Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Portraits of Gabby

So I spent the afternoon with my niece as I worked on my sister's computer. And low and behold... it turns out my niece is quite the photogenic ham. Below are some of the shots I culled out from the trash bin... Enjoy







Sunday, November 28, 2010

Day at the Abbey - Part 2

Saint Mary's Parrish Interior

Bell Tower at the Abbey

Crucifix Perspective

Bell Tower Storm

Repeating Myself

Saturday, November 27, 2010

My Day At The Abbey

St. Marys Parrish


Stained Glass Window


Shadow Play


An Evening In The Cemetary

Color Movement

Friday, November 26, 2010

Lightroom Presets: 6 Black and White Presets

Today I am giving you five black and white presets, talk about a Black Friday Special... and you don't even have to deal crowds here. Four of the free presets I am giving away are color filtered presets and the fifth is a strong contrast black and white preset.


The image to the left is a strong black and white image on its own, but with a little boost of contrast or using a color filter the image can change either a little or drastically.

The image below is the same image with the Black and White Blue Filter. This is applied by amplifying the blue tones sliders in the B&W tab in the HSL tool.



Black & White Blue Preset
 Blue comes in many tones ranging from green-blue (aqua), blue and red-blue (purple). I accomplish this type of effect by increase the gray value of blue to 100%, and the gray values of aqua and purple to 50%. All other colors are set to zero. As a result, anything with a blue tone to it is brighter and more vibrant.

You may notice a light shift in the blue tones in the water. Click on any of the images to see a larger version of the image and see more detail in subtle changes.


Black & White Green Preset
 The Black and White Green Filter image is the same image but with a green filter applied to it. This is applied by amplifying the green tones sliders in the B&W tab of the HSL tool.


Green comes in many tones ranging from yellow to green-blue (aqua). I accomplish this type of effect by increase the gray value of green to 100%, and the gray values of aqua and yellow to 50%. All other colors are set to zero. As a result, anything with a green tone to it is brighter and more vibrant. Looking closely at the image, click on it to see the larger version, the belt of the young man is brighter than the original image above.


Black & White Red Preset
 The Black and White Red Filter image is the same image but with a red filter applied to it. This is applied by amplifying the red tones sliders in the B&W tab of the HSL tool.


Red comes in many tones ranging from Magenta to orange. I accomplish this type of effect by increase the gray value of red to 100%, and the gray values of magenta and orange to 50%. All other colors are set to zero. As a result, anything with a red tone to it (mainly in the skin in this image) is brighter and more vibrant. Looking closely at the image, click on it to see the larger version, the ribs of the young man and the arm of the young lady are brighter than the original image above.

Black and White Yellow Preset
The Black and White Yellow Filter image is the same image but with a yellow filter applied to it. This is applied by amplifying the yellow tones sliders in the B&W tab of the HSL tool.


Yellow comes in many tones ranging from orange (red-yellow) to green (green-yellow). I accomplish this type of effect by increase the gray value of yellow to 100%, and the gray values of orange and green to 50%. All other colors are set to zero. As a result, anything with a yellow tone to it (mainly in the skin highlights) is brighter and more vibrant. Looking closely at the image, click on it to see the larger version, the ribs of the young man and the arm of the young lady are brighter than the original image above and are highlighted differently than the Black & White Red preset results.


Black & White Original Image
 Finally, we have the strong contrast black and white preset.

Contrast in photography is the opposition of light and shadow. The more opposition there is between light and shadow the stronger the contrast.


In the original photo on the left, there is a natural high contrast to the image due to the position of the unfiltered sun in the sky. This contrast can be exploited to make a strong artistic statement with a few adjustments I made and saved as a preset.

 
 


Black & White Strong Contrast
 By amping the contrast, black levels and tweaking the tone curve into a strong S-Curve, the contrast of the image is made unnaturally strong creating a depth to the image that was lacking in the original. The patterns in the water are more pronounced and the highlights on the back of the boy are blown out completely.


Now while blown highlights are not a good thing according the rules; it is only a rule so it can be broken if it helps the image to work. In this case, I like the result and am sticking by it.

Download B&W Blue Here

Download B&W Green Here

Download B&W Red Here

Download B&W Yellow Here

Download B&W Strong Contrast Here

To install the preset, copy the file in the zip (xxx.lrtemplate) to your Develop Presets folder on your computer. If you don't know where to find this folder, open Lightroom. Click on Edit menu and select Preferences. Click on the Presets tab and click the Show Lightroom Presets Folder... button.

Thursday, November 25, 2010

I Am Thankful

Since I don't want to embarrass my friends, I will only thank them without photos, but my family doesn't get such special treatment. Here are the five things I am thankful for today, in photos:


My Camera Shy, But Loving Wife

My Baby Girl


Yummy Food


My Oldest


My Youngest
I am thankful for these things and all my supportive, caring and giving friends. Without this network of people, I would not be where I am today. Thank you.



Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Playing with Water - A Photogeddon Play Date

Today, to try and break out of my creative slump... I thought I would use some new techniques and tools to play with water.  I thought I would share them. Also... I am thinking of dropping my watermark completely... Any thoughts?






Also my thanks to Chris and Nathan for their encouraging feedback on post the other day. It did help.

Saturday, November 20, 2010

My own worst enemy

I seem to be lost in a sea of confusion and distractions. I sit down to work on generating leads for future business or work on finishing my pricing matrix and I can’t focus because I am looking around my living room and want to do something to clean up the clutter and mess. Then I get overwhelmed by the clutter, unable to figure out where to start, so then I don’t do anything. I give up and watch TV or play a video game or take a nap. I am a really good photographer, but it appears that I am even better at self-sabotage. That sums me up.


The truth of the matter is that I am simply using the clutter as an excuse to fail. When I fail I can say, “It was because of [insert excuse here].” I can blame it on the cluttered living room. I can blame it on the fact that my life is interrupted every two weeks by my kids. I can blame it on not having the latest gadget. I can blame it on the phase of the moon. I can make up 10000 excuses for the failure, but the only reason for the failure will be me. That is a hard pill to swallow.

I am making these distractions. I am making these excuses. I am making my own failure. How do I go about fixing that? I need to figure out why I am afraid of succeeding, because it all comes down to fear. This is going be both easy and difficult. It is going to be easy because there are thousand reasons for fear of success; my childhood and youth is a virtual landmine of success killers. It is going to be difficult because I am going to have to be honest with myself about my fears; I am going to face these fears and come to terms with the skeletons in my closet. This process isn’t going to be fun. It is going to be an emotional rollercoaster of a trip. But I have to get my shit together, and soon, or things are going to go horribly wrong real fast.

Another thing I am dealing with is this emotion of shame for charging for my work. Even though I know that I am worth every penny I charge I have to assert myself into actually charging my rates or my wife and I will be homeless real soon. Now if you know me in real life, you have possibly heard me assert myself in talking with others in regards to charging for their work and to stop doing it for free, but alas, I am, it appears, one of those who can’t practice what they preach. This needs to change.

Anyone out there in the cyber (or real) world have ideas how to do this on your own without paying thousands in therapy. I am not opposed to therapy, but really can’t afford it right now for the obvious reasons of no insurance and lack of employment. Things to ponder for the short term I guess. Real short term.

Until next time… don’t under value yourself or your art.

Lightroom Preset: CMS-High Key

Wow I am running so behind on everything, even blogging.

Before High Key Preset
The purpose of high key in photography is to remove as much of the dark tone from the photograph as possible creating a noticeable lack of contrast.

High Key images have a bright and happy feel to them, especially compared to Low Key images which are dark and moody.  This bright happy feel tends to allow the view to experience positive emotions. Keep this in mind when selecting your high key subjects. High Key adds a nice effect of softening the image through tonal control and High Key works extremely well for removing any skin imperfections as well.

For this preset to work your image must be at least properly exposed. Under exposed images will generally experience noise and only appear to be slightly over exposed; rather than high key.


This preset is accomplished by bumping the exposure and brightness quite a bit, but also adding some fill light and tweaking the tone curve with the following settings:
In the after-image on the right, you can see the final results. A strong light feeling is applied to the portrait and there is a nice loss of detail to the skin which cleans the image up nicely. And although the subject's facial details are lost, this is sort of the point. High Key works really well with non-people subjects like a white rose on a white backgorund, or even chess pieces. Have fun with this.  


Download Here

To install the preset, copy the file in the zip (xxx.lrtemplate) to your Develop Presets folder on your computer. If you don't know where to find this folder, open Lightroom. Click on Edit menu and select Preferences. Click on the Presets tab and click the Show Lightroom Presets Folder... button.


Sorry for the delay in getting this out... but it is here now. Enjoy. Come back on Monday for another preset.



Highlights: -66

Lights: +43

Darks: +100

Shadows +9

After High Key Preset


Saturday, November 13, 2010

Smith-Gaynor Wedding - Photography

I have delivered the wedding photos to the bride and groom and now can share the photos with everyone on here. Before I do that I want to thanks a few people for their help and support in this process.

My thanks go to Nathan Smith of Smith Fine Art for some ideas on how to handle the unconventional nature of this wedding as well as the presentation disk. My thanks also go to Chris David of peoplephotos.biz for being my second shooter and creative soundboard during the shoot. My thanks to my wife for putting up with my insanity before and after the event.

But most of all, my deepest thanks to Nicki and Rich for picking and trusting me to document their special day. They are truly a kind, generous and open couple when it comes to the creative possibilities of the moment. For some of the shots I got, I know when I was asking them to climb up on the pool table and especially when I was placing pool balls all around them their were likely second guessing me, but they played along. Thank you Nicki and Rich for being such good sports and gracious clients.

So without further restraint, here are a few of the memories that were captured that day. Feel free to provide me some feedback...

The evening started with makeup

Then came a beverage or two

A pumpkin carved in their honor

A serious mirror take

Groom waiting

The Ball and Chain, literally.

Saying their vows

Signing the marriage certificate

Love at first Bite

Loner

Black and White Shoes


Second Kiss

Third Kiss

Fourth Kiss

Circle of Friends

Sweet Shoes

The Future