Monochrome and Photoshop experimentation

As you can see just a few posts down, I reedited some old portrait photos of a friend. Now, for some reason, I really like the look of long hair partially covering the face/eye of people because I think it adds a dramatic, mysterious, edgy look to the person. And when I think "dramatic, mysterious, edgy" look, a lot of times I also think of black-and-white images that just look "gritty", sort of like an action comic/manga. I decided to give some of the photos a monochrome conversion, and then the handdrawn effect that I previously used with another friend's pictures. For both pictures I used the same process: I edited the picture in Lightroom, converted the picture to black and white in Lightroom, adjusted the picture some more to have more contrast between blacks and whites, loaded the picture into Photoshop, added the handdrawn effect, and messed with the curves to add more contrast. I have to say, I absolutely love the results, see for yourself:

While I love the handdrawn effect's results, I still love the original black and white conversions I made that were the base images for the handdrawn effect images. Take a look here, I think you'll see why I love them so much, too:

Also, this was from a little further back, but I played around with black and white conversions with the subject facing away. For these images, I feel that facing away provokes ideas of reflection and thinking. I added the black and white conversion and softened the image to make this reflection and thinking appear to be about the past, locked in memories but distant and untouchable.

Messing Around with Photoshop

While I was going through photos from our hikes, to annoy my friend I took random pictures of her. Some of them actually came out pretty well, although dark and noisy. But, I thought they would look good in black and white, and after adjusting everything and converting to monochrome, I realized I wanted the pictures to have a hand-drawn effect/look. 

For the first picture, I wanted a more delicate, "angelic" photo, so I maxed out the value of Lightroom's Noise Reduction tool so the image was completely smoothed over. I then softened it before plugging it into Photoshop to create the handdrawn effect. The first image is the final product, the second image is what I started with.

For the second image, I decided to go with a more "gritty" appearance, so rather than reducing the noise in the picture, I amplified it by hardening all the lines in the image using Lightroom's clarity tool. I then plugged the photo into Photoshop to create the handdrawn effect. Again, the first image (third in the series) is the final product, and the second image (fourth in the series) is what I started with.

Twinning

Starting to publish and share my photography has been interesting and exciting. You can meet so many cool people by doing so and find new opportunities. For example, I published my picture from my earlier blog post, "My Car", to my Instagram page, and the Cars of ASU (@carsofasu) page commented on it, with one of the admins saying he owns an Accord, too. And by "Accord", I mean identical Accord: 2008 Honda Accord sedan in the EX-L trim line with White Pearl Metallic paint and sand/beige/tan interior. So, we decided to have a photoshoot together with our Accords at Tempe Town Lake.

Both of us regularly go out to shoot supercars/exotic cars/expensive cars, but it was nice shooting our cars. After all, these are what we drive everyday. For me, it was especially exciting to meet another Accord owner who both loves cars and likes the car he drives. It felt good appreciating our cars for what they had to offer, including an actually-pretty-decent amount of power and pull (hey, 268hp and 244 lb-ft of torque, especially in the era when V6 muscle cars could barely make above 200 with larger V6 engines, is pretty good). It was also cool talking about the small details of the car that only comes from long ownership, such as the leather on the center armrest peeling off or being able to feel exactly when VTEC kicks in (yo). 

But, the sun was setting and we already got yelled at by the people who patrol the lake for parking in front of the boat-launching area, so we decided to relocate and try some more photography.

We ended up going onto the Mill Avenue bridge that crosses over Tempe Town Lake and parking on the side. Oh, the things that you feel safer about doing when someone is with you. Neither of us would do this alone, after all. Since it was dark, i decided to try some long exposures, not only to help overcome the darkness, but to also create light streams past our cars. 

It's fun shooting with other people, not only because you feel more emboldened to try new shots, but also because you can talk about photography with them. As we waited for the exposures to finish, we talked about long exposures and other photography styles, continuing our conversations from Tempe Town Lake. 

Eventually, we came to the point where we agreed that we've taken "enough" pictures, since we both know how it is: we plan for some time to take photos, spend double the amount of time planned taking photos, and still feel disappointed in how all the images are coming out. So, with photos taken, information exchanged, and each other better known, we left the bridge in our cars. (And also the photos did come out pretty well.)

Thanks to Hemang at Cars of ASU for the shoot!

More photos:

Haboob

Living in a desert creates unique opportunities for getting amazing nature photographs. For example, where else will you find a haboob? No, I didn't sneeze; people say "dust storm" or "sand storm", but "haboob" is the correct word, coming from the Arabic word هَبوب‎ habūb. While they look scary (it's a huge wall of dust swallowing a city), they're pretty common since haboobs around here form when thunderstorms collapse, creating down/outwards bursts of wind. So, these happen multiple times on an annual basis during our monsoon season (aren't deserts so exotic with their nomenclature?).

On this particular day, June 4th 2015, I decided to take a hike up to the summit of Piestewa Peak because of the nice weather and because I wanted to snap some pictures of the sunset. At the time, it was just very cloudy; I thought the clouds would make for a striking sunset. And indeed, the clouds created a streak effect with the sun's lighting, like the Arizona flag. How apt. However, as I started my ascent, I noticed dust forming behind the city.

I wondered if a haboob was coming our way, since the amount of dust I saw was way more than the normal amount in the air. Sure enough, the cloud got larger and kept getting closer to the city. Meanwhile, the sky kept the sunstreaks, allowing me to take more photos of it, as well as take some striking photos of the Phoenix Mountains. It always amazes me that pieces of wilderness such as these mountains can still exist while surrounded by a city. It always makes me sad seeing houses built on the mountains since it means more and more of this beautiful desert landscape is disappearing.

It was not long after I first saw the dust that the storm engulfed the central city. This was definitely not a severe haboob since we could still see (the worst it can get is less than a foot of visibility, although that severity is rare; usually visibility is several yards). 

Winds were picking up, and everyone at the summit had to be careful because gusts were strong enough to blow us off balance; falling off a mountain is not ideal. The dust kept moving northwards, creating some striking images. Here, the "wall of dust" image became clearer since we were nearly in profile with the mini-haboob. In addition, the dust gave the sun's rays something to reflect off of and be blocked by, further enhancing the sun streaks to beautiful lengths. It'amazing seeing nature's beauty, and how even in the middle of a city we can still witness it.

Meanwhile, facing the other side of the mountain away from the storm, nature was still being awesome. The clouds had grown extremely dark and menacing from the lack of light, and a double rainbow appeared, with the brighter parts corresponding to where the sun could sneak past the clouds and dust. Later on, the sky even began turning two distinct colors (no, I did not change the colors in the third photo, the sky really did look like that). There were also some very interesting cloud formations, including the 4th photo which I thought looked kind of like a spaceship.

Eventually, the dust rolled through, leaving the clouds behind. As the sun got lower, the streak effect became even more pronounced as the light rays were now more angled towards me and also having to go through the remaining dust in the air. I loved how the streaks looked. 

Finally, with the sun reaching the horizon and the dust settling, the main event started, with the brilliant oranges and reds of the desert sunset coming out. The sun set quickly and soon disappeared behind the mountains.

One last look of the beautiful sky, before the sun disappeared and I headed back down the mountain in the rapidly approaching darkness.

I love the desert.

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