PAD 1
Posted: Tue 01 Jan 2013, 18:05
For a variety of reasons, I have decided to start a PAD (Picture a Day) project. Whilst there is no particular reason to commence on the first day of the year, it is as good a time as any. Besides, the sun was out, so it seemed a shame not to take advantage of it. 
Another decision is to post my images here on the club's forum. I am under no illusion that a PAD project will be easy and I do not expect to have 365 stunning images by the end of the year. At this stage it is a matter of some considerable uncertainty whether I will actually have 365 pictures, each taken on a different day. Pushing myself to be creative when the weather is uninspiring or I am under it is all part of the challenge. I am fortunate in that I have some woods behind the house and I expect them to feature throughout the year. But that is the easy option in some ways and what I want to do is to explore other subjects and genres of photography which I might not have considered otherwise. I am hoping to learn a lot.
So, onto the inaugural photo. Or, in this case, photos. Actually the same image presented in both colour and mono conversions. I did not get out as early as I had wished, so it was the default option - the woods. No bad thing as it is a favourite place. The sun was shining as I left the house, but a few minutes later behind a cloud as I got to my destination. Fortunately, the cloud was patchy and there were some bursts of good light. The image is of a tree stump that looks like someone (with three arms
) running and I decided to shoot it in silhouette. I returned to it a number of times and this is the last shot of the day as the sun was finally setting.
The Raw file was processed in Lightroom 4, some manipulation to remove a couple of light areas on the edge of the image was undertaken in Photoshop CS6 and the mono conversion was done in Silver Efex Pro 2. I expect this to be the standard software which I will use on most days, so for future posts I will restrict myself to commenting on any post capture processing which seems worthy of remark.
Another decision is to post my images here on the club's forum. I am under no illusion that a PAD project will be easy and I do not expect to have 365 stunning images by the end of the year. At this stage it is a matter of some considerable uncertainty whether I will actually have 365 pictures, each taken on a different day. Pushing myself to be creative when the weather is uninspiring or I am under it is all part of the challenge. I am fortunate in that I have some woods behind the house and I expect them to feature throughout the year. But that is the easy option in some ways and what I want to do is to explore other subjects and genres of photography which I might not have considered otherwise. I am hoping to learn a lot.
So, onto the inaugural photo. Or, in this case, photos. Actually the same image presented in both colour and mono conversions. I did not get out as early as I had wished, so it was the default option - the woods. No bad thing as it is a favourite place. The sun was shining as I left the house, but a few minutes later behind a cloud as I got to my destination. Fortunately, the cloud was patchy and there were some bursts of good light. The image is of a tree stump that looks like someone (with three arms
) running and I decided to shoot it in silhouette. I returned to it a number of times and this is the last shot of the day as the sun was finally setting.The Raw file was processed in Lightroom 4, some manipulation to remove a couple of light areas on the edge of the image was undertaken in Photoshop CS6 and the mono conversion was done in Silver Efex Pro 2. I expect this to be the standard software which I will use on most days, so for future posts I will restrict myself to commenting on any post capture processing which seems worthy of remark.