ccdn 244 | Project 2 | process

I started to work on the idea of the city skyline versus the kids' blocks last Friday however I didn't like the results - the light was wrong and it was really dull.

The contact is here:

© luckiestwomanalive 2014

And the mini-world that resulted here:

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All of this demonstrated how important getting the 360 degree view is. I went back to square one and started listing the important things I need to do to shoot:

1. Good light;
2. 360 degree panorama;
3. portrait orientation - to ensure a decent amount of sky above and the same in the foreground;
4. tripod - to avoid the dreaded blur and better chance at lining about the images in the merge.

So I went back out on Sunday and did a shoot in Titahi Bay that better represents what I would like to do for my project. They have great colourful boat sheds there that echo the blocks I have been thinking about.

The contact from that shoot is here:

© luckiestwomanalive 2014

They resulted in a much better miniworld:

© luckiestwomanalive 2014

But I knew I could do a bit better so I put all the images into LightRoom and amped up the colour, contrast  etc so that I could better emphasise the colourful, playful aspect of my project. The light was bright on the day - I shot it at midday- and this seemed to work in my favour. I also took out 2 blurred shots and replaced them (you can see them in the pre-LightRoom shot but not in the new one below) Luckily I shot the panorama two times, although it meant the merge did not work quite as well this time because Photoshop had to work harder to match the edges which led to more clone-stamping on my part.

I can also see the value of using HDR techniques we have been learning but wonder at how I can shoot quick enough to avoid he cloud movement thing.

By the way, clouds are good! much easier to clone-stamp than blue sky.

Anyway... Ta-dah! Here is the final version (so far):

© luckiestwomanalive 2014

I did a better job at cloning this but I need schooling in the gradient technique to improve the final product.

Oh and just for fun I did a reverse miniworld:

© luckiestwomanalive 2014