Thursday 21 February 2008

More Through the Viewfinder

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As mentioned in a previous post, I've been trying to work out the magic of Through the Viewfinder photography and haven't really been doing very well. I wondered if there was any way to cheat at it - there seem to be ways to cheat at most types of photography so I set about Google. Flickr came up with the goods in a wonderful group called Noise and Dust where people have photographed their viewfinder with a blank view so you just get the border and any dust, flares, vignetting etc. All you have to do next is mess around with blend layers in Photoshop and you get a fabulous image like the one above. I shot a pretty ordinary bowl of slightly sad looking fruit on my D300 and then applied the viewfinder from an Asco Panda camera from the group mentioned above and I think the result is wonderful. I've done a few more using pictures I shot yesterday, some corks and a bunch of daffodils and then tried some existing pictures of food - apples, tomatoes, red onions and some lovely pears which all lend themselves very well to the technique and could feasibly have been shot using the 'real' method. Just before I went to bed last night I applied the same technique to a sign on the North Pier in Blackpool which was also very successful.

What I would like to do to continue this so it's not so much of a cheat, is to use the same process, but shoot the viewfinder of my Rolliecord see this post as I think I'd be more comfortable using my own camera, it's also a much cleaner look and I love the cross hairs. I'll try to do that tomorrow morning or certainly over the weekend.


7 comments:

  1. I think I prefer the cleaner, Rollicord view too. I see a lot of pics like this and wondered how it was done (I guessed photoshop). Nice work- I enjoyed browsing your blog.

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  2. I really like the look of these, especially the way the colors pop on the fruit, so it looks old fashioned but not quite. Good luck with your experiments.

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  3. There is something about these type of photographs that I really like...glad you found a way to make it a little easier...

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  4. Not a photographer here, but I love the look of those. I especially like the second one.

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  5. Thanks Mary Ann, I appreciate your kind comments! I'm getting lots of good feedback from this experiment. I think it will live to see another day (or few!)

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  6. I love through the viewfinder photos! I bought an Argus 75 to try it, but haven't worked it out yet.

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