Mt. Shasta in the distance. I wanted the clouds to clear a bit, but no such luck that day.
We had some cool clouds coming through this weekend. Both of these were shot just from the front yard.
If you follow me on facebook or flickr, you saw this beauty yesterday. Everyone sees different things in the cloud. What do you see?
Nikon D7000 shot.
iPhone4 shot. Camera+ and snapseed used.
RainyDaze is another cool app from JixiPix. Its free right now in the app store and could be fun to play with when you want a gloomy style for your photo. I’m definitely ready for summer to be over, so this app is right up my alley. Give me some cool storm clouds to shoot already.
This shot was taken during the daytime with a clear blue sky. RainyDaze added clouds and rain. I also used the app to remove the saturation because it wouldn’t look natural if the ground still looked like it was sunny out. I also added a slight vignette and a dark, purplish tone. I don’t know if I like the dreamy look to it. That was from the romantic strength slider. I’ll have to be more careful with that next time.
This scene already had the storm clouds in it, but no rain. RainyDaze took care of that.
Go check out RainyDaze while its free.
I meant to go out and scout locations for the storm coming in, but I wasn’t feeling too good yesterday. Luckily, my roommate saw this out the window and we went out on the balcony to enjoy the view for 5-10 minutes. I took multiple pictures with the iphone and Nikon (haven’t even looked at those yet.)
I hardly ever settle for just one shot, especially around sunset when the light conditions are changing rapidly. Take lots of pictures and only show the best of the best. I’m thinkin there may need to be some sort of challenge soon where you take at least 100 shots of the same subject. Shannon! Where are you?
These were simple to edit. I shot with camera+ and added some drama to both in Snapseed. That was it. Drama is great for making the clouds more dramatic.
“A belief is not an idea held by the mind, it is an idea that holds the mind”
-Elly Roselle
Saw that quote yesterday and thought it was worth sharing.
This image was created with TinyWorld. I bought it a few months ago but have barely used it. Its a neat little app that lets you create tiny planets. Theres a live preview when using the camera in this app so you can get everything lined up just the way you want it. You can also do what I did here and apply the effect to a photo from your camera roll. The only thing I don’t like is the blurring of the edge isn’t too subtle. I think this still makes for an interesting image though.
When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.
~Ansel Adams
I’ve been known to snap a few pics while driving, but its not something I ever recommend. The storm clouds around Black Butte near Mt Shasta City, CA looked pretty dramatic and I immediately thought it would make a killer black and white image. I still haven’t found an app that gives me full control for black and white conversion, so I’m not 100% pleased with the results here. I want something similar to Nik Software’s Silver Efex Pro2.
Shot with Camera+, edited in Snapseed and PhotoToaster. The workflow was a bit different on this one. I had to crop first because I didn’t want the dash of my car in the shot. Then I made my edits in Snapseed for drama, converted to black and white with PhotoToaster, and then made some selective adjustments and added more drama in Snapseed.
“Beauty in things exist in the mind which contemplates them.” -David Hume
I think I’ll start sharing quotes once in a while now because I’m a sucker for wisdom. Today I’ll start with Hume because I was a philosophy major once upon a time.
I know when I look at a scene like the original above I don’t see what most people see. I tend to see the potential drama of a scene that I can bring out with HDR and post processing. This is something that comes to you the more you shoot, so don’t be discouraged if you can’t visualize the final image ahead of time.
Of all the apps I’ve played with, I don’t think I use any feature more than the drama filter in Snapseed. It immediately makes most photos more dynamic and dramatic, 2 things that I’m always looking for. I’ve also found the tone mapping feature in FilterStorm to be a good way to make an image more dynamic. In this image, using both filters really brought drama to the sky and helped recreate what I saw when I took the photo.
Shot with ProHDR, edited with Snapseed and FilterStorm.
I was treated to the longest and most amazing display of light yesterday on my drive home. There were golden rays of light beaming through the storm clouds and painting bits of mountainside with light. It lasted for about 3 hours. I really couldn’t keep my eyes on the road, so I pulled over a few times to snap some pics.
This one is from when I stopped in Artois. I pulled over, walked over to the middle of the road and took a few pics, but wasn’t thrilled, so I got down and put my phone on the road to get a different perspective. Luckily no cars or trucks came by for the 5 minutes that I was in the middle of the road.
Although this one doesn’t showcase the amazing rays I was witnessing, it does show the dramatic sky. Also, its not good practice to put the horizon in the middle of the image, but I did it on purpose this time because I felt it was more interesting. I’ll try to post some more today that will do a better job of showcasing the light.
Shot with prohdr and edited in snapseed.
