A Picture a day (My 365) . . . Made it to the End!

27th December: Ship Wrecked

Decided to stop off at Dell Quay and grab a shot of this old wreck on my way to stocking up on groceries. Really pleased how it turned out, the light was all over the place today, plus the strong gusts of wind even wobbled the camera on the tripod.

Merged 3 separate exposures in Photomatix to create HDR image, then in Photoshop minor levels, curves tweaks. Noiseware pro filter used to reduce the digital noise introduced by the work in Photomatix. Used Color Efex Pro and Bleach Bypass filter to bring out the fantastic detail in the ship. The key to making it better still is the use of control points to increase and decrease the effect. For example I didn't what the foreground weed and stones to have the bleach bypass effect applied, as it was just too much. So all along the bottom of the image I applied negative control points. I really feel like I'm getting to grips with Color Efex and Silver Efex pro lately. Finally applied a little high pass filter to regain the crispness lost by the noiseware filter.

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28th December: East Beach Cafe

Not your average cafe this, described the Guardian as one of the top 5 beach cafes in the world. East Beach Cafe was completed in June 2007 and has since won more than 20 national and international awards for design, architecture, steelwork, craftsmanship and engineering.

On paper this building was made to be photographed, but I have to say I found it hard to get 'the' shot. I knew before arriving I was going to go for an abstract type shot of the sky and curves and took many shots of that type. But when reviewing the shots at home, I preferred this of a couple (who's daughter had just run inside), as it connects the abstract building to the real world. I also intended to have a colour shot, as the building is a fantastic rust colour, but again I was surprised that I preferred this mono conversion in Silver Efex Pro (used more control points in Silver Efex than ever before, to bring out the detail on the metalwork).

Had a cracking burger inside too ;)

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Another cracker mate. Compo is spot on and the thing looks menacing with the comparatively small people in the shot.
I agree with JD, you've improved a lot during the 365 and personally I'm just clicking the numbers off now.
 
Thanks chaps :)

I'm making best use of my time right now. Sunny day, looked at places nearby for photo potential and then 30 minutes later wife and girls were getting out the car whilst I started snapping away.

I can't wait to just get this over with and concentrate on my family a bit more, lots more photos of my girls next year, as my wife does not like me posting pics of the girls on the internet, so could not shoot them much in my 365.

BTW: I'm thinking of getting a flickr Pro account too, Smugmug galleries look way better than flickr, but there are just so many more people using flickr and you can upload images of up to 20mb in size (right?). You guy's happy with flickr?
 
ShrubMonkey said:
BTW: I'm thinking of getting a flickr Pro account too, Smugmug galleries look way better than flickr, but there are just so many more people using flickr and you can upload images of up to 20mb in size (right?). You guy's happy with flickr?
Click to expand...

Merv doesn't use Flickr really at all, I'm very happy with it. It's really more of a community thing for me. It was the first website I signed onto when I'd just got my camera. Nearly all of my friends now have been made through Flickr. (long story, won't bore you) It has it's good points and bad, but it's the same with anything. You get out what you put in. (y)
 
I'm happy with Flickr, but never had anything else to compare to except a Zenfolio account which I didn't feel served me well from an exposure point of view - far more people look at my shots on Flickr.
 
Thanks Chaps, will sign up for a pro account anyway as it's cheap and I should not need to resize down most of my images (not a problem I had with Smugmug and it's 12mb limit before I got the 5D2). Just need to decide if I need to keep my Smugmug account too.
 
29th December: Little Angel

Something about the eyes of this little angel, a kind of haunting sadness. Took this shot in Chichester Cathedral with the old Canon 350D and nifty fifty.

Been in a happy mood as I got some super feedback on yesterdays shot over on SmugMug (third most popular shot of the day). Anyway just 2 more days to go!!!

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30th December: I can see the light . . . .

Almost there now, one more shot to go. Weather has been awful today, so this is a shot of the stained glass window on our landing, wanted to take a shot of it, since moving in for my 365, so just got in there ;)

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Thanks mate, yeah it's not bad. Having all the windows replaced next month, apart from this one obviously ;)
 
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