Directional light with off-camera bounce flash
Directional light with off-camera bounce flash
During the same afternoon that I had the opportunity to photograph Ulorin Vex, I took several other sequences of images of her in other costume. Here we worked in the foyer area of the Hotel Monaco in San Francisco. (If only all other hotels had such a diversity of immediately photogenic areas!) With this image, I wanted a near-symmetrical image, with just Ulorin Vex's posture slightly breaking the symmetry up. Just enough to make a stunning subject even more eye-catching. A little more about the train-of-thought to getting to this Read more inside...recent personal work – Manhattan cityscapes
personal work - Manhattan cityscapes
It's been a long cold winter without much chance to roam around and explore with a camera. The past weekend it seemed like the weather was finally relenting and becoming warmer. Taking to the streets to shoot for myself a bit with no purpose in mind, I ended up with three images that I liked - all deserted New York city scenes. Or in the case of the image above, nearly deserted. It felt good to let my thoughts roam for a while, getting some exercise and listening to music ... looking for anything that visually appealed to me in the camera's Read more inside...a kid’s studio portrait
children's studio portrait - lighting setup and post-processing
The lighting setup was very simple. Mostly because there wasn't much space in the area where I set up my home-studio in my dining room area. But also, because a complicated lighting setup wasn't necessary. Just two lights. One light on my subject - this adorable little girl; the other light on my background. Read more inside...Photoshop contest – another great version
Two fantastic entries to the recent Photoshop contest came from Marcia Gold, who runs a post-processing and retouching service. She said she entered just for fun, and didn't want to be eligible for the prize. I am taking the liberty of showing her two images here anyway, since they are outstanding takes of the original image ... Read more inside...
Photoshop contest winner
I'm happy to announce the winner of the Photoshop contest from last week. The winning entry was submitted by Hanssel Galeano, and he will receive the $50 B&H voucher for this effort. Before I let Hanssel explain his process in editing the image, here is the original again for comparison ... Read more inside...
Photoshop contest
updated Sept 09, 2010: The contest is now closed. Here is the winning entry, as well as another notable entry. Thank you to everyone who entered! One of the images I took during the recent photo session with the Modern Gypsies, was this photo above. With all his antics, I had asked him to jump against the wall as if he was going to scale it. It looks pretty cool ... but the mundane urban background pulls this potentially surreal image back to normality. A little bit anyway. Then I imagined it as him scaling an impossibly high wall, rising up from an unseen area below. Pretty cool Read more inside...
Photoshop tips – retouching for portraits
Photoshop Tips - retouching for portraits
When retouching portrait photographs, I have a certain look that I (currently) like - a slightly 'polished' look, but still natural. Definitely not 'plastic'. With a few steps in Photoshop, and a few steps that I may or may not add, I can easily get to the styling in post-processing that I want. Some of the steps are specific, but others are added depending on taste or 'feel'. Some of the steps involve Photoshop plug-ins which are essential for me ... Read more inside...reducing the blue color cast in white clothing
reducing the blue color cast in white clothing
Often when working in the shade, or anywhere we need Cloudy or Shade white balance, we'll often see a blue tint in the white clothing. I suspect this might be due to detergents being used which give a blue-ish tint to white clothing to make them appear cleaner. Or perhaps this is from UV light when we're working in cloudy conditions or in the shade. However it might be, we will often get that blue tone in white clothing, as in this photo below ... Read more inside...favorite recent images – portraits of a bride
I frequently post a favorite image from the past weekend. This time, I'd like to post a few images. All are portraits of the bride, Denise, on her wedding day. This might show some of my approach and style in wedding portraits ... Read more inside...