Moodaholic Photography

I’ve just come across a photographer from Denmark who has a really great collection of images in his portfolio. Having spent a while looking through his collection at Moodaholic I found his style refreshing and inspiring. In his own words:

“The purpose of my photoblog is to maintain a fair playground with my own rules. The rules do shift over time. Lately the rules are to try making the most in camera on location, though all possible adjustment through RAW is allowed – just like the old dark room.”

He’s won a few photography awards including the Best European Photoblog at the Photoblog Awards 2006, the Best Western European Photoblog at the 2007 Photobloggies and a Weekly Pic-k award over on VFXY Photos.

Digging out the old photo gems

This is a photo I took a few years back on an early morning walk down to the river – I call it Riverline. To me this is one of those hidden gems you find as a photographer that you come across in your vast image library that may have been forgotten.

I really like this photograph – the colours and subdued and the fogginess of the scene adds to the atmosphere of the picture. The composition is good and the simpleness of the scene strikes me. I once did  a canvas print of this for a customer and it looked really nice. What do you think of it? Perhaps a bit more saturation would help? Do you have any images you have forgotten that are worth digging out?

Sometimes it’s easy to get lost in all the new images you take as a photographer, especially if you don’t have a good system to keep them all organised.

More Venice Photography

Venice in Blue

Continuing along the Venice and Italy theme of recent posts, here is my latest photographic work which shows a heavily textured scene, typical of Venice in every respect.

This photographic work is called ‘Venice in Blue‘ and was taken on my recent travels to the heart of the Italian city in April. Featuring the classic gondolas in their moorings and the wonderful Venetian architecture in the background, this photograph sums up the majesty and atmosphere of Venice.

I have the original RAW file still but these days I get more enjoyment from creating images that have an artistic processing, especially with scenes like this one. Venice is an artistic city so it is a fine way to compliment it with some nice textures, colours and filter work in Photoshop. It helps capture the essence and atmosphere that you feel when wandering around Venice. I hope you are enjoying the photography.

Chasing The Sun

One thing that bugs me as a photographer is the time wasted looking for that perfect shot, or any decent shot for that matter. Last night was one perfect example. A few days ago I had driven past a field of hay bales that had beautiful Bredon Hill in the background. It would have made a great picture but I didn’t have my camera with me and the lighting wasn’t good enough.

So last night the colours in the sky were beginning to look sweet as the evening began to close in so I grabbed my camera bag and jumped in the car. The field in question was only 15 minutes drive away but as I was approaching, the sun began to drift behind possibly the only cloud in the evening sky. It’s like the sunset sucks all the remaining clouds towards it and sends the landscape into shadow. Drat.

On top of that when I reached the field I found the farmer had already taken the hay bales away, leaving nothing but a field of stubble. In shadow. Great.

Sometimes you can find a scene which is perfect for photography but other times like this, frustration is the order of the day as you chase the sun and try to catch the landscape in the beautiful golden light that makes a shot that little bit extra special. You win some you lose some. All I know is that I’ll never give up because photography is a passion that just cannot be quelled.

Organise Your Photo Searches

I’ve just come across a great site that allows you to essentially bookmark and organise photos you come across on the net. It’s called Vi.Sualize and it’s growing a nice community of art lovers who share their favourite pictures.

It’s very simple to setup, just drag an icon to your bookmark toolbar in your browser, then when you come across an image you like, click the bookmark and it allows you to name it, tag it and add it to your collection. This then also shows up in the latest section so hopefully other art lovers will see it.

You can become friends with other vi.sualize members and watch their latest findings which is a good way to find new art that you like. The images can be from a website, photo blog or anywhere on the internet. The membership is free (you would expect this) and it’s well worth a try.

Old Venice

I like Italy. No, actually I love Italy. The romance, architecture and way of life is just beautiful. Venice is one of the most stunning cities in the world, thanks to the beautiful buildings and of course it’s water ways.

I took this photograph in April this year and have only just got round to processing the RAW. That’s the trouble when you go away and come back with several hundred RAW images that need processing individually by hand, or mouse to be more exact!

As Venice has so much rich history I thought this image deserved an antique look to it so I found some creative textures which I then applied in Photoshop. A combination of 2 texture files, several filters and layer adjustments brought the desired effect, and it was shown on the DCMag website homepage for a short while so I must have done something right!

I think this represents the old Italy quite well. Venice is definitely a photographers paradise and I can’t wait to go back again. Then again, I still have some RAWs to process from last year in Florence where I got married so I need to pace myself better!

Ciao

Dreaming of Daisies

Dreaming of Daisies

This is one of my favourite art pieces I have created recently and was ‘constructed’ using two different photos of daisies, one a close-up and the other a group of daisies.

The image has many different textures added to it to create an artistic rendition of a field of daisies. The textures and effects were made in Photoshop with various filters and texture files overlaid as separate layers. These had masks applied and other filters and layer blends added which has given the piece the deep tones and rustic feel.

After getting a Photobox print to check it looked good enough I got it printed on a large canvas and it looks absolutely stunning on the wall! You can purchase this piece of art yourself as a canvas print here or even as an acrylic mount.

Photo Upload

 

Some of the posts here on karmasix will be photographic work I have done myself as I am a semi-professional photographer and love to ‘play’ with Adobe Photoshop whenever I can. It’s such a powerful piece of software that you are only limited by your imagination or knowledge of the application when processing your work. Doing a search for ‘Photoshop Tutorials’ will bring up a whole truck-load of inspiring things you can do with Photoshop layers, filters and other tricks.

This work is called ‘Driving South‘ and was taken down a quiet road in west Wales a few years back. It has had a kind of cross-processing applied to it which has created a brown and green theme. A subtle zoom blur was also applied and after much experimenting this is the final processed picture.