Made this last week using FCP7 and Magic Bullet Colorista. Mainly I was just experimenting with Colorista. It’s pretty simplistic/versatile.

Anyhow, tried to give it that 70s vintage coloring.

Lately Dr. Hyperbolus and I have been going on hikes almost every weekend from Griffith Park to Malibu. Dr. Echo Bloom joins us sometimes, but sadly he will be departing to SF in just a couple weeks. Anyway, this past weekend TMFJ (Tom-motha-fuckin-Jones) was in town and we decided to conquer the Hollywood Sign hike. The path we took was a good 3 mile hike up and took around 70 minutes to reach.

View Hollywood Sign Hike in a larger map

Now, you can’t actually rub noses with the sign. It’s fenced off and there are fines/jailtime for trespassing. But you do end up around 100 feet behind it, and it’s still totally worth it for the awesome view of Los Angeles.

So, I wanted to test out some HDR photography again… however this time just using the technique to keep all the details in the shot. The first photo, Behind Hollywood, is a single exposure, but all the others used some sort of multiple exposure. Burbank uses traditional 3-exposure HDR and was created in Photomatix and Photoshop. The other two, Observatory and TMFJ in Hollywood use two exposures that are manually blended together in Photoshop.

Malibu Canyon

A couple weeks ago, Dr. Hyperbolus and I were on the search for an iconic shot of a single tree on a hill. We drove around for a few hours (traffic mainly) and ended up on Malibu Canyon Road (probably our next hiking location). As we were driving, we finally spotted our subject on the side of the road and quickly pulled over. Here she is.

I used 3-exposure HDR for the first two photos shooting directly into the sun and then just a single exposure on the last shot to complement the series with a blown out look.

The idea is to use bracketing, which is commonplace with most of today’s fancy cameras. You shoot one image at the correct exposure, then at least one overexposed (to see detail in the shadows), and at least one underexposed (to see detail in the highlights – typically the sky). I usually work with just 3 exposures, but I’ve seen some people use up to 7… and of course, more exposures = more detail.

HDR imagery seems to be the new trend. A lot of people are getting into it… but then again there are a lot of people who hate it and think it’ll eventually phase out. I personally like it. It’s fun and the results are usually pretty cool. The style can range from super realistic, highly detailed scenes to fantastical, painterly dreamworlds. I tend to dig it all.

Here are some of my recent attempts while on vacation in Atlanta:

LEFT: original, MIDDLE: HDR, RIGHT: HDR B&W using red color channel

LEFT: original, RIGHT: HDR

And these are some older shots I took while in Albany. Because of the dirtiness of the area, I tone mapped these images to be a bit gritty and added some grain to complement:

I still have a lot to learn about HDR and how to achieve those mystical dreamworld images. I also I need to get a tripod so my images are sharper. So stay tuned for more to come in the future.

Anyway, here are some of the HDR masters:

Ryan Eng and Pete Carr (with one of my favorite shots).

Anyhow, all of this got me thinking about colors.
Coloring books.
I decided to simply apply the principles of coloring books to a couple of my photographs with the very simple/very basic concept of regressing towards a childlike look/feel.

I started with this photo:

It’s already manipulated with the process I described in my earlier post a couple of weeks ago.
But I wanted to dirty it up. Simplify it.
I converted the image to black and white.
Adjusted the contrast/levels.
And started coloring. Red, Brown, and Blue using a wet brush in PS CS4.

It came out ok, but not as cool as I thought it was going to be. I’m not sure how to make it pop more than it does without making it look pixelated. I tried to add some texture to the colors by simply layering them via brush strokes over brush strokes. This was done haphazardly without much thought to building edges, almost as if I my vision was somewhat gone (Mr. Magoo-style).

Since I wasn’t getting anywhere with my prior attempt I decided to ditch the Chicago effort and move on to a self-portrait I took recently.

This was taken in my bathroom with one light source, using an portable flourescent Ott-Lite “Plant Growth” lamp that my boss gave me. I prefer flourescents because they are much harsher than normal bulbs and are typically white enough to slightly wash out the subject (i.e. me).

As soon as I started this one I knew it was going to look like a Warhol knock-off, so I did my best to distinguish it by leaving the strokes messy and overlapped; not at all as clean as Warhol’s Monroe. I do wonder if it would look better if it had been sharper though. If the color on the face didnt overlap with the glasses/hair.

Perhaps next week, I will try to combine elements from this post with what I learned during the creation of my Adventures in Pattern-Making entry to create a bright/colorful pattern for the masses.
Following Dr. Novachord’s post asking for audience participation….

What should the subject of my next pattern be?
A. Chow Yun-Fat
B. Robocop
C. Amelie
D. The 400 Blows

THIS IS DR. SALVATRON TELECASTING LIVE FROM THE STREETS OF LONDON.
ADIEU ADIEU ADIEU
TO YOU AND YOU AND YOU

+TRANSMISSION OVER+

Canon 55-250mm f/4 and Speedlite 430 EXII Flash

Inspired by Dr. Hyperbolus’ post and his mention of The Man Who Wasn’t There, I wanted to recreate the harsh lighting in the image he referenced.

However, seeing as how I didn’t have a tripod, didn’t have any lights, and had never really tried to light a scene before, I had a difficult time. Thus I didn’t figure it out in time, so instead I salvaged what I had… which actually look like future solo album covers.

I had some fun with textures…

Yeah so, I’ve never really done self-portraiture like this before. What I learned (in addition to the technical details) is that it brings up the question of what are you trying to capture? Is it the essence of the person, is it a mood, or is it something different altogether? The weirdest thing is just modeling for the camera with any of these intentions in mind. I’ll definitely try this again as soon as I pick up a fluorescent light or two… yep… aaaaaand maybe a tripod would help.

My ghetto setup in case anyone is interested (couch sideways with blanket | flash instruction book on top of wacom box on top of cable box on top of receiver on top of dresser).