The Process
The Discovery
I’ve been active in Digital Photography for about 2 years now (I wasn’t exactly an early-adopter), but once I discovered some of the more unorthodox uses for my camera I have immersed myself in the possibilities of digital photography and image processing.
All my shooting is done with a Nikon CoolPix 5400 (no longer in production). It’s a middle-of-the-road digital camera. Not exactly high-end, but not a pocket point-and-shoot either. Initially I liked it for general use, and began using its modest macro capabilities to shoot close-up still life photos.
It wasn’t until I was out one evening shooting pictures at a local racetrack that I, quite by accident, discovered a quirk in the auto-settings on the camera. I was experimenting with a variety of settings and lighting conditions, and found that once the sun went down and the track’s lights came on that I was getting an interesting result using the various settings. Under full daylight the camera was getting excellent pictures of fast moving cars while in the “sports” setting. Under low-light conditions however, I wasn’t able to ‘freeze’ the cars as they sped past. Instead I got long shining colorful streaks of light that spanned the entire frame. The camera apparently couldn’t resolve the low-light condition and the speed of the subject matter. Initially I was quite disappointed and had a few less than kind words to say about the camera (and the photographer, as I was also unable to resolve the situation). My displeasure disappeared when I got home and downloaded the images to my PC. There I found the images to be quite interesting. Ironically it turns out that the thing I disliked the most about my camera has since become the thing I like the most about it
The Photographic Process
After analyzing the racetrack images a bit more I decided to try to reproduce the conditions in a more controlled environment (my dining room). The cars at the racetrack were colorful, shiny, reflective, and FAST so I searched the house for any ordinary object that matched those characteristics. Some old glass marbles from my youth seemed to be a good candidate. Now the trick was to get the marbles to move fast while I took the test photos. Not wanting to do any damage by throwing the marbles all over the house I decided the simpler, less destructive solution was to let the marbles be still and simply move the camera. I waited for nightfall, placed the marbles on a dark background, and turned the lights down low. Using the same camera settings from the racetrack I took a few hundred images while moving the camera in a variety of different ways. Much to my delight the results were much like what I had obtained at the racetrack.
The Image Enhancement Process
Once the images are downloaded to my PC I used a variety of image processing software programs to achieve the final result. The first step in the process is to go through the bulk of the photos and cull the ones that I believe will be good candidates for processing. Typically I will shoot anywhere from 50 to several hundred images in a single session. Usually I keep less than 10% of all the images I shoot. Of that 10% usually only 1 or 2 end up being finished “art”. Given that the images are captured under low-light conditions the next step is to do a cursory brightness/contrast/color adjustment to bring out all the elements in the image. It should be noted here that up to this point everything in the process has been random, including the selection of the subject matter (just about anything that is shiny or reflective will work, and you can even get some interesting results from things that aren’t). Given the randomness of the photographic process I have only a very rough idea of how the raw image will look when it comes off the camera. Only after the photos are taken, culled, and the cursory corrections made does the process get more calculated, predictable, and artistic.
The next step is to view each image and carefully crop the portion of the image that I think will lead to an interesting end result. It is a very rare occasion when I will use a raw image in its entirety. Based on my vision for the end result I may at this point rotate, mirror, or invert the image. Once I have the base image in the configuration that I want I do a more careful round of color/contrast balancing, and investigate the use of a variety of other graphic effects, too numerous to expound on, to enhance the base image. At this point the image could be considered complete but I almost always like to investigate different ways to stitch the base image together to create a larger image. I start this process by mirroring the base image and saving it to a different filename. I then open both images (the base image and the mirror image of it) and stitch them together in a variety of ways. If I like one (or more) of them I’ll save that image as the new base image. I may then take that image and invert it, and save that as a separate file. Then I just repeat the stitching process until I’ve exhausted all the possibilities. Once the manipulation process is complete I perform any final color/contrast corrections and call it complete.
When the image processing is complete I do any repairs to the image. These may include correcting any ‘pixel dropout’ or other blemishes that commonly occur from the lighting conditions and camera movement. I usually do this last so that I don’t waste time on images that may not end up being saved.
The process outlined here is simply a high level road map that I follow to get from idea to result. I can, and often do, make detours along the way to experiment with all the features of the image processing software. In two years I have barely scratched the surface of what is possible. As humans we are only limited by our imagination and each evolutionary step in the process just expands the boundaries of my imagination. I hope you can achieve the same experience.
