Fun with Colorization!

I have already mentioned previously that I have been interested in photography since a very early age, and while most of my love of photography came from my mother (she gave me my first camera, took me on photo shoots, and taught me a few dark room tricks) I was also quite impressed with my paternal uncle's photos, particularly the ones he hand toned of my eldest sister when she was a wee lassie. For those not in the know hand toning is when you use a special paint (of sorts) to add color to black and white prints. It's very time consuming and an art within an artform. I have done a few traditional hand toned prints (one of which that I'm incredibly proud of is framed and in my bedroom, and was consequently the one photograph I've managed to get in an art show way back when) but as traditional darkroom photography is a bit pricey and takes up a lot of space and time (none of which I have at the moment) I have been experimenting with digital hand toning on Photoshop.

I started experimenting with the digital toning/colorization when I took a digital photography class as an undergrad at Southern Connecticut State University, again I only have the prints from that class as the cds with all my files has gone missing. Recently, this past year, I started to take up the act again, more seriously this time. The first one I really enjoyed the out come is this shot:



This is a photo of my friends Will and Mandi that I took at their place in Washington Heights last Easter. It was kind of a supplement to a project Mandi hired me for (taking photos of her picture frame wall art in her room for a book she's working on, more on that later maybe). The photo itself came out kind of crappy, to be honest, so being bored I hacked away at it in Photoshop using some filters and cheap photo tricks. After still not liking it I attempted to colorize it. I deliberately went for a look that did not appear completely realistic. I wanted both Will and Mandi to look as if they were in soft focus and have the feel of the photos my uncle hand toned. In the end I think that went as well as it could with a photo that had little going on with it.

The following is kind of an explanation of how I go about colorizing a photo, or rather re-colorizing a photo to be quite accurate. I first start off with a color photo that I then remove the color from via using Photoshop's color mixer set to monochrome and then fiddle with the color balance giving the black and white photo a bit of warmth or coldness depending (yellows and reds add warmth, blues tend to cool photos down). In the end I'm left with a nice black and white image:



(Oh, this is a shot of the entrance to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens near Prospect Park)

I then go through the photo and select bit by bit the areas I want to color and fiddle with the color balance till I get the color tone I think works well. This is kind of the more involved moment as slowly selecting each area takes a lot of patience and a decent eye for the small details. In the end I ended up with this:



Now I was almost satisfied with this but it seemed a bit to jarring and bright to me so I desaturated the image in small increments until I was happy with the shot:



In the end I like this shot of the Botanical Gardens, possibly because of all the time and effort I put into it, but also because I'm a sucker for photos that look old and to some degree flawed. I'm not saying that these photos are the be all and end all of colorized photos. I could have spent a lot more time on them. The Botanical Garden photos were done during some down time I had at my improv internship at the Magnet Theater.

Though to be honest this is pretty much how I attack photography, with a carefree nonchalance. I enjoy photography and photo editing. I find it really relaxing and fulfilling, part of why I like it so much is because I either shoot on the fly or edit in quick bursts which tends to create problems and flaws. Problems and flaws, to me at least, are what make a photo live. Sure you can spend hours on a subject, searching for the perfect angle, the perfect exposure and settings, editing the photo till it looks far better than the subject does in real life. In the end of doing this you get a photo that, while pretty much perfect, is devoid of life. Life is filled with flaws, rough edges and mistakes, it is the accidental inclusion of some mystery spice that makes the meal awesome.

Roland Barthes, in his book Camera Lucida, wrote about the studium and punctum of a photograph. The studium is what the photo is obviously about, it is what the photographer wants you to see in their photo, while the punctum is what pierces the individual who views the image. Punctum is what draws you into a photo and causes you to feel a connection with it, for me, this is located in flaws and happy accidents (i.e. background activity I totally didn't see while eyeing up the shot). With heavy planning and editing I feel you run the risk of removing any possible punctum the viewer might stumble upon. Plus I hate clean photos, much like I hate the idea of a clean Coney Island (see last post, or just get me started on the subject if you ever talk to me).

I plan on continuing with digitally re-colorizing photos, think of it as a side project tossed in amongst the several main projects I'm working on. These photos will be in a set on my flickr account which you can check out here. I'm hoping that I can at least toss in a photo or two from each of my main projects into this little venture, why? Because, like I said, I find doing this really, really relaxing. So hurray for fun things! Fun things abound! And with that I am off.

Till next my friends,

~C~

Changing Seasons

First a bit about the photo subject. What you see below is what was once Playland at Coney Island, one of the many remnants of the amusements that use to line Surf Avenue (there are still many though and Astroland will be open this next season). This park closed in 1981 and started originally as a penny arcade, and has since lost all its attractions but the main building remains.


Summer Times


I took this photo on a particularly foggy summer afternoon. I had skipped out on attending my graduation from the master's program I was in and was waiting for a few other M.A. kids to show up and take part in taking Coney Island in (on an off day it turned out). The fog was intense, you can't really tell in this photo (as it has been tweaked over and over again) but at one point of the day I stood at the end of the long pier extending into the Atlantic Ocean and could see just a small glimmer of the shore line. Funny thing, when I got on the subway to make my way to Coney Island it was a bright and sunny day, the sky was clear the birds were singing, children were swearing like sailors. The moment I stepped off the subway at the Brighton Beach stop it seemed like a thick low cloud had settled over everything. As it was the very start of the season, and the middle of the week, there were relatively few people on the boardwalk or the beach; made the whole trip feel a bit surreal and cathartic which considering this was the day that marked the end of my college education (at least for the time being). To be pretentious for just a second, I felt like my life was also entering a foggy area, out of the clear goal oriented world of academia and into the foggy uncertainty of post-graduate unemployment. Nothing in my future seemed all that clear, I could sort of make out shapes but for all I knew those shapes I thought to be treasure chests were possibly just trashcans scattered on the beach.

Alright moment of pretension has been dealt with. Let me get into the photo itself. I love graffiti. Love it. Think it is one of the best thing that has happened to walls since hapless layabouts decided to hold them up. I also like things in disrepair. You get a better sense of a dynamic history from things that are falling apart than you do with things that are squeaky clean. The vacant lot that makes up the majority of Playland was littered with random trash. Seagulls were resting, munching on corn dogs and fried dough they managed to steal from the handful of people taking a stroll on the boardwalk. You also have to take into account that where there is now grass there was once pavement. You can still see some traces of the pavement here and there but for the most part everything, save the main building, is gone. It was not only taken over by nature but also by the streets (i.e. the tags on the building). The Playland that entertained children and young couples on a carefree date has no become a Playland for seagulls, rats and late night graffiti artists (who are, for the most part, viewed by the City as vermin as well).


Winter Times


This photo I took a few weekends ago. I was only a few days back in the city from taking a short trip to my home state for the holidays and felt the need to go back and check out the scene. Oddly enough there were more people this day than during the summer. Going to Coney Island this time I was in a different state of mind. Things have been going a bit better for me (direction wise), I was pretty much happy and the many trips I made to Coney Island that past summer since the foggy day had cemented a stronger endearment towards the neighborhood. Much had changed for me and low in a pretentious streak of fate much had changed to Playland!

I do not think I even had a slight inkling that I was going to take another photo of Playland that day. I kind of hate retaking photos of the same thing unless it is for a series or I seriously hate that photo I have taken of something and get a random streak of ambition and retake the photo. However, when I sauntered passed (yes I did indeed saunter) I was amazed at how much growth there was in the vacant lot and it was only after I started working on retouching the color (I dislike my camera because the color always needs to be adjusted in Photoshop) that I noticed that the graffiti was painted over and it seems the building itself has been given a cleaning. The building itself is still closed and there is no sign that anything is ever going to happen to the space but regardless it has a nice look to it, and I actually like how the photo came out a bit more than the one from the summer.

Coney Island has gone from being the ultimate play land to one of the seediest sections of Brooklyn to being slowly revived and now on the verge of having (for better or worse) a major redesign. I don't know if Playland will survive much longer. It could have been bought by someone and might be restored to its former glory, or it could be wiped off the map to make room for a condo. Life changes, sometimes it changes slowly like the grass uprooting the pavement, other times it changes as fast as a paint roller or a spray can hitting a wall. All things are transitory, and to me, that's great because whenever I get stuck in a fog bank of life I can always be sure that eventually the fog will lift and I'll have noticed that there's a field of tall grass right before me and oh no! There's a bear!!


Cheers!

~C~

Mind the Closing Doors

Good day to you one and all who have happened to have stumbled upon this blog. You may be wondering exactly what to expect here. If you have followed a link from one of my other blogs or online social networks then you may have a pretty decent understanding as to how my mind works; if you have just happened across this blog on the sly than fear not I will explain everything.

I am in that lovely place of post-graduate life, having attained my B.A. in Acting and Directing at a small state university and wrestled through my masters work to get an M.A. in Performance Studies. I now work at a museum's art research library. I also do, as of now, very little performing or studying. What I do do in my spare time is take photos. While I am not in any sense of the word a "professional photographer," I have been snapping pictures since I was eight and my mom gave me her used 35mm slr (no brand, no option to change the lens, but it worked fine). I do have a flickr account, but I honestly feel that having a blog to showcase the photos I enjoy would be more fulfilling to me (hence this blog).

Now about this blog, I will attempt (no promises are made though) to update this at the very least weekly. Each post will have one or more photos and possibly some random typing of my own following it. Unless otherwise noted, all the photos on this blog were taken by myself and if you like them please feel free to comment, hell if you don't like them comment as well, I like feed back. The photos featured on this blog will range from urban landscapes and settings (such as the photo above of the Q train late at night), to more dynamic performance based shots (musical acts, theatrical performances, social upheaval etc.), to odd "artistic" shots based on some sort of theme.

Well I think that has been more than enough prattle for an opening blog entry. Please feel free to stop by at any time, check out the photos, read the words, eat a hot dog.

Cheers!

~C~