Digital Blending Workshop and Photowalk with Eli Locardi from Blamethemonkey.com
We kicked off at 2pm for a digital blending workshops by travel photographer Elia Locardi. Elia runs a blog over at www.blamethemonkey.com and is a master at what he calls Digital Blending. He also uses HDR as part of his process, with a background that had him ‘Channel Cutting’ thousands of images in photoshop has given him the ability to really finesse the way he makes selections in Photoshop, and as a result, can make selections and adjustments to areas of his images that most of us can only dream about until we hone our skills!
For me, I found the workshop basic, but at the same time very fulfilling. I guess if I had never seen layer masking and blending done this way then it would have been a real eye opener, although, without masking experience I think I would have been lost… the greatest value for me was some of Elia’s tips in his workflow. Straight away I can see my processing workflow will be a lot better and my gold nugget for the day was seeing how Elia used luminance masking to settle down the ‘Hot Spots’ in his example image… that just happened to be of the Harbour Bridge (Nice Touch Elia!)
In addition to all that, it’s just nice to meet people like Elia, and of course his wife Naomi. They are such nice people and very generous with tips, advice or whatever you wanted… and they made great hosts for the workshop and the photowalk that followed.
The Photowalk kicked off on the steps of the Opera House and somehow, Elia had gained access inside this famous Sydney Landmark. Normally, Photography is STRICTLY PROHIBITED in the Opera House, but this time… we were aloud to run around inside with our tripods and all! Disappointed that we didn’t get access to the Concert Hall, I still managed to grab a few shots I think will work out great!
All in all a great day out with my camera… then again.. any day out with my camera is a good day!
Today’s iCandy – The Opera Bar
It would have been nice if they turned on all the lights and opened the bar… I imagine this bar would be buzzing on a night of celebration… great views… just too much purple carpet! Anyway, I managed to get in early with this shot before 200 photographers moved in the way of my shot… they were all busy shooting outside when I saw the lines in this composition and clicked away!
