playing with digital

For FSO I have done Black & White three times, this is the 4th time.  This is the second Houston as my hometown.  How I wished I could have used the mountains of Nova Friburgo for my experiment, just so I could have the depth of our view to play with after reading Mersad’s tutorial.  I guess I played around for a couple of hours, coming to the conclusion that my editor ADCSee 14 and ADCsee Pro 5 are not very good / I am not very good / I choose the wrong photos to play with.  But I did learn that there is more to do than just ask the program to convert to B&W.
I  used this format in one of my other posts on black and white and liked very much seeing the comparisons and reading everyone’s comments – so my FSO experiments in black and white editing.

Architects of Air – the use of light and color

A few months back a friend ask if I would like to meet her and her boys downtown Houston for the Architects of Air, temporary display.  I had no idea what it was about but I grabbed my camera, plugged in the GPS coordinates and was down at the discovery green, across from the convention center in less than 45 minutes.  I am always up for a new adventure and when I saw my photos I was ecstatic that I’d said yes. 

Sitting out in the middle of the green was a huge, somewhat ugly, unassuming blown-up balloon. 

 

After standing in line to pay, then again waiting our turn to enter as another group left; we entered the greeting area, sat on a bench to remove our shoes, to leave them out on the shelves, and we entered the Air Space.  I don’t think the little boys thought much of ‘THE Space hidden inside but I was enthralled.   They ran around and around glad to have escaped their shoes and their mother. 

I walked from one area, one color to the next, sat on the floor, look at the ceiling, turned in circles and took photos that I had no idea how to insure that they would come out, would convey the joy that being cocooned in this warm light and bright color brought me.  The ultimate high for a photographer. 

       

       

for more information  Architects of Air

shallow depth of field…

Up here in Friburgo this morning it is just beautiful, a great day to walk the garden with my camera, but I’ve left my Nikon in Rio hoping I won’t get more mildew in it before our trip to Italy at the end of this month.  Plus this is a holiday weekend, Brazil’s independence day, so I am staying at the house and out of traffic – giving me no where to go and no camera to go with, leaving me a shallow depth of field in which to work.  ()

Wanting to represent Brazil this morning, I did a search through my ‘flowers’ archive folder looking for just one photo that shows a shallow depth of field.    The first was taken with my first digital, and before I even know what ‘shallow depth of field’ was, got lucky.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

back to basics – in Black and White.

You all know that I prefer color.  I see better when colors are defining the photo so I haven’t ever taken photos in black and white.  I thought that I would play along this week, using my photo editor (I know its not the same thing) to convert some photos of Nova Friburgo into Black and White.  I looked through my archives, looking specifically for bright light that would define the shadows in the photos, trying for first class (edited) photos. 

**** on my computer this photo looked like B&W but wasn’t so I edited it – following is the result.

    

                                             My world class view.  

(still only see it in B&W – per B&B I need a better monitor.)

Nova Friburgo sits, sprawled along a small mountain river. Its streets curve and wind up the hills from the main highway that runs on either side of the concrete-sided river.  The natural beauty of the area is masked by the mess humans have made of managing the city.  It is not a dirty town, just frayed and clustered and now stymied by the transit that is the benefit of a good economy.  After saying all of this how do I really enjoy making photos show the basics of this city in stark B & W. 

The city of Nova Friburgo is trying – trying to keep its family oriented environment, trying to add culture and entertainment,  even with the mess of traffic the city continues to have festivals, and it own carnival celebrations giving the citizens a chance a good life with their families. 

   

 

Space – a place to go

This week’s My Town Friday Shoot-out is Space – give your subject a place to go, or show where they’ve been.  This topic is more about photography, about learning to use our cameras to take better photographs than it is about our towns but I know it is going to be one of the good topics and look forward to everyone’s posts. 

In my habit of showing photos of whatever town I am in on any given Friday I will be showing my interpretation of SPACE in Rio.  Thank goodness we came into Rio today.  I needed a couple of days in Rio to shop and pack before I leave for Houston on Sunday so I have a distinct advantage, I hunted down a few photos from my archives of ‘Around Rio’.  Except for the photos off our balcony at the house in Friburgo, which you all have seen a gazillion times, I would be hard pressed to find shots of open spaces in the city of Nova Friburgo. In a narrow valley with narrow curving streets lined with buildings and crowded with cars and people create the opposite feeling; the feeling of being hemmed in, claustrophobic,  it would definitely be hard to find an open space to show you.  

Before I show you my photos for this week I want to tell you that I will be doing the Friday Shoot-out from Houston, Texas all of the month of June and some of July.  I will also be in Adrian, Michigan for one of the shoot-outs in July but that week we will be celebrating my Mother’s 90th birthday and most of my brothers and sisters will be there, can’t guarantee I will give you any photos for the Friday we are there, but you will get to see some family shots after I return to Rio…. we will just have to wait and see how the subjects chosen for July works into my travel plans. 

Okay some space to move in Rio.

          

These first two are older photos -  2005 – the visit Carl and Marissa to the beach in Ipanema for the first time (ages 14 and 9).  And Marissa beside herself with joy.

  

My favorite time at the beach – Winter, July of any year finds Brazilians shivering, wearing boots and jackets, and staying away from the beach – leaving it empty for US!

    

See you next week from Houston.

Between the light and you, a silhouette.

Tonight I am running the heater down by my feet.  Don’t tell Camillo, now that I am retired for real, he is paying the electricity bill.  I has been unseasonably cold all week.  I normally don’t have to turn on my little heater until late June.  I just hate feeling cold.

The last time we had silhouettes as our My Town Friday topic was in October of 2009.   If you’ve time follow the link back and read what fun I had learning how to photo (or not) silhouettes.  The header photo was one of the photos from that shoot-out.  In that post I said I’d taken 40 photos while walking to the hippy square on a Sunday morning but I can’t find that folder anywhere.  While cleaning the mess with the blog’s photos last month I finally found just the photos from the October post in a downloaded folder from Picasa Web Albums.  When Photos are saved from the blog to web albums it is reduced in size so when the photos were reloaded they are not as clear as the original. 

I have been watching – through the viewfinder – my photos for the past two months.  On the lookout for silhouettes this time intentionally taken.  The first photo was taken on a late Sunday afternoon, just before sundown and out on the Barra.  We were meeting family at one of our favorite restaurants and as I got out of the taxi the pink bag caught my attention and then two people framed with ficus trees in silhouette.  I whipped out my little point and shoot and took the photo – I trimmed a little grass off the bottom and some space on the outer sides of the trees – As I was in 2009, I felt really happy with the results.

Another sunset walk on the Lagoa – This photo is SO Rio de Janeiro.

     

The second above is from the street in front of our apartment, although the sun had not set the sidewalk was in near darkness and the sky bright with sunset and the third was taken the first weekend in May when Camillo and I were Walking Rio Centro and is part of the front of the   Universidade Cândido Mendes.  The day had off again on again clouds and a high glare that worked well for both that photo and the one of General Osorio below.

       I put in this last one even though it didn’t come out a silhouette as I was imagining but because it is a CLOCK -  a few weeks ago I swore to you all that I’d not seen any clocks in Rio – the day we walked central I saw three of them.   Hope you enjoyed Rio in Silhouette.

Time Stands Still …

Rush a Canadian Rock band ….

Alex Lifeson, Geddy Lee, and Neil Peart of Rush

Final stanza of ‘Time Stands Still’  ….

“Summer's going fast, nights growing colder
Children growing up, old friends growing older
Freeze this moment a little bit longer
Make each sensation a little bit stronger
Experience slips away
Experience slips away...
The innocence slips away”

Time is dynamic not static and to represent time ‘standing still’ in photo I thought that I would show fleeting moments.  Time stopped with the photo and in the next seconds that moment is gone not to ever be repeated:  A child’s first step, a butterfly landing on your hand, a ray of light glowing just right in the valley.  Only caught if in the right place at the right time and with your camera in hand.

Sunrise 4th of July, 2004  One moment of glory caught on disc (almost wrote film – that would be time standing still.) never to be seen again.

The last ray of light, on high storm clouds, just before night falls.  April 11, 2006

Antonella, Camillo’s great grand-daughter celebrating being one year old.  Dec. 3 2011

Camillo and I – forever young… Houston Halloween 1993 (?)