Sunday Morning Fun

Perhaps I felt inspired by my morning cup of coffee, but I decided to try another "sandwiched" image using coffee beans. Originally I attempted to create an image where my husband was sitting peacefully atop the pile, probably getting high on the coffee fumes, but I wasn't happy with how it came out. Maybe something about someone sitting on my coffee makes me uneasy. Anyway, I played around with a few other images and this is what I came up with. I like it.



I submitted it to photoSIG - a website where photographers critique each other's work - and got a critique suggesting that I make the tree less foggy and have more of the beans in focus. I found this critique interesting. I like the foggy effect and the shallow depth of field on the beans. If I were to bring out more of the tree, the coffee beans would become obscured by the background image. I often find (and I'm guilty of this myself) that the critiquers on photoSIG critique an image as if it is meant to be "perfect" and realistic. While striving to create images like this hones one's technical skills, to be sure, a lot of really stellar artistic shots that break the rules very well end up getting poor reviews or hardly any reviews at all. Not saying this image falls into that category, per se. Anyway, these "sandwiched" images I've been doing are meant to have their slight imperfections. I don't want to pick and choose parts of pictures and composite them together to make a shiny, perfect picture. That seems to be a very popular thing to do now, with powerful graphics programs making it fairly easy to do. I admire and appreciate well done composited images, but I'm trying to do something different. Hope I didn't sound to bitter there! I'm just having fun here and I hope you're enjoying these experiments too!

New Nephew!

Totally un-photography related (except that baby photos will eventually be coming in) but we just got word that we have a new nephew! Martin Oliver was born today! Congrats John and Windy.

The Latest

Soon I will no longer be jobless. That's right, back to the daily grind. In all likelihood I will be working as a seasonal employee for the State of Connecticut starting next week. I've got mixed feelings about that. I'll be glad to have an interesting job, and I'll definately be glad to be making money again, but I will miss having so much time to spend on photography. I still plan to continue my addiction and do something photography-related every day, but I just won't be able to spend ALL day every day on it. I'm planning on working part time, four days a week, so at least I'll have Fridays to devote to the artistic cause.

Today's artistic cause included making a big mess with oil and water and food coloring and oil paint, with some interesting results. Here's one that's almost good enough to make it onto the website - it's just got a little blur on the top orb. I'll probably reshoot to get a crisper version. I like it - it's odd and round and abstract and my favorite color is blue!





















In other photographic news, I've got an auction up on eBay for Gnarled. We'll see how that goes, hopefully it'll get me some more exposure, no pun intended. I've also revamped the website a bit - mostly organizing the gallery a bit better and also making the shop a little neater. As always, let me know if you have suggestions.

Hubby will be back soon with new job celebratory wine and pizza, so adios for now! Happy browsing.

Experiments

Blogger is finally working again! Now I can fill you in on the news. Lately I've been diving into a new experiment of mine - digitally "sandwiching negatives". For those unfamiliar with the term, sandwiching negatives is a tecnique used in film photography. Basically two negatives are laid one on top of the other and light is shone through both of them - so both images appear in the same print. The negatives have to be exposed properly so that enough light gets through both of them to make a decent print.

I've been trying to recreate this technique digitally by laying one image over another and adjusting the transparency of the images to my liking. It's a bit different working with positive images rather than film negatives. After I get the transparency the way I want it, I adjust the brightness and contrast to enhance the image. I believe this technique falls into the category of compositing photographs, however I do not use a single element from one photograph and insert it into another, I overlay both images in their entirety, just as if they were two negatives in an enlarger.

I'm sure I'm not the first digital camera user to try replicating the "sandwiched negatives" look, but I am having a lot of fun experimenting with it. I couldn't fall asleep the night I thought of doing this, I was so excited about it.

Many works are still in progress, but you can check out some of my best initial attempts here.

New Content

I posted a new photo today, and changed around the "look" of the website a bit. It's a constant work in progress! I'm interested in hearing any comments or suggestions, by the way, so if you have any please use the contact form or post a comment on the blog. I want to make sure everything's easy to find and easy to use.

Went out for a hike/photo expedition yesterday, it was officially the first day warm enough to wear short sleeves and no jacket! Saw some new growth starting to pop up in the wetlands. Frogs are starting to call. Spring is here!

Lady Audrey's Gallery

I submitted five photos for my first "real" art competition. "Real" meaning that there are prizes involved. :-) The competition is "The Seasons" and it is being hosted by Lady Audrey's Gallery in Connecticut. I'm happy to find that all five were prequalified and are now up on the gallery website, the link is above. (They are for sale through the gallery as well.) I found out about the contest through Arts Opportunities and was motivated to go out and take some new photos to fit the contest category. It was such a refreshing moment. I normally shoot almost every day, but the tail end of winter has really been uninspiring for a few weeks. It felt fantastic to get out there to a State Management Area and I was lucky enough to catch some really amazing light in the stormy sky and get to see some migrating waterfowl. There's my environmental science side shining through. It was just the boost I needed. I'm looking forward to the approaching Spring!

First Blog Post

Welcome to my blog and my website, dsbrennan.com . This website has been a labor of love and I'm so pleased that it's finally live. I will continually be updating it and posting new photos, so check back often and enjoy your stay!