December 28, 2013

the world of smoke and mirrors


click photo for full-size image
photo by Donald Kinney

When I first showed this photo (taken December 5) on Facebook, I didn't explain until a few hours into the deception that the bottom half of the photo was indeed a bit of Photoshop trickery. Oh, I just couldn't resist. The idea came from our local community access TV station that has been showing a mirrored image of the Marin Civic Center which looks, for all intents and purposes, just like a perfect reflection coming off of the nearby lagoon.

Of course, in my photo here of the City, I gave the lower half a bit of a ripple effect, as well as stretching it a bit to make it look a bit more realistic. In reality I doubt if the bay ever has that smooth of a surface.



click photo for full-size image
photo by Donald Kinney

So anyway, all of this tom-foolery reminded me of a website I did from March 2005 to May 2011, where each and every day I would pair a square image with a rectangular image. The "Daily Duo", and while I had great fun producing it each and every morning I doubt if more than a few people actually followed the site on a regular basis.



click photo for full-size image
photo by Donald Kinney

It wasn't long before I discovered that sometimes with just one image, I could take a square section of a the left side of a rectangular image, reverse that, then join the square with the rectangle.



click photo for full-size image
photo by Donald Kinney

Depending on the subject, sometimes the technique worked and sometimes it didn't. In any case, I had g-r-e-a-t  f-u-n with the "Daily Duo", which I believe is the whole point of not only photography, but life in general.


Photographing Marin County - the exhibit and book


3 comments:

Zoomie said...

Today, you could almost have gotten that San Francisco shot without the trickery - the bay was like a sheet of satin all day. And likely to be the same tomorrow - if you are on the bay side of the world, you could get some amazing photos.

Anonymous said...

Great pictures! Very interesting!

Nancy Ewart said...

Let me quote one of your favorite photographers: “You don't make a photograph just with a camera. You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved.”
― Ansel Adams

So it's not "just" photoshopped. You bring to each photo a heck of a lot more than a program.

 
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