Photography – Page 50 – Something Odd!

Candle Lit

A candle lit room can be very peaceful.

Unguarded Moments: Photographs of President Ronald Reagan

If you visit one website today, make it this photo essay on Ronald Reagan. The photos are great, they capture so many well-known and also intimate personal episodes during the former President’s life. Wow!
I couldn’t help but smile when I saw the picture of him in his hospital bed recovering from surgery.. It reminded me of the Spitting Image episode where Reagan chose his breakfast using the “Red Phone” and launched a nuclear strike by accident!

Bat Transit

I guess the Batmobile was broken down back at Wayne Manor eh? 🙂

Levels Tool – white, black and grey to the rescue!

Everyone who’s done any processing of photos will know about the Auto button of their Colour Level tool. It’s something that probably appears in every decent photo manipulation application and it’s invaluable for correcting colour casts on photos. Unfortunately it doesn’t always work very well.
The GIMP offers 3 buttons next to the Auto function and with these three buttons it’s possible to pick out elements of the image under examination that are either black, white, or grey! Click the white button, then click an area of the photo that should be white. Do the same for grey and black if needs be.
I only (re?)discovered how useful these were this evening when I was trying to colour correct a photo taken indoors, but with the white-balance set to "cloudy". The picture appeared too rich, Auto levels made it green but by clicking the white button and then on a fridge in the background the photo was suddenly almost perfect! I’m not going to post that image but here are two I made earlier…

Corcaigh 10Km

Ballincollig is 10Km from Cork apparently. Wonderful what colours you’ll find on the ground at this time of the year too!

Local History, Global Reach

Iniscarra Cemetery, just a few miles from where I work, holds the remains of one "Mary William, daughter of John Stewart of Belfast. Wife of the very reverend Theophilius Blakely, Dean of Down". She’s also the mother of Captain Theophilus Alexander Blakely, a prolific designer of rifled cannon and the inscription on the side of his mother’s tomb bears witness to that:

Mother of Captain Blakely Royal Artillery. Original inventor of improvements in cannon and the greatest artillerist of the age.

A quick search proved useful and it was sobering to find a connection between my locality and the American Civil War!

Egg Sharpen Photo Sharpening

Described as “The Ultimate Sharpening Technique”, this article by Fred Miranda describes another method for sharpening images. I use USM to sharpen, but I’ll give this a try tonight. I wonder if it’d be possible to write a GIMP plugin to do everything described in that tutorial?

The Digital Journalist – November 2004

The latest issue of the excellent The Digital Journalist is out now! There’s a feature presentation on body painting and tatoos, South Africa plus an opinion piece by James Colburn entitled, “Don’t Ask”.

I hate to tell you this, but we’re screwed. By “we” I don’t just mean photojournalists but journalists in general. And not just the select few that cover the White House but journalists all over the country. You are going to see less, hear less and be able to report less.