About the Image(s)
I visited Bletchley Park a couple of months ago to see their museum of war-time code breaking that centered there in the UK. Alan Turing was the genius behind developing an electro-mechanical machine that made possible the breaking of the Germans’ Enigma codes in a few hours each day. Due to this, intelligence could be gathered by cracking top-secret messages before the Germans changed their code the following day.
The room contents (original 1) is a reconstruction of course, but it’s well done and typical of how offices were there at the time.
Processed in Affinity in a similar way to my photo last month.
But then I thought, I wonder how I might get more of the story in? So I took an image of an Enigma rotor (original 2), cut out the rotor itself, and pasted that in as a new layer. Enlarging it and putting it below the mono and brown layers transformed it to the same shade range as the first image. Then I adjusted the opacity of the pixel layers so that they merged. My aim was to show that in this office, the focus of their work was to break the Enigma machine, and this rotor was its heart. I think the idea must have come from looking at Jerry’s creative group (group 20)!
Room - Olympus OM-D-EM5ii, Olympus 14-42 pancake lens at 14mm. The exposure was 1/20sec, f3.5, ISO 6400.
Rotor - Olympus OM-D-EM5ii, Olympus 14-42 pancake lens at 14mm. The exposure was 1/40sec, f5.6, ISO 3200.
Stephen Levitas
(Group 32)I love the way our Digital Dialogue groups take us all over the world and treat of all subjects. Thanks for this great image. Good idea to merge the two images, and good to tone it sepia to set the time period. Posted: 12/03/2020 16:25:41
Stuart Ord
Thanks, Stephen. I agree, I find DD a most rewarding and inspiring venue to come to. It's not just the good photographs we see, it's even more the good discussions and feedback. And Tom's software enables it all in a most excellent way. Posted: 12/07/2020 14:41:48
Jerry Snyder
I really like your creative treatment of the subjects, the composite composition and overall treatment of this image. Well done Stuart! Posted: 12/07/2020 10:07:08
Stuart Ord
Thanks, Jerry. It's amazing really, I started off on this photo with only a vague idea of I might produce, when I saw it browsing my photos for an entry this month. Certainly I had no idea then of what it would become. Perhaps it's a lesson telling me to think more and go and make photographs, rather than just see what presents itself. The best photographers seem to start with a good idea of what they are going to produce and perhaps I should try harder to emulate that approach. Posted: 12/07/2020 14:40:28
Wonderful in every way. It would serve as an excellent introduction on a documentary presentation or movie. Posted: 12/07/2020 13:06:00
Stuart Ord
Coming from the administrator of a creative group, I consider that a high complement. Many thanks, Jerry. :-) Posted: 12/07/2020 14:35:54
Stan Bormann
Great job, I suspect anyone that had been a part of this would really enjoy this image. sometimes the story is much better told with a composite. The layer blending is excellent. Posted: 12/10/2020 10:07:08
Stuart Ord
Thanks Stan, and an interesting idea. There are many photos on display there, and maybe they might like a copy of this. Like many museums here, the admission price is good for a year, so I'd planned a return visit as there's so much to read and see. I'll take a print of it with me. Posted: 12/10/2020 11:16:10
John Roach
Very cool story and way to tell the story. The tonality, detail, shadow and double exposure effect is wonderful. Well done!!! Posted: 12/15/2020 13:39:36
Don York
Stuart - You have captured a great chunk of history all in one image. Well done! Posted: 12/16/2020 10:22:50
Stuart Ord
I'm really flattered by these comments; thank you all.
I was awaiting someone to point out that the ends of the rotor shaft aren't clear. You can see on the "Original 2" that it was resting on acrylic suppports, and they have caused this. So I'll get to work with my clone brush and fix it. Maybe I'll change my previous decision and put it into a club competition this year. Posted: 12/17/2020 02:32:28
Helen Sweet
Familiar with Turing's story through the 2014 movie "The Imitation Game,"I really like the way you have combined the office with the decoding machine. Moreso b/c I was in a creative group and could never think of images to composite. Clever idea, well executed. I also appreciate your description of layer placement to meld the two images. Posted: 12/22/2020 17:53:55
Stuart Ord
Thanks, Helen. Like many "secret" war stories, it's quite astonishing when what they did and how they did it is revealed.
Beginners' luck for me in the composition actually, not a result of conscious effort really. However, it's encouraging that people like it.
I had thought, based on what I'd seen in club competitions, that "creative" photos were very contrived and a bit twee. However looking at creative groups here on PSA DD, I can see that's not the case, and I'll have to make the occasional foray into the genre. Posted: 12/23/2020 02:37:05
