People amaze me for several reasons. They all unique and come with so many beautiful parts and expressions. But the one thing that amazes me most is that I conitnue to have issues capturing their essence in photography, but I have decided, if you couldn't tell, to over come my difficulty shooting people by focusing on them. So below are some examples of my recent work with people. I hope you enjoy.

A local event

In honor of the photographers of my local photo group, I submit three of the seven dwarves... Busy, Grumpy and Casual. I promise that there were actually having some fun.

He is having fun... I promise

Photographing the photographer in black and white.

Revisiting the Past

Sometimes to restart the creative juices, I have to go back and revisit the past. Reworking, retouching and revamping my previous works can inspire me to not only create new work, but to breathe life in old work as well.

Since learning some new techniques in processing my photos and purchasing some new tools I thought it would be great to see the results on some of my previous works.

And wouldn't you know it, the work is fresh, clean and better than before.

The Seagull, above, was a true labor of love. The deep brown bokeh allowed for the Seagull and the left eye to just pop.

The Woman in High Key was overexposed even more to allow the high key concept to really shine through. I am extremely happy with the result of this work.

More to come over the next week, so stay tuned, and keep your eyes out for my Shaped Bokeh tutorial... coming soon.

Zack Arias - Creative Live

Webcam chat at Ustream

Shaped Bokeh

Coming soon... a tutorial on how to make your own shaped Bokeh filter.

The image to the left is normal bokeh... The images below are shaped bokeh using a filter to create an artificial aperture.

More to come on how you can do this yourself.