Tag: composite images

The Cosmic Photo Challenge: Repetition.

On By dalecooper57In arts, editing and effects, photography19 Comments

Good morning, everyone, I hope you had a pleasant and relaxing weekend, now it’s time to get down to the serious business of The Cosmic Photo Challenge.

The theme this week was inspired by my first photo, of a line of identical, half-machined bearing housings at work; Repetition.

But on Saturday I thought of a more creative spin on the prompt, an idea which ended up taking several hours to complete, but which produced some rather striking results.

I decided to multiply individual elements of perfectly ordinary scenes, to create the surreal masterpieces you see below. This involved taking a copy of the original picture, painstakingly removing everything but the chosen object (by precision fingertip erasing on my tablet), then manually repositioning each copy back onto the original.

These are the cutouts I created from the original photos

This was complicated enough, of course, without giving myself the extra work of adding in multiple reflections and re-adding an overhanging branch into not one but two overlapping layers of images, just to give that extra look of convincing unrealism.

I have to say I’m extremely pleased at how they came out, you’ll notice I even blanked out a couple of neighbourhood car number plates, a touch I was especially amused by.

Ok, back in the real world, what repeats did you manage to capture..?

*****

To get involved with the challenge; check out the Cosmic Photo Prompt each Friday, then post a photo (or photos) on your blog the following Monday, with a pingback link to my Monday post.
Tag your posts with #CosPhoChal.

Any and all effects, editing, Photoshop, Instagram, morphing, collages, animation, gifs, or whatever other post production techniques you fancy are permitted, (in fact, they’re actively encouraged!) so get creative and turn your photos into artworks for the Cosmic Photo Challenge

The Cosmic Photo Challenge: Patterns in black and white.

On By dalecooper57In arts, editing and effects, photography9 Comments

Good morning, welcome to the best start to the week, The Cosmic Photo Challenge, which today is themed around the prompt; Patterns in black and white.

There’s also a bonus Art for art’s sake photo, because I couldn’t resist.

I walked from home to Tesco and back on Saturday morning and captured the many different types of iron inspection covers there are on the pavements, along with some zig-zag brick paving and two differently constructed walls.

But we’ll start with a simple shot of a drainage grate which, when I got home and first looked at it, reminded me of a tower block against a cloudy sky, reflected in a puddle.

So, hold that thought…

An interesting experiment:
These are the machined ends of aluminium blocks at work. Now, if I had told you they were the ends of sawn timber, would you have known they were silver and not pine-coloured?
This is an enhanced “height map” image of the stone wall in the second image.

And now the extra picture I couldn’t resist making, for which I decided, in keeping with the prompt, I would use black and white, with just a touch of colour for effect.

I’m not sure how good my upload resolution is, but I think all the details should be visible if you zoom in on larger screens.

There are 26 separate images in this collage, including; 5 squirrels, 7 pigeons, a dalek, a bee, 4 of me and the moon.

Now let’s see how your pattern recognition projects went over the weekend…

*****

To get involved with the challenge; check out the Cosmic Photo Prompt each Friday, then post a photo (or photos) on your blog the following Monday, with a pingback link to my Monday post.
Tag your posts with #CosPhoChal.

Any and all effects, editing, Photoshop, Instagram, morphing, collages, animation, gifs, or whatever other post production techniques you fancy are permitted, (in fact, they’re actively encouraged!) so get creative and turn your photos into artworks for the Cosmic Photo Challenge

The Cosmic Photo Challenge: Shooting through.

On By dalecooper57In arts, editing and effects, photography9 Comments

Good morning, all you lovely people, I hope you enjoyed the weekend, whatever you chose to do with it. Hopefully your plans included space for The Cosmic Photo Challenge and this week’s theme; Shooting through.

To recap the needlessly cryptic prompt, it simply refers to taking your photos through something; windows, doors, pipes, under bridges, tunnels, holes in, well, anything I suppose.

You get the idea.

But I didn’t do any of those things.

Well, I kind of did, then I had another idea and decided to use both.

Anyway, my original photos were shot through tunnels of trees, gaps in hedgerows, between fence panels, my front and back door, I even tried one through a metal egg ring.

And my other idea had been to use photos of windows and doors as frames for unusual views of something you wouldn’t have expected to see, so it seemed obvious to me that I should combine the two.

You honestly would not believe how long it took to edit all the small details. No AI or Photoshop here, all done with overlays and fingertip erasing of backgrounds on my phone. I have included copies of the original views for reference.  ;~}

It’s amazing how the human eye and brain can detect tiny inconsistencies in edited images, which then spoils the entire illusion. So I include often difficult to achieve, yet almost unnoticeable details (just the plants and leaves overlapping the door and window frames in the first two took about half an hour each), because it tricks the eye into blending the two images together in your head.

What apertures did you capture your contributions through this week..?

*****

To get involved with the challenge; check out the Cosmic Photo Prompt each Friday, then post a photo (or photos) on your blog the following Monday, with a pingback link to my Monday post.
Tag your posts with #CosPhoChal.

Any and all effects, editing, Photoshop, Instagram, morphing, collages, animation, gifs, or whatever other post production techniques you fancy are permitted, (in fact, they’re actively encouraged!) so get creative and turn your photos into artworks for the Cosmic Photo Challenge

The Cosmic Photo Challenge: Art for art’s sake.

On By dalecooper57In arts, editing and effects, photography10 Comments

Good morning, welcome to a bank holiday edition of The Cosmic Photo Challenge, which this week concentrates on creativity, with the prompt; Art for art’s sake.

I spent a few hours yesterday, making one of my surreal collages from so many photos, I lost track of the number I used, but there are lots. I had particular fun with the reflections in this one…

Where did your artistic muse take you this week..?

*****

To get involved with the challenge; check out the Cosmic Photo Prompt each Friday, then post a photo (or photos) on your blog the following Monday, with a pingback link to my Monday post.
Tag your posts with #CosPhoChal.

Any and all effects, editing, Photoshop, Instagram, morphing, collages, animation, gifs, or whatever other post production techniques you fancy are permitted, (in fact, they’re actively encouraged!) so get creative and turn your photos into artworks for the Cosmic Photo Challenge

The Cosmic Photo Challenge: Abstract.

On By dalecooper57In arts, editing and effects, photography9 Comments

Hello there, it’s only two weeks until the holidays, but here at The Cosmic Photo Challenge we haven’t got festive yet, in fact we’re positively vague about the subject of today’s theme; Abstract.

That gave us almost unlimited scope for our photographic offerings this week and I spent a Zen-like couple of hours yesterday creating this abstract collage from strips I cropped from pictures of random objects around the house and other old photos.

Where did your artistic muse lead you this week..?

*****

To get involved with the challenge; check out the Cosmic Photo Prompt each Friday, then post a photo (or photos) on your blog the following Monday, with a pingback link to my Monday post.
Tag your posts with #CosPhoChal.

Any and all effects, editing, Photoshop, Instagram, morphing, collages, animation, gifs, or whatever other post production techniques you fancy are permitted, (in fact, they’re actively encouraged!) so get creative and turn your photos into artworks for the Cosmic Photo Challenge.

The Cosmic Photo Challenge: Art for art’s sake.

On By dalecooper57In editing and effects, photography18 Comments

Well, hello there, how the devil are you all this fine autumn morning? Welcome to another splendiferous edition of The Cosmic Photo Challenge, which today concentrates its creative focus on images that are; Art for art’s sake.

You probably won’t be all that surprised to learn that I stuck with my chosen oeuvre and constructed some photo collages to meet this week’s brief.

I had two initial ideas; firstly to use a shot of the tubular steel rings in my interesting perspective post as concentric frames for three separate images; secondly to try and give the impression of the sea rushing out of an open doorway.

The first concept wasn’t a problem and I was very pleased with how that one came out. It contains 11 individual photos, all painstakingly placed, erased and blended by hand. However, I couldn’t find a suitable shot of a doorway for the second one and, due to my impatience and tendency to get sidetracked, I chose a photo of the pannier market to flood, instead. I believe that one is made from 9 carefully layered components. (Each composition took roughly two hours to complete)

Then on Saturday night, while looking for something completely unconnected, I stumbled upon a perfect candidate for my doorway idea, so I produced a third, bonus collage, which could even be the best of the lot, see what you think.

I think my favourite part of this one is the swan in the clouds
Those stalactites on the ceiling are actually only three inches long
A second appearance by Death (he’s also a stall holder in the market, above), along with my favourite ever bird photo

Where did your artistic muse lead you over the weekend..?

*****

To get involved with the challenge; check out the Cosmic Photo Prompt each Friday, then post a photo (or photos) on your blog the following Monday, with a pingback link to my Monday post.
Tag your posts with #CosPhoChal.

Any and all effects, editing, Photoshop, Instagram, morphing, collages, animation, gifs, or whatever other post production techniques you fancy are permitted, (in fact, they’re actively encouraged!) so get creative and turn your photos into artworks for the Cosmic Photo Challenge.

The Cosmic Photo Challenge: Halloween.

On By dalecooper57In editing and effects, photography9 Comments

Hello and welcome to The Cosmic Photo Challenge, where this week we’re picturing all things; Halloween.

I have to admit I only chose the theme because I know a lot of people around the world celebrate the occasion, so I was relying on the efforts of my neighborhood to provide me with suitable subject matter.

However, when I went out searching for inspiration, not one house in the area had any decorations up, leaving me at a bit of a loss what to do.

So I created a couple of strange Halloween composite selfies, instead. (The “masks” are in fact the giant skull decoration and trick or treat bucket, below)

All Death’d up and nowhere to go
The Spirit Of Halloween is sad nobody is making an effort

Did you have more success finding some spooky images..?

*****

To get involved with the challenge; check out the Cosmic Photo Prompt each Friday, then post a photo (or photos) on your blog the following Monday, with a pingback link to my Monday post.
Tag your posts with #CosPhoChal.

Any and all effects, editing, Photoshop, Instagram, morphing, collages, animation, gifs, or whatever other post production techniques you fancy are permitted, (in fact, they’re actively encouraged!) so get creative and turn your photos into artworks for the Cosmic Photo Challenge.

The Cosmic Photo Challenge: Art for art’s sake.

On By dalecooper57In editing and effects, photography12 Comments

Good morning, welcome to The Cosmic Photo Challenge, which this week is getting all artistic, with the prompt; Art for art’s sake.

I have once again gone for a collage piece, throwing an impromptu festival in my garden at the weekend.

Behold; “CosPhoChalstock”

What inspired creations do you have to share with us..?

*****

To get involved with the challenge; check out the Cosmic Photo Prompt each Friday, then post a photo (or photos) on your blog the following Monday, with a pingback link to my Monday post.
Tag your posts with #CosPhoChal.

Any and all effects, editing, Photoshop, Instagram, morphing, collages, animation, gifs, or whatever other post production techniques you fancy are permitted, (in fact, they’re actively encouraged!) so get creative and turn your photos into artworks for the Cosmic Photo Challenge.

The Cosmic Photo Challenge: Close up.

On By dalecooper57In editing and effects, photography12 Comments

Hello there, welcome to The Cosmic Photo Challenge on another chilly Monday morning, which today is focussed on; Close up.

I started off taking random pictures around the house, then got carried away with editing and made a composite image using some ceramic ornaments, my tablet and an old sunrise photo.

What did you get close to this week..?

*****

To get involved with the challenge; check out the Cosmic Photo Prompt each Friday, then post a photo (or photos) on your blog the following Monday, with a pingback link to my Monday post.
Tag your posts with #CosPhoChal.

Any and all effects, editing, Photoshop, Instagram, morphing, collages, animation, gifs, or whatever other post production techniques you fancy are permitted, (in fact, they’re actively encouraged!) so get creative and turn your photos into artworks for the Cosmic Photo Challenge.

The Cosmic Photo Challenge: Unnatural patterns.

On By dalecooper57In editing and effects, photography7 Comments

Good morning, welcome to Monday and The Cosmic Photo Challenge, which this week is gently prompted by the suggestion that you seek out; Unnatural patterns.

I was going to go out looking for man-made designs at the weekend, but in the end I kept my creative efforts inside, as it was grey, drizzly and freezing outdoors. I didn’t have anything specific in mind so I waited to see what would come to me.

Inspiration strikes in odd places and several of my shots were the result of me washing the dishes, another is one of Rhonda’s recently crocheted blankets and the string ceiling lampshade I’ve featured before was given a makeover with some surreal mucking about.

Now let’s see what results your search for design-inspired images produced…

*****

To get involved with the challenge; check out the Cosmic Photo Prompt each Friday, then post a photo (or photos) on your blog the following Monday, with a pingback link to my Monday post.

Tag your posts with  #CosPhoChal.

Any and all effects, editing, Photoshop, Instagram, morphing, collages, animation, gifs, or whatever other post production techniques you fancy are permitted, (in fact, they’re actively encouraged!) so get creative and turn your photos into artworks for the Cosmic Photo Challenge.