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!

Getting Paid For Your Photography

JimmyD recently posted over in the Supershoots forum a video of Harlan Ellison talking about getting paid as a writer as apposed to getting exposure or publicity.

You can watch this short (3:24) video of Ellison talking about a situation where this arose and his thoughts on it.

Watch it a second time and replace the word "writers" with "photographers."

I think of it this way, my mortgage company doesn't accept publicity or exposure for payment, and neither does McDonalds. So, why should I?

This image is of Roberta looking amazing as usual! Thanks Roberta!

I've seen this picture before!

I was reading a photography post where there was an awesome image posted. It only took a few replies before someone pointed out "hey, isn't that idea getting old?"

Well, isn't the ideas of most photographers getting old? I mean, seriously, the image I posted on this post is pretty cool. (Well, I thought so or I wouldn't have posted it.) I'm definitely not breaking any barriers here. But, I wasn't trying to either. If photographers had to shoot something totally unique, there would be a lot less photographers in the world today. But, that is okay. Sometimes people put down another photographers work because it looks like some other photographers work they have seen before, but don't speak too soon, I'm sure your work looks just like someone else's. Maybe you only have not run into them yet. I'll assume I don't do anything special or different until it's widely accepted that it is. But, since I'm not going for that I'm guessing I'll never hear such a thing.

When I'm shooting I have a fairly clean slate in my mind. I know what the model looks like, and maybe saw some clothes she has, and know the relative location where we will be shooting, but beyond that I don't think too much about what I'm exactly going to be shooting. This works for me. It may not work for you.

I could image what a headache it would be for another photographer to be in my shoes. But, I couldn't really do that well in the shoes of a photographer who plans out too many specific details. Saying that I guess I'm sort of a go-with-the-flow sort of shooter. I'm a go-with-the-flow type of guy in general. So, I think that's probably a good thing that my personality and my shooting style match up. At least I'm not trying to be something I'm not. Wow, did I just blog a post of therapy for myself? Probably sounds like it, but what's more important is for you, the reader, to clear your mind and shoot with purpose and accuracy. If you want to claim the title of photographer, be the best photographer that you can be and nothing less!

The above is Dalida. She rocked this image a few weekends ago for me. Thanks Dalida!

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 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.

Mmmm, RED!

Guess where this backdrop is located?!

I'm not telling, but it does involve a hotel and a wall. (again)

Okay, it's apparent I don't mind hotel walls on occasion. But this is only because I'm not paying much attention to the background. Or am I? Yes, of course I am.

I figured I would share my thoughts during the creation of this shot, and also after wards in post production/retouching.

Candee walked into the room with this killer red dress on that was totally awesome. It's perfect because she has green eyes which compliments the red dress. Our backdrop was an off white, eggshell as 'they' call it, color with a bit of a plaster/stucko embossing. This backdrop is totally uninteresting, especially since we are working with a strong red reflective material.

The first thing I need to think about is where I need my single soft box strobe to be for the wall doesn't look flat and/or blown out. But, it also has to light up Candee in a way that matches her beautiful bold look.

Light Placement
I placed my soft box directly behind me which will light up Candee well. I put it up high and point the center of the light to Candee's chest. My head will be infront of the soft box's hottest spot, (sometimes they can have a hot spot) so it won't make her chest brighter than her face. Also, and more importantly, with the soft box up a ways it will create a shadow underneath Candee's chin. The same effect is shared by the dress folds, and chest. This setup works also because I need the light to skip over the embossing of the wall a bit to show it's detail.

Post Production
In post I added texture to the wall to intensify its effect and also added red to the off-white color. Did I know I was going to make the wall red while I was shooting the image? Nope. But, I did know I was going to change it in some way to fit the clothing we were using.

Double Mega Pixels!

Reading this post title like a computer generated Nintendo voice after I made my ninja character throw out a hard core double combo on 'The Boss" ...made me laugh a bit. Anyway...

Canon released their 5D back in 2005. At that time I was packing my 9d 10d. I remember having a conversation with a friend about the 5d and its superior 12MP+full frame sensor. I remember making the point that I can't imagine needing more than a 12MP+full frame sensor in a camera. Anything more would be overkill and only help out hard drive manufacturers, because I would have to store these monster files somewhere.

My friend replied "oh, but that is what everyone thinks until the new technology comes out...then you find that you want and need what's coming out next."

At that time, I disagreed.

But today, I came to the realization, that I still pretty much disagree. *shrugs* Yep.

I still shoot with a 10d. But, I do want to upgrade to a 5d (mark II) at some point. The only reasons are full frame sensor and the ability to shoot at least 12MP. Two things that will directly improve the quality of my images. I really have no need to shoot larger than 12MP images. I don't care to copy them over and back them up either. Only takes longer. So, unless I'm labeled as a super awesome pro magazine cover shooter who gets paid millions of dollars for every image produced, I'll stick with my mass'ish consumer camera.

"But, Joshua! What if you 'came into' money, then what would you buy?!!"

Two 5d's?! *raises eyebrow* Always nice to have a backup!

Headshots and miniscule movements!

Head shots involve so many variables in angles that it's almost infinite on what the outcome may be. As I scrolled through my shoot of about 45 shots I realized that one image looks ok and then the next where I shot within 1 second later looks totally awesome. They are almost identical yet one jumps off the page where the other doesn't. I'm excited to (re)discover angle relationships and how they can impact an image. Make it a goal to understand what angles make an image jump off the page and/or what other variable in relation to angles makes this happen. Maybe it's a correlation between facial expression and posing angles? Maybe it's the lighting incidence angle? Maybe it's nothing at all and simply preference.

Two light setup. Softbox on left and background light. I used a $1 car visor for a fill and since my white shirt was reflecting in the glasses I took it off (I had another black tee on) and used it to diffuse my background light. For post processing I decided to use a split tone green and remove some saturation.

(click image for detail)

f/3.5 @ 125th
ISO 100

Ringflash and Hoodies

Yesterday morning David Lee, which is the owner of the studio I work for, shot Terrace in her Blues for some traditional military shots. Afterwards we spent much time playing with lighting and props; something that doesn't happen enough when the studio is rolling at full speed! The lovely Terrace was our model of the day.

We spent a lot of time paying attention to how light works with a new home made ring light that was recently purchased. We tried everything we could think of. Close up, far away, to the side, in the background, behind the camera, shooting through it, shooting only with the ring, adding up to 3 other lights in various setups and probably many other things that might be too silly to mention.

Like most of the shots I have done of Terrace, the above image was her idea. But, since someone needed to be there to push the shutter release and I happen to be standing there with a camera, it just worked out. It seemed rather simple to cover one eye and not the other with a hood, but for some reason we were having trouble. She was having trouble getting the hood straight while I was having trouble communicating just how far to move the hood. I think it took 5 to 8 shots to get this one right!

Other than the ring light there was one extra light that was on the background. Terrace was 6 feet from the background. This was shot f/4 at 160th - ISO400 - 140mm - all hot lights.

Peoria Supershoots 2008 (is now over)

This weekend was a Supershoots(.com/.net) event. The event was a complete success in the fact that, well, I had a lot of fun! I didn't shoot as much as I usually do since I was helping others with their cameras/posing/lighting/etc...

The event started Saturday morning at 9am, but all of the mentors arrived Friday during the day. We met up that Friday night, had some drinks, hung out at our home, played some drums, and was in bed by midnight.

Saturday went really well. I would have to say that the group attending was mostly full of people who really did want to learn more about photography. Sometimes you get those "one" guys (or girls) who are there for other various reasons, but I don't care to expand on that.
I spent the entire day on one high key set. If I had a gun then, I wouldn't be writing this post today. Though, I was proactive in working on my posing skills. Not "my" posing skills, but my ability to pose other people. Well, maybe somewhat my posing skills since I have found 'doing' a pose works better than 'explaining' a pose. It's somewhat queer, but non-verbal communication works very well in communicating with a model. Saturday ended at a Mexican restaurant in Peoria where I got to have great conversation with Jeff and his wife (Her name slips me).

Sunday started at 9 am with me teaching a digital retouching session. I arrived at 9:10. I'm so awesome. Anyhow, I took this session a different route than I have before. This time I asked for a few images from the attendee's to use as my example(s) in digital retouching. I would usually use my own, but what a better way to teach by putting myself on the spot and showing how I would approach retouching an image. I figured that the less "unknowns" during the entire process the better everyone could understand it. All of the techniques that I used were proprietary to Photoshop and very simple. I believe that the session went extremely well and that everyone walked away a better retoucher then before. I heard several "ohhs" and "ahhs" during the session, so I'm basing my information off of that. Well, and of the several attendee's that spoke to me personally afterwards with great appreciation. Thanks for that guys.
Sunday ended at Mings Chinese restaurant with many many laughs.

At the top is Kalleigh. She had a great persona in front of the camera and had no issues with going outside the box to create some great shots. This was my first time ever working with her, but it didn't feel that way.

Chelsea from Vegas

I worked on about 1/2 of the Vegas images right after we got back. Here it is 4 or 5 months later and I realized that I didn't retouch some images to send to the models. I probably missed 3 or 4 models and they never got an image from me! ahh!

See, since I'm a mentor at the photography seminars I have to set an example of shooting the models AND send them their images. The models work really hard for several days and hear "you look great!" or "this shot is awesome, check it out on the back of my camera!" but then a month after the event have to find that photographer on the internet and ask them for the images. I'm never 'that' photographer, but I'm afraid I almost become 'that' one.

Anyhow, the image above is of Chelsea. I finished retouching her earlier this evening. I did a lot of work on this image, but it may not look like it, which is my goal. If it looks over-retouched, then I have failed at keeping the image close to its original representation. Highlights in the hair were hand brushed. Several filters and overlays were used to bring out the texture in the back wall. A couple of warming techniques were used. Basic skin cleaning, but not much. Her skin was 85-90% of what it likes like on the final image. I made here eyes like jewels since they are the strong point of the image. I actually shot it in 3rd's and didn't crop in post. That isn't usually the case. Anyhow, to see the image better, click on it.