bit of a break

I have not been shooting for the last two weeks as i had a little surgery repair on a small hernia.
It still hurts and i will be taking it easy for a few more weeks to recover. Today was my first day back to work and tonight i can certainly feel it. Hopefully tomorrow will be better and stronger.
As part of my recovery my son made me some cupcakes. He used a recipe from the "kitchen boss" show on TLC for the cakes and butter cream icing and they were incredible. These were the only photos i took while i was off and of course had to be made.
I used a low depth of field (f2 i think) and available light from my kitchen. Pretty basic and simple but effective i think.

seeing in black and white

A black and white photo walked into my office today, and it had to be shot.
I knew exactly what light i wanted to use, i knew how to get the pose (a little music and some dancing), and five minutes later i had the image and was downloading.
In photoshop i desaturated in lightroom, upped the contrast in photoshop with a curve, retouched the background, and created a vignette. The only other thing i did was use the burn tool set to shadows and went over the dark side of his face to darken it up some more.
Thats it. Five minutes shooting, five minutes processing, and image complete.
It wasn't till the drive home after work that i thought of something i would have rather done.

do i hear 12 into 1

I went to an auction last weekend and took a few shots of the action going on. They had 300 vehicles go through their bay and it was pretty cool to watch, for an hour or so anyway. I ended up shooting from a bunch of different angles but the one your looking at was the first one i picked. I was using a 24mm lens and although it brought a great deal of the room to the sensor, it did not bring enough. I held the camera vertical with the 24mm and did a few panos. This shot was made from 12 seperate images. I usually try to shoot close to a 180 degree view just to give me the flexibility to crop later. You always loose a bunch on the top and bottom of the image also which is why i shoot a wide lens vertically.

looking for an angle

I shot an event the other night where our premier spoke to 1000 people. I thought i would try some different angles and during the course of his speech i was pretty well all over the room. I really only needed a few shots of him but for some reason i decided that this was a good time to challenge myself. Motivation is a very good thing for a photographer. Some are motivated to do good work by money, awards, and other peoples praise of their work. And whats wrong with all that. Photographers are a weird bunch though. Their main desire, and what keeps them going and growing, is to please themselves. To look at a photo after you have spent time shooting it, and more time working it on the computer, and say wow. To see what you envisioned in your mind before you even took the shot come to life is a beautiful feeling. This is what motivates photographers.
I shot this at a wide open at f2.8 so the lights in the background would not have a hexagon pattern from the lens. I played with the composition so he was encompassed in lights and they were in a pleasing location behind him, not coming out of his eye or mouth. I set the camera to high speed motor drive and held my finger on the shutter release when he would turn his head my way as facial expression can sure make or break a photo. Camera settings were iso 800, 1/160 sec, and used an 80 - 200 lens set at 160mm, white balance set to tungsten. I took about 70 frames and ended up with one i liked.
There was alot of thinking behind the shot and even more patience used up but in the end i was very happy with it, and lightly, under my breath, all alone in my office, i might have even said wow.

adding "son" to the business name

My son had to take a photo for a school project tonight and i think he did a great job.
He needed a photo to bring in so he could write a story about it. Fred is his cat and only his. He sleeps on his bed every night and really doesn't pay much attention to anyone else in the family.
We used an off camera flash held to the left of the photo, that was my part, and he did the rest, as in taking the photo, doing all lightroom adjustments, and touching up in photoshop. I did add a vignette with his supervision but that was all.
Great shot, by a great young man.

many me

I had to set up the studio this morning for a couple head shots and when i do this i take a couple test shots of myself where the subject would be to see how the lighting is. I took the couple shots and then had an idea, which you see before you. I had planned on taking a bunch of shots of me in different shooting positions and then having me again posing on the chair. Then my buddy walked by and I decided to make him the subject with me shooting and primping him.
I was lucky with my positions as they didnt overlap each other and balanced quite well.
To do this i just set the camera to self timer on a tripod and the focus on manual. I would just hit the shutter button and then get into position. I then just opened all the photos i wanted to use in photoshop and drug then all onto one image, i think i ended up with 5 layers or so. I then created masks on each layer and painted with the brush tool on the masks till i could see what i wanted on each and have the rest hidden. It was very easy and really took no time at all. The only tricky parts were the shadows created by my different positions but i just blended them in by painting on the mask with a lower opacity brush.
My only complaint was that i look bald in photos (ha).

different shot to start the year

I thought I would start the new year with something a bit different.
I was going to use this post to talk about reflection on the past year and how photographers use the christmas break to analyze their work, past, present, and future.
Instead i think i will ease into the year by wishing all that read this blog the very best and hope we all have a fun and creative year ahead. I am very much looking forward to it.

closer hdr

I shot a couple angles of the windows i shot last night and this is the close up.
I processed this one to look a bit more like the typical hdr images you may have seen around.
I used a 7 image bracket and then in photomatix combined 3 images.
Photomatix can be a little bit of a guessing game with all the sliders it offers so i thought i would post my settings for this shot.
Strength 100, color saturation 63, luminosity +6.3, monocontrast 100, smoothing low, white point .926, black poing .111, gamma 1.090.
I then brought it into photoshop and sharpened, did a curve to boost the contrast a bit, and added saturation as i wanted the colors to really pop.

nighttime hdr

I haven't done many hdr shots in awhile.
I had to shoot windows of downtown stores tonight and this is certainly one of the nicer looking stores on my list.
I decided to shoot an hdr of it and used three of the 9 exposures to make the image.
The only other thing i did was retouch the top of the image a bit and apply a vignette and sharpen.
My fingers are just warming up.

happy holidays

We had a great year and hopefully you did as well.
Happy holidays to all of you that frequent this blog.
For this fun family photo i combined two different shots to use the best of both.
The camera was on a tripod so not much changed between them.
I placed one on top of the other and used auto align layers and then used a mask on the top layer.
I did have some retouching to do afterwards as there were parts that just didnt show through properly but for the most part it wasnt too bad.
I applied a curve to warm up the blacks (just add magenta and yellow to the shadows) and applied a couple vignettes to darken up the edges.

hi contrast card

Thanks first off to these models for permission to post this image to my blog.
I was happy with the shot and wanted to make sure i got the notes down so i would remember how i did it, as well of course as sharing the information so others could do it too.
I set up 4 lights. The main, which was high and ust to the right a bit, was a large softbox shooting straight accross the ceiling. I had a light on the left and right which were reflected into umbrellas. I also had a light high up and directly behind the group which was aimed direct at them with a 40 degree grid spot. The power packs were all set to full power and the lowest setting they could go.
In lightroom i put the recovery, fill light, contrast, and clarity at 100%. My blacks were at 70% and saturation was -38%.
In photoshop i sharpened about 37% and added a vignette (twice actually) to burn the edges down. I also applied a curve to increase the blacks and lighten the highlights (just moved the top and bottom of the curve in a bit).
This was just a fooling around shot at the end of the shoot by the way. Otherwise i probably would have removed the last pair of socks.

collage project

No explanation November is almost over so its now time for descriptive December.
I have decided to start collecting images for a collage project. I have no idea what it will look like in the end and really only have this one image so far. I guess anything can happen now. I will post images as i collect them. I will also try to get lots of images up early in the month as i plan to try and stay off the computer over the christmas break.
I upped the clarity in this photo and wanted even more so in lightroom i also painted over the entire image with the adjustment brush which i had put the clarity at +100. I also lowered the saturation and did nothing else.

david suzuki

swamp pano

Remembrance Day

cat

hdr theater

a face in the crowd

into the sun

black and white