Christmas at Riverwest

In my last post I shared about Imago Dei Church and how they served the poor in downtown Peoria.

While part of the church was serving the the dinner downtown, another part of the church was having a Christmas gathering at Riverwest, an apartment complex devoted to income restricted families. A step up from the poor, per say.

When I woke up Sunday morning, (after sleeping 16 hours!) I had the opportunity to help load the baskets to move them to the Riverwest area. (I didn't shoot images until 3pm that afternoon when the gathering took place.) I thought about how much work it would be to put these baskets together. Someone had to decide what to get, where to get it, how much to get, where to get that much of it and fill them all. Makes my help of loading the baskets rather petty, but my hand was apart of something bigger. And, that is what the church is much about. Working together to make a difference in the community around.

There was also a bag made for each child filled with gifts. I'm not sure what was inside, I didn't get one. I'm only the photographer. ;D
Each bag had the child's name on it. The excitement of them coming up to a bag as big as them was an amazing thing to watch and be apart of.



Smiles, hopping, dancing, spinning...it all happened when the kids name were called, one by one, to come up and snag their gift. Some were big enough to carry them, others were not. A few allowed mom to take their bag while others literately dragged them back to their chairs to open them.




It was adorable to watch as 3 little brothers (pun not intended) came up together. I could tell by how they walked together that they had a brotherly love for each other. They stuck by each others side, so close their shoulders were almost always touching. It's feels good to see unity in young siblings.

Well, maybe they were only terrified. *shrugs*











Some ignored me because they had gifts coming while others didn't want to leave without a picture. It's these smiles that drive people to serve. It's a reward in itself. A reward that isn't money, it isn't fame, it's not even a pat on the back.

It's a lot of work that's done knowing that what is being done goes beyond the physical action and into the heart and mind of those being served.

Serving the Poor

Imago Dei Church located downtown Peoria, IL prepared an extravagant dinner and invited many special guest to fill the seats, the poor.

I'm much impressed with the work the people at Imago Dei have done and are doing. I attend there on occasion and there is always a positive impact made on me when leaving. There are many upright people there. Real people doing real things.

Yes, that's me...the white guy.

Prayer Wall

A giant print of the Last Supper took up the entire stage of the church behind the pastor. His words were spoken effectively and with precision.

The ears of 1,000+ people were listening.

This resulted in hundreds writing their prayers on a (provided) post-it note and placed it onto the giant print.

Photography Workshop - Peoria, Illinois 2010

I'm much excited to kick off 2010 with the Peoria Supershoots event. This has been one of those pillar events that I can't imagine missing. The amount of information that is shared within one studio over two days is practically endless. It would be rather difficult to walk away without learning and improving your skills.

The environment is relaxed with music and drinks and many people with different backgrounds in photography. There are 6+ studio setups where you may work in and alter. If you don't know how, there will be several mentors there to help you along in setting up and metering many different lighting setups.

I happen to be a mentor at this event, so if you would want to work together, come, and make it happen.

This is Lauren being professional, rocking the camera, and looking amazing as she always does. Thanks girl!

This ain't yur typical mid-west type of fotograph!

I retouched for six hours today and felt that I would share my efforts with you. Hope you don't mind. ;p

***click image for full size***

Actually, this image wasn't included in the six hours of retouching. This was my fun work after the other work.

I opened this image and stared at it for a minute or three and then said "DONE!" Easiest retouch ever. I enjoy retouching my own work because it helps me to pay attention to capturing better images for I don't have to retouch them that much.

Someone asked me the other day if I was a professional photographer. I was confused by the word 'professional' and replied "I'm a photographer." They understood something. Either that I didn't consider myself professional (hope not) or that I didn't care much for the use of extra titles. 'Professional' would indicate popularity and/or getting paid really well, I think. I don't really know. Anyhow, next time I will say "YES, I AM!" We are what people believe we are.

The St. Pete/Tampa Supershoots event was a blast. Great people there and lots of opportunity to capture images that have nothing to do with the mid-west...like shooting on a beach!

A big thanks to Tiffney for being a bright spirit during our shooting time. You rocked it!!

There is a Supershoots event coming up in January 9-10 (2010), here in Peoria, IL. I will be there for the two days mentoring and also instructing a 2 hour course on digital retouching and post production techniques. If you are interested, please write me at joshua.berardi@gmail.com

HdR Photography with Effects

(click image for larger view)

I was in Knoxville, TN last weekend soaking up lumen into my color filter array by way of bracketing on a tripod resulting in high dynamic range imagery which processed with computer code that combined the data from multiple captured photodiodes.

The word "com-put-er" above totally lost its futuristic linguistic implication in the past ten years. I can't say computer and feel awesome anymore. What's a new word that is cool now? OH OH!! iPhone. No, that's not even cool anymore. Hooooow abooout ANDRIOD! It's making a comeback in the cell phone/operating system word. Make's me think of DANGER, WIL ROBINSON!

OH CRAP. This is my photography blog. I probably should say something about photography.

Ok. So, this image I shot above was 3 total images shot using a tripod. I set my camera on burst mode and set bracketing to +/-2 stops. I then put on the camera's self timer.

Depress the shutter and ten seconds later the camera will automatically shoot three images, all with different shutter speeds. That's it. Well, for the field anyway.

Once in post I used the popular HdR software Photomatix (which I always mess up saying it as PhotoMATRIX..hey, I liked that movie!) From the HdR software I export as a 16-BIT TIFF and then open the TIFF in Photoshop. If you haven't heard of Photoshop...you may be a total idiot. Seriously, my first word as a child was "fothostot." I know, I was SO close even then!

ANYWAY, moving on...

In Photoshop I used two different soft-light layers of images of metal I found laying around. Then, I added an intense frame I had in a frame library. (not sure the name of it, sorry) You almost can't go wrong with insane borders; it really gets the attention off any mistakes made in the photography. ;D

Wedding photography can be difficult, but only at first.

(CLICKING THE IMAGE WILL GIVE A LARGER VIEW)

I have been writing lengthy replies about wedding photography over on Supershoots.net today. I figured I would share a few ideas about shooting weddings that may (or may not) help you get over common issues that arise. At the end of this post I would love to hear common issues you may be having at your weddings and maybe myself or someone else can chime in with some positive thoughts on how to overcome the issue. Here we go:

1. What do I charge for my wedding photography?
This really depends on what sort of weddings you want to be shooting. If you are just starting out (first 5-8 weddings) then you will want to keep your prices fairly low. This has little to do with what your images (prints) are worth or the quality of your images, it's only a simple fact that if you say you charge $500 then you will get to shoot low-grade weddings that will only pay such a price. You are in control of the weddings you are shooting based on the prices that you charge. If you charge $5,000 then I'm betting that the wedding will be in a really nice church. with nice decorations, and an expensive wedding dress. If you do not feel ready to shoot something so extravagant, don't charge that price yet.

2. I was shooting a wedding and several other people had cameras next to me shooting. It's in the contract that this isn't supposed to happen. What do I do?
Yell at everyone and tell them to put their stupid toy cameras away for you can do your job. (Don't forget to mean mug them too!) Of course this isn't what to do. It may feel okay to ask those people to put their cameras down. But, they don't know you and will feel like you are "telling them what to do." People don't enjoy feeling this way. So, what does one do?

Well, we do know that if the bride or groom says something that they will immediately put their toy cameras down. So, take the opportunity to put into the mind of the bride and groom what is happening for they will take care of this issue for you. Chances are they want them to put their cameras down as well because they paid you to shoot the images and they have no idea where to look and when. But, how do we tell them this without bringing up "it's in the contract" as if you are now a lawyer instead of a photographer or sounding like you are demanding them to take care of something that they think you should be taking care of?

Simple. Use proper wording to allow them to understand what is going on and to make it sound as if you are not being demanding even though you are. You don't have to sound or look demanding to get your way.

So, what can be said? A few things have worked for me. One is "when other peoples flashes go off, my flash also goes off which mean I will get a dark picture every time." The first time I used this I was only being honest, but they jumped quickly and everyone else's cameras were now in their pockets.

Another thing that may be said is "I shot this group shot 7 times and in each image different people are looking in different directions because of so many cameras in the room..." Then shut your mouth. Silence is incredibly effective in allowing the other party to respond. You shouldn't need to say anything more.

3. Children are running all around and distracting me from taking images. The run into my frame!
I don't know what to tell you, that totally sucks. I'm kidding of course. Kid's are like creatures from another planet. They see the world from only a few feet off the ground and contract agreements don't mean anything to them. But, what does matter to a kid? Toys. Imagination. Having fun, and being disruptive.

If someone else isn't controlling the kids, you may in a gentle manner. I never think about a parent being angry for me doing this because I treat the kids with the utmost respect. If they run into my frame, I use that opportunity to allow the kid (this works with DOGS as well!) to do something totally stupid while in my frame and snap a shot while everyone is looking at the kid and laughing. It usually turns out to be a great conversation starter in a person wedding album. "Remember when little Adam hid behind everyone then stuck his head between uncle James legs! Look, here is a picture of it!" Little Adam will never forget THAT image!

See, that is the photographers job at the wedding; it's to CAPTURE the happenings of that special day. This is why weddings are considered Event Photography. It's an event, and it's our job to capture it not only as-it-is, but even better that it actually is.

Back to the annoying kid in our frames. After you shoot the silly image, say something like "OH WOW now THAT was funny! What a fun kid! Okay, let's get back to this group shot..." Since everyone is in a good mood and you just alerted to everyone that you are cool with what is happening and are having a good time at the wedding, SOMEONE will take care of the kid for you. This all can take place in 30 seconds. Compared the story I just painted to being upset and telling someone to remove the child and making yourself look like you are not enjoying your job at their wedding, which I'm sure would take longer than 30 seconds and would kill moral. Plus, the kid probably won't be screaming and kicking for the next half hour because they were forced to do something.

So, if you don't know what to do, remember to not FORCE kids to do things. It simply doesn't work.

Okay, so those were 3 question with 3 long winded answers. What things do you run into at your weddings?

I shot the above image last Saturday in downtown Chicago.
Canon 40D - Canon 24-70 f/2.8 (shot at 26mm)
HDR + Post Processing
Base Exposure: 1/6th - f/7.1 - ISO200

It's like sooo 1985!

Tonight I went to see my cousin play high school football. Everywhere I looked kids were wearing 80's clothing. It totally freaking ROCKED! Girls wearing tight pink jeans with multi colored flourescent high tops and sweet haircuts! I was excited because this is the era I grew up in and I actually thought it was pretty sweet. ;D

I was in Atlanta last weekend and had to shoot the make up artist. She was a sheer bubble gum 80's rocker chic in this outfit...doesn't get much better that that!

I hope everyone is having a great week. Keep shooting!

Learning Photography Lighting

A person wrote me the other day asking for advice about learning lighting for photography. They said something to the effect of 'i'm looking into getting strobes and a softbox...' and I immediately thought 'Whoa! Slow down!'

When it comes to lighting it seems to makes sence to start with something simple and then work into more complex situations. So, what lighting is simple?

Well, lighting in general is fairly simple once you understand how it works. For this post I'm not going to go into any math or ratios, but I am going to go through a few steps in learning lighting.

First of all it's probably a good idea to start with natural light.  This is a great intro into seeing natural light the way god intended it. Go out and shoot natural light. Shoot in direct sunlight, shade, side lighting, back lighting, butterfly, etc...shoot until you get great dynamic images that get attention. Once you do, you have just mastered one light!

Now, pull out your reflectors and start bouncing the light around. Figure how to shoot great images with your reflector and natural light. Once you get the feel of controlling the given light, you will be ready to have a light source of your own!

Now, get one strobe and learn what heigth, angle and intensity you need to make good images indoors. Use the knowledge you learned in dealing with natural light and a reflector to your strobe. You will quickly learn how to use your one strobe.

Next, get a second strobe. This is the point where you will need to start measuring the light intensity with a light meter.

In my next post I will go over some basic ideas on using one strobe outdoors and two strobes indoors and outdoors. 

Until then, happy shooting! 
 

Photography with Fire!

If you like fire, hand drums, hippie'ish style dancing and the smell of marijuana in the air, then this is a place for you! This is the first time for me to hang out at a Pyrotechniq event. It was fairly entertaining. I mean, people are freaking EATING FIRE! How is that not fun to watch!?













This event was held August 5th of this year (2009) in Chicago. There are going to be 3 more held this year. Check out the link above for dates and times.
















People ate fire, spit fire, hula hooped with fire, had sword fights with fire, bo staffs, chains, whips, and just about any sort of weapon with fire on the end of it was spinning around.
















Many photographers were there with tripods, flashes and all sorts of other cool toys. I shot hand held with no flash because I was late testing my ability to shoot hand held at slow shutter speeds. Most were shot between 1/30th - 1/80th at ISO 1600.

Why focusing and recomposing is a not-so-great habit in photography.

(Any image in this post that is hard to see...click on it. It will load a full resolution version that you can see much better.)

I see this done often and I still do it myself from time to time. When one tilts their camera upwards to focus on the eyes of the model then tilts the camera back down to compose the image. Seems harmless, and it may be harmless if you are shooting at f/8'ish to f/16 or more.

(remember shooting at apertures of around f/8 - f/16 and more results in a wide depth of field whereas shooting from f/5.6 - f/1.8 results in a shallow depth of field...click here for a visual example)

Now let's take a look at what happens if we are shooting between f/1.8 to f/5.6'ish.




















Imagine holding the camera in this diagram that I spent 20 minutes drew up real quick for reference. We point the camera up to the eyes of our subject, which are 6 feet away. Perfect, the eyes are in focus. Since we are shooting in open apertures, lets say for this example, f/2.8, we have the eyes in focus and about 2 or 3 inches on each side of the orange line going through our subject is in focus. Beyond those few inches things are out of focus. Now, let's keep that focus point and tilt our camera down for our three quarter shot.
























Now that we have tilted our camera, notice where the orange line of focus on our subject has moved to. It's not focused on the eyes anymore. Now our focus has moved several inches behind the eyes. Remember those few inches we had? Now the eyes are out of focus.



In the image of Tiffany above I did this very thing. Here is a close up of the focusing for you can see this error in action. CLICK on this image to load a bigger/clearer version!

The collective ideas of several are better than yours alone...sometimes.

I have talked with Tiffany for several months now and we finally got to meet up and shoot. Just like any first shoot things start off with typical cookie cutter type of shooting and then eases into an artistic blend of every one's ideas and expressions. This first shot I took about 15 shots and never felt like I totally got the pose right. I showed Tiffany the shot and she said "oh yes! it would look better if I moved this leg here." See, Tiffany saw what I was trying to do with this shot, picked up my slack saw my vision, and then added her valuable input to make it better than if I had done it solely on my own. Good work Tif!

In post I did some special steps for the feel of this image would be custom. I shot this using 4 stop bracketing and a tripod. Next I made two different HDR's and mixed the properties of those two HDR images. I then painted back in some parts from one of the original images. Last I did the typical retouching that most images receive. A lot of work, but not so bad with a new computer. I simply wanted to try something new.

Fire Spinning

I was shooting an event downtown on the Peoria Riverfront a few weeks back and became fairly excited when the fire spinners came out. They came out when the sky was dark and the fire lit up the face of the person spinning. This little guy came out and was like a miniature crazy ninja on steroids with spinning chains of fire. It was totally awesome!!!

In a few months I will hopefully still have the honor of shooting the promo images for this group who spins fire. I'm definitely looking forward to shooting it! And, I already have a plan for it will not be the usual shutter-drag-fire-drawing-in-the-sky type of thing. Look for this later this year, September'ish.

Live Music

One of my most loved subjects to shoot is live music. I definitely don't shoot it enough. In fact, I shoot any and everything else more than live music. Why you ask? Because, I'm an idiot. Actually, I only haven't found a way to make it as profitable as I would want it to be, so I stick with other genera of photography that allows me to put gas in my car and eat. I have been getting little sleep, shooting a bunch, and retouching even more. Stick around, I have many images to post! :D

Peoria, Illinois Riverfront

(click to view larger)

Things have been crazy busy, so I half way apologize for not updating sooner. ;D

Today was a crunch day for getting some pano's of the Peoria skyline. It's primary use will be for a mural inside a large room. I set up a laptop and projector today to shine the images on the wall for the artist can use it as a painting/drawing template.

This brings up something I never blogged about before. Sometimes one artists work can help out another artists work. Work with artists around you to accomplish things bigger than what you could only do by yourself.

I will take images of the final art work and post it when it is finished.

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Image created with 7 raw shots stitched together in Adobe Photoshop CS4.
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Photography Everywhere

I have been traveling for the past week and a half with my camera and it has been a blast. I'm learning more everyday how much I really do enjoy photography.

I decided to take on a couple of shoots, two weddings, and a whole lot of traveling over 15 days. It doesn't seem like that much work until those 1,000+ images are filling up the hard drive and 1:1 previews are rendering on my 6 year old computer.

It seems like it will take 15 days to get the images prepared! It most likely will! I only have to slow down on traveling and taking on too much work until I get caught up in post. But, it happens. I'm keeping this ball rolling at least for awhile. It really comes down to updating and tightening my work flow and thing should become less backed up.

Before I owned a camera or knew how one even worked, I was a full time digital retoucher for several years. The only reason I purchased a camera is because I was sick of fixing so many 'common' photography errors. I was set on getting things right in the camera. Well, the tables have turned a bit. Now I'm almost shooting more then I can get done in post. I'm actually quite excited about this for it's sort of allowing me to feel like a photographer. Maybe someday I can get those silly "say cheese" lines down and be a pro! That's what pros do...right?

;D

The above is Pieya from 2007.

Photography Workshop - Hit The Lodge

The most profitable photography workshop I have attended is one that doesn't have rows of tables trying to sell me items. It isn't held in a huge hotel conference room with hundreds of people where you feel alone in a crowd. It doesn't even require you to have a fancy wrist band to get around the area. If you have not heard of such a workshop it's named "Hit The Lodge" and is only one amazing workshop out of many put on each year by Supershoots.

Here are some things you will be able to learn about at the Hit The Lodge event this year!

• Learn techniques in Fashion, Glamour, Commercial, Beauty,
  Photojournalism, Portraits, Fine Art Figure, and Swimwear.
• Outstanding instructors and mentors who are there to help you.
• Learn different lighting styles in Studio and on Natural Light
• Photograph beautiful models prepped with professional make up artistry!
• Enhance your portfolio, galleries, window display and self promotion pieces
• NEW for 2009 - Fine art figure seminars with dK

and...

• Light Room, Adobe Photoshop, and Retouching Seminars taught by...ME!

Yes, come see me teach on post production retouching techniques using Lightroom and Photoshop. It will be a great time to ask anything you are curious about with this software!

The duration of this event is 5 days. Plenty of time to fill the brain with all of the information you are looking for! The dates of the event is June 11-15 and is located in Pike County, Illinois.

If you can not make this event there are plenty of other events this year. Come to Supershoots.net (instead of .com) to be apart of the Supershoots community. Post images to your portfolio, post to the forum, write other users, take a walk on the runway. Come see what the hype is about! And, if you create an account, don't forget to add me and say hello! My portfolio is here!

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Read a post I made about last years Hit The Lodge event here.

Stimulating Creativity

I was recently reading a models portfolio (I enjoy the articles too.) on a web site and came across this...

"I don't want to take photos that excite people sexually, but stimulate them creatively."

I realized that this is the same thought I have when creating my images.

It's difficult to determine what sexually excites from one person to another. So, there is leeway in what is and is not sexual.

Each photographer has their own way of expressing what makes them feel excited. (Same with models.) Whether it's a sexual excitement or not. Some like faces and shoot amazing head shots, some like full bodies and shoot Playboy-like, some like props, others leather, some rope, some clothing and others makeup. It can also be of technical things like lighting, color tone, or composition. Different things excite different people.

When shooting I'm always looking some something that displays the model as epic. Even if there are two amazing females in an image (like above) I'm looking not for a sexual reaction, but the reaction of a not so sexual "wow!" due to the style, lighting, posing, scenery and processing.

The above is Kaila and Kris in Las Vegas. Shoot in 2007.

Image Manipulation and its Effects

In the past few years there has been much hype in the subject of images being manipulated to show something that is not. From false global perceptions on war to personal self image. Image manipulation causes a false ripple in the minds of all who see.

Here are a few examples of exposed image retouching in the mass media.

2006
This subject hit pretty hard in 2006 when Dove released their video showing a model from a just-waking-up-look to the final image used in an advertisement. This video can been seen here.

2006
It's bad enough that images are manipulated so poorly, but adding cloned smoke clouds over a city to make it appear in worse condition that it really was. Wow, really? As if blowing up a city isn't bad enough we have to manipulate it to look even worse.

2008
An article was ran around the world displaying an image of four SAM's being shot into the air. The image was release first by Sepah News, the media arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. Here is a clear cut manipulation of the image used. And, it's not the only thing they manipulated poorly.

2008
Sometimes manipulations attack a certain person(s) or business. In this case Fox and Friends news program decided to post some 'doctored' images of a few New York Times reporters for an article they wrote that wasn't in favor of Fox and Friends...well, friends. This manipulation game went back and forth. Childish, but still manipulated.

2009
Ad's in a Berlin subway get ad busted with Adobe Photoshop palette stickers. This is most interesting for printing all of these large stickers cost money. These are some fairly serious ad busters here!


• On a lighter note, to see the most in the world of image manipulation head on over to www.worth1000.com and flip though some of the contests like levitations or hair do nots. (where you can see Obama with a Mr. T hair do!)

• Photoshop Disasters Blog is also a great place to see current manipulated chop.

The above is Terrace.
Shot in a Nevada dry lake bed in 2008.
Don't be manipulated by the things in this image! ;D

Shooting with the Digital Future in Mind

I have often shot multiple exposures (using bracketing) in the past knowing that the technology of digital data is always improving and evolving. One of these technologies is HDR. (High Dynamic Range)

If you don't already know, this is the process of taking three shots of a given scene at three different exposures. Then, combining them to create one image with overall good exposure.

I shot the image to the left once and the sky looked great, but the building was too dark. I shot with a longer exposure and made the building look nice, but then the sky was blown out. Ever run into this? If so, then HDR is for you.

This is the first time I have opened these images to do anything with them and I shot them three years ago! At that time I didn't know much of anything about HDR. But, what I did know is that it was an emerging technology and I wanted to be prepared when it hit the market.

For this image I used a fairly popular HDR software name Photomatix. It's fairly simple to use and many different effects can be created. If you have not had the chance to play with this software you may download a trial version here.

HRD has caught on over the past few years, but I don't think its status has been changed to "overused" quite yet. So, take a few minutes and play with bracketing and HDR software. Especially if you are shooting non-moving objects/scenes.

There is new technology being revealed everyday and it's a good idea to keep up with it. This knowledge will help lead us digital photographers in the right direction and keep our minds aware of what we can do with this new technology.