Photoshopping

The devil makes work for idle hands. At least he did last Friday night when I was home alone with a camera and a tripod. Yes, it was time for Simon to do some experimenting. With Photoshop.

Now, I'm not much of a Photoshopper, I use Lightroom for my image editing which basically consists of some levels adjustments, perhaps some dust removal and occasionally some cropping (although I like to get it right in camera where possible). After returning from Italy I had a couple of photos that were really nice, but had an unsightly pole or something ruining an otherwise great image so I decided to have a go at cloning some of these distractions out.

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But this wasn't how I spent my Firday night. Oh no. All this did was whet my appetite for the power at my fingertips with this revolutionary bit of software (I briefly considered selling my camera and going pro as a Photoshop artiste but decided I was getting a bit carried away, despite my absolutely excellent cloning work). So, Friday. I decided to experiment with layers, which I've never done before, so I came up with an idea that involved taking several photos and cutting and pasting them together to make a new creation. By this stage my flatmate Dave had returned home so I summoned him to the hallway and took a few head shots, then got him to do the same for me, I then got him to make the peace sign with his hand and took a few shots of that. All the shots were taken with a hand-held external flashgun to provide a bit of side light. From here I went to work, this is the result.



Now, after completing my creation I unleashed it to the world on Facebook, but to my horror the following comments were flung in my direction:

- It's a bit creepy
- Vanessa agrees it's creepy
- Dude, that is seriously weird. You should use your Photoshop skills for good instead of evil.
- Dave, do you feel violated

It was clear I had to make another creation. And to be fair, I did think it was a bit gay once I'd finished it but I was so pleased with my layering skills I was temporarily blinded to this fact. Another thing I wasn't really happy with on mark 1 was the inconsistent light between the heads (mine is darker) and the lacklustre background. Here's what I came up with next.



I was much more pleased with this effort. I used the sky from a cactus shot in Cinque Terra as the background and made the heads smaller and less like they were about to make out. I think you'll all agree this new one is far less creepy. So, there you have it, this is what happens when no one invites me out for a drink on a Friday night, I get weird and nerd-like. Be it on your head if I descend any further into the pits of computer nerd hell.

Punks and Mini-Pojects

Now, if you're one of my regular readers (dad, ?, .......) you'll have been waiting with feverish excitement these last 6 days, on the edge of your seat dreaming up what this mini-project mystery I promised last week could possibly be. Well, wait no more. I bought a head torch a few months back with the grand plan of using it in a long exposure rear curtain flash experiment, and Monday of last week I found myself with a few hours to kill and the house to myself. Like any normal person would in a similar position I took out the tripod, attached the camera (complete with flashgun), strapped the torch to my noggin and began experimenting. I learned pretty early on that this would be a good way of writing letters, and what better word to paint with light that "Simon", the name above all names. As if this wasn't exciting enough I decided to give it an exclamation mark to seal the deal. I used photoshop to stitch the 6 photos together, this is about the extent of my photoshop skills but as I once read on a bus ticket a journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step. All shots were taken at f/8.0, 4 seconds, ISO 100, rear curtain flashgun, tripod.



On the weekend I went on a walk from Camden to Maida Vale along the canal with my friend Emma and some of her friends. I was running at a bit late but fortunately the others were running even later so I had the chance to take a few shots at Camden before they arrived. I spotted a row of punks sitting on a wall with a Camden sign in the background so decided to sneakily take their shots from behind with the word "Camden" clearly in the frame to give the shot some reference. I was so chuffed with myself after nailing this shot I excitedly ran under a bridge to inspect my handiwork in a dark area. Disappointed. The shot didn't really jump like I was expecting, there was a big distracting pole right in the middle, basically I wasn't happy.



Emma and her cohorts still hadn't arrived so I returned to the punks in pursuit of something with more impact. My idea was the get a shot without them posing, just a natural reportage style image, but this was going to be tricky with the hundreds of tourists and whatnot in the vicinity. I noticed someone was having their photo taken with them, and I figured it would be rude to just take someone's photo without asking permission (although it doesn't seem to bother this guy)...



...so I asked one of the punks if he minded if I took his photo. "One pound" was the reply. Bloody sell outs, a real punk would have told me to F off, punks these days.... Anyway, I figured that was a pretty cheap price to pay for what had the potential to be a great image so I coughed up. Apparently £1 gets you more than punks just sitting, they pose for you, give you the finger and snarl at the camera. Nice. I took 2 shots, the first one didn't quite capture the Camden sign properly but the second one seemed to fit it all in nicely. I didn't dare take a third unless the punk on the right flew into a strongbow fuelled rage.



After these shots I was happy to put the camera away and leave it there. I didn't take it out at all on the walk, it was actually remarkably pleasant not stopping to shoot everything, might have to look into that again some time! At the end of the trip we decided to wet our respective whistles, the others were getting out their point and shoots so I felt like I had to get mine out. I took this one of Emma, she always complains about me putting unflattering photos of her on the internet so hopefully this one will send the balance back the other way!



Who knows what this week has in store for Billo, but you can rest easy in the knowledge it will be documented and reported here some time soon.