More retouching in the news!

Adding to the previous post of retouching being in the public eye.

2009
In this debate photo journalist Klavs Bo Christensen had some amazing images that he shot in Haiti. He submitted these images for a "photo of the year" contest. (What I like to call a POTY contest.) All was well until the judges suspected that Klavs used "too much" photoshop retouching.

Defining "too much retouching" is going to be difficult. I can see it now, images submitted into photo contests end up in court with the argument of determining if "too much" retouching took place. There are some interesting parts in the article about differences in RAW data and how it appears.

Anyhow, after the judges chatted about moving his images into another category or giving them a 'special' (made up) prize for awesome retouching, they decided to pull Klavsimages out of the contest.

Pictured above is the lovely Marjorie. Shot in 2009.

BLACK AND WHITE!!!!

Or, maybe it's sepia? Maybe it's more technical like duo tone?! We could also go with 'brown tone." Anyway it's looked at it's still about how the image feels in the end!

I started this image with out-of-camera color and I didn't really like the color all that much. (...even though I used custom K balance!) So, I went with the sepia look. I preferred it much more until I tried to add color last. Since I already worked on the sepia image I decided to overlay the original color back into the sepia version. The overlay of color came out to be just as nice as the sepia!

Check out the color version here.

The gorgeous eye candy above is Elizabeth. We have worked together three times and each shoot we walk away with better and better images!

• Canon 20D
• f/2.5
• 1/1250
• 50mm

Grandkids at church!

One of our sessions this month included 7 grandkids and a miniature church. This miniature church located in Groveland, Illinois is well-known in the area for a place to tie that knot. We have shot a wedding or two there in the past, but not the kiddies!

This session, or event as I would call it, took about 1.5 hours and was fairly enjoyable due to the kids having good attitudes. Lucky us huh? My wife and I each had a camera and a few lenses close by knowing that we would be all over the place. We started 30 minutes beforehand by cramming into the tiny chapel and choosing the best place to shoot. This also involved where the lights are going to go, do we even needs them, and where are we going to be shooting from. I don't have a great shot of the entire interior, but here is a 35mm shot that reveals about half of the interior and a few kids not paying any attention to me! :) Tech specs are at the end of this post.


I shot that first image above as they were running into the church. Immediately after that shot I ran towards the church doors. As I got closer I heard one of the family members yell to the kids "don't go in yet, they (us, the photog's) may not be ready!" PERFECT! I got inside as the kids ran back out which gave me the chance to capture the shot to the left. I decided to sepiatone some images because we were told before hand that the kids would be dressed in 60'ish vintage type of clothing.
What was a surprise is that the night before we found out that we were NOT shooting at their home, but instead at this miniature church. I figure, "hey, it's better than a living room!" I usually go with "don't pass up a unique setting!"

We figured that since we were not in a living room that we would go outside and see what there was to play with. We said nothing and watched where the kids naturally ran to. There was this awesome tree that screamed for kids to climb. This opened up many opportunities to capture the kids playing and not being coaxed into "smiling." I went with a sepia-like toned image, but with more color. I really wanted to push the vintage feel for them. I wanted the images to look like they were shot at that time period.

There was also a well that we played at for quite some time.



We ended our session with headshots of each child, but right before that I couldn't pass up shooting the guys (and girls) together while sitting on the church entrance steps. I mean, the place was built for kids right? Maybe not, but it sure fit their heights! I processed this image much different from the others. It reminds me of pictures of my father when he was young. It's like the images had some sort of color overlay on top of a black and white.

Tech Info:
Images inside the church: Alienbee800 softbox for a main and an unmodified light bouncing off the ceiling for fill.

Images on the church steps: Alienbee800 to camera left to fill in shadows.

All other images: no studio lights, Canon 10d and 20d with various lenses.