Something Old

From a previous post, the watch image was accepted!  (wººt) I'll have to print it out and make sure I have a good image to present for the next class.

Today was a reshoot of my failed attempt at Black on Black, and moving forward with a new silverware shoot that had to conform to a template.  There was some styling involved and I think it made the grade.  We'll see how it all turns out. It was a learning experience, and it was fun to work with a video student/classmate.

This entry isn't about any of that stuff, however.  I want to blog about one of more interesting classes... What we did in Digital Illustration II was pretty amazing, and I would like to share what the outcome was of our last assignment.  What we had to do was take an old, beat up photograph that we found in some antique store or at home and restore it to it's original beauty, or enhance it to make it look better than the original.  I got a pretty messed up image of a ship at sea with some Sailors doing their thing.

Original image scanned at 600 dpi to be repaired.

As you can see it's pretty messed up. I started off by cropping the image so that I could remove the tear at the bottom left hand corner, the funky lines at the left side and top, and some of the right side where the funky stain is near the top area. 

Once cropped I turned the image black and white since the original scan was done in color.

Scanned image cropped and made black & white.

The reason for the black and white is to get the best tonal quality of the image so that it can be processed easier and with more stunning results.  I still had a lot of work ahead of me, and the retouching process was a labor of love for the most part.  I think my OCD kicked in and I started to obsess over the smallest hair or blemish in the photograph.  After many hours of cloning, healing, spot healing and freaking out, I had this:

This was the result of many hours of crack removal.

So that's the repair so far.  Once the long task of retouching was completed, there was some more touching up to do.

Though it doesn't seem too noticeable here, the image was sharpened to bring out more detail.

A sharpening process was done to the image and it was lightened a bit (though it seems darker here than in 'real life) in order to add the last bit of treatment - color!

Voilá!  The final results.  

It was a lot of fun, I must say, even though it was a bear to get the image to play nice at times with the way the water touched the ship, and the Sailor's body being pretty much torn in half.  I think the image turned out quite well, and was received that way in class, so  - yeay.  Oh, and extra credit to anyone who knows what ship that is and when this image was taken. :D

Not wanting to lose the touch of being able to do this sort of thing, I saw an old photo of a family friend's grandfather that's hanging in his place of business and *had* to ask to take and see if I could restore it.  I mean, if I could take an old image like the one above and do all that without much in the way of satisfaction that I helped someone out there get back a treasured memory, I could at least do something for someone I knew and knew would cherish the results (if they came out okay...).

So I took the old photo, and sparing the details and processes of the above, got the following results...

Grampa before & after restoration

As you can see, I didn't add color to this restoration.  I had tried putting color into it, but it didn't do the image any justice whatsoever.  It just 'felt right' as a black and white image, and was well received when i gave it to my friend.  I'm waiting to hear what his grandmother will have to say about it.  

I hope it makes her smile...

Watch THIS!

In order to really capture the amount of dislike I have for my Advanced Lighting class, I'd have to write this blog with the tip of my dry and calloused tongue after I dragged myself across my studio floor, hands tied behind my back, beat with a rusty tripod, nude.  And then doused with alcohol or hydrogen peroxide, depending on the level of mercy my torturer contained.

So - the image I created for the "boxes" product shot had to be redone because it was dark, admittedly, but the composition wasn't to the teacher's liking.  He's the boss.  So, I reshot it and it 'barely' made the cut.  It'll be here after this entry.

Next, the black on black image of the skull was rejected for exceptionally minor lighting flaws, but mainly because the teacher didn't like the subject.  He never specified it had to be a black box-shaped object, or some other technical thing.  Just that it had to be 'visually interesting.'  And, since I had to reshoot it anyway, make it a black boring box presented in an interesting way.  No worries.  He's the boss.

Next assignment was to shoot a watch.  Yes, a watch.  These things seem like they'd be easy to capture on film since they are, by all practical means, still life.  They have to be set at either 1:50 am/pm (0150 / 1350 for you 24-hour types) or 10:10 am/pm (1010 / 2210 for you afore mentioned 24-hour types). This requires the battery to be removed, and to ensure the pin that sets the time is pushed in.  Also - it needs to be an analog timepiece of either the wrist or pocket watch variety.  The metal must be silver or gold, and can be shiny or brushed.  The watch should be presented in a pleasing way, well lit as to show all sides without darkness on its specular surfaces...

I have no idea if I did the right thing.  I guess we'll see when the critique comes, but holy hell...

Paint it Black

As far as set up goes, there's hardly anything that's simpler than a Black on Black set.  With a simple stand to hold the black velvet background, an overhead medium sized soft box, another stand to hold the pole or dowel that will have the simple black object attached to it and some white fill cards here and there (as well as the object to be photographed) it's pretty much all there is to it.

The tricky part is lighting it well enough to show three good sides and 'depth' in the object being photographed, as well as keeping the lighting from blowing out behind the object and ruining the black that's back there...

So though the rigging is simple, the execution is very tough.  Add a factor of interest, and you've got the beginnings of a recipe for disaster or utter failure at the very most.  An awesome shot at the very least...  Or something "meh" in between.

After some playing around with the concept of not wanting to shoot the mundane, I did a little creative blackening of the object below and attempted to do it some macabre justice.  I hope I succeeded...

©Carlos Paradinha Photography
Black on Black

I Just Want To Be In Your Panorama

The third quarter of school started with a flurry of assignments.  From Digital Illustration II, to Advanced Lighting, I had more image capturing assignments than ever before.  Somehow I got them all done, and even had some sunny moments to work with!  I was really surprised.

One of the assignments we got was the interesting task of creating a panorama from multiple images taken in sequence of something that would be considered "not your typical panorama."  A few of my classmates had some creative images, but the instructor thought them either boring, or not interesting enough.

I tried to get something less cliché than the usual panorama of a cityscape or a beach or a forest... So the following few images are panoramas I've created for class.  I'm only turning one of them in, and I've yet to make that decision.

"Black Balloon"

©Carlos Paradinha Photography.
Eight images put together to form the whole.  Clear Creek Nursery, Silverdale, WA.

"Playing In Traffic"

©Carlos Paradinha Photography.
Twelve images put together to form the whole.  Sodo, Seattle, WA.

"Battling The Troll"

©Carlos Paradinha Photography.
Nine images put together to form the whole.  Fremont Troll, Fremont, Seattle, WA.

New Digs

After a stint in Bremerton, we're now back in Seattle.  Why?

Because.

It was a matter of logistics and the availability of non-aquatic roads for both work and school.  The new place is temporary, for now, and so it would pan out, but a couple of years is still a couple of years and time has this really crazy tendency of going faster than it's expected.

There may be a change in career options in the not-too distant future.  This would throw a proverbial wrench in the current works as the new work thing wouldn't be so much in the way of photographic stints - nor would it be conducive to schooling.  But all of this is a feather blowing in the wind at the moment, and may all be for naught.

If that's the case, I'll be posting works for not only the upcoming quarter, but the quarter after that and the one after that for a few quarters after that.

So the new place will be able to 'host' gallery showings in the future - once we've set things up...  here are a couple of images of the way it looked before we moved in.  I'll look better once we have art on the walls and stuff...

The "gallery"

Center hallway area - the fireplace is
non-functional... sadly

Titus is the master of all he surveys

Photo(s) I Always Wanted To Shoot... #2

So the quarter has finally drawn to a close, and it was a very quick, yet drawn out 11 weeks.  I remember getting the first assignments in class, going on photo trips and then here we are taking final exams, doing final presentations, handing in final reports, and presenting final images.

Wow.

Next quarter will be on us very, very quickly, and it'll be a little more intense than this last one - at least for me.  I think I said that about this last quarter at the end of the first, didn't I?  I dunno, I think I did.  :D

For the final image of the quarter, I'll post the image that was the final in my Photo Design class.  Like the first Photo I Always Wanted To Shoot (PIAWTS), this is a concept piece that I want to carry through to other shoots in the future.  It's a recreation of a sculpture of the Greek Hero, Theseus, slaying the Centaur.  It was originally done by an Italian sculptor, Antonio Canova, in 1811 for Napoleon.

Hopefully this is just one of many to come in the future.  I love the Greek/Roman sculpture of heroic scenes and mythological characters from their old pantheon.  To be able to "bring them to life" is a desire of mine whereby I recreate them with artistic quality and aesthetic grandeur, bringing my own vision to the classic/archaic masterpiece as well as updating the vision behind the dynamics of the sculpture.

I'm looking forward to images to come, and sharing them with others!

©Carlos Paradinha Photography

Canon 7D with Photoshop manipulation of the Centaur.  ;-D

Symbolism

So - it never ceases to amaze me that life has a way of making itself known in a tangle of ways which ultimately makes it more complex than what it needs to be.

I've noticed that each time we have been poised to move from one place to anther, something dramatic looms in the distance, waiting to strike and spitting piss and vinegar.  This time it's no different.

I would like to be able to rant and rave and carry on about the woes, trials and tribulations that accompany this move, but I will not.  I dare not.  The reason is because I feel that the more that it's dwelt upon, the more life it's given.  What I will do is move forward and allow the past to recede into the background.  As it does, it will not only become smaller in my rearview, it will also become less din.

So onward - this past week's assignment for Photo Design was to come up with an image that would tell a story in and of itself through the imagery alone.  We had a very broad range of topics from which to choose.  Hopefully my topic is readily apparent.

©Carlos Paradinha Photography. 

People have prescribed many different people to the wearer of the black shoe in this image.  Undoubtedly you will too.  What remains constant is the feeling that the image conveys the sentiment and acknowledgement of a lot of folks who feel that it rings true.