Opus104 Photography

David Padgett — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 04:09:44 +0000

771., originally uploaded by Opus104.

David Padgett — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 02:52:47 +0000

719., originally uploaded by Opus104.

This is an architectural detail from the Metropolitan Museum in New York, displaying the cascading arches that are prominent in the main lobby. The texture overlay on the image is actually a photo of a gold leaf ceiling inside the Radio City Music Hall in New York. This texture layer was also used as a frame for the image.

adjacence

David Padgett — Thu, 22 May 2008 02:16:34 +0000

712. adjacence, originally uploaded by Opus104.

David Padgett — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 02:50:14 +0000

566., originally uploaded by Opus104.

David Padgett — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 12:49:53 +0000

528., originally uploaded by Opus104.

This shiny trumpet has never been played – it was taken out of the case for the first time for this shoot. I found the trumpet to be a difficult item to photograph. The reflective surface and irregular shape presents problems with hotspots, and finding the right composition was also challenging.

For this particular shot, the trumpet was placed on a trumpet stand and set on a table in front of a black background. I chose to use side lighting, so that the hot spots would emphasize the length of the instrument. The main light was provided by a light table set on its side, and a white foam core board was used as a fill on the other side. The only post-processing for the image was a sight crop and and increase of levels on the caps of the valves, which were a bit underlit.

Lines and Squares

David Padgett — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 01:10:27 +0000

246. Lines and Squares, originally uploaded by Opus104.

This is a train shot taken at the Orangeville Brampton Railway in Orangevile, Canada. As railways go, this one is pretty small – 3 cars, and one run per week. This particular shot is an exercise in composition.

The square frame reflects the square window, and there is repetition of several lines. The four vertical lines are strong and prominent and provide the main focus. There are also four horizontal lines which are much less discernible: two lines of rippled metal along the side of the train, and the two black lines of the letterbox frame. Altogether, then, there are 8 lines, which balance the 8 sides of two squares.

David Padgett — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 12:02:24 +0000

525., originally uploaded by Opus104.

This setup for this image was fairly simple. A portable lightbox was setup on a table and used as a backdrop and light source. The glass was carefully framed and then photographed. Photoshop was used to crop to square, and to adjust levels to bring up the white. The blue is the actual colour of the glass.

Equipment: Nikon D200, Sigma 80-300 lens, tripod, light table

Exposure : f29, 0.4 sec., ISO 100

Massey

David Padgett — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 00:50:49 +0000

130. Massey, originally uploaded by Opus104.

David Padgett — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 11:19:05 +0000

377., originally uploaded by Opus104.

Title: “Opposing Schools of Architecture”

This image is a photo manipulation based on two source images. The image was created several months ago, so the following processing details are not precise.

The building in the image is First Canadian Place in downtown Toronto. Built in 1975, and 72 stories high, it is the tallest office building in Canada. The photo was taken from the sidewalk at the corner of the building, looking straight up.

In Photoshop, the sky was separated from the building and then deleted. The building was then cloned five times. Each copy of the building was distorted individually using the twirl command, and then positioned on the canvas (which was made considerably larger to avoid loss of resolution).

Colour treatment of the building involved inverting to a negative, and then adding a strong colour photo filter.

The second source image used was a beautiful orange, cloud-filled sunset. The sky was much to realistic and much to orange as it was, so a gaussian blur was added, and the colours were shifted to blue.

David Padgett — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 05:44:06 +0000

522., originally uploaded by Opus104.

Brandy Snifter.

This image from my “Kitchen Table Studio” was shot with natural light. I have a large patio door (about 5ft wide and 8 ft high) that is north facing and provides good soft light for most of the afternoon.

The glass was set on a white foamcore board. The camera was positioned so that there were no direct reflections, leaving the glass clear, and the edges furthest from the window dark. The only post-processing was a levels adjustments to make the whites a little brighter.

Equipment: Nikon D200; Sigma 80-300mm lens (set at 300mm), tripod

Exposure: f32, 5 sec., ISO 100