Middleton Road

How I see the world

Tag Archives: weekly photo challenge


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Weekly Photo Challenge: Blur (2)

blur

I don’t normally post twice for the weekly photo challenge.  However I’ll make an exception this week.  On Tuesday I posted something from my archive because I wasn’t happy with any of the shots I took during a lunchtime session in the streets of Wellington.  However, because its school holidays here and traffic is light I got in to town a bit earlier than normal on Wednesday morning and used the time to take a few shots at the train station.

If you are not a fan of HDR/tone mapping this image won’t be for you – but I quite like what the post processing has done to the movement effect in the blur.


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A Photo a Week Challenge: Saturation

This week Nancy has challenged us to post different versions of the same photo with different saturation.  As well as changing the look of a photo, different saturation levels can give a shot quite a different feel.

With these two saturation focussed edits of a shot of the crowd at last Friday’s New Zealand – England cricket match I have tried to go one step further and have each photo tell a different  story.

In this first shot I have oversaturated the oranges and completely desaturated everything else.

The spectators in the orange shirts are participating in a promotion.  The first spectator in each game to make a clean one handed catch of a six (a ball hit on the full over the boundary) goes into the draw to win a cash prize which will range from $250,000 to $1,00,000 depending on how far New Zealand progresses in the tournament.

The sponsor involved is a brewery whose flagship beer comes in orange cans.  There was an interesting op-ed in the paper this morning criticising what the success of the promotion says about the role of alcohol in New Zealand society and the link between alcohol sponsorship and sport.  In my thinking I hadn’t been so focussed on that aspect – but I do think it says something about commercialisation of sport.

cricket crowd saturated

In this second shot I have desaturated all colours and made a couple of other tweaks to give it a more faded feel.  As Nancy noted in her original post desaturation can give a photo a feeling of nostalgia.

Along with Australia, New Zealand is hosting the cricket world cup for the first time in 23 years.  I have fond memories of the 1992 event where I went to several games.  We have a good team this year as well.  The feeling among New Zealand sports fans at the moment harks back to previous golden eras of New Zealand cricket.  The crowd pictured here is the biggest cricket crowd ever at the Wellington stadium (and I suspect the biggest ever for a game in Wellington).  The crowd at Eden park today is the biggest for at least 30 years.

cricket crowd desaturated


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Weekly Photo Challenge: Express Yourself

The Test Match

express

This week’s challenge of Express Yourself seemed very open to me.  I can’t sing or play an instrument and I’m not good at anything that requires fine motor skills so photography (which is still a relatively new interest of mine) is my main source of creative expression.  Other than straight snap shots, all my photos could be said to fit the theme I guess.  I’m working on my technical skills to try and get better shots straight out of the camera.  But I also find sometimes that a bit of post processing (topaz simplify in this case) can help to capture what I felt rather than just what I saw.