jeowf

[jeowf]

Infographs are a visual representation of data or knowledge in a clear and easy to read fashion. They are used to describe anything from weather to scores from a match and even cover road or train maps.

I chose a data set that I could relate to, paid and unpaid work, as it applies to me and everyone. The discrepancies with

Using adobe illustrator I created an infograph on paid and unpaid Australian work. This is because I had previous knowledge about how to use the program and I was familiar with the tools that it offered and knew how to go about creating my infograph effectively. The vector graphics design was appropriate if I needed to resize and rethink my structure and it would reduce the amount of manual work needed.

I measured area of each circle for the bullseye circles. Due to the information being cumulative data this was the perfect chart style. As indicated by the labels the empty portion is the unemployed or missing piece of the chart. Each portion is clearly labelled with a percentage proportionate to the size of the element.

I chose to use the outer circles for the charts which I didn’t find on any other infographs because these describe the employed in the pie chart and the unpaid hours in the right chart in an easy to interpret manner. The colours are coded to be from yellow to red in the spectrum help unite the information together. This is unlike any other convention that I've seen in infographs but I got the inspiration from combining the two styles of charts. Other conventions that I've followed are the labelling style which I’ve seen on many other charts and graphs.

The chart in the bottom left is a pie graph with an inner circle to show the unemployed percentage (area of the quarter circle) of the different types of working hours. The chart in the bottom right doesn't have an inner circle as it doesn't need to describe the unemployed as it’s the different ways that people get to work and wouldn't include such statistical data.

I researched into the design of other infographs and took inspiration on how to go about my own. I chose to combine the pie and bullseye chart on the basis that it is easy to read as well as fast to interpret than just words. It also allowed the chart to appear more approachable and simple while being filled with knowledge. It also allows people to make connection between each value and easily compare the two visually. The information was originally presented in a table which meant that it took time to interpret and was easy to lose interest in.

The Australian bureau of statistics is Australia’s national statistics agency which researches and gathers data about Australians. They conduct a census every five years. The data set I chose to use was the most recent one which was held in 2011 making it very recent and accurate data which can be applied to today’s demographic.

[jeowf]

This is my metapost for my university course.

My best 3 blog posts that I’d like marked for content are

Camera Raw

Star Trails

Cake

The two pictures above show my frequency of posts and Google analytic traffic tracking data. I initially started to post short blogs very frequently but changed to longer more detailed posts.

I attempted to raise awareness about my post through linking it on Facebook as well as posting my tumblr to other blog websites and forums regarding photography, this would explain the sudden raise in visitors and the drop as the returning viewers are the ones who came back the next month.

I had difficulty getting Google analytics to work with my tumblr blog. Like with many problems I went through it slowly and it wasn't until the 3rd try did it seem to work. I learnt that looking through someone else’s html document made html/css seem very complex but if one takes it step by step when trying to decode it is actually very simple. As recommended by my tutor I had a look and learn through “htmldog”. This helped me greatly in making sense of it.

The lectures helped inform me of issues that I should be aware of such as creative commons and copyright.

Overall I found my course to be intriguing and interesting.

[jeowf]

The height of your photography can have a  very large impact. As you can see the entire venue of this screening can be seen. This is only surprisingly 1.5m higher than a handheld shot.

This was achieved by holding a tripod with the camera affixed to it. Unfortunately it is difficult to hold a camera so high without is shaking as you don't have much control over it. 

this is why I chose an 16mm fisheye over a 24mm lens (35mm equivalent) as it makes the shakiness appear less obviously. I still had to change the iso to a ridiculously high value which reduced the dynamic range significantly as there was very very little light. the light lighting the audience is a small projector being reflected off the matte screen.

Now although the fisheye clearly distorts the trees in the image (you can see the top right tree just leaning into the corner) I saw the benefit of less blur to be much more important.I can also crop the image in post if required.

[jeowf]

Focal length or the field of view on your lens isn't a way to "get in close" it's a way to change perspective. The photo above is equivalent to a 600mm lens (when shooting with a full frame camera).

A friend and I were photographers for a big hiking event and we were walking behind this massive group of hikers. One way of taking a photo like this was to put a wide angle lens on and just take the shot. But I wanted to make the hikers appear closer together in unity. This means walking a few hundred meters back as well as asking my fellow photographer to move out of the shot line.

As you can see I also had to raise the camera above my head so that all the hiker's heads would be seen,

This is one of my favorite photos.

[jeowf]

Night action shots are one the most difficult things to capture on a camera.

Normally you can open up your aperture on your lens to let more light in due to the lack of light at night but since it's an action shot you'll have trouble keeping your subjects in focus, especially since they are moving.

Alternatively you could put your camera on a tripod and extend the shutter speed but once again since it's a moving object you'll get a lot of motion blur. In the above photo the only light source were the weak fluorescent lights above. I cheated a bit and allowed my shutter speed to go longer than freezing the moment and kept the subject in focus by panning with the kart.

Lastly one can boost the iso sensitivity of the camera but this results in noise in the image. Though it is remedied slightly in post processing it has it's downsides. (see last post)

With panning shots it's important to start with a fast shutter speed and slowly lower it as you get better at it. Also make sure that horizontal image stabilization is turned off as it can lead to blur looks like it's jumping.

[jeowf]

Hi

The two examples above are the same photo except on has a noise filter to it. This is the lightroom 4 noise filter.

As you can see the noise reduction is great but just like any noise reduction system there are a few drawbacks. The main one is loss of detail. If you look carefully you can see that the small tree leaves on the right side of the photo are gone as well as the edge of the red hoodie in the bottom right corner. 

This photo is of the Canberra war memorial on anzac day during the dawn service, It is 7am and freezing. As you can see there is actually quite a large turnout. They needed traffic control as well as there were many unorthodox parking spaces created.

I like the composition of this photo as the red hoodie balances out the war memorial as well as is a contrast in colour.

[jeowf]

Often photographers want to get their photos with a very very shallow depth of field.

This is an example of where the amount of things in focus is not enough, you can see that the blurry behind of the sailing boat takes up a majority of the screen and is very distracting.

Usually for portraits and most things a blurry background is pleasing but if what you wasn't isn't in focus then you've missed the point. This can be gotten around by using a longer lens where the background is blurry due to perspective rather than aperture.

Besides the focus I like this photo because of the morning lighting quality and the content of the boat especially since it is on a milk crate,

[jeowf]

Macro Photography.

I took this on a camping trip and it is a moth on a map.

As you can see when the object in focus is close to the lens the depth of field is significantly shortened. Normally you'd be able to stop down but there is a certain point where the image becomes soft due to the diffraction. And past that point the image just gets worse.

One way around this is called focus stacking, though it only works for still objects. It is where you take a photo at different focus distances and when you process them you take the sharpest spot out of each image.

In this particular photo because the moth was a moving object I wasn't able to stack focused images. Due to the need to keep the same framing      a tripod would have been required and I didn't have enough time to get it. The moth would have flown away by the time I'd have gotten it.

In post I had to lift the shadows a bit because this was only lit from one side with a head torch and there was little detail in the shadows.

[jeowf]

Hi

I wanted to share this photo which I took a while ago now. I love it because It's an interesting use of reflections.

The blue square is actually a billboard. This photo was taken at 10:35 pm which means that there was little to no ambient light and it was only lit by passing cars and a few street lights. 

I wanted to capture the moment as I remember it, so The auto white balance made things white and took the mercury lighting as a white point so I had to change the balance in post.

You can just see me just above the billboard with a tripod. It is an interesting angle and composition because I've used a 300mm lens (35mm equiv). I love how modern cameras can catch the finest detail. You can make out spider webs on the "neck" of the lamp.

[jeowf]

Hi all

I'd like to talk about camera raw. The image above would not be possible without raw. Raw is the lack of compression when storing a photograph onto a memory card. When a camera normally stores a compressed image it throws out information that an image contains that the eye can't see, these are things like more colors that are possible to see on a computer screen or in print as well as lots of data about the exposure. Things like shutter speed and aperture or focal length size can't be changed as they aren't part of the sensor.

A major pro of raw most people will find is the ability to change the white balance in post which is how the camera interprets the amount of colour present in a light source in order to make things appear white. The automatic system in a camera is very good but can be slow to react and has its limits such as when shooting under fluorescent lights that appear green in the final image.

The main benefit in the image cropped above is the recovery of the detail of the gas coming from the burner. Data of the clouds after they have been reduced in brightness is retained and doesn't look posterized which is when the image shows banding which is where the colors don't appear as a smooth gradient instead they show up as bands of colour.

[jeowf]

Hi guys

I'd like to talk about bokeh. Bokeh is the creamy circles of light in the background of the above image. They are created by the circular opening of the lens I was using. The size of them depend on the focal length (higher is bigger) as well as how close your subject in focus is (close is bigger) and the F stop that the lens is at (the wider the larger) as the depth of field is shallower.

The subject of your photo dictates how good the content of bokeh looks. This particular shot has a lot of the creamy balls because it's the city scape with all the small window lights of night.

If i were to take this shot again i'd probably use a better lens with an even shallower depth of field. I also dislike the amount of noise in the image, although it is an appealing monochrome noise i'd rather it be clean but i don't want to lose detail in the lights of the skin.

The subject is a friend of mine who also does photography, you can see his camera peeping on the bottom right of the image with a wireless intervalometer on it.

[jeowf]

Hi guys

This is on of my few photos which I like that is simple and effective. For those of you who can't see it the cake pieces are making a smiley face =) This is why I always have a camera with me. My main camera will always be near either in a bag or in the car nearby. But for small moments like these its always an option to pull my phone out before someone eats that bit of cake. 

I'd like to link ken rockwells article

 http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/150-vs-5000-dollar-camera.htm

He describes the difference between a high value thousand dollar camera and compares it to a small point and shoot. These days the camera found in your phone is comparable to the chip found in your larger camera. This is in scenes with a lot of light such as one lit by the sun. The larger camera is of course better in low light due to the lower signal to noise ration and larger sensor. It also has the ability to pump up the sensitivity of the camera while your phone is limited.

The reason why larger sensor sizes means a greater image is often due to the larger individual pixel sizes. HTC has announced a new phone with  only 4 megapixels as opposed to the large 8 megapixels found on competing phones. This means better low light performance also higher dynamic range. (this is how wide the difference between the brightest and darkest part of your image is recorded)

http://pocketnow.com/2013/03/17/htc-one-vs-iphone-5-camera

I am not sponsored by any phone company and this is just me sharing some new technology that I found interesting.

[jeowf]

In photography it is commonly known that good photographers are "creative".

Time and time again we see photos being taken of the same composition, we follow a set of rules and guidelines. One of the most popular is the "rule of thirds" where the frame is divided up into nine groups (thirds vertically and thirds horizontally) and the subject is placed at one of these thirds this is also known as the "lazy golden rule" where all photos should follow a set of ratios used to divide up the frame. The photo above is a classic example of this.

These conventions are created by us and are seen as visually pleasing.

This isn't a bad thing or something that should be stopped it is simply just interesting to observe.

[jeowf]

Hullo People.

The top is my final picture and the bottom is the original. It was taken by me on while leaving fraser island.

As you can see the top picture has a much different aspect ratio to the original, I chose this because I wanted to combine both the boats on the horizon and the pier at the same time. The water and sky around the image was quite boring and I wanted the viewer not to be distracted.

Alternatively I could have taken a series of photo's then stitch them together but I was on a moving boat and this would have made stitching photos a pain.

The photo has been changed to be a little on the warm side to create a more sunset feel. the shadows have been brought out a little so that the water didn't look like a deep murky place or the island to dark.

In terms of creative commons I have no problems anyone using or modifying my work so long as it is not for commercial purposes and they release such work under a similar licence i.e "Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike"

[jeowf]

Hello everyone.

I've decided to post longer posts but less often.

The top photo is my final image and the bottom is a basic raw conversion of one of the pictures)

This is a composition of 108 photos which I took a few months ago. The exposure took roughly about an hour and was composited and coloured on photoshop.

Initially when I was taking the photo I though to have the star trails on the tip of the tower, but it wouldn't had the tower an an odd angle and The exposure time would've had to be much longer to get the same length of trails because the "rotation" (if you can call it that because it is us that rotates) of the stars around the "poles" is much slower over time.

In terms of composure I made sure that the tower was aligned with the right third and I believe that It looks great. But when I got home turns out I was terrible, same with keeping the horizon level (it actually is when I looked at the camera's leveler but we are actually on a hill.

The white balance I chose to have a blue and cool look (good thing I shoot raw) because I didn't find the yellow glow appealing as it took too much attention from the stars.

If I were to take this again the future I would probably make sure that the grass at the bottom was a complete black as there is a bit of noise present if you look carefully.

[jeowf]

Hi guys, This is another photo I took. the glow of the fire is pretty awesome.

[jeowf]

Hey guys. Another photo. I much enjoy the lack of color pallet in this photo.