Strobist DVD set

Hey my gang of photo nuts....

I have watched yet another life changing DVD that I just must recommend that you all see. Strobist: Lighting in Layers with David Hobby

David Hobby, the guy behind the curtain at the Strobist blog, has released a DVD set, Strobist: Lighting in Layers with David Hobby, that should be on the top of your must have-must see list.

 It does not matter if you shoot on a freelance basis for papers or stock agencies, or you shoot in a studio setting, you will get better within the first 30 minutes of the first DVD.

In Strobist: Lighting in Layers with David Hobby David starts with a review of all of the gear that he uses, how he uses it, and why he uses it. He then goes into so many tips and tricks that my head is still full. I was in favor of studio flash gear, but no longer take that stand. His brilliant techniques will bring you over to this side as well. He simplifies all aspects of packing, travel, and set up of the gear, and explains in great length how to use it all!

I thought that the basics of wireless flash set ups were something that I knew already, but I was wrong. The theory of flash sync speeds and how to push them to their limits are the most inspiring part of this DVD set. I stopped the Strobist: Lighting in Layers with David Hobby many times in order to grab my Nikon, my flashes, and go try out what I had just learned. My photography has just improved by ten fold, both in portraiture and in product shoots!

Plus, I have always wondered how the folks over at Flash Flavor accomplished some the things that they do, and now I am “in the know”! I can’t wait to apply my new knowledge to the next event that I cover! I love Strobist: Lighting in Layers with David Hobby!

Plus, I learned how to spend a lot less on photo gear, how to set up lighting kits for any location shoot (that I can sling over one shoulder), and also how to set up and shoot incredible images in just seconds flat!

The information that I learned about rechargeable batteries for our flashes in this DVD set all by it self was worth the price of this whole set. Speaking of price, look for yourself at how low the cost actually is! Keep in mind that it is an all day seminar, a photo shoot, plus an extra DVD that explains all of the gear that he recommends.

Once again, you must purchase the Strobist: Lighting in Layers with David Hobby set!

Fast cool image look.

I have always liked to use cool new ways in which to show an image. Photoshop is the tool that has opened the world up to so many new ways of creating these cool looks. I like to play with allot of these different ways to show images, but one of my favorite types is the "erased background" look. Here is an example.
Here is a rather fast way to achieve this effect, and how to apply it to any of your images. Here is the image that I started with. It is of a statue at almost sunset, causing a pleasing silhouette.

I am going to use white as a "fill color" to later erase from, in order to reveal the background image. However, you can choose any color you wish, and add effects to it like a gradient. You can choose an exact color using the eye dropper tool and you can even sample a specific color from your image using this same tool. In this example I will use a solid white.
The first step, after you have opened the image in photoshop, is to add a new layer. Do this by clicking on the "new layer" button at the bottom of the layer pallet well.


Next, click on the eye dropper tool icon, and choose any color you wish. With the new layer active, press "alt + backspace" to fill the new layer with your chosen color. You can also use the paint bucket, or "fill" tool to perform this step.

Now, make this layer a layer mask by clicking on the "add layer mask" icon in the layer pallet well. It is the icon that looks like a circle in a square. Next press the letter "D" then "X" to set your active colors to black and white. Choose the paint brush tool, and a spattered type of brush. Make it a large setting on the brush size. Choose black to paint away the white, and white to paint it back into the image.
Next, I went ahead and added another new layer and chose the square select tool, and put a rectangle around the frame of the image. I then looked under "edit" and selected "stroke". Using a black stroke, I set the width to about 7, and chose "center", all in the stroke tool dialogue box. You can next alter the opacity of the stroke to taste while that layer is active. After you have played with it, and you like the way that it looks, flatten the layers. You can do this by looking under the "layers" heading, and choosing "flatten image". Last of all be sure to save your new creation, and use a thoughtful name!

The best PR is done from the heart.

As photographers, it is not always the photography that we are selling. People invest in the photographer as a person just as much as they invest in the photographers skills.
In these times that we all live in, people often see only the bad things that others around us sometimes do. Bad news travels at the speed of light, and without any resistance. Good news takes allot of time to spread, if it ever spreads at all. It can take a life's worth of good deeds to build up before any word of them leaks out to the public. It takes just one negative word to come out of our mouths for people everywhere to hear it and remember it.
Volunteering can seem like a thing that the rich folks or the people with too much time on their hands, do. Fact is, we all can easily volunteer, and we all should. When asked to use our craft or our talents for a volunteered based project, it can help others and ourselves, both in ways we never thought imaginable. We never think about the things that may come from doing a good act, but instead we just do them. But sometimes these acts come back to us. Infact, they often come back many times over.
It is also true that we often know very little about the things that we think we know allot about. As an example I would love to share something that I was fortunate enough to participate in several years ago.
A relative and myself were members of a local camera club when a call for volunteers was put out one night. Basically, a non profit organization named the Bicycle Coalition of Maine was asking for a photographer to volunteer their time and their skills to photograph one of their annual events. The event is named the "Maine Lobster Ride and Roll". That sounded so fun that we spoke up, and decided to go ahead and donate some time to this great cause. Little did we know what lie ahead, or how it would soon help to "place us on the map" as newly turned professional photographers.
Before I continue, let me explain a little about Bicycle Coalition of Maine. The Bicycle Coalition of Maine is a not for profit organization that promotes bicycle safety to students of all ages, to motorists, and even to police officers! The "Maine Lobster Ride and Roll" is an all day bike ride event that raises funds for the coalition. Their are several courses that one can choose to bike, and each one offers a different ride through the coastal towns and lighthouses of mid-coast Maine. The best part is that at the end each participant gets a free Maine Lobster roll! Every year the turn out is growing and growing, and it has become quite the popular event both in the mid-coast area of Maine, and in the entire bicycle community.
We went, we shot, and we had a great time! We learned a lot about the coalition and we also got a chance to meet a ton of new faces. The people that participated in the event were all completely happy and so nice to us that we stayed for the entire day. We photographed the bicyclists as they rode along the coast, rode past lakes, and hung out at the refreshment booths set up along the way. It was all very well put together, and they were happy that we were their to capture it all. We mailed out a CD containing the images, and that made me feel great!
It was not long before I started getting emails from participants of the Maine Lobster Ride, asking for copies of the images that were taken that day. Among the many emails were some great stories like this one: "That was the first event that my daughter and I have ever done in our adult lives and I would love a photograph to remember the time that we shared". With what little time and money it took to get a CD of the images mailed out to these riders, I soon found out that I had made a loyal client. They certainly told others these stories, being sure to include the name of the photographer that helped them get the images from the event. See where this is going?
Much to my surprise the Bicycle Coalition of Maine started using our images on their website (with credits) and they also posted links to our photography sites. They continue to use our images (with credits) in all sorts of unique and clever ways, like in posters, mail-out fliers, and even to make greeting cards! I cant imagine how many referrals that all of this has brought my way, but I can tell you that I never imagined that the simple act of volunteering that day would give back as much as it has.
Please check out what the Bicycle Coalition of Maine folks have to say, and see about the Maine Lobster Ride and Roll . It is always with the intentions of doing something nice for others that we donate time and or money. However, when it becomes a win-win situation it makes everyone that was involved or everyone else that hears the story just plain feel good. Many warm "thank you's" go out to the Bicycle Coalition of Maine for all that they have done in the state of Maine and in my life!

Building my empire.

Hello all,
Being a full time art student and trying to hone my techniques and grow my photography business has taken its toll on my blog entries from time to time, and this past week or two is just an example. Whew, have I been busy! With a couple of midterm tests past, I can now jump back in to the blog world, and that is great since I have so much that I wish to share!
First of all, congrats to all of the graduating high school seniors out there! I have met a few as of late, and I could not be more proud of them.
With that said, please allow me to update my photo blog with a fast rundown of jobs, and the details of these jobs. To market myself, I have decided to put together a portfolio of work. Problem was, what do I put into this portfolio? After some time, I decided that I want to photograph several different things, for a living. I like to photograph people as well as merchandise, both in studio and on location. My goal became to "hook up" with people and merchandise that resemble my target niche. So, after much thought I came up with my plan of attack.
I had some images that I could use for my portfolio already, from recent projects and weddings, so the ones that I was lacking were first on my hit list. I needed some examples of my portraiture of people, as well as some studio photography of objects. I came up with some "win-win" propositions for some local folks, and it worked as planned! The "win-win" goes something like this: "let me photograph you, and you can have some of the images for free". Who could resist that?

For the merchandise shots, I asked a friend that is honing her own hand-made jewelry marketing skills if she would like some images for her portfolio. Turns out that she was in need of someone with a decent photography studio to photograph some of her newer pieces. I could not have asked for a better line up!
Now, with my target niche in mind, and some people and merchandise all lined up, all that had to happen was the photography. I set up a date and a time to meet with the jeweler friend. We met at my studio, and we spent a few hours shooting her rings and necklaces on different colors of seamless paper, a sheet of glass, and I shot it all using several flashes and reflectors. Now we both had exactly what we needed, which is a true win-win!
Than my brother and his wife called, and we decided that I would photograph her two boys, which are both seniors in high school. That covered the male side of my portfolio, but what about the female side of the spectrum? I met a local high school model thru a modeling website. I ran the idea of a free shoot by her, and she too agreed. I later found out that she had not yet had her senior photos taken. This was really coming together, and people were truly getting what they needed! With my feet still tired from the first two photo sessions, we decided to meet that very next weekend!
We met and shot on a great day, at a great location, and it went very smoothly. I had to use a single Nikon SB-800 flash on a flash stand for the days' lighting because my new assistant could not make it. Necessity was the mother to creation on that shoot! I used a daylight colored gel in the diffuser on the flash, and I really like the results that we got! The combination of location and the gel make the images appear to look like a setting sun was behind the camera. Needless to say I should have been shooting this way from the start, but now I realize that I can do this on my own!
Next, after a few afternoons of editing time, my new portfolio is looking very well stocked with fresh new images. I feel comfortable moving on to the next phase of my marketing for some new photography business. With several wedding, engagement, newborn child, senior portrait, children, and some merchandise photo sessions under my belt and in my "portfolio building" folder, it is time to think about marketing.
It would be nice to copy someone else's steps, but I don't have that luxury. What I do have, though, are a great collection of well established professionals that are solid friends. I am leaning towards assembling my portfolio images all together and have a simple coffee table book made up using them. Nothing over the top, but instead a simple, sharp looking album that I can use as a portfolio. I have put some thought into making several separate portfolios, like one for merchandise, one for weddings, and one for portraiture, but the cost might be too much for me to absorb at the moment. So, I decided to place all of the portraiture images in the portfolio, at the front, and then keep the merchandise images towards the back. As I get some work from my marketing ventures I can always have several "niche" portfolios made up and then use them to target a more specific crowd.

Senior Portraits.

With the ring of my telephone, in the early hours of yesterday morning, came a new endeavor for my only day off.

" Can you take pictures of the boys", my Brother asked as I still lie in my warm bed.
"Yes", I said into the phone, still only half awake.

What happened within an hour of that waking phone call was a great senior portrait session, times two. Two handsome young men posed in several different locations, in the great fall sun. Here are a couple of the only images that I have gotten done.

Kudos to the boys as they resisted the texting temptations and let their cell phones ring away as they focused on my commands, like "Raise your head", and "look at me". Their mom and my brother supplied all of the reflecting and diffusing, and all together it was a great time!

Now, back to editing a million images, times two.

Fast Photoshop vignettes

When working with images in Lightroom making a quick vignette for them is a snap. It can be just as fast and just as easy to get awesome vignettes using Photoshop too. Here is the method that I use most often, and get great results with.
First, I opened up an image in Photoshop. This is an image that I have shown you before, so let's use this one.

Let's assume that I have finished all work on the image. Vignettes should come last on the workflow list. Each vignette that I do I do separately. I like to make them as custom for each image as I can. Nothing is worse than a "loud" or obvious vingette, plus they are a fast thing to add to an image. With this image open in Photoshop, simply drag the background layer into the copy layer icon, and then you will have a copy of the original layer to work with.

In the layer pallet well, change the layer overlay style, or type, from normal to multiply. This type of overlay as well as "overlay" seem to work best most of the time for vignettes. Your image should turn dark, so stay with me as we will make it look good, I promise!
Next, select the elliptical marquee tool, which is in the upper right hand corner of the tools well. A quick note about this tool: If you press and hold down the shift key as you use the elliptical marquee tool you will get perfect circles. If you use just the tool you will get ovals. I used the oval option, or without the shift key, for this particular image.
Click and drag with your mouse to create an oval as the image shows. After it has been drawn on your image you can adjust where it lies on the image using the mouse once more. When you are pleased with the placing of the oval, go up, under the "select" heading and choose feather. Enter 90 into the pop up box, and press enter. Doing this "feather adjust" will create a natural gradation for the vignette that you are creating.
The very next thing for you to do is to press the "Delete" key on your computers keypad. This erases the center of our multiply overlay, leaving the edges alone, or leaving only the information outside of our feather. Adjust the opacity of the multiply/feather vignette layer to taste. I usually aim for about 20 percent. Lastly, you can look under the "layer" heading, and choose "flatten image", and save it as a JPEG.

Please, if you have not already, feel free to subscribe to my photography blog now by pressing the "subscriby" button. Thanks, and happy shooting to you!

Easy black and white conversion, with some easy color too!

One thing that will forever be cool and popular are those black and white images where one particular part of the image is still in color. These can be fast and easy to achieve, using the ever powerful Photoshop. Lets see how it is that one can go from color to black and white and then back to color, but only with a single item in the image.
This is the image that I will start todays blog with. It is a single leaf floating in a pond with other leaves below it on the bottom of the pond.

I should take a second and explain something that Vincent Versace explains in one of his tutorials. He tells us that we should start our editing process with the largest over all fix first, and then work our way to the smaller fixes. For example, if we need to color correct, than that should come first. Removing some acne on a face should come later, as we edit. With that said, lets assume that this image above has been color corrected, and every other major edit has been performed already. We only want to get it to a nice looking black and white with only some "color spots".
Drag the background layer (in the layers well) down and drop it on to the "duplicate layer" icon, which is the square in a square icon. This will copy the background layer, and now you should have two layers. Under the "Image" heading on the top of the software screen, select "adjustments", and then choose "hue/saturation". Take the saturation slider and move it all of the way to the left, or to "-100". You should be seeing a black and white image. We are not there yet, but we are close. The image seems to lack some pop, or lack some true black and true whites.

Next we are going to dial in the blacks and the whites. This can be done in a number of different ways. I will show you a couple of different ways to do this, here in this blog entry. The different ways that I will show you are perhaps the two most common. Performing both of these on each image that you edit might be overkill. The idea here is to show you a couple of different ways that you can use with any image that you wish to change to a black and white, and then you can find what works best for you.
The first way that I would like to show you, in order to boost the blacks and the whites, is with the levels tool. Click on, and drag the new black and white layer down to the same "new layer icon" in order to copy it to a new layer. Click on the "Image" heading once again and then choose the "adjust" heading, and then click on "levels".
The pop up screen for the levels slider, or the dialog box, is our black and white images' histogram. Move the left (black) slider to the right until it is just under the first bit of black information in the histogram. Next, slide the right (white) slider to the left, until it is sitting just under the first bit of white information in the histogram. You may now move the medium grey slider (in the middle, towards the black and white sliders) to taste, but do so slowly. I have done this step in the image below.

Now there is something that you might need to do before moving on. If the new (levels) adjustments seem to be too harsh looking, or too intense, then you might want to tone them down a little. You can do this by lowering the "opacity" of the new levels adjustment layer in the layer pallet well.

A second way to perform this "poping of the blacks and the whites" step is by using a curves adjustment layer. Imagine if you will, that you did not perform the above "levels" procedure, but instead opted to do it this way, using a curves adjustment layer instead. With the new black and white layer highlit, and not the background layer, simply click on the half white half black circle in the layers pallet well. Choose "curves" from the adjustment layer pop up menu. A new layer will appear after you do this.

What you need to do next is to click on the black eye dropper in the new curves pop up, and then click on the part of your image that is supposed to be a true black. Repeat this with the white dropper, on the true white part of the image, and you can even repeat it with the medium grey dropper too, if you need to. Most of the time I do not use the medium grey dropper. Click "O.K.".
If the new resulting curves adjustment layer is too harsh looking, or intense, you can tone it down by simply adjusting the opacity slider in the layers pallet well. Click on the number, or the percentage showing in number form, and slide it to the left.

Once you are done, it is time to "merge down" the new (curves or levels) adjustment layer. What you need to do here is click on the "Layer" heading, and then choose "merge down". You should see that your newly adjusted (curves or levels) layer has been merged down and combined into the second layer.

Next, it is time to create a layer mask. With the top layer high lit, simply click on the "add a layer mask icon" which is the brown square with the white circle inside of it, in the layers pallet well. This makes the active, or high lit layer a layer mask.

Pressing down "D" and then "X" (at anytime in Photoshop) will set the working colors to black and white. This should be done now, as it will be the only two colors that you will use with layer masks.

Click on the paint brush tool icon in order to get ready to paint. You can change the type and size of the brush as well as the intensity, or the opacity of the actual painting. With layer masks, as you paint with black selected as your active color the "active" layer disappears. To replace it, paint over it with the color white. So, if you make a mistake as you paint in black, no sweat! Choose white and go over it again to get it the way that it was. The higher you set the opacity of the brush itself, the more color it will alow to come through.

When you are happy with the results, go under the "layer" heading and choose "Flatten image". This will merge all of the layers into one "background layer. You are done!

You have just used levels, layer masks, and a curves adjustment layer all in one edit job. If you have never used any of these tools or tasks, take a bow! These tasks are not too hard to perform, but way too many folks are scared to use them, or even learn about them! Practice will bring speed, and a faster workflow.

One thing about Photoshop that I love is that you can perform any one task, in more than one way. Try out the many different tools, and see what things really do. You paid for the software, so use it!