Shells and Watches and Gears, Oh My!

A few weeks ago, my photo club held a macro photography workshop. It was a lot of fun; the club presidents (who had set the whole thing up) brought in a lot of items for people to photograph and some backdrops/backgrounds to photograph them on, and everyone had four-ish hours to do pretty much whatever they wanted. I took a lot of pictures, which also took a while to edit . . . but I'm finally through with them, and I thought I'd post my favorites.

As I mentioned, the presidents brought in a lot of possible photography subjects. Some of them were what you'd expect for macro photography: flowers, fruit, shells, and such. Some were more unusual: slinkies, marbles, small pebbles, and other random bits and pieces they thought might make good macro subjects. But my absolute favorite thing to photograph there . . . was this:

All together now: STEAMPUNK!

There was a whole box full of this sort of thing: watches, clock faces, gears, keys . . . there was even an odd-looking device that was apparently the inner workings of an old clock, but I didn't get any pictures of it. Someone else was almost always using it when I wanted it- thus the only real problem with the workshop! However, there were plenty of smaller items to keep me satisfied, so I'm definitely not complaining.

I have a less eerie-looking version of this as well, but I think this one is a bit cooler.

Funny-ish thing with this picture: I was done taking it and about to put all my stuff away . . . when I realized that the back of the watch face looked even cooler than the front. So, naturally, I had to set back up.

Awesome as steampunkery is, though, I didn't spend the entire time taking pictures of it. Another of my favorite items was a nautilus shell, which was split into three cross-sections, and which I took several pictures of.

After doing a picture or two of just the one section of the shell, I got the idea to put one of the cross-sections on top of the other so that the curves went in opposite directions. The effect didn't work quite as well as I hoped, but it still looked fairly cool.

And a bonus alien nautilus (otherwise known as what happens when I play around with the presets on the curves layer):

Eventually, of course, I made my way back to steampunk, this time in combination with what I think was an old hard drive. Not knowing much about the inner workings of computers, I could be completely wrong.

Yes, I do have an affinity for the gritty, weathered look. How did you ever guess?

I accidentally put the clock face in this one upside-down. Oopsie.

And now we step away from steampunk again for some sparkle:

And also a twisted slinky:

For the record: the slinky was like that when it was brought in, and I'm very glad I didn't have to try to untwist it.

And we'll finish off with one last bit of  more elegant steampunk:

This picture, I would like to note, is one of my favorite shots, but it was also ridiculously hard to edit. See, the original version was tilted at about a thirty-degree angle from this one, and that is not ok. So, I had to rotate the crop so that the picture was more or less straight . . . which left large white areas that needed to be filled in. I managed to fill these in with some creative copy-pasting from uncropped versions of the image and the black brush for the background . . . and then Nik filters decided not to recognize half of what I'd done. Cue much frustration. However, I do like the end result, so at least all the aggravation was more or less worth it!

What do you think of my macro photography? Which image is your favorite? Is there anything you think I could've done better on any of these? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!
-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade) 

Lotus Photography

Towards the beginning of July, my dad and I did something we hadn't done for a long time: we went out on a "photo expedition". Our destination was a semi-nearby aquatic garden to take pictures of the lotuses, which were getting close to peak at that point. I really enjoyed it, but because of Camp NaNoWriMo, I couldn't find time to edit the pictures I took.

Then, earlier this week, my dad told me that he'd downloaded a demo version of the Nik Effects collection, a set of plugins for Photoshop. I'd heard a lot about the Nik Effects software from other photographers, but had never actually tried it. So, I was very excited to play around with it. The first few days I spent working on some pictures Daddy had asked me to do something creative with, but on Friday I finally went back and edited some of my lotus pictures. I had a lot of fun, and I think they turned out well- but I'll let you judge the latter for yourself.

This is one of my two favorite pictures of the batch, mostly because of the colors. That's also why I enjoyed playing around with the Nik Collection so much; I could more easily bring out a lot more color and detail in the pictures. For a comparison on detail, I edited one (black and white) photo twice: once with standard Photoshop adjustments, and once with the Nik Silver Effects plugin.

Photoshop version

Nik version

As you can see, there's a lot more fine detail in the Nik version. However, that doesn't mean that the Photoshop version is bad; it depends on what you're looking for.

Lotus flowers aren't the only part of the lotus I like taking pictures of. The leaves have their own attraction, at least for me. I thought that this one looked especially interesting, with the water drop and the bits of grass trapped in it. This is also proof that Nik software isn't perfect for every situation; this picture (I'm fairly certain) was edited with standard Photoshop adjustments.

I found these lotus seedpods towards the end of the photo expedition. I liked the way they were partially twisted together, almost as if they were working together to each reach towards the light. 

Most photographers say that when you're taking pictures of anything in nature, you should look for the most perfect specimen available. However, sometimes the broken plants can be more interesting, as with this cracked seedpod.

I'll finish with my very favorite picture of the batch, which happens to be of the same lotus as the first picture I posted:

What do you think? Which of the pictures was your favorite? Any suggestions? Please tell me in the comments!

Thanks for reading!

 -Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)

Smoke Photography

It's been a long time since I've posted any photography here. This isn't because I've totally given up on it; I just haven't been doing quite as much. I've had more inspiration for writing, and certain ideas I've had required warmth and green foliage and such. However, last month, I discovered smoke photography- specifically, taking pictures of the smoke from incense sticks and then editing those pictures in various creative ways, like changing the color of the smoke, adding other elements to the pictures, etc.

You can probably guess one of my first ideas. After all, what's one of the first thing a fantasy lover thinks of when she thinks of smoke or fire?

That's right. Dragons.

I originally planned to have the smoke coming out of the dragon's mouth like fire, but the toy dragon we bought didn't have its mouth open. I ended up liking what I did instead much better, though.

From the Pages of Legend

The hardest part was getting the smoke to look like it was coming out of his nostrils. I wouldn't have been able to do it if my dad hadn't helped a lot.

While playing around with other smoke pictures, I happened across this one:

Admittedly, it doesn't look like much on its own, but I'd been listening to Howl's Moving Castle again, and the shape and color reminded me of something. So I did a little more playing around, added some other smoke images, and came out with this:

Calcifer

It's Calcifer! (Also, if anyone watched the movie and is thinking "What? Sarah, Calcifer is yellow and orange and looks like a normal flame!", I'm going by the book, in which he's mostly blue with green flames at the top like hair and orange flames for eyes.) This was actually a lot easier to do than it looks; the only really hard part was figuring out how to select smoke for the eyes. The rest was just layer masks and hue-saturation adjustments.

I haven't done much else with the smoke pictures, but I'm hoping to get around to it soon. I have a few other picture ideas I want to try sometime. I hope you enjoyed these two! Thanks for reading!

-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)     

Top Ten Tuesdays: 2014 Goals

http://www.brokeandbookish.com

Hey'a, everyone! In honor of the new year, this week's Top Ten Tuesdays theme is Goals for 2014, bookish and otherwise. I don't usually do a lot of goal/resolution making, but I do have a few things, mostly writing-related, that I'd like to accomplish.

1. Write at least a page (100 words) a day, 6 days a week. Ideally, I'll actually write every day, but some days (especially Tuesdays) are pretty busy.
2. Finish my drafts of Monster in the Castle and Destinies and Decisions. Preferably before the next Camp NaNoWriMo. I can't really start another novel until I've finished these two. 
3. Work on rewriting Danger in the Tower. I'm up to my second draft on this one, which is usually where I stop editing my stories and novels. However, I'd like to try to publish this series, so I need to do a lot more work on it. 
4. Enter more writing contests. I always intend to enter contests but don't get anything entered in time. This year, I intend to change that. I especially want to enter the Tales of Goldstone Wood fanfiction contest, since I have a few ideas I really like.
5. Do more photography. I really didn't do much photography at all in 2013, and I regret that. It's something I enjoy, but it often gets pushed aside by school, writing, reading, and the internet.
6. Keep a semi-regular blog schedule. This was another thing that got pushed aside a lot this year, especially during the summer. I hope that I won't spend 2014 constantly apologizing for not posting.
7. Procrastinate less. Yeah, not sure how well this'll work out. I procrastinate so much that I wrote a poem about it. But I can try, at least, and that's better than nothing. Right?

And I can't think of any others. Oh well. What are your goals for this year? Feel free to tell me in the comments, or you can make your own Top Ten Tuesdays post. Just be sure to link back to the Broke and Bookish blog and post the link to your post on their site.
-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)

Prison Pictures Part Two

Hello, everyone! As you may remember, last Saturday, I posted the first half of my pictures from that old abandoned prisonhttp://dreams-dragons.blogspot.com/2012/09/prison-pictures-part-1.html. Well, today I'm posting the rest: the pictures from the maximum security area! This area was all cellblocks and a dining hall/kitchen (which wasn't particularly interesting to me). The person in charge of the field trip was careful to warn everyone not to accidentally close the cell doors. If you did, it would be pretty hard to get you out. Anyway, on with the pictures!

This is the first cellblock we explored. For the record, the lighting was not as creepy as it (hopefully) appears in the photo. It actually wasn't very creepy at all in that particular area.

The Bible in this picture is mine; I brought it in for the express purpose of taking this kind of picture.Just wanted to clarify since it shows up in several other pictures. (And because when Daddy saw my pictures, he though I'd found it somewhere and wanted to know where.)

In one of the buildings, I saw a doorway that led to darkness. (It would be the first of many.) The only thing I could see was this sink. I thought it looked interesting, so i took a picture.

Another picture with my Bible, the first of three versions of the same shot. The white stuff is peeling paint from off the ceiling.

 

In one of the buildings, I noticed a clock that had fallen onto the floor. If I do anything with this one, I think I'll call it "Lost Time" or something to that effect.

The third and final set of Bible pictures. They're the same setup as the first Bible picture I posted, just a different cellblock and a different angle.

And this is a list of names I found in front of one of those cellblocks. I'm guessing they're names of the prisoners who once were kept there, though I really don't know.

Well, that's about it. Thanks for reading, and I hope you liked my pictures!

-Sarah

Prison Pictures Part 1

Hey'a, everyone! Guess where I spent this morning? The answer: at a photography field trip to an old abandoned prison with Daddy and several members of the photo club we go to! This prison is sometimes opened for groups to go take pictures of. It was a really interesting experience. We were taking pictures from 9 to 12, so I got a ton of photos. Because of this, I'll be posting my pictures in two parts: one tonight and the next on Monday.

The prison was divided into two sections: the minimum security area (which had dormitories instead of cells) and the maximum security area (which was more along the lines of what I was expecting). We started in the minimum security area, where we stayed until 10:30. It was all very dilapidated and broken down, which made for lots of pictures. Like this one:

 

This is actually an HDR of the inside of a water fountain. I thought it looked rather interesting, thus why I took the picture.

On several of the walls in the dormitories, there were areas where it looked like newspapers had been glued to the walls. Since there were puzzle pieces on top of the newspaper, Daddy thinks that the prisoners used the newspaper to attach the puzzles to the wall.

When I went to take a picture of the windows, I noticed that one of the panes had black stuff all over it. I thought it made for a more interesting picture.

These, obviously, are drawers that were in a building that seemed to be some kind of recreation-type area for the people in prison there. 

A cot on which a locker-type thing had fallen. 

On one of the cots, there was this little milk carton. I think it was empty, though I'm not entirely sure. I don't think I want to know how long it was there, but I like the picture I got of it.

This is a window with some kind of brownish-black stuff all over it. Is it just me, or do the two white spots remind you of eyes?

I found this in the last minimum security building we went in. I'm not sure where the pipes go, but I thought it might make for a good picture. Then I turned the picture black and white.

 

This was written on the wall in the same building as I found the pipes in. I took a picture simply because the message seemed rather odd. Not at all what you'd expect to find in a prison.

Well, that's all for tonight. Remember to check back Monday for my pictures from the maximum security area. Thanks for reading!

-Sarah

St. Louis Arch Pictures

Hello, everyone! A few weeks ago, my family went to St. Louis, and while we were there, Daddy and I went to the Arch to take pictures. I only just now finished editing them, due in part to all the writing and editing I needed to do and also due in part to the fact that reading or writing often seemed more appealing than editing pictures.

This is one of the only two more traditional pictures I took there. Mostly I tried for abstracts like these:

In the first two, I was trying to capture the curve of the arch against the sky. In the third, I was trying to get the reflection combined with the arc of light. (Which I thought made it look like the area was disappearing into a portal. Anyone agree? Probably not, but we all know strange things go on in my mind sometimes.)

This is the other traditional picture I took. It's the dome of the St. Louis Courthouse with the arch behind it. The courthouse was under construction, unfortunately, so I didn't include it in my picture.

As you can see, these are more abstracts. I really liked the colors in the arch after sunset, which is mostly what I was trying to capture with these. I'm especially proud of the last one, which, by the way, is an HDR if anyone was wondering.

I hope you liked my pictures! I hope to post a news update sometime soon, so keep an eye out for that. Thanks for reading!
-Sarah