Natural Light for a Natural Look

Canon 5D camera and Canon 85mm f1.2 L series Aspherical lens

Hi Folks,

I want to appologize for the lack of posts over recent times. I’m currently without a computer while a wait for a brand new system to be built and installed. It’s going to be a pretty incredible system, details of which I’II share with you over coming weeks. In the meantime posts will remain a little sporadic over the next week.

For today’s post I wanted to share with you an image made with the aid of natural light, coming in from a window and bouncing of nearby walls. The result is a very pleasing, flattering light which highlights the natural beauty of the subject: my big sister, Maree.

© Copyright, All Rights Reserved

Glenn Guy, Blue Sky Photography

Spot Color in a Grayscale Image

Leica M6 Camera and Leica 35mm f2 Summicron-M Aspherical lens with Kodak Ektachrome 100 Extra Color film

Here’s a relatively straightforward portrait of a young lad in Laos. He was a lovely kid with a very pleasant disposition. I very much enjoyed the interaction that the minute or so of photography time provided. And, of course, the photograph has allowed me to preserve the memory of that interaction for years to come.

After the original color transparency was scanned I employed Adobe Camera RAW to de-saturate all the colors, except for blue. Acutally I’m unsure what this technique is called, so for now I’II refer to it as Spot Color in a Grayscale Image.

To complete the process I made a few extra modifications in Adobe Photoshop CS3 to add a luminous quality to the image.

© Copyright, All Rights Reserved

Glenn Guy, Blue Sky Photography

Pic of the Week_Sunrise_Squeaky Beach_Wilsons Promontory National Park

Leica M7 camera and Leica 35mm f2 Summicron-M Aspherical lens with Kodak Professional Ektachrome E100VS film

Squeaky Beach is a favourite location for visitors to Wilsons Promontory National Park in Victoria, Australia. This image was made at sunset. As I was facing the sun the difference in brightness between the dark foreground rocks and the much brighter sky was extreme. As a result the rocks were rendered as a silhouette. This image relies on the shape of the rocks, the texture in the water and the warm/cool color contrast of sky and water.

© Copyright All Rights Reserved

Glenn Guy, Blue Sky Photography

Bleached Rocks_Whisky Bay_Wilsons Promontory National Park

Leica M7 camera and Leica 35mm f2 Summicron-M Aspherical lens with Fuji Velvia 100F film

Wilsons Promontory National Park covers the southern most part of the Australian mainland. Located in southeast Victoria the park offers a range of short and overnight walks allowing the visitor to explore magical beaches, enchanting forests and wonderful mountain top views. A stay of between 3 days and several weeks will allow the visitor to experience serene beauty enhanced by an often-sublime light. All this, together with changeable weather patterns, is what makes the prom a photographers delight.

The above image was made with late afternoon light at Whisky Bay, a short drive from the popular Tidal River campground. I remember being drawn to this particular composition by the textures and rusty orange color of the rocks against the cool blue of the sky. The fact that only a small amount of sky is included places further emphasise on the rocks. An aperture of f22 provided the large Depth of Field (DOF) ensuring that all the rocks remain sharp, from foreground to background.

The original film based image was processed in Adobe Photoshop CS3.

© Copyright All Rights Reserved

Glenn Guy, Blue Sky Photography

Blackened Trees and Snow_Lake Mountain

Canon 5D Mark II camera and Canon 24-105mm f4 L series USM lens @ 75mm Exposure Details: 1/50 second @ f9 ISO 400

This image was made at Lake Mountain in the Yarra Ranges. Situated around 90km from Melbourne, Victoria’s capital city, the Mountain offers 37km of cross-country skiing through the surrounding Yarra Ranges National Park.

Suffering significant damage as a consequence of the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires the relatively deep blanket of snow provided a graphic contrast against the blackened trees. Open in 2004 the Lake Mountain Alpine Resort Day Visitor Centre was the only building to survive the fire. Since then much work has been done to rebuild infrastructure and re-open the popular ski trails and toboggan runs.

I converted the original color image into black-and-white in Adobe Lightroom 2, where I also applied a subtle warm/cool split tone. Final tonal adjustments and sharpening were applied in Adobe Photoshop CS3.

© Copyright All Rights Reserved

Glenn Guy, Blue Sky Photography

Baked Potato Rock_Yarra Ranges

Canon 5D Mark II camera and Canon 24-105mm f4 L series USM lens @ 32mm Exposure Details: 1/10 second @ f22 ISO 400

I was amazed to see this rock. The Black Sunday Bushfires of February 7^th, 2009 was so intense that it actually burned the surface texture off this rock. I remember thinking how much it resembled a baked potato.

I rendered the original color image into black-and-white to drawn attention to its textural qualities. I’ll continue posting another image or two from this trip to Marysville over the next day or so.

© Copyright All Rights Reserved

Glenn Guy, Blue Sky Photography

Burnt Fern Trees and Sky_Yarra Ranges

Canon 5D Mark II camera and Canon 24-105mm f4 L series USM lens @ 24mm Exposure Details: 1/20 second @ f11 ISO 200

Here’s another image from the trip to the fire ravaged areas around the town of Marysville in Victoria, Australia. It was my friend, Ashley, who alerted me to this particular vantage point as we were exploring an area of burned forest just off the side of the road between Marysville and Lake Mountain.

The bird’s eye viewpoint provided quite a surreal outcome. I love the way the blackened fern trees lead the eye into the frame and the fact that the sky and clouds have the appearance of a reflection in water.

© Copyright All Rights Reserved

Glenn Guy, Blue Sky Photography

Pic of the Week_Burnt Trees and Re-growth_Yarra Ranges

Canon 5D Mark II camera and Canon 24-105mm f4 L series USM lens @ 55mm Exposure Details: 1/25 second @ f8 ISO 200

This image was made just outside of Marysville, one of the towns most devastated by the Black Saturday bushfires of February 7th this year. All but 14 of the towns 400 buildings were destroyed with 14 deaths recorded in the area. It has been confirmed that the fire that decimated Marysville was deliberately lit. The fire then combined with another creating a huge fire front 100 km long.

400 individuals fires were recorded on the day resulting in 173 deaths and 500 injuries. Of the 3,500 structures destroyed 2,200 were homes.

This is an important image for me to make as it expresses a powerful metaphor – that of life and death. Some may prefer to read that as life after death. I love the way these blackened trees have sprouted new, verdant growth. The fact that the landscape appears to be recovering so soon after the initial devastation, inflicted upon it by human hands, provides us all with a sense of awe and a measure of hope for our own future.

© Copyright All Rights Reserved

Glenn Guy, Blue Sky Photography

Trees in the Mist_Yarra Ranges

Canon 5D Mark II camera and Canon 24-105mm f4 L series USM lens @ 24mm Exposure Details: 1/100 second @ f8 ISO 100

Having got back into the car after photographing the tree in yesterday’s Fallen Giant post my companions and I had only to drive along the road for another minute or so until the slightly higher elevation brought us into a new world, one of mist.

This image was made with my camera pointed up towards the sky. The intention was to isolate the trees and mist from the surrounding landscape, thereby challenging the viewer’s normal sense of perspective. Setting the camera’s white balance to Tungsten further enhanced the other world nature of the image.

Photographing under tungsten light produces a yellow/red color cast. Setting your camera’s white balance to tungsten acts to neutralise this color cast. But setting your camera to tungsten, when photographing under light of a more neutral color, produces a blue/cyan color cast, ideal for the mood I wanted to explore in the above image.

© Copyright All Rights Reserved

Glenn Guy, Blue Sky Photography

Fallen Tree_Yarra Ranges

Canon 5D Mark II camera and Canon 24-105mm f4 L series USM lens at 24mm Exposure Details: 1/8 second @ f16 ISO 400

Here’s the first of a series of images I’ll post over the next few days from a day exploring and photographing between Healesville and Warburton, including the fire ravaged town of Marysville. My friends Ashley and Edna accompanied me on the adventure.

The day’s beginning was unremarkable: grey overcast skies and relatively flat light. While not particularly inspiring to the eye these conditions produce soft, wrap around lighting providing excellent opportunities for photography.

The above image was one of the day’s first. Standing very close to the fallen giant I utilised a 24mm focal length to place emphasise on the foreground and composed the image so that the line of the tree would draw the eye along the trunk down to the forest below.

This simple design was further enhanced by rendering the original color image into black-and-white, in Adobe Lightroom, allowing the lighter toned areas of the tree to stand out from the darker forest floor. Final tonal enhancements were made in Adobe Photoshop CS3.

Look out for more images from this trip over coming days.

© Copyright All Rights Reserved

Glenn Guy, Blue Sky Photography