Rock collecting
by Mark ~ February 20th, 2010. Filed under: Great Lakes, Michigan, abstracts, art, composition, macro, nature photography, rock.
Wet beach rocks
I processed this image recently, although I actually made the exposure back in August 2008. I worked with it quite a bit to give it some depth and dimension. I wanted it to look like you could pick one of the rocks up off the page and put it in your pocket. It represents nature’s continuously changing patterns, continuously changing harmony, and continuously changing chaos.
We naturally want to find harmony in any visual stimuli. Harmony leads to less tension, and less visual stress so to speak. If it is something we find comfort in, we gravitate naturally towards it. So what is it about a pile of rocks that so many people can find something of interest in?
Shorelines with beach rocks are nature’s continuous random pattern generator. Two people can stare at the same pile of rocks, and the characteristics that stand out to one are likely to be completely different from the other. There is something there that appeals to both. That visual absorption and preference is an accumulation of all of our personal likes, dislikes and experiences. Come back minutes later, and there are new discoveries to be found. It is no wonder people can spend hours walking up and down rocky beaches just staring at the ground.
Nature has a way of creating something for everyone. Photography for me is one way to not let those gifts go unnoticed.
This photograph was created using a Nikon D2X and Nikon 24-85 f2.8-4.0 lens, on a Lake Superior shoreline in the Little Traverse Conservancy property in Michigan. Post processing using Adobe Lightroom 2 and Photoshop CS3 using Topaz Adjust, Layer blend modes, and luminosity masking on a Mac Pro. More beach rock pictures in my gallery.
February 20th, 2010 at
Hey, Mark -
Really nice – you know I love those rock shots! Funny, too – just last night I was looking at some shots of beach rocks I took at Pictured Rocks last summer… :^D
Interesting about Topaz Adjust, too – used to be I never saw anybody else using Topaz products, but they seem to be gaining in popularity. I like their DeNoise & Detail plugins, too.
I’m off to revisit your other beach rock photos now – feels like that kind of day!
- Jack
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Mark Reply:
February 21st, 2010 at
Thanks Jack. I haven’t had much chance to play with DeNoise much, but I do like Detail quite a bit.
The Pictured Rocks area, and that entire shoreline of southern Lake Superior is one of my favorite spots in Michigan.
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February 20th, 2010 at
Great image, Mark. I suspect it didn’t have the wonderful dimension to it at first. I love taking fairly mundane images and turning them into something special, as you’ve done here.
I agree with you about rock beaches. One interesting exercise I did last summer was to spend about an hour on a rock beach looking for heart shaped rocks. I found about 20 of them! You just have to look for ‘em.
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Mark Reply:
February 21st, 2010 at
Thank you Bob. The raw file was certainly quite flat in tonality. Lightroom helped liven it up some, but I really needed the finishing touches in PS to make it complete.
That’s quite amazing you found that many hearts – must have been a great beach.
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February 20th, 2010 at
[...] Read the original post: Rock collecting | Graf Nature Photography | Notes from the woods [...]
February 20th, 2010 at
This photo definitely feels like you can reach out and pick up one of the rocks. That is what I like about photography too. It brings attention to something that may have gone unnoticed. So many people these days are too busy to notice how many gifts nature gives. Cheers!
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February 21st, 2010 at
Hey Mark,
Excellent photo, and the commentary, well, rocks.
Seriously, this is a great post, thanks.
“Harmony leads to less tension, and less visual stress so to speak.”
This is perfect.
Cheers
Carl
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Mark Reply:
February 21st, 2010 at
Thanks Carl!
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February 21st, 2010 at
You’re so right, and I’m one of these people. There’s something special with beach rocks, they are so gentle with the eyes and mind somehow….
I think the processing of this image succeeded very well, the deep colours that comes from the wet stones really make the image pop.
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Mark Reply:
February 21st, 2010 at
Thank you Ove. I am also, could spend a whole day there, but the result is usually a very stiff neck.
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February 21st, 2010 at
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by Wildlife_Photo: Graf Nature Photography | Notes from the woods – Rock collecting: http://bit.ly/cX7uot #WildlifePhoto…
February 21st, 2010 at
Very nice image, created by an artist. First is the vision of seeing the scene, capturing it well and processed it to create your art. I would love to know more about the post processing part. Well done, Mark!
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Mark Reply:
February 21st, 2010 at
Thanks Monte. I am not sure how much detail you want on the post processing part, it is kind of hard describing in words on something I react to visually. In Lightroom I got the image probably 80% of the way to the way I wanted it – mostly using clarity, vibrance, black sliders.
In Topaz in Photoshop, I picked one of the presets (I forget which now) because I tweaked the Topaz sliders to soften the effect some. This was done on a duplicate background layer.
I then changed the blend mode of that duplicated layer to darker color. Nothing particular about this other than moving through them to see which softened the filter even more.
I built my 3 typical luminosity masks on top of that for lights, darks, and expanded midtones – each had only a slight tweak to the curve.
I then finished it up with a slight color saturation tweak to warm the colors a bit. All in all – there are 6 layers total in PS – backgrond, topaz, 3 luminosity masks, and then the final.
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February 22nd, 2010 at
Excellent photo, Mark, with vibrating colours and a “real” feel. It really looks like I could reach out and grab one of them. The post is interesting, too. We men are drawn to stones and rocks since the very beginning of our kind. Look at the obelisks and menhirs which we used and to which we gave special powers and meanings.
You mentioned walking along the pebble beach and I must say that there is only few such peaceful activities as as walking on the pebbles, looking for different shapes and colours, hearing them rattle under your feet and sense the humidity and peaceful sound of waves hitting the beach.
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February 22nd, 2010 at
You’d appreciate the beaches along Lake Erie, where the rocks are dotted with 400 million year old fossils.
Love this shot, btw. There’s something particularly wonderful about wet rocks.
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February 22nd, 2010 at
Sooo true! Gotta love nature. I am surprised when I meet someone not fascinated by the beautiful details that surround us. They are gifts like you say, but it is equally wonderful that you appreciate them. A beautiful image. I defo feel like I can reach in and pick one of those pepples right out of the shot.
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February 22nd, 2010 at
Mark, wonderful job in processing this image. From my opinion and all those I’ve read above, I’d say you definitely achieved your goal. Wonderful job and beautiful results.
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February 23rd, 2010 at
Excellent, Mark. As soon as I looked at this image, my mind raced to Topaz Adjust. I recently did an image with larger rocks that, when I used Adjust, just exploded off the screen. Exactly as you said, you feel you can just reach into the image and touch the the stones/rocks. Very well done.
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February 23rd, 2010 at
Putting it simply, … this is a knock’em dead image!
And thanks for the processing info. Those plugins I’ll have to take a look at.
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February 23rd, 2010 at
Thanks folks! I am glad you liked this one.
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