Welcome to Friday Foto Flogging, a place to share your photos and photography news. We were inspired by the folks at European Tribune who post a regular Friday Photoblog series to try the same on this side of the virtual Atlantic. We also thought foto folks would enjoy seeing some other websites so each week we’ll introduce a different photo website.
This week’s theme is Silhouettes and Shadows –
show us a story etched in light and dark, contrasts and outlines, presence and absence.*
Websites of the Week: For anyone who plays with Photoshop, here’s a great post full of tutorials and how-tos: How to Master Photoshop in Just One Week. And for those not interested in the PS link, BetterPhoto.com has some nifty shadow photos.
AndiF's Silhouettes and Shadows
|
Light and humidity combine to produce a dark drama in a deep-sided hollow
Click image for larger version |
 |
Deep shadows decorate a dying leaf
Click image for larger version |
 |
Dark woods highlight a misty hillside
Click image for larger version |
olivia's Silhouettes
|
Heron at sunset
Click image for larger version |
 |
Sunset near Sicily
Click image for larger version |
|
Notre Dame at Sunset
Click image for larger version |
- Next week’s theme: Song title, song lyric
Info on Posting Photos
When you post your photos, please keep the width at 500 or less for the sake of our Bootribers who are on dial-up. If you want to post clickable thumbnails but aren’t sure how, check out this diary:
Clickable Thumbnails. If you haven’t yet joined a photo-hosting site, here are some to consider: Photobucket, Flickr, ImageShack, and Picasa.
* Thanks AndiF … 🙂
No silhouettes but the shadows know how to pick a location.
Click for larger
That photo inspires chills … frost, bare limbs, crisp blue sky. (And fits w/ our weather here — had frost last night and the furnace came on for the first time … 🙂
FFFrost? Are you kidding? Yikes!
Actually when I took the picture, it was warm. About an hour or two before that we’d been hiking toward Angels Landing which was covered in snow and ice; we didn’t make it. 1km in altitude makes a big difference in the desert.
The furnace came on, eh? Where are you going to put the glacier this year?
I love the way the light creates the continuation of the stream as a vanishing point. It draws the eye to the mountains in the background. Formidable shot.
One of the great things about digital photography is that it makes bracketing cheap and easy. There are probably 4 or 5 poorly exposed shots of that same photo on my hard disk.
Any shot of mine that is well composed Andi either pointed out to me or I learned how to compose it from her. I’m the technician; she has the eye.
You two are obviously a great team!
Photos don’t have to be theme-oriented – if you have something you’d like to share that doesn’t fit the weekly theme. 🙂
Thank you AndiF and olivia for doing this!
I found myself paying attention to shadows and looking for silhouettes all week, wondering what people will share.
You’re welcome but no thanks are really needed — we’re having such a good time seeing everybody’s photos.
Like Andi said, we’re enjoying seeing everyone’s photos … and neat to read how you were keeping your eye for shadows and sil. this week. 🙂
I had to smile at next week’s theme cause all this week as I noticed silhouettes an old song from the 50’s or early 60’s would float into my mind – “Silhouette, silhouette, silhouette…”
or maybe I heard you singing … 😉
The colors set off the silhouetted horizon perfectly but what really catches my eye is the delicate shading of light at the shoreline.
The colours are lovely — but I really like those boats in the water. Gives a sense of scale. Very nice!
I love the gradation of color. I’m surprised the green flash wasn’t there too.
I thought I’d combine last week’s subject with the light and shadows:
reflections and self-portrait 🙂
Mum’s the word
Going to the enlarged picture of your “cat in the box,” I found myself disconcerted with not seeing the shadowed eye – almost creepy. Then I saw h/she was sitting in a box of flowers and had to laugh.
The globe picture is wonderful! So many levels – are there fish in the globe?
The mums – Ooooh! I knew people would share things that would redirect my attention from the more obvious shadows around me.
Thanks! The cat is sitting in the center of a wreath…she’s always looking for little spaces that seem customized to her shape and size. 🙂 That globe is a hand(mouth?)blown ball with different colors, that I guess do really look like fish swimming around inside!
I really don’t like to pick favorites but I’m so wowed by the reflection self-portrait I can’t help myself.
Love that one too … Although the kitty in the wreath is a close second. 🙂
I adore the kitty in the flowers. What a patient cat to pose like that.
Luckily, I went to the large size. In the thumbnail, I thought a cat was sitting in a birthday cake. Bad cat.
The self portrait is very nice. I like that it captures you in the familiar surroundings. It also makes one want to shout to you to be careful standing up on that step ladder. In reality you`re probably standing on the ground.
The backlit flowers are very nice.
The mums are beautiful.
I love the reflection. Was the ball suspended in a tree? It reminds me of the pictures that Andi and the other BooTribers took at the Cloud Sphere at the meet up in Chicago
July, 2007. Brittany
Great mood and even greater job of using the sun without it overpowering the photo.
I love this picture.
intricate wrought iron … love the B&W effect!
It made me think of wrought iron too.
the first thing I thought was the bigger one saying “it’s just you and me, kid.”
Love how their tails are pointing in towards each other … Are they waiting for a particular critter to scurry by?
The bird feeders are just above the bath out of frame. Their favorite spot in the house.
yes … explains their rapt attention … 🙂
For some reason I knew that. I was hearing the big guy telling the little guy, “Don`t worry, they`ll be here soon”.
Hand held 600MM, vibration reduction on.
Gorgeous! And I’m so jealous — the only time our pileateds are visible enough for a picture is when they’re hanging off the suet block.
We have one here that I catch over by the woodpile sometimes. They’re amazing birds.
We had several trees die after Hurricane Charley. They came to feed regularly until we had to have them cut down. They were a little too rotten to go through another hurricane season.
Ah too bad you had to do that but I’m glad you got to enjoy the birds for awhile. They are so much more shy than the other types of woodpeckers we have around here (downies, red-headed, red-bellies). We do hear them all the time though and I love the sound of their call.
oooh … (I want! 😉 and hand held too! Very impressive … 🙂
I love that bit of red colour. Nicely captured!
Nikon’s VR II is amazing technology.
What camera body do you use?
D40 although I shoot mostly in priority or manual modes.
Hand held 600mm, impressive. How fast were you shooting?
I love the splash of red, canceling out the thought of, black & white.
ISO 200, f32, 1/125 shutter.
Oh WOW!! Totally gorgeous. I’ll never forget as a new arrival in Puget Sound from Ohio when I first heard a pileated woodpecker. Gooserock and I both ran outside and could not imagine what kind of new monster creature was living in our yard. LOL
I love that flame of its crest. I would have probably tried to get all of the details of the bird and ended up with a wasted bunch of pictures.
Is this where the snakes and alligator can be found?
The snakes were about 4 miles from where this shot was taken along the St. Johns River in Volusia County and the gators were in the Everglades. Of course this is Florida, so there are snakes and gators everywhere.:)
on this one!
Very mood altering, no matter how one feels.
Brittany, July 2007.
Last one for this week. Thanks for the great ratings.
That was unintentional. Can someone move this or the other by Brittany up and delete this post?
My last one too. We have a Eurotrib dinner soon.
It’s a bird and plane.
I hope you all have a wonderful time at the meet-up — can’t wait to see the photos and hear/read the tales!
That it was a mistaken post does not matter to me. That you may be interested in these amazing photographs of ospreys, does.
Unbelievable shots.
http://www.miguellasa.com/photos/sspopup.mg?AlbumID=1001578
That is a great slide show.
I find a sense of magical movement as if the bridge stanchion separated the clouds just before coming to its position in the water – do things come alive and move when we aren’t looking?
When I saw this, it immediately struck me that the bridge had ripped the clouds open. I just had to take the shot.
Wow! Nice! Those nifty moments are usually accompanied by the discovery that I need a camera battery change;-)
I think that’s what the old school film photographers meant when they said “f8 and be there.”
Now that brings back memories … 🙂 I used to run along the river there every day … the house I lived in was on Indian Road, and the bridge was almost in the backyard.
Beautiful sky!
I bet you heard the rumbling of trucks around the clock.
Constantly … the sound of 18-wheelers gearing down … seared into my brain … 😀
OH OH!! Some moran built the bridge too high.
I can hear the sky ripping.
Right time right place, no camera. Bummer. This is why you`re glad you bring your cam with you always. Great shot.
Is this a picture of the ozone hole?
That is cute.
I just can’t get over how big he is now! Time goes by so fast.
Why to I think his favorite ‘rapper is on a Tootsie Roll Pop?
I’m going to shock myself by not picking the shot of Andrew as my favorite (OMG, he is getting so grown-up) and say I love this shot.
Are you sure you’re feeling okay?
Hey don’t put it one me — you’re the one who took the super-cool photo.
Thank you.
…and shades of grey:
taos pueblo
door #7
clik images to enlarge
Great door, Taos is one of my favorite places in the west.
The use of the shadows and light to produce the geometry of door #7 is really striking.
Door # 7 is amazing. Did you ever check for other numbers on the door at different light intervals? Very cool composition. I have noticed that you are very patient with the lighting in a lot of your shots. I cheat by shooting objects that I can turn or move into the light. If I can lift it or move it , I then control the light. In your images, you have to wait, for the right light. Good foresight.
thanks.
that particular door is always comes up a seven…others come up eleven, esp pairs.
yeah, l’m patient, in lighting it’s necessary unless you want to do a lot of post processing…which l don’t. a relic from shooting film for so many years, perhaps, but l find it holds me in good stead, especially when l have, basically unfettered, access to the subject…just keep going back till it’s right.
Were you shooting with an IR filter?
no. both were shot w/ a polarizing filter.
taos pueblo is a scan from a slide, transposed to B&W in PS/CS.
once you go to “greyscale”, in PS/CS pre v 3, you can apply filters much like B&W film, ie: such as red/orange…which will bring up texture…and then you can adjust the “levels”. no filters were applied to either shot. just some minimal “level” adjustments.
l cut my photographic teeth, as it were, w/ B&W film. and what l’m trying to do with PS is replicate what l used to do in a darkroom.
it’s a tedious process, esp in a darkroom and it’s still a challenge in PS, but l’m slowly getting there.
abstract: “mcintosh”
#2
#3
clik images to enlarge
Zowie, dada, these are jaw-droppingly wonderful.
Impressive d …
Did you do any post-processing? Love the crispness of the white bits on black and vv.
minimal…original shot in RAW/ Adobe RGB…converted to tiff in DPP, then to b&w in PS/CS, some minor level adjustment, primarily to bring up the contrast.
Nicely done. 🙂
repost: chicago bridge: (originally posted in b2’s saturday painting palooza)
clik to enlarge
You’ve got a knack for capturing these abstract images d …
I would imagine that a bridge in Chicago has a lot of traffic. What time of day did you shoot this?
ims, it was very late afternoon, after the rush had cleared form the loop. they were closing it to do some overnight maintenance.
just luck…and always carrying a cam……:{)
Not many shadows or silhouettes, but I was so excited that the temperature today was only in the 70s instead of like 200, that I spent the day at the Raleigh Rose Garden.
That looks like a lovely place to sit and enjoy the day.
to spend time in … 🙂
Love the sun flare on the second one.
Where did you take this? Why is the background so light? I love the bird’s round little belly and how the toes look curled up. Also, the translucent nature of the wings is amazing!
Noticed those too Toni … love the curling toes.
Kidspeaks Flight 505
I give up. I simply give up. If you actually took this photo just this way and did not create it in software by combining two terrific photos, I just give up.
The moon shot is spectacular….just detail. You must have a very special lens on your telescope. ?? The plane just tops it all. I am blown away.
Puget, As you can see, it`s called Kidspeak`s flight.
I was trying to get this shot for a few days, running back & forth from down in the field, to the hill above the house. I had many of close shots but never in silhouette. I finally just grabbed a plane & dropped it over the moon. Kidspeak who saw it, said it looked like I`d plastered a plane on the moon, so I told her I would not stop till I got the shot. I then decided that after running the marathon trying to get the shot, I`d have as much chance by staying still. Two minutes later, click, the shot I tried for nights to get. It was still a ‘hairball’ shot. I didn`t know how much delay would be in the shutter, & when to depress it. In the end, with a million thoughts going through my head analyzing the procedure I should follow, I just fell back on involuntary intuition. When I downloaded the shot I could see the heat distortion on the moon, I knew it was the best focus I could hope for, under the circumstance. I`m actually quite proud of this shot. I did send it to Kidspeak, immediately. She`s the inspiration for it.
Another thing you should know.
I`d been shooting a series of shots of the moon, in hopes of having an unbroken set of the complete cycle. I think I made it to 21 till an overcast night ruined it for that sequence. So I was tuned in very well on speed & aperture settings. I also only shoot Manual. I also have another airliner shot with the moon in total eclipse, blood red with the airliner`s lights fluttering by in the atmospheric layerings. It was an eight second exposure if I remember, & on a 10 second delay, so I had to time the intersection estimate, 10 seconds into the future. I still can`t believe that shot.
Puget, I forgot.
This was a tripod shot, D2H Nikon with a 300 mm 2.8 lens.
Here`s the eclipse shot, & a little blurb I sent to Murphycita.
The plane in this shot was just screaming & very low. I know the track of all the large planes the were on approach to LAX. This one was definitely showing the eclipse to the passengers.
Murphy,
Another jetliner in this shot. This one was even hairier.
I was shooting with a ten sec timer delay & three second exposure. When I saw the plane coming I knew it was out of it`s normal flight path as I see them all the time. It could only be showing the passengers the total eclipse. This was last years. I couldn`t figure out the position of the plane ten seconds into the future, but decided if I didn`t click now I`d miss it altogether. 9, 8, 7, …2, 1, open shutter 2, 3 .
The lines are the light from the passenger cabin wavering in the atmospheric layering in the coolness of 3:00 AM.
I have the complete sequence of the eclipse in a series of 100 shots.
“OWL TALONS ON THE MOON”
Not as cute as the hummingbird’s … but just as impressive.
Olivia, I`m sure mine aren`t either, but impressive?
I`ve been told, “YES,… GOD, YES”
It ought to have been an album cover in the 60s.
Black Lightning & Rainbow
Yucca Flats
A study of black & white in black & white of a poster in my black & white bathroom.
They’re overflowing the frame … 🙂
Olivia,
One of my little tricks.
The animals like to see & think outside the box. I like to give them room to move. As you can see, it`s a little crowded in the frame.
that makes it come alive … 🙂
In this experiment, you have to believe me when I tell you, that there is a transparent layer with white zebra stripes on it exclusively.
When I put it on a black background the zebras exist. When I take only the black & put them on a white background again the zebras appear. You can see that by linking this one to flickr. And since you think the out of frame one is nice,(although you used another word) here`s a more tender one. “Hanging Out” This one is not one with exclusivity in black or white.
“Moonrise in Malibu” (with sunset contrail)
Fallout
perfection …
Love this.
🙂
Some shadows in Zion National Park, from our unlikely detour while out west.
Looks like a lovely place to detour through … 😉
Well it’s a long drive (especially if you have to wait for an RV to go through the tunnel) through the park but it’s certainly a beautiful one.
What is causing that purple flare? I have a few shots with that from my Nikon D70 where I’ve shot diectly into the sun. I keep a polarizing filter on my lenses; is that is what causes the purple flare?
I use a Nikon L4 point and shoot. I’m not sure why that happened. It looks kind of cool though.
Lens flare, sometimes gives a mood to the image. In your photo it`s like a purple waterfall but what it also does is add interest in the image inviting one to scan the visual more closely.
This flare appeared when shooting a cloud shot.
I usually make sure the sun is on the edge of the frame or peeking through leaves or branches, slats in a fence or something. Because of the flare in the cloud image, I used it to create another image “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds.” Some flares are repeated, depending on the number of glass lens there are in the lens body.
As you can see, the flare in both images is almost identical. (strange)
Old Split-Tail
Blackwater
Amazing bunch of photographs, Head but I do think you saved the best for last (or at least last as of this minute). This is just gorgeous.
the colours are beautiful … the pattern of the leaves is lovely …
Beyond Freedom
Love the shadings of blue in this one.
Sea Cave
ZOOT SOOT
Ladies in waiting
Winter sunset
The colour of the sky when the sun goes down is so beautiful – rainbow colours.
That’s an interesting shot of the Ladies in Waiting … where were they? I can see a stop sign back there.
There’s an eclectic little flower & garden shop nearby and they had a late delivery that day.
Owl Hoot
In The Tube
Thanks everyone, especially AndiF & olivia! What a wonderful set of photos!
And a great thanks to you Indianadem, for bringing up the girls responsible for this great new showcase of what we do.
Thanks Andif & Olivia.
To anyone out there who would like to know anything of my little tricks, that sometimes make an ordinary image more eye-catching, I`ll respond to all queries. I may not be able to help, but I`m good at steering the question into something I know the answer to.
Because of my schedule & location, far left, I come to the party late but always show up.
Andif & Olivia, as you know I`ve been an admirer of your images, so it makes it a pleasure to have a place to unwind.
Now it`s off to see the images again with a different eye.
Since it`s “pirate day”, I`m switching the patch over to the other eye for a different perspective.
Waving everyone good night.
Priceless … that is fantasitc!
😀
If you look back, I`m waving you off into the unknown. Very nice shots in the waves.
Click on this version.
Wow, I had not realized it was a penguin.
If that wind had blown any harder, she would have been an eagle.
Hah good one. At least she was bundled up enough to take to the air.