Red blood in black & white

 
Normally I don't like to post pics I haven't taken myself, but I'll make an exception for this one that Brown took today. Today's WOD was an AMRAP-20 (as many rounds as possible in 20 min) of 5 Deadlifts and 10 Burpees. We had two guests today, one of which was so vigorous with his deadlifts, he shaved the top layer of skin off his shin with the knurl of the bar. Ouch.

The original picture was a tad dark and the blood didn't really stand out. Blood, sweat, and tears always make for interesting photography, so I thought I might tweak the shot a bit. In order to emphasize blood (a common occurrence in both MMA and CrossFit), I've found that a green filter in Picasa's filtered B&W tool works wonders. And there we have it: another picture of a CrossFit casualty to add to our collection. I love it.

For more of Brown's incredibly fuzzy pictures from today's WOD, check out Thanksgiving Penance Part Dos. Yeah yeah, I know. I promise, I will show him how to use my camera one of these days. ;-)

Back to basics

 
Our workout today was called "Back to basics" which was appropriate since the shots I took today followed a similar theme, that is, getting back to a basic technique- focus.

A while back I got a suggestion from a reader, bentzurm. He pointed out that many of my photographs were soft and that I might try using a higher ISO if it allowed me to take sharper pictures. Well, today was the first chance I got to give it a shot (no pun intended). I'll admit, I didn't follow bentzurm's suggestions exactly: I was in a rush because I knew Browns' workout wouldn't last long (less than 3 minutes!) and I didn't want to miss any opportunities. So I used the sensitivity mode on my Pentax K10D and set it to 1600 ISO- basically, the highest sensitivity setting for my camera. Unfortunately, I was in such a rush I didn't realize some of the settings were still in place from an earlier shoot I had done over the weekend around a late-night bonfire so many of the shots had very weird exposures to say the least! I was forced to use the flash a few times against my will before I realized what the heck was going on..... Nevertheless, I think the focus was better overall today than in previous WODs, so I'm encouraged.

Like I said, I didn't have much time to set up these shots at all, so the background is cluttered and many of the pictures are spur of the moment snapshots. In an attempt to crop out the most distracting stuff, I cropped it wide and thin, almost like a widescreen perspective. I used the filtered black & white tool (red) to emphasize his tattoos and then brought up the contrast just a tad. Love the facial expression in this one. There's another one with an even better grimace, but the exposure is too dark to make much out of it, I'm afraid. You be the judge- see the rest at Back to Basics.

More on Colored Filters

OK, more on colored filters. In my gym, we have a lot of blue mats on the floor and red mats along the walls. This makes for some nice uniform backgrounds if you've got the angle just right, but sometimes the color is just too distracting. I've been playing around with Picasa's filtered B&W option and found I can change the whole look of a picture depending on what I want to emphasize. The three photos below (from our Fourth of July workout) illustrate this. The first one shows the original color shot: a fair-skinned subject with interesting tattoos against a bright red background. It's ok as is, but the original photo doesn't do justice to the subject. So I can play around with the colored filters to achieve different effects.

   
In the second shot, I've used a color filter complimentary to the red mats: a green filter. This has the effect of blocking the light coming off of red objects, or darkening them. It's a nice option if I want to isolate the subject and make him stand out from the background, but in this particular case, the result also leaves his skin looking washed out and fades his tattoos which I want to emphasize. Another option to consider is to use a red filter. The red filter allows red light to pass (effectively making it lighter) while darkening complimentary colors. This results in less contrast between his skin and the background, but more defined ink and musculature, which is what I wanted.

My main complaint is that the focus is a little soft (remember this was my first day using my 50mm lens so I had it wide open (f/1.4) resulting in soft lines and a very shallow depth of field....) Still, not too shabby.

Picasa's Filtered Black & White Feature

This is a great example of the beauty of Picasa's Filtered Black & White feature. Below you see the original color image of Yong in plank position. His eyes are closed and his face has a wonderful expression of concentration. Unfortunately, his face is reflecting red from the red gym mats just outside of the shot (see Sno-Cones post).
  Original color

If I just use the basic black & white feature on Picasa, I lose the detail of his face in shadow, below. Unacceptable.
  Black & White

However, if I use the Filtered Black & White feature, I can select a color filter that lightens his face and helps to isolate his expression (in this case, a red filter). Much better.
 

Strength & Beauty

 
I love this shot. It was one of those chance photographs that just happened by accident. Treefrog had just finished a killer kettlebell workout and her daughter toddled over to meet her. The kettlebell was still next to her and there was nothing else in the field, making for the perfect un-cluttered shot. I thought about leaving it in color as the blue mat made for a uniform backdrop, but it was a little bright and washed out the skintones of the subjects. So I used Picasa's Filtered black & white and found a color that diminished the mat while highlighting her physique.

To me, this shot illustrates two things: the overt beauty found in a strong female physique, and the subtle strength and beauty found only in motherhood.

See more shots from today's workout at SuckageOnSaturday