Tag: Jon Eland

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Posted on by Nick Roberts
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This image is another one from the NuLu Photowalk with Jon Eland last Saturday. I was photographing the facade of the building at Gittings Bedding on Market Street when I noticed this fellow looking out the door. I started photographing him as he stood there for what seemed a very long time watching me. At some point he flipped the OPEN sign to CLOSED and I thought he would close the door but instead he continued to watch me. I continued to shoot until he stepped back inside and closed the door.

I processed this image in Topaz Adjust using Spicify as my initial preset. I dialed it down quite a bit in order to preserve a realistic sense to the image while still intensifying the contrast and colors in the photo. The sun was shining directly on the building but through using the detail slider and other adjustments I was able to show the texture of his shirt and the brick on the building.

Photowalk Discovery

Posted on by Nick Roberts
A Herd of Insects?

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The past Saturday I joined 25 other Louisville photographers for a photowalk with Jon Eland who was visiting Louisville for IdeaFestival. Jon is from Leeds, England which is a sister city with Louisville. As a rule I am not a group shooter, I prefer to go out alone when I do my photography, but after attending a lecture that Jon gave to the PhotoForum camera club here in Louisville last Wednesday I decided to join the group for Jon’s NuLu Fest photowalk. I’m glad I did because the interaction with other photographers led me to some interesting subject matter that I probably wouldn’t have seen such as these insects on the corner of a building on Market Street in the NuLu district of Louisville.

Deborah Brownstein, one of Louisville’s finest macro photographers, pointed these insects out to me as I was walking past Joe Ley Antiques. I was focused on the vast amount of stuff that was outside his shop and walked right past these guys. Deb showed me these insects and immediately I knew that I had to capture a few images of them. I liked the contrast of their red bodies on the green wall and the pattern that they made. I have no idea what they are but I am fascinated by the various stages of growth they appear to be in. Judging by the wings some have matured into full size while other smaller ones are just starting to grow their wings.

Yesterday I decided to start editing the images from the photowalk and the first one I went to was this image. I decided to use Topaz Adjust to enhance the color and detail in the shot. I used to use Topaz Adjust a lot but had drifted away in favor of the NIK collection of software. I decided to use Topaz Adjust 5 and the “Spicify” preset as my point of departure and tweaked several sliders in it to finish this image. I like the controls in Topaz Adjust when I’m editing because they allow me to complete my edit without returning the image to Aperture 3 for sharpening and final output. Everything I need is inside TopazAdjust including sharpening which is something I generally have to return images to Aperture 3 for when using the NIK software.