I entered the LoD Tourney to challenge myself and had no idea that it would start like this! I don't normally like spending a lot of time doing photoshop on photos and I spent more time than I wanted to on this photo. But i learned some things, so I guess that makes it ok.
These are the photos that I used:
"Things change over time" - My first thought was to show a flower in stages of wilt and decay. Ta da!
"create your entry from 1-10 captures of a single scene (defined as a composition whose framing does not change, with the exception of natural subject motion). All captures used must be shot within the challenge submission dates." - well this sums up my shot pretty well. The framing did not change (i guess except for bumps in the tripod), and the natural motion was due to dehydration and gravity. This is a "continuous" scene because this covers the motion of an upright rose gradually drifting to it's deflated state.
A flower was placed in a vase on my windowsill. The only things that changed were: calendar dates, time of day, and the flower wilting. I look at this as a "single scene" because no other elements were introduced.
Process (before I completely forget)
1) All files are RAW - so I opened them in Silkypix. I adjusted the pictures to try and match the colors of the flower as closely as possible.
2) Saved each as jpg
3) Opened each in PS7. Adjusted using levels and did some sharpening.
4) Layered all into one file.
5) Changed the opacity and fill of the transitional flowers. Also used the darken mode on each layer.
6) Did a lot of work with masking out parts to create the transition. I messed with HSL to get a better color on the starting rose, and to desat some of the color out of the finished rose. Used Brightness/Contrast to make some things pop better. And then I desatted the background so I could improve the colortone. I did that with color balance. To smooth out the colors and the background, I used Gaussian blur. Also there were dots on the window so I cloned some out and let the rest get smoothed with the blur. (note to self: P1031274_filtered-crop1ABC-PSD2new)
I messed with this stage several times till I got a color that worked. (Thanks for your help wronp!!)
I've never done any piece this big before so I am sure there's room for error. A couple of things I see, but I am not gonna change: technically, in transition, the second flower should be behind the third flower, but I like the way it looks now. Also, the carnation DID wither BUT it ended up falling behind the main first flower. I chose to keep those two a little more prominent because they are the starting and ending points. There are other mistakes, but I don't feel like changing them.
I would like for this to score high and do well, but this challenge is gonna be open to such a wide interpretation, I can only submit and wish for the best. :)
Statistics
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scalvert: I've got to hand it to this photographer. It meets the challenge dead on and exactly conforms to our secret ideas about what "time lapse photography" means.
The life cycle of a rose, after it was cut and placed in a vas. Nice and sharp and your fade in the middle position helps bridge the gap nicely between the two states.
More of a metaphorical representation than a literal one. Not sure what I mean by that, but I can't see someone standing by with a camera while a flower droops :-) I do like the concept, but I'm a bit less than thrilled by the result.
Very nice image. How long did your camera have to sit there to get this shot? My only quip is with the tranlucent petals. Still a great idea well executed. 8.
Makes a nice abstract but really doesn't convey any sense of passing time. I don't think the wilting flower thing is a good one for 'time lapse' as far as photography goes, though I always enjoy watching videos along these lines.
How beautiful a shot this is and it certainly exemplifies "time lapse" with a more traditional definition by comparison to some of the others entered in this challenge where they seem to be a conglomeration/collage of action shots rather than true "time lapse". Very nicely done!
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