Photography Retreat Part 4

Chris and Shawn Shooting the Misty Lake

 The Salem Digital Photo Group held their first annual photography retreat this fall. The retreat was held on the beautiful Oregon coast at the wonderful Camp Magruder, near Rockaway Beach, Oregon.

To recap, the first day started down on the beach for some beach scenes followed by an amazing sunset. Then late at night we went out to attempt a one hour exposure, which ended in a bust a little before 1:00 AM.

But that didn't stop the happy campers from rising early and heading down to the private lake for some early morning light and water shots.

After breakfast we went on a hike in the woods and then met back up for lunch. After lunch, we got to head to the archery range.

Rick's Bull's-Eye

Yup... that's right, the staff a Camp Magruder thought it was a good idea to take the cameras out of our hands and put bows and arrows in the camera's place.

Everyone took a few shots with both the bows and their cameras.

In the image on the right, Rick is showing off his impressive archery skills.

Melva's Bull's-Eye

 Melva in her last shot of the day nailed a bull's eye.

The archery was a nice mix in the activities for the day providing a little variety in the day's activities.

 My shot of the day, at the archery range was this shot of Tom drawing down on me.

It was shocking how eager everyone, not just Tom, was to point a loaded bow at me.

It was all in good fun, but in all seriousness, Tom and I keep clear and concise communication during this shot. I let him get the bow drawn back and indicate when he was steady. Then I would step in front of him, shoot a few frames and he would let me know when to move.

Tom would take a little rest and then we would set up and do it again.

 That evening, we headed down to the beach. We were running a little behind, and had to run down the beach to get to the point where the setting sun fell between these two rocks.

In doing so, I wasn't paying attention to where I was going and as I ran a little too close to a little camp fire with several people enjoying the beautiful evening on the beach, their dogs didn't like me running so close to their little camp. The dogs ran out and bit me twice on the legs. I stopped, raised my hands and waited. The dogs stopped and the owners came running, apologizing. I looked at the sun sitting on top of the water sad all was good and took off running. I had several hundred yards to cover before the sun dipped under the horizon. I got the shot and the bites didn't break the skin.

After a brief slide show which we invited the camp staff to, three of us wandered exhausted back down to the beach to try again for that elusive one hour exposure.

This time, with full batteries and no yahoos on the beach with their flashlights and no moon, we had success with the first try. Back to the cabin and in bead by 11:00 PM.

 The next morning after breakfast, we hit the lake again, for an hour cruise in rowboats.

In the image on the left, Rick and Shawn tootle around the lake stopping to take photos of geese, shorelines and reflections.

It was the last activity before we packed up and headed home... and it proved to be a great closer.

All in all the weekend was a huge success. Though we all got home exhausted, everyone took some beautiful photos, bonded as friends and learned something over the weekend.

Free Texture Friday - Diagonal Earth Tones

This week's free texture is wild brush strokes of light.

You can download the full-res version below.

This photograph was captured at Minto-Brown Park in Salem, Oregon.





Download the full res image here.

Happy Halloween: Creating A Monster

Zombie Photographer

Question: What's the difference between a Photoshop makeup job and a real makeup job for Halloween? Answer A: About five hours and forty minutes. Answer B: You can't wear Photoshop to a Halloween Party.

The above image took roughly 20 minutes to put together.

The actual costume I wore to Saturday night's Halloween party took considerably more time. The steps were as follows:

Mastering Blood Spatter

Step 1: Start with clothes: Getting the right amount of blood in accurate splatter patterns is important to a truly scary costume. Using a combination of two different spray bottles, misting and streaming sprays, and a paint brush gives a nice variety of blood spatter patterns.

This is where being a fan of shows like CSI and Dexter come in handy. They are educational in art of creating accurate blood spatter.

Also included in this process was rubbing dirt and grass stains into the clothes as well as ripping and shredding the clothes to age them appropriately.

Total time 1 hour.

Drying the Blood

Step 2: Let the clothes dry.

This is a big deal that can take a day or more.

Mange Look

Step 3:  Hair.

This takes some willingness to sacrifice your ego, as the image on the right dictates.

And while you won't be making a fashion statement, you will make an impact to the effectiveness of the entire costume.

This included messing with the chin-pubes as well.

Of course, after the cutting of the hair you need to a shower.

Total Time: 1 Hour

Merely a flesh wound

Step 4: The facial makeup.

My thanks go to my lovely, understanding and uber-creative wife who created this process of wound generation from tissue paper, liquid latex and makeup.

This whole wound took about a half an hour to make. There was an additional ten minutes in makeup following to blend the wound into my real skin.

The initial preview of this image generated some visceral reactions from my friends on Facebook.

Exactly the reaction I was looking for.

Head Wound

The head wound was a risky choice, but one that paid off big time.

The risk was this: Liquid Latex is like gum, especially when it gets in your hair. But, look at the wound... it is simply amazing!

My wife rocked this makeup application.

This wound took about an another half an hour plus ten minutes for the makeup.

Gruesome as it looks, the application was painless.

I wish the same could be said about its removal.

After this, there was a thirty minute break because I was getting monkey-butt from sitting in the chair for so long.

Looks like it hurts

The final, most complicated wound was the head to neck gash on the left side of my face.

A similar process was used, but was one continuous stream of latex and tissue paper.

This took nearly 40 minutes to apply, plus the makeup time.

Then came the rest of the makeup.

Blood around the mouth; blood in the bald spots on my head; shadowing and general blending took another 20 minutes.

Total Time: 2 hours 10 minutes

The Bite

Of course after all that work, some photos were needed.

Bitten

The Attack

Incoming

Total time of application was four and half hours, plus a half an hour for Kim's bite.

Then we headed off to the party.

Total time of removal of the makeup and the latex, which definitely got in my hair, painfully in my hair, was a half an hour plus a shower for a total time of a one hour. Also, I had to finish shaving my head on Sunday for another hour, if the shower is included.

Total time: Six hours of makeup application and cleanup after the party.

Was it worth it? Completely! Because again, you can't wear Photoshop to a Halloween party.

By the way, in case you didn't guess it, I went to the party as a corporate zombie.

Happy Halloween from Creative Monkey Studios!