Journeys From A Small Room

Well I started off with one image that I had taken a couple of weeks ago specifically for this challenge. I had wondered was I missing the point so on my travels looked for other images that I could make that would be suitable for this, but I still came back to the same image.

While I liked the original image in its own right I wanted to push it a bit further with the “inspiration” side of the challenge. I knew it would be ok as was but I wanted to create even more pattern and rhythm into the image.

I turned to my PSE12 with some plug ins I have collected and played with various sets within the collection. Water Ripple, Lattice and Fractalis styles were applied to the original image. I found it interesting that as I pushed the plug ins some of them would change the image beyond recognition, which is not what I wanted. So I hope what I have produced retains some of the original image.

So this weeks challenge I had been looking forward to so much I shot it two weeks ago. Main highway through my current hometown(Korat). walking over walkway from one side to the other gave me this fab view of the traffic which on a staurday was building up fast. It’s a bit like a race track dual carriageway most of the time and a lot of heavy traffic.

When i first looked at this image I thought it was quite boring and uninteresting until I started to play around with the editing again. I wanted to get a grimey/heavy traffic look as it ias a harsh place down on that road unless your in a car.

I used Nik HDR Pro to create the HDR effect and then tweaked the contrast and some other settings until I got this finished image.

Anyone who has ever experimented with shutter speed knows that long exposures can yield some pretty interesting results. Whether it’s light painting at night or capturing the motion blur of a running river, long exposures can truly transform an image. A physiogram is a slightly different take on long exposure projects like light painting. It’s a technique that can easily be done in your living room, with no assistant required. Although the resulting images may look complex, the process to create a physiogram is actually very simple.

I had a great idea for the red part, how about using a rear bicycle lamp like this:

I had much fun and many attempts at creating these wonderful red spyrographic photographs. Below is the set up in my small windowless room.

And this is my favourite of all the images I took

Making Physiograms by Nicky Rhodes A free  downloadable PDF guide which helped me a great deal when starting this project

Interestingly I had already shot two or three other projects to cover this week! But whilst away on a two week road trip I found an even more perfect shoot to cover every angle of the description.

First I will start with the story of this image from the Information given on the board outside this building.

The Grand old Teak House has witnessed incursions, and revolutions and invasions for more than 100 years and every joint, knot and plank reeks of Thai history.
It bespeaks heritage of the finest kind, yet today sits in shambles, tied to a future of despair because of beaurocratic red tape and unwillingness to restore it to its magnificent former glory.

Only one man seems prepared to pour his heart and soul and money into Khum Wichai Racha House, Veera Star, a 66 year old retired Vietnam war veteran, the house his love that brings nostalgia into his life. But it has cost him –dearly. He has lost everything possibly even his last home in Bangkok in his efforts to reclaim the house.

Mr. Veera found the house in 1992; it was in very bad condition. Its tattered timbers covered with vines and twisted out of shape. With his wife’s blessing he decided to buy the two storey house hip-roofed teak house from its owner for 4 million baht. It launched a personal adventure using his personal savings to try and restore it. In fact in the first five years he had spent 6 million baht. The house began to take on a new revitalised look. It soon began to eat into savings and he sold other properties to continue the work, but these were also running out!
He sold the last ten of his other properties and a durian orchard, with no more cash flow the debts began to rise, finally the house itself was seized by the bank!

Mr. Veera turned to the Finance ministry of fine Arts, it said it would it would help but nothing happened. Today a total of 10 million baht is outstanding on the property and it’s land, he has given 1 million to the bank and there is 9 outstanding. Today the Bangkok Commercial Asset Management manages the estate. So here it stands waiting for someone to either pay off the debt or realise it’s historical worth or for the bank to sell it and it be made into something else?

So you see once I saw this building in its current state I felt that I had to tell it’s story….

Sadly this weeks weather left me with little options for shooting what my plan A. was so plan B. Continue with learning some more PSE12.

I decided to major on the “artistic” side of this challenge and create the sparkle within an image.

This is the final result of lots of practice with not only overlays but replacement skies and opacity and blending. I learnt that I can combine the two as well as do quite decent single changes.

As always experiments in the comments below also I learnt that there are images that go well with this sort of effect and others it does not suit at all. Still I am working on it, maybe multi layers next!

This week’s image comes from the Old City gate in Korat- Thailand. I chose this image because I thought it would suit the “mirrored” effect that I used in PSE12 the best. I wanted water and an area between the two that would lend them to healing the join.
I first used PSE 12 to create the mirror effect under the guided tab. The imported into Lr5 because I prefer working with the healing brush for the initial pass . Then back to PSE 12 to zoom in and touch up the finer bits.
My first go at this so I am happy with the result. It seems the creation was not with taking the image in camera, but with the Post production here. I have so many “reflection” lakes or ponds or pools. I wanted to do something different pushing me a bit further outside my comfort zone!

Getting high (not literally) offered a few more options than the chair sitting week!
I visited a couple of different locations with safety in mind.
This week’s image comes from the famous Terminal 21 shopping mall here in Korat (Nakhon Ratchasima) – Thailand.
Built with the theme of an aeroplane terminal it comes with its own “control tower” which is free and open to the public. This gives amazing (on clear days) views from the tower giving a high perspective looking down on the City.

Inside the “Terminal” have different themed countries on 5 different levels with London being the 2nd floor. On each floor they have placed iconic themes for each country and London unsurprisingly has not only a red London Bus but a full size Big Ben. I loved the view I got when looking down at it with the wide angle lens from the floor above (Japan, complete with monster Sumo wrestlers).

How often do we see Big Ben from above, at home we always look up to it, so getting this unique point of view was the perfect choice.

I also took some other images of the walkways below me and with people on them again giving me a unique almost “bird watching” view of the movement below me. I took a few attempts at this and timing was everything. The best one for me was the one of the two women walking in two different directions at the same time.

Well this was not an easy one and I didn’t have any illusions that it would be! I had an original idea that I would take for this challenge. Often in Thailand you will see at major traffic junctions sellers offering garlands for the cars, or other items such as donuts, or a large crisp (a few bagged) .
Sadly the people who sell like these, walking in-between the lines of stationary traffic and in incredible temperatures of heat and of course the pollution, are considered by the rest of the population to be the lowest type of worker you can be. Their day starts as early as the traffic starts (usually around 6.30a.m.) and they are out in the heat of the day until 6.pm.
I wanted to capture these workers, not only because I thought the way they dress would suit the challenge (large hats and faces covered with scarves and sunglasses, along with long sleeved tops and long trousers) but having a healthy interest in People and street photography. Capturing what seems to be the mundane jobs of working people’s life and the world around me in long lost jobs from the West are a source of fascination to me and a need to record so we remember life that is fast disappearing in our modernity.
So, my first choice of Garland sellers was not available on the day that I chose to photograph on. Grrr. Total frustration as every other time I had passed this junction there were many. There was instead of the usual gangs of 4-5 sellers this one lone figure, an older man and I asked him did he mind me taking his image for this project. 50bht helped secure what I wanted and seeing it was around 2pm and the traffic had eased he was pleased to make that!
Nothing technical about this image and it was shot with my half broken 70-300mm Tamron, which reminded me why I need to replace it when I return in July to the UK for a short spell.

I took this head shot of one of the children dressed for a public celebration event . The Candle festival in Nong Khai.  I wanted to experiment with framing it in such a way(a different way that it gave it an “old World” feel. I.e. the days when Thailand was Siam). I tried a few different frames which I have added at the bottom of the page.  I just wanted to do something fresh and different hope it worked?

Well there is a lot of Art I see around me and I am lucky that living in a well populated City I get to se a lot of my favourite Street Art.

There is one group of artists that caught my eye and I felt that I had to photograph and capture the style of Art they do.
The group is known locally as the TMC and one artist in particular struck a chord with me , probably because I’m from the generation that used to watch a certain TV show quite avidly for a while and the connection was immediate! (Those of you will understand when you look at the image)

I feel that the way I have chosen this week’s image meets the remit of “By another artisans hand” and “handmade work” very well these artists (AO pronounced Oh)creates what I call pictures of light relief or to brighten up the environment (which it does for many of us). Or some are sending a message. For me it was that connection with something fun in my past and of a time in my life when I was at the top of my game!

These artists don’t have a template they spray paint freehand and have to see the whole picture before it’s finished in their heads then bring it to completion on the wall. Practicing and seeing what the spray can can do, this is their brushes ready loaded with colour.

AO is a Korat man, in his late 30’s and deals in antiques and has his own bar- just goes to show art comes from all walks of life! Oh and he paints bears too….

A selection of other I took around the City.

Time to look at the world from a different angle. Shoot a landscape from a low point of view

So Week 38 getting low, I tried many different “Low” angles to get this week’s image, trying to keep and be mindful of the word “Landscape” as well.

I am currently working on a small project on Sanjao’s around Korat. For those that don’t know they are Chinese Taoist Temples dotted around our town or any town in SEA for that matter.

We have quite a large historical Chinese community and there are a reasonable number of these for me to photograph. I kept in mind that some of the Temple shrines were on a 1st floor. Or that there would be ornate, dragon encrusted Votive poles to look “up” at thus getting a view from below.

Some I have already photographed have paintings done in almost a 3d relief in sections, which when looked at face on are near invisible. I tried getting low down to capture the effect that these skilled people had done and they are in the comments section below as usual with “others I considered”.

This particular buildings name is Siangsiangdtueng quite often a Sanjao will have Sanjao in front of its name, as in Sanjao Bpaepong, but not all as in this one.

I chose this one because it’s shrine is on the 1st floor and there is a grand entrance into the Temple itself where you are met by the grand staircase winding its way up both sides of the wall and the large gallery above. Using a wide angle lens this gave it more drama and exactly the effect I was looking for.

This week I had been inspired by two very fortuitous articles that found their way in front of me, via Face book! Who said Facebook is useless??
Actually the first one was from the Guardian an article about Kacper Kowalski’s forest photographs – in pictures:

https://www.theguardian.com/…/kacper-kowalski-photographs-f…

For those who are interested in the article, and it got me thinking about different approaches to photographing trees. Sadly I did not feel that my own personal skills, money or love of heights was going to be able to work out on this occasion like Mr. Kowalski’s gargantuan efforts with very worthwhile and awe inspiring images. There’s just no way I was going to rig my dear 70D up on string/ropes and swing it over the trees! Lol
But it got me thinking about different ways to photograph trees, and then up popped on my news feed an article in “thinking humanity;

http://www.thinkinghumanity.com/…/she-has-been-taking-pictu…

About Beth Moon, who spent 14 yrs. travelling around the World and documenting trees! Not just that but some of the OLDEST trees! Lol Woman after me own heart.
Anyway when I looked at her work (included in the article for you to see) I was totally inspired. How refreshing? It gave me the idea for this week’s challenge. After all I live in a tropical climate; Trees here are different shaped to home. I wasn’t wrong.

I know I didn’t take 14 yrs doing this collection, and I now they are probably (well they are not ) anywhere near as fantastic as Beth Moons collection, but you know I am very pleased with them and I have far more keepers than I expected.
I am not entirely sure but it does seem to my eye that Beth uses a combination of IR and B&W tweaked settings, although being so professional she probably has a complete set of IR filters of the most expensive kind at her disposal. Sadly I don’t so I have tried to replicate in some and experiment of my own with others in PP. I hope you get what I was trying to pay homage to ….Thank you Ms. B Moon!

A selection of other images I took to create with.