left was as taken with my Nikon P600 as a close up.  I used sliders in PSE to change the light and darkness to show more texture.  The image on the right is the same image rotated 180 degrees to show a different texture effect.  PSE 11 used for post processing.  Will post  more images as separate entry to show more variations.

P.S. I am planning to take an Abstract Photography course at GTCC next week.  I hope there are enough participants.  If not,I may have to make my own weekly assignments for Abstract Images to persue.

Chinese Lantern Festival, Cary, NC

On January 3rd, 20817,  I went to the Chinese Lantern Festival in Cary, NC, with my photo friend, Pat.  This is a night time event during Dec. & January at the Brooke Amphitheater. We spent 2 hours walking around and take lots of images.   I used my P & S P600 which has a zoom feature.  These structures are made of fabric and wire supports with lighting inside to look like animals, lanterns, flowers, etc.  I had to decrease the light exposure to get images not to have highlights blown out.   There was not a crowd that night but the way these lanterns were arranged it was difficult to isolate them just by themselves since other structures could be in the background.  Therefore I used PSE 11 to help blacken areas or the clone tool to remove unwanted artifacts. Images were cropped slightly for better composition.   I plan to add the images I liked best to an album on my Facebook page.

Whispy Clouds from Post Office Parkling Lot

Sometimes when I am out on errands I will see clouds that look really neat.  Usually I have my iPhone 6S with me and can capture images of these clouds. At other times I may be driving down a freeway and can't find a place to safely pull over.   Maybe I want to replace clouds in a picture at some date in the future???Or use as texture if I ever get into digital imaging collages.  When I came out I of the post office, I  took this image of these whispy clouds. It was about 5 pm and I did  decrease the light exposure to make the clouds show up better.   Then in PSE 11 added "Satuated Film Effect" filter to show more peach color in the lower sky. The kept the buildings and trees at the very bottom of the photo.

Rosemary blossom in Winter

Happy New Year 2017.   I have decided to continue posting photos to a blog but starting a new one. My goal is to post a total of 52 photos for the year.  It may not be one every week.   It is cold, cloudy, and rainy in NC to bring in the New Year.  I walked around in the neighborhood to see what might give me the opportunity to capture a "moment in time". My neighbor has a prostrate rosemary that seems to have blossoms most of the time.  We had some temperatures below freezing last week, but I managed to capture this rosemary with a couple blossoms.  It has a few raindorps too.  Taken with iPhone 6S.  Edited with PSE 11: cropped, color increased, sharpened and vignette applied.