Altered Reality with Photo Shop

This is a Photoshopped altered reality image inspired by Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream. It's called Titania (after the fairy queen in the play).

There are three layer elements which make up this image.

1) The background
2) The subject
3) A prop or props

The background was taken with the idea that I'd be adding subject matter to it. It's simple but has classic elements, namely backlighting (which is favored by most schools of landscape art)
A tunnel to draw your eye to the subject and a diffused light source.

The subject was an attractive model from a Shakespearean dress rehearsal (she is made subtlely translucent to give a "spirit" look). Costumes and permission all inclusive.

The prop is a set of moth wings (notice that they are made considerably translucent with the opacity control). I chose moth wings because one of the fairies who introduced the magical element of Midsummer, speaking to Puck, called herself Moth. Moth wings rather than butterfly or bird wings gives the image a more foreboding and dangerous element. The spirits Shakespeare portrayed were not to be trifled with.

A "wash" with a broad white paintbrush set at about 5% opacity creates a foreground mist.

Composite Pages

Composite pages can be used for scrapbooking, photo albums or wall framing. You pay for the price of one photo but get as many photos as you can fit on one page! In this case, I've put 8 images (all vignetted) on a square black background. You can use whatever color or shape background you want. Or you can use an abstract image, an out of focus detail, sky or some type of scenery as a background. Use Photo Shop to create a background layer. You can make it translucent, B&W or monochrome. Then with multiple layers and about a 30% vignette on every image (cut and paste with marquise tool) start laying in and arranging and resizing your images to your satisfaction.

Streaming Rays of Light

Light is the most important factor in photography. More so than subject matter. Light is the medium for photographers just as paint is the medium for the painter.

Where is beautiful light seen at it's best? When it is streaming visibly through water molecules into a wood canopied by tree leaves. Get up early in the morning when the sun is high enough to get through the canopy and the air is still filled with water molecules. Check out the images to the left taken early in the cool morning during the hot and humid days of summer.

Insert backgrounds with PhotoShop

Why go to the beach for a portrait when there is Photoshop. The background on this photo was carefully inserted using layers and fine blending and retouching. Be careful blending hair wisps or you could end up with matted hair. Use varying opacity with clone and paintbrush to salvage as much wispiness as possible.

Reflex: A Self-Portrait

Here's another resurrected exposure from the past, brought to life with the Magic of PhotoShop.

Brides! Check out this site

Wedding Photo USA features Pete Lounsbury Photography

Macro vs Micro

Macro Photography vs. Micro Photography--in order to show the world of tiny things such as my photo above--Dandelion in a Storm. You need a special macro lens. These can be very expensive so I use Magnifying filters that screw in to the front of your lens--a set of 4 filters can cost as little as $15 on Ebay. The photo above using these cheap filters is very high quality by anyone's standards. The secret being that I used a very small f-stop (f/22). This increased the focal range to the max. I also used a tri-pod and studio flashes which froze the image to increase sharpness.

Now the difference between Micro and Macro. The current definition of Macro-photography refers to the image captured on the film plane of the camera is the same size or larger than the actual subject. The designation 1:4 Macro means one quarter the size of actual Macro, while 1:1 Macro means full size Macro. Micro-photography refers to the image captured on the film plane is much larger than the actual subject (to the extent that an actual microscope could be used). Both show small subjects larger than life when they're enlarged, but as it goes Micro images are extremely close studies of your subject. As close as the camera got to Dandelions, it would still be considered only a Macro shot and not a Micro shot.