Often times, I go out knowing what I want to shoot and how I want to shoot it only to return with something completely different. This was the case last weekend when I went down to Newport Beach to make some long exposure photographs of the Balboa Pier. I arrived at the pier Saturday morning only to find the area already full of summer visitors. I took a detour down to the end of Balboa Peninsula and walked back along the beach towards the pier. While walking, I turned my attention to the ocean and started making images of the huge waves crashing along the beach. I have always been fascinated by the breaking of waves and I ended up spending the morning creating photographs that could convey the movement and power of the ocean. While the photographs turned out completely different than what I set out to make, they did give me an idea for a new project. Here are three of my favorites from this recent outing.
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VSCO Film vs Fujifilm Digital
I've been using VSCO Film 02 for a week now and so far I like the results of the images I processed using the presets. Only time will tell whether or not I grow tired of the look the presets produce. The nice thing about the film pack and accompanying toolkits, however, is that they make it easy to dial back on "the look". The adjustments bundled into the film pack and two toolkits for Lightroom each have various versions which let me fine tune my edits quickly and easily. After a week, one of the biggest benefits I've noticed is that the presets speed up the editing process while allowing me to maintain a high level of consistency from image to image. True, I could have saved my money and created presets myself that gave me the look I was after. But sometimes, it's worth the investment to let someone else do part of the work for you, especially when they do it as well as VSCO has done here.
Here's a set of images I shot yesterday and edited using the Fuji Superia 100 preset. For comparison, I also included the JPEGs processed by the Fujifilm X-Pro1 using the built in Astia film simulation mode. (For each set of images, the RAW files edited using VSCO Film are on the right while the out of camera JPEGs are on the left.)
Fuji, VSCO Film, and the Salton Sea
I haven't been able to get out to shoot the past couple weeks so I've been spending a lot of time combing through the archives. What I've come to realize is that my style of shooting hasn't changed much over the past five years. The thing that has varied quite a bit has been my post processing. While I still lean towards creating very high contrast images, the vibrancy of those images seems to have decreased. From comparing my current photographs to those in the past, I can see a definite change in my work.
This change may be partly attributed to my purchase of the Fujifilm X100 last year because I really like its film simulation modes. I like them so much in fact that I shot JPEGs using (mostly) the Astia film simulation mode for almost a year. Now that I'm shooting more and more with the X-Pro1, I find myself slowly shifting into shooting RAW+JPEG, something I've never done. This is partly because I want the extra data in the RAW files for my long exposure photographs and partly because I like the option of getting more creative with my post processing.
This brings me to the latest tool in my post processing toolkit, VSCO Film. Having gone back and forth for weeks, I finally took the plunge today and purchased the classic films (02) presets for Lightroom. My first impression is that the presets are much more subtle than I thought they would be, and that's a good thing. I was a little worried that they would give my images that over-processed look that I just don't like. Having used it to re-edit a few of my old images, I can say that is certainly not the case. The presets altered my images just enough to provide the look of film without making them look over processed. To give you an idea, here are a couple images I made of my friend's dog, Charley, back in 2010 at the Salton Sea. Both photographs were shot using my Canon 40D and a Lensbaby Composer and edited using the Fuji Superia 100++ preset.
The Sound of the Shutter
Sometimes I just need to hear the sound of the shutter. It's one of those odd things that I can't really explain and few people would understand, but there's just something soothing about hearing the sound of the shutter. We're spending this weekend at home so that means no excursions to the beach, or trips to a museum. These images are a good reminder that there are photographs to be made everywhere, even on our own little balcony.
Experimenting with Color Efex Pro
A lot of the images I've been sharing recently have been black and white conversions from Silver Efex Pro. Partly because I've been trying to refine my conversions with the new plugin and partly because I've been quite focused on long exposure photography. To give myself a break from the black and white conversions, I did a bit of experimenting with one of the other plugins from the Nik Collection I purchased back in March; Color Efex Pro 4.
Editing in Color Efex Pro 4
As you can see, the interface of Color Efex Pro is very similar to Silver Efex Pro. The difference is that Color Efex Pro allows you to stack multiple filters, much like Nik's mobile app; Snapseed. Having used Snapseed for a while now, I felt right at home making adjustments and adding filters in Color Efex Pro. The great thing about Nik's plugins is that they let me get in and out of them quickly. Since the interface is simple and straightforward, I can make my edits in a few minutes and be back in Lightroom to fine tune my images for export.
I must admit I was a little overwhelmed at first with all the filters available in Color Efex Pro. But after I narrowed my selection down to the filters in the Landscape category, I was able to find some that worked well for the images I was editing. A couple of my favorites thus far are the Detail Extractor and Sunlight filters. I've only spent a few hours with Color Efex Pro, but now that I've given it a chance, I'm sure I'll be using it more and more. Here are a few photographs from a recent trip to Corona del Mar that I edited in Color Efex Pro this evening.
