Introduction - New to RedBubble
Hi everyone,
Welcome to my part of RB, and thanks for visiting.
I have lived in Australia from my 9th – 14th year, and love seeing all these photos of Australian things and landscapes… Brings back very nice memories of all the summer holidays which I spent travelling through Australia with my parents.
I have uploaded a taste of some of my work, and have had a look around on RB. I have the feeling its a lot smaller than Flickr for example, but a lot cleaner and more professional looking. Im getting tired of the invitations to join groups on flickr and the spam of “awards” that arent really awards and similar things on flickr.
Also I like the fact that it will be possible to sell images on RB, which I have not yet seen on other similar sites. I have contacted RB, and they informed me that it will soon (24th of may) be possible to sell photos internationally on an updated version of the site! Not only is that very cool, but its a nice birthday present since the 24th is my birthday :)
As you may have noticed I try to keep my work up to a high standard, I am a bit of a perfectionist. I like to fine tune my work and edit photos a lot usually. Most of my photos are also HDR. I fell in love with the painting like effects that can be created with HDR. Of course a great part in the dreaminess of some of my photos are also due to photoshopping. What I also like about HDR is that you can prevent bright white skies if you expose the landscape correctly, or too dark landscape if you expose the sky correctly.
I have a GND (Gradient Neutral Density) filter, as I believe its called, and have experimented a bit with it, but I prefer HDR a lot more.
So, since I love HDR, if you have any questions about HDR, feel free to ask me.
Looking forward to becoming a small part of RB!
Regards,
Christiaan
David Haviland
Welcome, I love your work. What HDR program are you using, I have tried photmatix but found that the results tend to be unrealistic, especially in terms of colour and contrast. However your HDR work is much better and has a more subtle feel to it. Maybe I am just not patient enugh with playing with it.
Anyway I look forward to seeing more of your work.
cheers,
David Haviland
Christiaan
Hi David, thanks!
I use Photomatix yes, but also photoshop. I see my camera as a tool for getting the rough “ore” from the world, Photomatix to smelt several ores together to get a perfect blend of metals and to forge a sword (photo), and Photoshop to sharpen, polish and shine the sword at the end, if you will :)
Things I did wrong in the beginning were: Unrealistic halos over things especially with horizons etc, too much black, too powerful unrealistic clouds, too much noise, and probably other stuff too…
So a lot can go wrong in Photomatix, and sometime the several exposures you make just really dont turn into a nice image. But when they do… It can have such a stunning result. And that, along with comments of people, is what kept me going.
When my HDRs come straight out of Photomatix they arent ready for publishing yet. I still basically apply my style to them and make them look a bit more normal, sometimes I increase contrast again, even though the HDR actually minimized the contrast. Just because it looks better sometimes.
A lot depends on the photo you are using, and I would just play around a lot with Photomatix, before giving up :) Try out different photos and all sorts of combinations and settings, and see what works for you.
Christiaan
Jienn Heibloem
welcome to the bubble world
Christiaan
Thanks!! :)
AnnH
Happy Birthday tomorrow Christian. I can understand how you feel about seeing Australian images bringing back memories because I felt the same about you and The Netherlands and my European travel of 30 years ago when I was looking at your work. Very nostalgic for that wonderful green wet beauty, cattle up to there bellies in grass and people so friendly and cheese and markets. Do enjoy RB and remembering Australia.
Christiaan
haha :) Cattle up to their bellies in grass
Thanks for the kind comment. Share the memories, share the fun!