2K12 Review

This year was my head-start, If you follow the photos especially in the nature album here or the flowers album here , you will notice my style was mutating along. This was due to the numerous books I've read about photography and simply browsing through photos of iconic photographers.

The key was to held on to an inspiration and get out everything you can out of it, therefore I will share in this post my many tricky shots I made throughout this year.

Autumun Amalgam

This shot was one of my favorites, it was done after the rain. You may notice this reflection, some people where always asking me where the hell I did found this lake, well to be honest it's a pure illusion, it's no lake it's only a leftover of the rain on the reservoir on my house. The shot was made using a tripod because I wanted the maximum sharpness out of the composition. I then used adobe raw to turn the photo into my artist's vision that was the result u see. I'm totally against NO-photomanipulation because it doesn't transcend what an artist feel, I sure I'm not a professional artirst but I may have my style and my point of view, I wanted to trick your mind and I did it, the end justifies the means so if you know how to use photoshop don't hesitate using it ! just to be clear this was edited using Adobe photoshop Raw, all of my photos are shot in RAW, think of Adobe RAW as a darkroom.

"Andreas Feininger, a LIFE photographer from the peak times of that magazine, once said that the “uncontrolled photo is a lie.” This was over 50 years ago, well before Photoshop

Feininger also recognized that you could manipulate the image in such a way as to make it lie quite well. The point was not whether you try to control the image, but how you control that image. He wasn’t talking about manipulating an image the way that some photographers use Photoshop to totally change an image. He was talking about how photographers use the unique processes of photography to get the most from our images and help us express what we really see and feel about the world around us" - Book : From snapshots to great shots : Lanscape by Forrest Harper

I totally understand what he meant and I'm making sure I'm fooling your senses for the only pleasure to know that you have stared at a photo at least for 30 seconds :)

Dramatic sunset Helios

As you may notice form the camera's configuration there's no way I could capture the foreground in a sunset with a 1/2000 shutter speed.Well here comes the magic of HDR, but this was not pure HDR it was an HDRish effect using Adobe RAW to reveal the dark details of the foreground.

The problem is that the camera doesn't see what your eye sees! The human eye is the ultimate camera as it may alter the amount of light filtered through the pupil add the strong processing of the brain and you are sure not to miss a detail in a scene. The challenge of photography is to communicate what to see and the original photograph was clearly not the only thing I saw in the composition hence the photo manipulation to break free the details leaving in emphasize the dramatic sunset.

Timelapsy

This will be one of the first photos of its kind. it was pretty tricky, it's made from 350 photos stacked and blended in light mode in photoshop. I got this feather liek effect, the technique is hard and the prediction of the result is even harder...A new challenge for 2013.. maybe 2014

Splash n' Blue

Having fun on the poolside was pretty fruitful. This composition was not made by accident as I manually focused from a defined height on the final bowl destination, gone up 1 meter, held the bowl in contact with my lens and finally dropped it.. I've made the same thing over and over again till i got everything in focus. I Increased the clarity and the warmth in Adobe RAW and this is what I got ! Experimenting was the key because the world is full of hidden wounder and my job is to seek them and use them to my advantage so I can fool your senses ;)

Refill ?

This shot was the fruit of the poolside fun, how did I have the idea to shot the process of emptying a bottle in the pool was let's say pure luck. I was playing around throwing the bottle in an out the pool when I had enough I wanted to throw it but before that I wanted to empty the water into the pool and while doing so it hit me ! I asked my mother to hold down the  bottle and me I made the  shot ! Particularly refreshing shot that ended up on many phone wallpapers.

The summer Autumn transition

One of my favorite shots that illustrated the handshake of the Summer season with the Autumn season. This was a particularly hard shot in term of ergonomics. The plant was under a balcony which was 2.5 meters high so I had to somewhat find an elaborate way to crouch so I could have everything in a straight line. As you may notice 3 focus point on this photograph, the plant, the sky and the contrast between the sky and balcony. The photo was made geek style because its origins were the rule of thirds. The only thing I did to the photo is to shorten the balcony a bit to center it out just to perfect the geek style.

Season Discrepancies

Needless to say I have some unfinished business ! This is what I could accomplish given my thight schedule! I really hope I can achieve my project in 2013 :-) Update : AND I DID :D

Macro, Grass Shots

Made in the beginning of February 2013, got me some recognition on Viewbug.com; It was early in the morning, after the rain at sunrise. Perfect set of material to work with. I just got down and started shotting in full manual because focus is so hard to achieve because of the million details that I had that day. In the end I made some pretty magnificient shots that some of my friends though that were Built-in the Windows 8 wallpapers.

Astro Nights

As you may have noticed the camera's configuration differed a lot between the two first and the last shot, the first two were shots of the moon which gives away a lot of light so the darkness may actually fool the meter of the camera so Manual settings were a must. In the last photo the baffling ISO 4000 was used with a f/3.5 aperture and a 20 seconds shutter speed were used to capture the most out of the night sky especially the shot was designed for the Milky Way ! I'm looking forward to acquire the Nikon D7100 so I can pump up the ISO without worrying too much for the noise! who knows maybe in March 2013. Update : nope not a chance im in August 2013 and still same old D5000 ! 

La pointe

This was my one of the most viewed shots on facebook. I simply kept shooting till I got what I wanted of course photoshop helped a lop especially with the focus . The colors were harmonic especially with the indian music style. I had lots of fun capturing this moment! It was the beginning of people's photography ! 

Zambia's Best

My zambia trip was my major turning point in my photography evolution. in 37 Gib of material I figured where were my flaws and tried to solve them. I upgraded my current skills and from here my never ending loop of mutation has started, you can visit the full album here or you can check out my blog for more info.

Meanwhile happy 2013 year and may it be beyond our dreams and expectations.

Sincerely yours Mhamad "Vlad" Chaddad

Don't forget to visit my page www.facebook.com/thechaddedphotography