Bruce Barrett Photography Blog

Well, it is a three-day weekend in the US so time for a bit more art. This piece like piece from August 4, 2007 was taken in Sunol Regional Park. (The same tree, actually.) This piece is, however, quite different for me. It was “hand-colored” in Photoshop after adjusting the levels and saturation of the image. It was fun to do and interesting to me how the change of colors can change the focus of the image. I hope you enjoy it.

Note that there is a “B” near the center f the photo. That’s how it was, I didn’t add it. Think I should turn it into a new logo?

Well here’s more fun with photography - not incredibly sharp, but not a bad “atmosphere shot of the moon as it approached total eclipse about 3:30 am “last night.” 400 pixels wide taken from the center of a frame from the Nikon D80, on a tripod.

OK, here’s another for today… Taken yesterday at Niles, a small town next to Fremont California. I went out shooting with friends - had a great time. Enjoyed this one, among others.This isn’t entirely a “straight shot” I have adjusted the levels in photoshop, making the colors much more saturated.

How to keep up… I’ve been working with Photoshop since v3.0, about 1995. Photoshop keeps changing and I feel like I just barely keep up. I’m probably, actually doing better than that, it just feels that way. The feature set does keep growing an my last Photoshop purchase was CS. CS3 is now the current version and I’m very much looking forward to switching over to it. )

With that in mind I’ve been reading: Adobe Photoshop CS3 for Photographers. For those of you who are photographers the author, Martin Evening, suggests running the script found here to calibrate your camera.

Requires a GretagMacbeth color checker. (Another item I’ve had for years.)
This only applies to those of us shooting RAW files.
Takes a while to run the script. 45 minutes on my Intel Core Duo MacBook Pro.
The resulting numbers go into the Camera Calibration tab of Adobe Camera Raw.

Enjoy!

Well, there was a Flyball tournament in town today and I wandered by to see it - camera in hand. Flyball consists of teams of 4 dogs (with the support of their their human partners) running a relay race, jumping over 4 hurdles, hitting a “flyball box” that ejects a tennis ball, which is caught and retrieved, then run back to the starting line. Fun to watch, fun to play, great exercise for the dogs and humans as well. This is one of my early photos of today’s event, which I enjoy because of it’s whimsy. Makes me contemplate the possibility of a photographic series of: “Dog Leaving the Frame.”

OK, a shot from earlier in the week. This is a pair of Burrowing Owls in Mountain View, CA. It’s not high-art, just a friendly little shot of some nice birds. Certainly demonstrates their protective coloring - they don’t stand out much. A longer lens probably would have helped isolate them a bit. This is a more-or-less center crop from my Nikon D80, then reduced for the web. There are lots of reasons for cameras.

Alright, here’s another one in the texture series. Whereas yesterday’s was organic, animal-hide-like this one is clearly man-made, intentional. This is a part of a sculpture in Balboa Park, San Diego California. Very fine, careful work by the sculptor. Although every part of the piece was finished the same way, with exquisite care, each part reflects the environment differently, revealing a difference in texture in each different plane of the piece.I like this photograph for the strong-lines, balanced composition andsubtle variations in color caused by the reflectionsof the grass below, the sun&sky above and even the piece itself. I hope you enjoy it too.

• Bruce

Tree Texture Overview - Sunol

OK Dan, here you go - still a bit visually ambiguous, but this is the area of the tree that yesterday’s “Texture” came from. The rock in the center is about 6-8 inches long, yesterday’s image is from just left of center. Hope that helps. More from the same tree coming soon.

 
Well, I was out shooting with friends the end of last month at Sunol Regional Park in the hills of the east bay. We returned to a spot I’d been to before and I got down on my hands and knees for a series of shots. This is one of my favorites, it’s of the base of a tree that lives, unprotected, in the middle of the stream. It fascinates me because of the wide variety of different textures are revealed in this tree by the water and sand wearing it down.  I’ll post a couple more later for comparison.

• Bruce

Hi all, thank you for visiting. I’ve been meaning to get to this for quite a while and, well, today I’m finally there.More exciting posts (than this one) to come. :-)