Travel Part One

 

I’ve been thinking about life among other things and have come to the conclusion that I am not a person who likes to sit in an office and pound away on a keyboard…

 

Me, I love the outdoors, I love to see country sides, landscapes and seascapes. I love to meet interesting people on their travels around our beautiful country. Why can I not do it then? I think I should! I came to this realisation on my recent trip with my best friend to Mossel Bay.

We had no choice but to stay at a backpackers due to budget constraints and found it to be quite enjoyable. I mean, accommodation is cheap, people are relaxed and friendly and there’s always something interesting happening somewhere that doesn’t cost an arm or a leg to do. So, that is the best way to get around South Africa, or any country for that matter. Sure, there’s that little thing of communal bathrooms and kitchen and if the budget is really tight, you share a room too! Come on, don’t be anti-social now…  

Rock pool, created from the beating of the waves and rough tides, Dana Bay didn't present much for me, but then again, I wasn't really feeling up to doing any deep searching.

Some colourful holiday homes for the fortunate few. Great l ittle spot just minutes outside Mossel Bay

2nd Beach, Dana Bay, 20 minutes from Mossel Bay.



Holiday spot just a few minutes outside Mossel Bay





Nature Reserve outside Calvinia



Old derelict roadside stall.

You know, it’s not always about getting to point B as quickly as possible, there’s also that thing of taking in the country side around you. Stopping to stretch the legs every so often is not a bad thing at all… 

A "road works" stop-n-go presented this goled gem in the late afternoon.

The sense of freedom as you drive, wondering what lies ahead.

The spectacular view of driving through the mountain passes of Western Cape.

A barn we spotted thanks to "road works". I loved the contrasting colours of the storm clouds in the distance with the warm sun shining onto the barn and surrounding fields.



 

Beauty In The Storm... This was spotted whilst returning to Cape Town, as taken without any editing, besides to resize for web purposes. Words cannot describe the sense of space, seeing the light in the storm. I risked getting my camera wet for this shot, but I think it was worth it.





Hotel in Hermanus has a great sea view with access to a rocky beach below.

The view from the rocky side of Hermanus Beach looking up to the tourist spots.
 



The beauty of Hermanus

  

These images are just a small part of what South Africa has to offer…

Spotted this whale swimming at The Point, Mossel Bay.



 

Calvinia, a town of neglect as this image shows. This old building doesn't seem like it trades anymore. Been there on two seperate occasions and it was still closed.
 

 These two chaps are just two of the people that still reside in Calvinia. On the left, an ex-convict who spent enough years (as he put it) in a cell on Robben Island, right, just a friendly chap who travelled the Cape with "the whites" until they left him behind in Calvinia.

 

 

 

The view from a look-out at VanRhyn's Pass that borders Western and Northern Cape.

In Black And White.

Greayscale, as it is also known, is sometimes a great way to express mood or just enhance an image. Other times, it's just a way to better handle an image that was maybe shot with the wrong settings... Best part of only seeing the B&W image is, you'll never know... 

I would take my camera for a walk around the neighbourhood to see what would catch my eye.

Spotted this little car parked so perfectly on the side of the road, couldn't resist but to spend a few minutes to best compose the image and still grab all that I want from the shot.

I did do some post processing to enhance the mood and atmosphere.

This was just a pop of thought, I spotted this leaf wedged in between two planks and it immediately planted a thought into my head. A thought of being trapped, waiting for that one thing that would free it. Sometimes, all of us can relate...

This kid, watched him for quite a while, spends his days outside a local KFC in hopes of some food, or money. Always happy, even when he is ignored by passers by, he still enjoys himself and his dog.

Here, sportsmen practice, even though they don't have the best facilities, they make do with what they have and overlook the things that could bring them down.

Sometimes, the road can lead one's mind astray...

Sometimes, it's what's on the side of the road that catches the eye, we should not be too hasty o get to our destination, but to rather enjoy the journey.

Out on the beach, the weather can play a major role in your image, in this case the wind blowing the clouds over the peak of Signal Hill, Cape Town, made for a great, dramatic image.

My 74-300mm kit lens working hard to get the best capture it can from Blouberg Beach.

Technically, this image is wrong, technically (referring to rule-of-thirds etc.). But, as art, it's perfect... do like the scale though of the ship, the stadium and the mountain.

Ah yes, this one caught my eye... I liked the shape of the rock, that near foot-like shape intrigued me. I noticed all the tiny shells lying around there, that could easily end up underfoot. I neatly placed a few on the rock and worked around the sunlight to get a great image. This is the result...

Close-ups can also create great pieces of art. In this case, a bee collecting pollen was readily captured. Of course, it came down to flipping the camera from landscape to portrait until the composition was right. This was the final result of many shots while chasing the bee around the flowers.

On the beach again, I managed to cach this gull just after snatching up a mussel shell. He'd fly up, and then drop it from a height to try and get it to crack open. He succeeded and enjoyed a great lunch.

Well, that's it for this episode, will follow up with some more soon again. Still trying to pick out some good ones and share a little secret with you guys.

Cheers for now.

Seascapes

So yes, I got myself a Sony Alpha A200 camera and had to learn to use it. I set out to finally capture some beaches, some sunsets and amongst all this other things too. I would set out at sunset, or sunrise to capture some of nature's beauty... Below is a taste of things to come from my lovely little A200.

Creating Fantasy

So I've been a little quiet on the editing side of this blog. Wording the how-to's has been my mental block. But good news, some interesting reading without imaghes on the steps to follow...

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So, I was driving the Longtom Pass, Mpumalanga from Sabie to Lydenburg. It was along these lovely winding turns and bends that I watched as the sun set. Fortunate for me, winding these roads and having many a place to appreciate, I spotted this gem. A once off, a must-stop, rolled passed, quickly reversed and bounded out the car. Surveyed the area to see what sort of composition I could get out of this and well... after snapping here and there, crouching, stretching, tilting and eventually kneeling did I get the "luck shot" (only took me around a dozen attempts). Sun was perfectly positioned, The khaki weeds and this fire stricken tree all sitting uh, I mean, standing just right, allowing a channel through leaving the peak of the mountain and the sun well, near perfect.

Um, before I continue, the clouds you see, they're not clouds. There was in fact a huge fire just north of this location and it was churning smoke in masses. Oh man, this created such a perfect scene. Gave it drama, mood and a great breaker between the remains of the day and the beginning of night... Shot at 1/250 sec exposure, aperture F8 and ISO 100 while exposure bias remained 0. Yeah, off camera looks good... but I like rich, bold colours, it's my thing so you know what's going to happen next, right? Right.

So, in Photoshop(R) I just played around with the contrast/brightness and the usual shadow/highlights, like always. Am I getting predictable? Hope not... So with a few added layers, I adjusted the sky, Toned the hot-spot known as the sun and adjusts the curves just a pinch.

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Yeah, so now it's nice, but if you've read some of my other posts, you'll know, nice isn't enough. I WANT MORE!! MWAHAHAHAAAaaaa... erm... okay, Dr. Evil laugh doesn't work for me either.

Anyways, back to task. Here goes...

1: Lighten the foreground... New (soft) layer, painted with white where needed. Remember to trim the excess if need be to add to the feel. You'll get the hang of it of you practice enough.

2: Darken the sky... What for? Because I said so, this is my pic and that's what I've done :). Okay, seriously, it was done to add to the mood of the image (these whit and black layers also double as dodge and burn). So, another soft light layer, painted black over the areas I wanted darker. Remember again, trim off the excess, there will be overflow (I did this to keep the outer area darker than the center closer to the sun to help draw the eye into the image). Don't use 100% eraser, keep it to around 30%, this way you can still get a nice blend and effect.

3: Start adding objects... For this one, I added a crow from a failed attempt at getting a BIF (Bird In Flight), positioned just right can make or break an image. Furtuantely for me, this one had blue sky all around so cutting it out was easy. Painted it black to get the silhouette. I duplicated the layer, blured that layer and set it to soft light. This creats a sense of OOF (Out Of Focus) and adds to the sense of motion. Now add another soft light layer and get your white paint ready, set to around 30-40% opacity. I did this to accentuate certain parts of the bird just slightly, creating depth and perspective.

4: Continue addining objects... Don't overkill on things added... if you have a good image, you don't want to destroy it altogether, just make it interesting. The planet/moon/anything else you might think it is was diffilultly easy. No, seriously, to get the angle, placement and lighting right, can be a challenge. What I did here, was to add a new layer, get a big white solid brush and smack it down, like a stamp, boom. Now I have a white dot on my image (removeable layer of course) which needed lots of tweaking. Step one, a soft brush eraser, around the same size as the paint spot. Cool, getting there... now I have a nice white crest sort of thing that fades, pretty much like the moon would... so, with this eraser (now reduced drastically in size and opacity) I dabbed the remains here and there (with different size brushes) until I'd creted some nice uh, let's call them craters... but, it's STILL WHITE!! That's just not going to do! Easy fix, eyedropper tool, picked an orange from my sunset and back to paint. I added a new layer again, soft light of course (don't worry about the white spot, getting back to that) and spread a soft brush of orange over the white, remeber to erase the excess, it looks funny if you don't. Awesome, looks good. Back to the previous layer again for final adjustments. This time, I played with the master opacity and master fill opacity to get the blend done. So that's it. Done.

Oh, wait!

5: Lens Flair... Good point, I nearly forgot. Okay, I duplicated the backround layer, added the lens flair (try make sure you get the position right or it will look out of sorts and make no sense). Once I had that done, it seemed odd, ah yes, eraser again, to trim it off the foreground some, the reason for that was so I could reduce the opacity and still keep the foreground. This also helped to make the flairs seem more distant than they should... adds mistery amd intrigue.

So, I'm done, the results are below. I hope I got you interested, if not, sorry... ask me and I'll go into my archives and try fill in the blanks.

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Share this on Twitter, or Facebook, tell your friends and get the word out on cool tricks.

Roadsides of South Africa

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You know, travelling a lot can get quite tedious, boring and tiring… very tiring. But, if you have camera at hand, it changes everything just that little bit. Well, for me it does...

You see, I take some of the most boring roads in South Africa and seem to find beauty in them. It is finding the exceptional in the ordinary that makes the many hours in the car so worthwhile.

My secret? I challenge myself, if I can put it that way. What I do is look ahead, still watching the road, but also the sun’s position, time of day, and the scenery. If I spot something up ahead, I start to plan what’s around it, where can I stop, how is the lighting etc… if It all seems okay, I’ll slow down, double check my surroundings and the safety of the stop. If all plays out, stop, hazards on, get out and walk around to find the best composition.

Then I take a few shots, different angles etc because I still don’t get it right the first time and one take is never enough.

I have travelled quite a few roads and have impressed many people with my images.

Look, sometimes, I do the quick runaround thing because I do have timelines and thus get the images either under or over exposed but usually nothing that a little Photoshop can’t uh, fix.

So, next time you’re planning a short drive of more than an hour or between two cities with open countryside, look around, then look some more. Pull over, take a breather, sometimes you see things you wouldn’t usually see when you’re next to the car stretching your legs…

Bear in mind, these images are all shot with a compact camera.