autofantasia's photos with the keyword: space

For this week's Sunday Challenge which had the theme of liminal spaces Don't worry if that doesn't mean much to you as I wasn't sure what it meant either. However, it appears there are two definitions. It can be of, or relating to, a transitional or initial stage of a process, but it can also relate to occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or threshold. Torn between the two options, perhaps even stuck in my own liminal space I decided to create a fantasy image that would combine the two definitions. I began with a photograph I shot recently at Harlow Carr in Harrogate of a wooden archway in the children's adventure playground. It seemed rather magical looking to me so I decided this could well be a portal to another realm hidden deep within some ancient forest. A special place marked by the magnificent wooden arch, which marks the boundary between the world we know and the other that we believe to be simply one of folklore: a place where fairies dance and pixies play; a place where lycans might not only go to transform, but where their wolfen spirits could roam free. To get there though I've done a fair bit of processing to my original image, which can be found in the Notes, all designed to turn it from a bright daytime shot into something darker. All my own work with the exception of the wolf, which I sourced from nobacks although even that has been transformed somewhat (no pun intended)! Please view large on black for best effect . A Little More About Werewolves ... A werewolf or lycanthrope is a mythological or folkloric human with the ability to transform themselves into a wolf or a wolf-like creature. Sometimes this ability might have been acquired as a result of a curse, whilst others supposedly gain it from having been bitten/scratched by another lycan. One of the first movies to focus on the werewolf was the 1941 film "The Wolf Man", which starred Lon Chaney, Jr. as the unfortunate Lawrence Talbot and this catapulted the werewolf into public consciousness. In the decades that followed similarly sympathetic portrayals were indeed rare with most werewolves being depicted as fierce and uncontrollable monsters ... the stuff indeed of nightmares. There were exceptions though, most notably the comedic "An American Werewolf in London". Released in 1981 it was directed by John Landis and has become a cult classic. More recently though the werewolves, or lycans, have gone from being portrayed as malevolent monsters to friendly even heroic creatures, such as has been the case with the "Underworld" and "Twilight" franchises.

Still not finding much time to take any new shots, apart from the occasional walk-a-bout, or to contribute to The Sunday Challenge so having to mainly content myself with playing around in the 'processing room'. The original shot on which this is based can be found in the Notes although you might find it hard to believe that this all came from a single macro shot of some rusty old metal, but it did ... honest! Please view large on black for best effect.

What started out as a simple orb became my very own tribute to the man in the little blue box as well as all those that have travelled with him over the years. Don't even ask what I did or how I got there as it would take ages to xplain, but please do take time to view it large. Thanks to everyone who takes up the invitation. Best wishes PAUL

A bit of fun created for this week's Sunday Challenge , where the theme was comics ... those paper-based publications that transported children (and some adults) into imaginary worlds where anything was possible and all long before game consoles came along. What you could shoot for this week's challenge and the style of presentation was pretty wide open ... pretty much anything was acceptable as long as it had something to do with comics or was presented in a comic style. Having been a great reader, collector and hoarder of comics growing up I decided to create an spherical collage featuring many of the titles I grew up with. The majority of them are from the Sixties and Seventies although there are a couple from the Eighties. The individual covers you can see within the sphere are all comics from my own collection. Each was photographed individually a while back when I was thinking of maybe selling them to raise some cash, then over the last few days they were brought together in a random fashion, before being turned into the sphere you see here. So, hit z to view large and see how many you remember?

Another in my series of abstracts. This is one of my favourites so far as I was not only 'sliding' as much as I could, but messing with textures too. It was actually produced not from one of my photos, but from an abstract I created from one of my photos so it's kind of twice removed from where it started. You can see the abstract in the Notes.

Here's another one of the shots I took of The Northern Echo Arena, which is home of Darlington Mowden Park RFC and situated on the outskirts of the town, a few months back. I was going to use it for The Sunday Challenge when the theme was grey . This time I've done some post-processing on it, just for a bit of fun. www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaOC9danxNo

Here's another shot I took of my little robotic friend for a recent Sunday Challenge , which had the theme of forced perspective . I struggled to reproduce the processing I ran over the earlier shot I submitted into the main TSC group pool. Guess that'll teach me to make proper notes! Despite that I still like this one. There's a copy of the earlier shot in the Notes above for anyone who perhaps didn't see it and who would care to check it out. Worth pointing out too that this little fellow is actually only about 8 inches tall yet that fence I've tried to make him tower above is actually about as tall as me, so nearly 6 feet in height.

This week, the Sunday Challenge was forced perspective a technique that attempts to manipulate our sense of perception to make us believe something is smaller and/or larger than it actually is. The old horror films used to use forced perspective and more recently Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy took the technique to new levels. Now, as I had no desire to appear in my photograph and no willing volunteers were forthcoming I had to go down the model route. This toy robot, purchased from Boyes in Northallerton specifically for the challenge, is only about 8 inches tall, but I've tried to create the illusion that he is much, much larger. I set up a small table in my back garden and positioned it about 10 feet away from one of our boundary fences. Then I covered it in fine gravel and added a few small stones before positioning my little intergalactic friend on a piece of wood hidden behind the larger of the stones. I secured my camera on a tripod and zoomed out to get the smallest focal length possible on my stock lens, as this apparently helps you achieve maximum depth of field. I also tried to ensure I squeezed every inch of DOF possible by using Apperture Priority and selecting f22. Then I moved the camera and tripod as close as I could get to the table whilst still being able to focus making sure that I was looking up at the model to make him look as big as I could. I opted to use this shot as I'd positioned everything so as to get the gable end of our neighbour's house into the frame, which I thought that would aid the illusion. This was the first time I've tried working with forced perspective so I'm fairly pleased with the results and am fairly confident I'll try experimenting with it more in the future.