Getting a nice conversion from colour to mono can be very time consuming. I knew Nik Effects were good and had put them on the back burner but tonight I finally loaded them for a run. I have to say I could not be happier with the results. Considering this tool set is FREE, yep FREE is pretty damn impressive and puts a lot of power in the hands of the photographer and given Lightroom and Photoshop support this package as a plug in makes it even better.
So here are two copies of the same image, one straight mono conversion in Lightroom with a few tone adjustments.
Not much sky detail and missing a little in the water.
Now here is the other version converted using Nik Effects Silver and a preset with structure.
Pretty impressive for one mouse click on a preset but workable and a result I really like, more detail in the rocks and water, the sky has more depth to it. Normally I would do a little more in photoshop before publishing but being able to get a baseline like this is damn good for me.
I am now looking forward to doing more conversions using the Nik package and given the results with these images I cannot wait to try the other plugins that come with it.
So if your keen to get your hands on this here is the link, Download Google Nik Collection 1.2.11 - FileHippo.com
]]>Saturday 12 November was always going to produce some action but how much was always the question. There was the typical hype from some pundits leading up to this event but it was always going to be quick and dirty. The models were all agreeing on the deep surface trough that would engulf southern Queensland and parts of NSW bringing storms with strong winds and hail to varying degrees of intensity.
The weak cap holding convection in place saw storms break out before lunch time around the Goondiwindi area which quickly formed a squall line stretching from that location to the north, the strong mid to upper level winds from the west got the line moving fast and storms speeds were in excess of 80kph in some cases leaving chasers in a losing situation when storms fired twenty km or more behind them.
This was the experience of chasers Mike Keene and Chris Adams on a two day chase to the NW slopes and plains attempted to run down the supercell that dusted up Merriwa in the upper Hunter Valley. Illawarra chaser Michael Thompson changed tactics and target to the Liverpool Plains, capturing a couple of nice storms but still having a hard time due to the speeds but the luxury of more open and flat views and roads. The main catch of the day was a storm with LP supercell structure split from a storm, the left mover of the two went on to drop large hail up to ten cm in Narrabri and Qirindi. You can check his footage out on the following link and I recommend subscribing to his channel, it never disappoints. OZThunder - You Tube
Being one of those days, I left my chase to the point where the line was just west of Warwick Qld, it was a gamble and driving out I was in two minds as to whether to head up towards Gatton or stick to plains round Kalbar. I chose the latter.
No sooner had I gotten within five k's of Kalbar I was confronted with a large precipitation curtain and lightning but nowhere stopping on the Cunningham Highway. Turning onto the Kalbar connection road a quick run to the Kalbar Peaks crossing intersection and it was on. I was confronted with a lovely base backed up with a massive precipitation core that was strobing and daround me were solid bolts and staccato lightning dropping within a kilometer or less of where I was set up. These images are frames from the video footage.
Not long after this the rain band rolled over, noticing the lightning was dropping further to the east and this was my mistake, I took a north easterly road option trying to find a clearspot out of the rain but got steamrolled. Realising the mistake after checking the radar I pushed north and caught up with the back end of the storm at Harrisville but it crossed the highway and moved into the suburbs. At this point with nothing coming from the west it was done and dusted. A second line came out of the Darling downs around 9pm near Millmerran but was doomed once it hit the ranges and entered the Brisbane valley after the main line had drained the atmosphere of any energy earlier.
Darling Downs Supercell 22 November 2015
This is just a quick note about this chase which started off at Inglewood in the southern downs, the first storm going off and dumping hail up to golf ball size in town and then going on to drop even bigger as it tracked to the East.
There was however even better to follow with another tasty storm going up a little further NW towards a town called Moonie. Most chasers this day had set up along the Inglewood area which provides a brilliant road option to the northern downs past Dalby providing for some great chasing and photographic opportunities.
This shot was extracted from video footage shot from the hills just south of Millmerran nicknamed the jump ups. When I arrived here chasers were abandoning the place, "Lightning in the paddock next to us" were the words. Cool, got exactly what we wanted, nice big bolts and close, so close it did not all fit in the frame. (More to follow).
]]>
The Walker
Henri Cartier Bresson was renown for his book "The Decisive Moment". He states "There is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera. That is the moment the photographer is creative,"
This image was one of my Decisive Moments". I had been shooting at Belmore Basin in Wollongong for a photography class project all afternoon, I was walking along the path above the beach and I looked to my right and spotted this walker, back lit, reflections, receding water, silhouetted, I slammed the camera to my eye and shot. When I developed the negative my instructor jumped on it when reviewing my contact sheet with me, but for some reason I never printed it. It was four years later I scanned the neg and discovered the light and the receding water had literally mirrored the walker. Thanks Henri.
]]>
Faces in nature always watching sometimes never seen.Whenever I go out I am always on the lookout for faces in nature, unlike some photographers who feel the need to manipulate their images in software I prefer to find them in the natural weathering of rocks or the grain and bark of trees.
This one is located in the Illawarra, I am sure hundreds of people walk past this every year and do not "see" it.
I believe these faces belong to those who are in purgatory, the true "Tormented souls" locked in the rock or the tree, watching life pass by. Unable to to do anything, exposed to the elements, reflecting on why they are there and what they did to deserve it until, so worn down they are no more.
]]>
Wollongong Botanical Gardens Lake - Infra Red
I shot this in 2005 after spending time in hospital after a close call with the "Reaper". That stuff does your head in and you question your mortality and check you are still bullet proof. I got straight back into making images as part of my recovery and shot a lot of infra red film (IR). When shooting IR I tended to shoot with no people in scene or I delay firing until they ignore me. I now look at my infra red images and think to myself "Is this how the ghosts of those passed see the world?" Infra red has that ethereal quality and the film itself has been the staple of ghost hunters for many years. What do you think?
]]>
When processing this into a mono image the main problem with this file was the shadows on the trees to the right were blocked up both in the colour and the black and white version. This is one of the issues when shooting a back lit storm, something has to go and In this case it was the shadows. Nevertheless to get this result.
I dropped an adjustment layer in and set the white and black point.
Slapped a new layer down and then filled it with 50% grey and set it to soft light, using a brush at varying opacity I paint on the layer with white to dodge or lighten and black to burn or darken. I then used a new Channel mixer adjustment layer and set that to monochrome and adjust the channels accordingly, making sure the total did not go above 100% and leave the constant alone. Next step drop a curve adjustment layer in and do a little tweaking, copy in the the copyright and signature layers and add a quick unsharp mask set to 25 and leave the rest at defaults and then output to jpg@300 dpi.
Photography is not just about using a camera. There are numerous alternative processes for making images and most of them date back many centuries and are seeing a resurgence in popularity, alt processes are the new black so to speak. This is a lumen print, I take out of date photographic printing paper and find plant life and then sandwich the sample between the paper and a mylar sheet then enclose it in a contact printing frame and leave it in the sun for a few hours. I check it occasionally and when I am happy with the result I take the image to the laundry, give it a rinse then scan it and colour adjust it. This is the end result. Colour varies depending on the plant, the exposure and the paper. Kid friendly and so easy to do and the results speak for themselves.
]]>Thunder Down Under 21-11-13 - First Runs
First runs on the board with a nice storm giving Canberra a work over this evening. I do not like to make mistakes when chasing, shot all my footage at a ridiculous 800 ISO, check your kit next time, face palm!
The image here were grabbed from video footage, some great lightning in this one. Now it is time to pack, big drive to the Hunter Valley with the boys from the Illawarra for the first big chase. We will hit the upper hunter and then decide where to go from there once we get a better idea of the set up on the ground. This will also put us in a good spot for a dash to Queensland on Saturday or the northern rivers depending on the situation. Bring it on!
