Five-Four-Three-Two-One More Time

Final Theme Photos - Reflections My theme is reflections, which I decided on because everyday on the bus I pass this marshy area of ground, where trees sprout from the water and create pretty reflections, particularly when it ices over (however my immune system decided to be inconvenient and I was too sick to go out when we had snow).  I did try to get photos of it more recently but although I clambered down the embankment and made my mum wait at the side of the road, I didn't have much luck.  The sky was all cloudy and the weeds were too tangled to get a good reflective picture.  I did see an abandoned fridge though, that's not a sight you see everyday.   final photo vs the original This photograph is of a magnifying mirror on the ground in the woods near my house.  I originally wanted to put several small mirrors together, but as it was getting dark the logistics of using my phone's torch with six shiny reflective surfaces were a bit of a nightmare (and really hurt my eyes, you'd think I might have learned by now).  Funnily enough, the white torchlight somehow made the picture seem really sunny, which I think makes the juxtaposition of the two colours more prominent.  I set the camer to "cloudy" mode, which was the closest it had to dark without the light trace setting. I did edit this photo.  I boosted the colour in the Windows Photo Application, which made the image slightly brighter and the reflection more defined, and applied a selective focus to the mirror to make it stand out more. - final vs original I said I wasn't going to do trees because frankly I'm sick of them, all there is around here is trees or sheep, but what do I do? I have trees in more than one of my final photographs.  I don't even know anymore. I took this photo because I saw the reflection and thought it looked really nice, then I realised that it made an arrow shape.  It's pointing towards the road, and, interestingly enough, home.  This is just off the A701 and makes for a good walk, although perhaps not when it's as muddy as it right now. I don't actually know how to work Windows 8.1 (I'm an unwilling and reluctant convert), so I don't know how to double check the photo information.  I do remember choosing the setting for bright light and altering it and the ISO to factor in the annoyingly white sky.  As for editing, I boosted it to bring all the different colours out and I increased the brightness (+10) and the contrast (+20).  I also cropped it to try to move the bank from the middle of the photograph. - This was taken maybe fifty yards before the last photo.  I like how the edges of the trees seem to frame the tree in the middle, a bit like a vignette.  Although the reflection is cluttered with weeds and leaves in the water, I feel like it provides more of a contrast with the relative clearness of the clouds.  The reflction is still recognisable and I really liked it when I saw it. I didn't edit it because I thought it was fine as it was and I didn't want to mess around with it too much. - final vs original I took this picture when I was leaving the house because I was struck by how perfectly the street was reflected in the glass of the car window.  I really like how it appears like a mirror, blocking your view of anything in the car.  It is squint because that's how it appeared on the glass.  I suppose it's kind of like a flatter fisheye lens (but I don't even know what I'm talking about).  I left the camera on auto because some of the other settings ruined the reflection and I was worried about clouds messing with the light.  The colour of the street goes well with the clouds in my opinion, and it seems as though the picture is in thirds with the sky, houses and gravel.  I cropped it to remove the window sticker but I left the reflection of my hand and the camera to show that it is a reflection - although I suppose the squint picture also shows it.  I'm not sure why the final one appears brighter because I didn't edit that on purpose, so maybe it automatically did it or something.  Spot the confused Windows 8 user. - final vs original Here I decided to drag a mirror outside and see what I could do with the reflection.  It was not as good as I expected, as the mirror was heavy and I had to climb over a fence with it so I didn't go too far, but I kind of like the effect it has.  I made sure the tree trunk wasn't directly in the middle and I tilted the mirror away from me so I wasn't in the photo.  It took a couple of tries to cancel out the bright light - seriously, when are we going to get proper weather? - but once I took the photo I reasoned I could darken it and edit the contrast a bit.  I'm fairly pleased with how this one turned out, and I like how dark I managed to get the reflection.  I increased the contrast by 25 and lowered the brightness by 20 to get the lighting down to a more "normal" level.  I then decreased the highlights by 60 to make it even more contrasting.  I quite like how the grass seems bright and artificial, especially when compared to the darkness of the trees. - I didn't use a tripod for any of the pictures because mine is very short and wouldn't have allowed me to take half of these photos.  I considered using other techniques such as macro but I didn't feel that I could take good photos with that.  I suppose all of my final photos are landscapes or still lifes and I'm not too bothered by that really.  I think they all fit in to my theme quite well. - So these are my theme photos, and overall I'm happy with them, although I did have to reject a lot of ideas because it was always too dark by the time I got home.  I think I did alright with the theme of reflections and I think I might have to try some of my ideas again in the future.  If it hadn't failed so spectaularly, I was going to include my attempt at an "infinity photo."  There's always next time I guess. - THE NOT AT ALL AMERICAN REJECTS I took so many photographs for this that I thought I'd post some of the ones I rejected.  They are unedited and are included solely for interest. The reflections on the water were really impressive. EDIT: I realised that all of these photos contain trees, I'm so embarrassed.  I want to change my theme to "Anti-Trees".