A closer look… part 9…

Posted on April 12, 2018 by pouringmyartout

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Is it a picture of some strange corner of the universe, taken through the Hubble telescope?

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Is it a model of the human brain made with neon lights?

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Is it a sketch of a piece of gold in a gold miner’s pan? (That might actually be a hint, by the way).

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Is it just some small part of a painting done a by a surrealist?

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Is it one of the rings of power, being forged in Mordor?

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Is it part of the crazed dream of a mad man? (I mean, obviously, everything on my blog falls into that category… but… still).

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Is it a vision of hell?

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Or, possibly, just a hint of an acid trip?

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It is all those things and more. But mostly, it is a close up photo of a small chunk of fools gold that I found on one of my travel adventures, put through some artistic filters.

 

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A closer look… part 8…

Posted on April 11, 2018 by pouringmyartout

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What the heck is that, I hear you wondering.

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And it is a very good question to wonder to yourself.

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Congratulate yourself for yourselfs fine wondering!

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I, myself, also congratulate yourself for yourselfs fine wondering.

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I also congratulate myself for myselfs fine post which led yourselfs fine wondering.

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But all I did was use some artistic filters on another photo I took using those macro lens spacer things.

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This time, a picture of a knot in my fence.

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Some random photos of me in my private security officer uniforms…

Posted on April 10, 2018 by pouringmyartout

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My younger daughter, Mollie, took these photos before I went to work this weekend.

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As I said in an earlier post, when I did the training to become a security guard, thus adding yet another position to the long list of jobs I have had in my life, I pictured myself wearing a badge… not a blazer. I wasn’t expecting my first posting to be at an upscale private housing development.

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I mean, up to this point, suits were worn only at weddings and funerals. I also smudged the monogrammed logo, for security reasons.

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Fortunately, I work the swing shift from 2 in the afternoon until 10 in the evening. When it gets dark, I get to switch over to the bomber jacket with metal badge… and lots of pockets.

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Yeah, I know, I look good in a suit.

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But I feel cooler in the bomber jacket.

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Oh, yeah.

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A closer look… part 7…

Posted on April 9, 2018 by pouringmyartout

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Tiny sea shells…

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A little leaf on a succulent plant…

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Little rocks…

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Collected on my travels around the world.

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Everything is more interesting when you take a closer look.

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Even the filaments in a light bulb…

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Or a stucco wall…

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Or a tiny bit of a dia de los muertos skull.

 

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A closer look… part 6…

Posted on April 7, 2018 by pouringmyartout

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More macro photography, but this time, I am not telling you what they are.

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Most of them will be fairly obvious, I suppose.

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But we can still make a game of this.

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Or not.

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Whatever makes you happy.

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But I do have some more ideas for this series before I let it go.

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I did take a few regular pictures of the three macro lens spacer things.

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They look like fancy lenses…

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But there is no lens inside them. They just make your regular lens further away from the lens inside the camera.

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And some how, if you get the manual focus just right…

 

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They let you take really close up photos.

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tRump followers don’t care if he lies or cheats on his wife or is a horrible president…

Posted on April 7, 2018 by pouringmyartout

As long as he keeps his promise to be a racist.

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A closer look… part 5…

Posted on April 6, 2018 by pouringmyartout

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More photos of… uh… stuff… followed by cropped and enhanced versions of the each photo, done in Photoshop.

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Yup, that is the same leaf. I am coming to appreciate the ‘vibrancy’ filter in Photoshop.

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I still think I could all this without the macro lens spacer things. Maybe I will try doing that after I get done with doing this. I am just trying to decide if I need to buy some of them.

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But I do like the super close up pictures, even when they are blurry.

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Our couch.

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An even closer look at our couch.

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The couch again… complete with dog and cat hairs… only from straight above, instead of slightly angled.

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You are going to get sick of this before I do… HA!

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The glass top of a table out in our yard.

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ZZZZZOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM… oooohhhh… I know… let’s play a game later, where you see close ups of stuff, and you have to guess what they are.

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Another rug.

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I brightened that one up a bit, after cropping. Doing this sort of makes you want to vacume and dust more often.

 

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A closer look… part 4…

Posted on April 6, 2018 by pouringmyartout

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I am still playing around with those macro zoom lens spacer things my son-in-law loaned me. That is the top of a plastic drink cooler. But what if I play with the brightness and contrast in Photoshop?

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I don’t know if that is better or not, but it still looks like a brain… covered in dirt particles.

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That is the bark of a pine tree in my backyard. It is hard to hold the camera perfectly still. That, with the very small field of focus, makes this photography challenging.

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So I cropped the picture a little smaller in Photoshop. I also played not only with the brightness and contrast, but with the vibrancy level as well.

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More tree bark.

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More cropping and playing with levels. It is out of focus, but still, a nice photo.

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Our new, fake hardwood floors.

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It does look like real wood now.

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The top of a wicker basket.

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This is fun. I don’t know how much this actually improves the photographs, but I am going to do more of these. Bear with me.

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A closer look… part 3…

Posted on April 5, 2018 by pouringmyartout

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More of the photos I took with those crazy lens-spacing macro adapter lens thingies. The ones I borrowed from my son-in-law. And yes, I do grow orchids, and yes, they keep on blooming.

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That flower has a tiny flower inside it… which seems to have a tiny flower inside of it.

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Now, we all know that I love flowers and taking pictures of flowers, but that right there is the leaf of a succulent plant.

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Tiny little spider webs.

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And an ivy leaf.

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I will now share three photos of one of my orchid flowers. This is to demonstrate how small the field of focus is when you take these macro zoom photos.

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Only a small area is actually in focus. This is tricky, especially if anything… like the flower or my hands on the camera… are moving at all.

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I am starting to wonder if I could achieve these same images using the camera without the macro spacer lens thingies. Just back it up a little. Or maybe use my telephoto zoom lens from even further away. Also, the pictures on my camera save at only 72 DPI… which I could probably change if I wanted to… but they are also saved at like 72 inches across in width. This means I could crop a lot of the photo and still have the in-focus part. Tomorrow is a day off, and I am going to try playing with that. Also, I intend to take pictures of lots of random objects with interesting texture.

So, uh, see you tomorrow.

 

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A closer look… part 2…

Posted on April 4, 2018 by pouringmyartout

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Some more of the photos I took, playing with the macro lenses.

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I have learned a few things. I have been too reliant on my auto focus. This is forcing me to master manual focusing.

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Also, I learned that it is hard to do the focusing because the focus field is so small that there is always a lot that is out of focus… especially when the wind is moving the flowers around.b 4

That is an orange skin. Another thing that I learned is that when the lens is right up against something, it tends to cast a shadow and block most of the light.

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A chocolate kiss! Notice how only a few parts of the aluminum wrapper are in focus. This is tricky stuff.

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Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer true! Okay, I have some more flower pictures that I took yesterday. I will post those tomorrow. I need to work for the next two days. But on Friday I will try the macro lenses on some other stuff.

 

 

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