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How to create original art from your own photographs

Published on May 7, 2009

It’s been a while now since I’ve decided to do a bit of decoration to the house using photographs I took. The obvious thing to do is simply take a nice image, give it a bit of editing, maybe black and white- print, frame and hang it up. That I did as well, but how about something a bit more unique and original?

The project to be was creating a photo “strip” showing different elements from a specific object. This takes just a bit more effort than the regular print and frame method, but it’s worth it.

In the last summer, while biking in the French Alps, I stopped by this nice bell tower in Morgin, switzerland- it has a cool metallic color and many shapes and elements to focus on.

The theme you chose can be just about anything- a car, an old house, a local bar, a junk yard or a nice garden… there’s no limit except for what you can think of and how far can you drive to get it.

Once you decide on a spot, here is what you do:

1. Take a bunch of close-ups and open shots. Try to compose a few frames for print, but don’t dwell on that only.
2. Sort out the images you took later on your computer, and take advantage of today’s multi-megapixled cameras to crop out elements from your close ups.
3. pick 3 images that fit in well, showing different elements of your spot, and make sure they are cropped to the same ratio (width and height..)
4. Use photoshop or any other editing software to stitch them together to one image file. I’ve added black borders for devision, but this is up to your taste of course.
5. save the image file as large as you’d like to print it- and go to the local print shop to have it all done.

A note here- my strip was produced in a non standard size, which basically raised the price on the print and frame. It might be worth checking first your printing options, or simply print 3 seperate images that can be hanged adjacent to each other.

Here’s the final result- ready to print and decorate your favorite spot of the house:

If you have other ideas on how to create art from someone’s photos- let us know!

Amazing backcountry skiing photos

Published on March 14, 2009

Ian Mackie, who runs the Adventure Photography Blog has already published on The Wide Lens once. Taking advantage of seasonal changes, then the images were from sea kayak excursions.

Winter has arrived, and with that a change of scenery. As a fan of Alpine outdoors and snowboarding, these images really made me miss the snow- I think they’re a great visual demonstration of the vast outdoors and how little people can be when facing the elements, and besides that- just really nice pictures.

Here are a few samples:

“It hasn’t been the best of winters for backcountry skiing here in the Pacific Northwest. Big storms early, rain in January, nothing since…until recently. March has been very good to us so far and the other day, myself and three buddies were reminded why we ski tour.”

van epps backcountry ski B&W by Ian Mackie

You can check out the rest of Ian’s backcountry skiing images here.

If you photographed great outdoor images and want to feature them on The Wide Lens- Here’s how.

Cyclamen season

Published on March 12, 2009

It’s been a while since I posted a proper post exclusive for flower photography. This time, the season set me to focus on a specific species. The Cyclamen.

Blooming in forests and woods anywhere between December and all through March, Cyclamen spread out into vast carpets of pink and white.

Although the overall impression is nice, getting in close to get the details is what I thought of doing as I came across a field of Cyclamen with my camera.

Most of the images I took felt much better with a 50-150mm lens, and an open aperture which created a nice focus and soft blurred background. All images taken with my Olympus e-420.

I post processed one of the images into black and white, and liked the result enough to get a printed 40x60cm version of it up on my living room wall.

Share your latest venture on photography- post it on The Wide Lens

New Site features- WordPress 2.7 and translation plugin

Published on February 4, 2009

Some Substantial updates to the site:

The Wide Lens is based on the WordPress platform, I’ve recently updated the WordPress version to the latest 2.7 as part of my efforts to stay up to date with performance and security updates.

also added is a new plug-in called “convey this“. This plug-in is an HTML button located at the bottom of each story (next to the “share” button) which allows the user to translate the page into one of 30 languages- to be expanded. I must say that I have tested this plug-in and it’s really far from perfect, as translation is done without any reference to context (I suppose that’s not an easy thing to do). Still, if anyone wants to get an idea of a page and not in English, this might be a reasonable tool. The idea is great and I hope to see the results improving with time.

To top everything of, I decided The Wide Lens needs a bit of a fresh look, so I picked out the K2 theme and customized it to my liking. A bit more clean and modern.

Mountain bike photography using a wireless flash

Published on November 22, 2008

If you’re seriously considering going into some action photography- an external flash will provide a serious upgrade to your photography abilities. A remote controlled (wireless) flash will expand that even more, as you can see from my experiments with the Olympus FL-36R external flash.

Several posts on The Wide Lens will reveal the fact that I’ve spent the last summer in Morzine, France. My time there was dedicated amongst other things to mountain biking and to photographing the sport and scenery.
As I was descending on the Pleney run- a fine Downhill trail leading to Morzine center, I came to a short resting stop. Looking up, the afternoon sun was hiding between the tree tops, and just below it a dramatic root section (fairly easy to ride, but very mean looking).

Taking a picture of a rider crossing the root section with the sun in the background seemed like a great idea, and a photographic vision was born. The problem was simple- the environment is a dark forest, and the object will be a fast moving object (mountain bike rider). The solution is simple: get the right exposure for the forest, and use the flash to light up the object.
Ah, but what about the original vision? the composition places the camera about 5-6 meters from the object, and the flash won’t have a serious effect from that distance.

Here’s the final image:

And here is how it was done:

Once I understood the problem- I went online to look for a solution. Since I own an Olympus E-420 D-SLR, I started with the brand website, and quickly found an interesting solution. The FL-36R external flash, ‘R’ standing for Remote control.

This flash, coupled with a matching camera, can be placed a few meters away from the camera- aimed and used in automatic synchronization with the camera. There is an option to place a few flashes and set up to 3 flash groups- for now I’m sticking with one, a simple and effective setup.

The flash can be placed on the ground using the supplied stand. I also purchased a small version of the gorillapod, which enables to hang the flash in strategic placements, such as tree branches or railings.

As I will become more advanced with using the external flash, you can expect to see here a detailed article on how to use one correctly. For now, if you have the budget and the time to play around- I recommend finding out the wireless flash configuration for your camera. Once you’re set up, simply go out and play, that’s what photography is all about- you can’t really go wrong.