lone tree on Christmas day

Another picture from the same Christmas day sunset shoot as the previously blogged snowman. I knelt down in the snow for this shot, and used the same Cokin mild ND2 graduated filter as before. Processing was simple, and with the addition of a slight clone-over, removed the distracting buildings behind the tree.

Base copy slight HDR enhancement in CS5 - Multiply @ 15%
Base copy slight HDR enhancement in CS5 - Soft Light @ 23% over snow only - sky brushed away.
Dawn Grunge - Soft Light @ 100%
Matmos Lake - Soft Light @ 100% Flipped vertically and horizontally, smoothed. Colour changed to a 'Lime green' with colour sliders.

See it bigger on Flickr

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Jamie Heiden interview

Introducing Jamie Heiden a favorite illustrative texturiser!
"Jamie lives in rural Wisconsin with her husband and two children.
They have two horses, two goats, two dogs, three cats,
ten chickens and a corresponding amount of chores to be done".
To coincide with her fabulous new book, we thought we'd do a short interview!

You use flypaper textures expertly (we notice:-), can you share any tips for their use with our readers?

Out of my texture collection, the Flypaper Textures are the most refined so there are occasions where I simply layer one on top of an image, adjust the mode and that's it. The new 'edges' pack offers another dimension to the whole collection and combines really well with the first two packs. So, many of my images end up having more than one texture applied. But I also do a lot of playing with opacity, hue and saturation too, making subtle changes until I achieve the desired result. Often times when I am just about to scrap an image and start over, in one final effort I try a more drastic adjustment and it turns out to be exactly what was needed. So, don't be afraid to play around and experiment.

What kind of Camera set-up do you use?

I shoot most often in natural light, preferring diffused and cloudy days of course. I'm a loyal Nikon user...my first camera being a Nikon FG but right now I mainly use my D300 with a wide angle lens. Although I do love my 50 mm too.

What inspires you?

Simplicity. That's the best way I know how to answer that.

Which post processing program/s do you use?

I've just upgraded to Photoshop CS3 from basic CS. My darkroom is filled with cobwebs now because I can do everything and more here on my computer.

Your new softcover book Horizon Lines "pictures that have words on the horizon"
Can you offer a short intro?
This book is a small soft cover collection of 23 of my "horizon line" images. I wrapped them together with a little piece of a story asking the question, "Who am I?"

Horizon Lines

A Book of Photograp...

By Jamie Heiden

Book Preview

"Can you offer our readers any venues where they can see your photographic prints for sale?"
Upcoming shows etc? Links etc?

If you're ever in Wisconsin and would like to check out some of my images in person, please visit my website for specifics....there you can find some great coffee shops, art fairs and even a gallery show coming in 2011! Any questions about purchasing prints can be answered there too.

Thank you Jamie! :)

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Road to the Sky

This was taken at the top of the Old Man Range, the mountain range that overlooks Alexandra and is over 6000 metres. There's a very steep road to the top, put in to service a TV transmitter. Going up there is like visiting a whole new world, it's remarkably flat on the top with the occasional huge rock tor rising out of the ground. The landscape at first glance looks barren but there are a multitude of low growing alpine plants, low growing because of the extreme climate, it's very exposed and windy and nothing on the top "plain" grows more than a few centimetre high. In winter it's covered in snow, and when we were up there in midsummer there were still patches of snow in the valleys.

This is one of the many photos I took up there....
All the textures I used were from the second pack.
Lavender Skies @Overlay 69% This is a remarkably versatile texture. I used it in this case to lighten up the under exposed foreground. Some of the texture was removed from the sky using a mask.
Beowulf @ Overlay 100 %
Algae @ Soft Light 75%
Algae @ Overlay 33 %

This combination gave a soft watercolour look to the landscape (which looks much better bigger than the small version you see here or on flickr).

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Three routes into mist

Another misty 'Canal du Midi' shot, just west of Beziers,
our famous local French Atlantic coast to the French Mediterranean sea connection. One of the main reasons for its being built was to avoid having to sail around Spain.
Because just over two hundred years ago those pesky Spanish Pirates were quite a problem!
This in turn brought wealth to the wine producers in this area,
further unimagined riches came with the railways, over a hundred years later.
But that's another story..

The beautiful mile upon mile of huge poplar trees were planted to give the pulling horses and barge drivers some shade and help stop the canal water from overheating and thus turning stagnant in our hot summers.
Hope you're taking notes as there will be a test later! :-)

First of all, try the Curves option to bring out more light.
This picture is made from 4 images joined together in 'Autopanopro'
As always, I list from the base texture up.
Apple blush - Opacity - soft light @ 18%
Raw Linen - Opacity - Hard Light @ 29%
Caramel Soft - Opacity - Soft Light @ 100%
Caramel Soft - Opacity - Overlay @ 17%

La tour romane

This 10th century Franco Roman tower is just outside the medieval village of Puissalicon.
Its just a short 10 min drive north from my coastally situated Beziers.
known as a veritable masterpiece of Romanesque art in Languedoc.
Its 4.3m wide and stands at 26m.
It was built as a bell tower for the church of Saint Etienne de Peazan priory.
These buildings are now lost in the mists of time, probably during the wars of religion. All that remains is a fragment of an arch top, left on display at the base of the tower. This tour is one of the most precious monuments of the region of Beziers.

I was very lucky to find this tour bathed in a biblical light, seeing this site much as the original 10th century Gallo-Romano people saw it.

Shot with a polarizor, using just 3 simple flypaper textures.
For the PP I upped the colour/brightness values and then used these textures:

Apple Blush with Soft light opacity @ 100%
Caramel Soft with Soft light opacity @ 100%
Orient Express with Overlay opacity @ 43%, Fill @ 72%

When I don't add the'Fill level', Its left at 100%.
If you have no Fill, you can just ignore this slider setting.

To see the full landscape version, please go to my Paul Grand flickr site!

Gilded

This is in the south of France in my local languedoc area.
There were many old windmills, but these are fast disappearing.
This one overlooks my old village as seen from a farmers side road.
I'd never seen it before the other evening!

For this bucolic sunset scene I used three flypaper textures,
two of them doubled.
Bruised Saffron Soft light Opacity @ 71% Fill 62%
Bruised Saffron Soft light Opacity @ 23% Fill 45%
Necropolis Soft light Opacity @100% Fill 79%
Apple Blush Overlay @ 71%
Apple Blush Soft light Opacity @ 100% Fill 83%
To finish I adjusted the Hue/Saturation colour,
which can be found at the top.
Image-adjustments-Hue/Saturation.
I didn't do much, I just helped the sky colour become slightly greener.

Once again you'll see I cloned out an object in the bottom left-hand corner!:-)
And if you'd like to see the full size landscape image,
please look at my 'Paul Grand' on flickr!