Alex Lim

Alex Lim

By Jonathan Lim.

A warm photograph of my brother. Inspired by many bicycle photos. This is  homage to my brother.

Alex Lim I

During a walk in the park, I took a some of photos of my brother and sister riding bikes/scooters using my Nikon d3000.

My favourite photo was this one.

EXIF Data:
- Nikon d3000
- 1/125
- f/3.5
- ISO 200

The lighting is quite bad, that it was I had to spruce it up in Adobe Lightroom. In addition to this, I shot this in RAW. Therefore, making it very flexible in editing.

1. Changed the temperature of the photograph; made it warmer.
2. Increased the brightness and contrast
3. Increased the recovery and fill lights
4. Increased the clarity slightly and increased the vibrancy a lot.
5. Added a 'S' curve, which added slightly more contrast.
6. Added a warming tint, on low opacity
7. I changed the saturations of certain colours in the photograph to make it feel more natural. - orange, yellow, green & blue
8. Composed the photograph, by cropping and rotating it.


From here I moved the image to Adobe Photoshop CS3.

1. I applied image onto a new layer, blurred it heavily, then set the layer overlay and decreased the opacity. This gave a heavenly feel
2. I added a Levels adjustment layer to make image brighter
3. I dodged the face of my brother
4. Sharpened it.

Bike Photographs - Inspiration

Declan McGarvey III

This photo means a lot to me. It's a photograph for my best friend, Declan McGarvey. It's entitled Declan McGarvey... because it's a picture of Declan.

The eyes are very striking and vivid, even though it's in black and white !

"The eyes strike into my soul" - Tynan Reeves.

This was the response I intended to get. I want to show the pureness of Declan's personality. He is a good mate. It is a black and white piece, again, to take away the unneeded layer of complexity. This brings out concentration to the his eyes and other facial features.
This work was inspired by photographers all over the web, they inspire me. Especially those who post their photographs on flickr.
I enjoyed this type of photography; taking portraits of people. It makes me want to invest in buying my own zoom lens, for my Nikon body.

I used the rules of thirds to compose my artwork, I placed the eyes level with the top third of the canvas. This again, to add better focus and aesthetic.
The blur in the background - bokeh - came out very well, I'm pleased. It really isolated the subject.

I feel that this photo is a good because it brings out Declan's pureness, as a person and as a friend.

Declan McGarvey

Declan McGarvey 

By Jonathan Lim.

A black and white portrait of my friend Declan McGarvey. It is also a homage to him.

Declan McGarvey II

So, like in the previous post I want to make a photograph of my mate Declan.

From my research, they're three main shots that I would like to depict my friend Declan in. High key, low key and candid portrait.

But I figured out in my circumstances, that I won't be able to get the studio material create well executed high key and low key photographs. That is why I have chosen to take a candid black and white portrait shot of Declan.

To get nice focus and good bokeh, I used a zoom lens for the shot. This is mainly to isolate my subject. Creating a very shallow depth of field.

At school one day, I used Andrew Nguyen's camera 1000d - attached with a 55-250mm - to take some shot of Declan at school, when he wasn't noticing.

Here's is the shot I liked the most.

EXIF data for this photo is as follows:

• Camera     Canon EOS 1000D
• Exposure         0.008 sec (1/125)
• Aperture    f/5.6
• Focal Length 96 mm
• ISO Speed 200
• Exposure Bias -2/3 EV

The colours had a very unnatural feel.... to red. LOL

That is why I began to process it in lightroom, fixing up the lighting and changin' the colour scheme.

1. Converted the image into greyscale

2. Increased the exposure by one stop, to help the lighting

3. Increased the contrast and clarity of the photo

After the Lightroom adjustments, the image looked like this.

From this point, I transferred the photo into Adobe Photoshop CS3.

1. Retouched his face using the Healing Brush Tool, this removed the blemishes from his face.

2. Reduce the dark bags underneath his eyes, made them brighter.

3. Burned the left side of his face, to make the lighting look more balance

4. Made his eyes dreamy and very prominent. Done through high pass sharpening (masked), burned (midtones) and dodged (highlight) his eyes.

5. Applied image to a new layer and began to blur areas that took attention away from my subject's eyes.

6. Added a watermark/signature bar at the bottom of the image to add that touch of professionalism
7. Sharpened it using the Unsharpen Mask... Using a low radius setting. 

After the Photoshop adjustments then photograph now looks like this.

Jonathan Lim

Declan McGarvey I

Declan is a very good friend of mine. He is very kind, sincere, unselfish and cool. Therefore I have decided to pay homage to him, for being a good mate.

I have looked at many portraits online via the flickr group : Black & White Portraits

Many of them inspire me 8D

They can be seen below, they're a mixture of posed and candid shots

Each photograph tells a story about the person they photographed. Each has nice focus. 

Note that the 2 and 3 photo are low key photographs, with the background purely black.

The photograph above is an example of a high key portrait.

Jonathan Lim.

Julius Tjintjelaar III

TOPS is a black and white urban architectural photograph. I chose to make this piece as a black and white to bring out the delicate shape and line structure that swelled deep underneath the rushing colours. The angle in this piece was inspire by all other urban photographs, I thought to myself, this photo will be different... it will be fresh... it will make people think 'woah.. where did you take this? how?'.
I named this piece TOPS because of the place this photo was taken. The top floor of the Brisbane Myers Center is commonly referred to as TOPS by many teenagers and young adults in Brisbane today.
This piece is a homage to Joel Tjinteleer and is deeply inspired by him as well. I really liked his black and whites, they have very strong contrast and simplicity. He really makes something ordinary to something that people will cherish and adore for years to come. His works are just suburb, both in the technical and creative aspect. See the posts below for further information on his works.

Getting high, get high, get a good angle. This is what many photographers say. Getting high gets you an interesting subject. This is true.
I did get high on this current shot, I took the shot vertically above the subject. Thus, it happened to emphasize many lines and shapes in the subject.
I also wanted to keep the image simple, nothing to complex, that is the reason why I cropped the piece ever so slightly.

I really liked the outcome of this piece, it really shows what black and white photography is all about.

Jonathan Lim

TOPS

TOPS

By Jonathan Lim.

An experimental angular piece that pays homage to black and white great, Joel Tjintelaar

Julius Tjintjelaar II

Like said in my previous post, I have decided to pay homage to the works of Joel Tjinteleer. To do this, I have taken the following aspects of his work into consideration: vision in urban architecture, line structure and black and white to bring out attention to other design principles.

When I was at the top of the Myers' center, I took a series of architectural shots using a Canon 1000d - with a 55-200mm zoom lens attached. A snippet of my shots can be seen in the screenshot above.
The shots below involved a reflection off windows, that is why the images look mirrored/symmetrical. I felt that the mirror made a very interesting perspective. The lines and shapes given out by the texture and objects were very appealing and fresh.  I took several shot of the same subject, as seen in my screenshots. Experimenting with both landscape and portrait compositions.

I was stuck between two of the pieces. If you look closely on the screenshot above, there's a faint numbering system occuring. 601 602 603 ... 608.
The two pieces I shortlisted were 602 and 608. (second and second last shot.)

But I had to go with 602, as I felt that it exaggerated the shape and line structure more.

The shot can be seen below.

The EXIF data for the image shown above is :

• Camera          Canon EOS 1000D
• Exposure          0.04 sec (1/25)
• Aperture          f/3.5
• Focal Length 18 mm
• ISO Speed 400
• Exposure Bias +1 EV

From here I started doing some standard processing.

I first started processing it in Adobe Lightroom 2.5.

1. Converted to greyscale (black and white settings are shown below)
2. Increased the blacks and clarity
3. Decreased contrast
4. Added a curves layer which made the highlights and darks in the photograph darker.
5. I cropped the photo to emphasize the line and shapes in photograph.

I then imported the photograph into photoshop for some high pass sharpening + unmask sharpening.

Resized for general output (web), I also kept a relatively large version for printing.

Remember the other photograph in the shortlist? Well, I continued working with the image as well. The final outcome can be seen below. But then again, it's in colour, so it won't relate to Joel's photographs all that well. I personally like the vibrancy in this piece.

Anyways, I am quite happy with this outcome.

Jonathan Lim

Julius Tjintjelaar I

Joel (more formally Julius) Tjintelaar is a black and white artists who specializes in B&W seascapes and architectural photography. He tends to use long exposure day time photography to achieve his works.

He likes to work in B&W as he feels that the removal of colour brings out the essence of objects, situations and people become more visible. He believes, with the removal of colour, it allows one to become more technical in composing one's shot; being more aware of contrast, light, shapes and line.

The photograph above taken by Tjintelaar shows very powerful and effective use of line and curve line structures. It is composed very well, using the rules of odds - through the three stairs shown horizontally. There's a lot of contrast between the sky and the materials of the stairs. It is very simplistic. Which is key is many photographs today.

Tjintelaar, in my opinion, has a very experimental style. Take the photograph below as an example.

I am deeply inspired by this marvelous artwork. The long exposure technique made the shot extremely simple.  The line structure again compliments the piece perfectly. It is also composed with great precision - closely look at the horizon in the piece. Even though this looks different to other cliche artworks, he is still able to use the common composition rules of photograph - and art in general. The rules of thirds, notice how placed the horizon on the bottom half of the piece.

The composition and point of view of the two photographs above are expertly done and executed. The first one has a very strong use of patterns whilst the second one has strong use of line structure that takes initiative.

I find his works very inspiring and 'out there' - fresh. That is why I have decided to create an artwork that pays homage to Joel Tjintelaar and his photographic style. I will do this by taking on his style of perspective and vision and mixing it with mine.

Jonathan Lim.

Daidō Moriyama III

Overall, I felt that the piece entitled Regret is very strong and appealing piece. I think that I did quite well in using parts of Daido Moriyama's style in my own personal way.
I love the line and shape structure in the piece. The photograph is composed very well, hence the rhythm in this piece is 'in there'.
The the use negative space in this artwork really distinguishes the main focal of the piece, in addition to that it makes the artwork more eye catching.
I feel that the piece has an emotional element to it, it's somewhat serene. The use of black and white, nature and simplicity. In a way, it implies deeper meaning.
In conclusion, I believe that this piece payed homage to Japanese photographer Daido Moriyama in a respectful and positive manner.

Jonathan.

Regret

Regret
By Jonathan Lim.

A high contrast piece inspired by the works of Daidō Moriyama. It is also homage to Daidō Moriyama.

Daidō Moriyama II

So, I decided to create a piece to show respect and admiration to Japanese photographer Daido Moriyama. (His work shown above)

Normally walk around with my camera (Nikon d3000 18-55VR) at all times when I am outside, I walked into interesting things on which I take photographs of.
The following shots shown in the screenshot above were taken at Sunnybank, specifically the bridge connecting Sunny Park with Sunnybank Plaza. Off this bridge I manage to take images of two main subjects – my brother and a tree. The shots were taken in the evening, the sky was quite gloomy – it was fairly grey. This led to a fairly nice background to the photographs.

After examining all the photos from the photo-shoot for that day. I decided to use the nature shots of the tree. By looking at the screenshot above, there are a number of nature shots. Therefore, I had to look through each one and determine which one I was going to use to pay homage to Daido Moriyama.

The image above, is the image I decided to use for my homage. The exif details for this image is as follows :
- Nikon D3000, 18-55 VR (shot at 55mm)

- 1/25 Secs

- f 5.6

- ISO 800

I chose this photograph because it has a nice depth of field (dof) and I felt that this photograph was more composed than the others taken in the series. The main composition element in this piece is the use of lines and the rules of thirds.

At this point I wanted to add that Moriyama element to the piece.

Using Adobe Lightroom 2.5 as my main photo editor, I began adding key traits of Moriyama into my piece.

1. I increased the exposure by one stop and a bit.

2. Increased the recovery (to control highlights)

3. Increased fill light slightly.

4. Increased blacks (making some details more prominent)

5. Brightness and contrast were increased considerably to create a high key / contrast element.

6. Clarity was increased (Increasing detail and taking away any blur)

7. Curves was applied, mainly adjusting the highlights and shadows in the piece. The curve looked like an S. Which is a common shape for increasing the contrast.

From this point, the image was relayed to Adobe Photoshop CS3 for further processing and fine tuning.

1. A black and white gradient map adjustment layer was added. With the layer mode set to Luminosity. This increased the contrast in the piece once again. The opacity was adjusted to my liking - at 47%.
2. A merged copy of the image was applied onto a newly created layer. Then I used a High Pass filter (Filters > Others > High Pass) with settings set on a quite low pixel setting. A low pixel setting was to show finer details in the piece. This layer was set to softlight. The opacity was left on 100%.

3. Then I sharpened and resized the image in accordance to where I am going to present this artwork. On the computer or printed. The version shown below is a web version of my final artwork. It was resized 1100px, sharpened a few times then resized to 640 px wide.

I love the final outcome, the high contrast made the piece very interesting and striking. Depth is maintained - through the faint lines in the pure white background - even though it's highly contrasted. The details shown on the leaves are crisp and detailed. The line structure and shapes gives a sense of simplicity. 

I have used my style and taken traits from Daido Moriyama's style and created my own low key photograph.

Jonathan.

Top image copyright Daido Moriyama. All other images copyright Jonathan Lim