This is a test post from the Fire. This is test to see how posting a photo works. So here goes nothing.

Please stay tuned.

Peace.

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Monika Jaymes

As for the set up for this. I had an SB-600 flash remotely triggered off to camera right with a Westcott Micro Apollo Light Modifier attached to the flash to soften it up and that’s about it. One light, lots of drama. I’m always amazed at what you can do with just one light. 

As for post it’s pretty straight forward. Desaturate, boost contrast, tweak white balance a little and added a little black. 

Well I hope you all enjoy the picture as much as I do. Please feel free to share and leave a comment below. Thank You.

Good evening all. These next couple of shots were inspired by Joe McNally, The Strobist and the luck of a perfect overcast day. The weather always seemed to be on the verge of raining making for a dramatic background. Luckily for me Samantha seemed to have a psychic link with me this day. When we started talking about what kinds of stuff we wanted to try this time she emailed me some sample pics and they were exactly what I wanted to try. The idea of getting the flash off camera and getting it in close to the model. These shots were taken with a Nikon D90 and the flash is a Nikon SB-600. I had the flash on the end of a fully extended light stand and had my assistant extending the stand until the flash was about 3 feet from the model. This setup puts the flash in the photo. In the words of Joe McNally it’s what we call a VALS, Voice Activated Light Stand. Having the flash in the shot was no big deal, because of the magic of Photoshop, I was able to remove it post. Not having a more powerful flash I had to get it in nice and close to get the quality of light I was looking for. 

This next shot was made possible by a wonderful prop supplied by friend Gina, who makes a killer Chicken Pot Pie. The little blue bench was just awesome. Getting a good pose proved to be a little bit more difficult. Luckily Sam seems to always be able to pull out the perfect pose, and look, to make the shot excellent.

As for what was done in post. The photos were opened in camera raw, of course. The normal sort of adjustments were done IE: Adjusting exposure, color balance and so on. What really makes these photos “Pop” is the Adjustment Brush. I set a good amount of clarity, lowered the exposure to -.10 to -.20 and upped the saturation up quite a bit. Then with the show mask check box selected I was able to know exactly where I was applying the effect. I really recommend using a Wacom tablet for this kind of stuff. You just cant get an exact mask with a mouse. When adding clarity to a photo and the model is female you really don’t want to add any clarity to her. It tends to make the model look a little “dirty” and not very flattering. Now if this is something you are going for then by all means go for it. 

This next shot is a bit of a behind the scenes shot. I was lucky to have an assistant for this shot that was very patient and strong. Even though the SB-600 is a little flash, being way out there on the end of the lightstand makes it weigh a lot more than it seems.

Well that’s it for this post. I hope you all enjoy the photos and learned a little something on the way. Please feel free to leave a comment below. So till next time.

Peace.

This was shot later in the day and the sun was throwing these great shadows on the court. I shot a couple different angles of this shot and settle on this one. I think the off kilter angle adds a little more drama to the shot. The little leaf in the foreground seems so lonely to me.

As for what was done in post; I just upped the contrast a bit to make the shot, in the words of Jared Polin, “Pop”. Then I added a little black lvl to make the shadows a lot deeper. I used the Local Adjustment Brush on the little leaf to make it stand out just a little bit more than the rest of the picture. 

Well that is it. I hope you all like it. Please feel free to leave a comment below.

Thanks

Peace

What was done in post: Added a little vignette, boosted the contrast a bit to make it ‘pop’, added a bit of clarity, upped the vibrance and  did a little localized exposure correction to make the slide stand out a little more.

Hope you all enjoy it. Peace.

Eric B

Damien Benz Guitar Player

Hello all. It’s been way too long between posts. This shot is one of a set of shots I took of a local band here in the Raleigh/Cary NC area. They are a Judas Priest Tribute band called British Steel.  The show was at brand new venue here in town called the Southland Ballroom . Awesome place to watch bands. This was only the second show that was booked there. Still a little rough around the edges but has tremendous potential. 

Now on to the shot. One of the challenges with this shoot was the lighting. It was all over the place. This was one of the few places that I’ve been to had a lot of their Par lights ungelled so you would get this awesome white light flooding the stage from above but only for a split second. Having caught a couple shots with just the white lights earlier in the show and checking them on the LCD screen, I knew there was magic to be had.

This shot is of Damien Benz, an incredible guitar player. When he plays, he plays with his whole body. Which makes for some great photo opportunities. I have to admit I love everything about this shot. Having froze the motion of the guitar and having the hair showing a lot of motion really makes the shot for me. Plus the  little bit of light that made it’s way through to highlight his pick hand just makes me giggle. And you won’t find a better rock stance than those thrown by Damien.

As for the gear I used for the shoot it was pretty basic. Camera is a Nikon D90, lens was the 50mm 1.8. Sticking by my rule of never using a flash when shooting bands live, I had to up the ISO to 1600. With the D90 you get some noisy images at this ISO but not enough to ruin the shots. Only did a little noise reduction in Camera Raw. Plus a little noise in live band shots adds a little grittieness and a film grain look to the photos. Especially if you are converting some of them to Black and White. I set my exposure compensation to underexpose the image by at least 1 1/2 stops to 2 full stops to keep from blowing out the images and losing all the drama and emotion in the shots. My focusing is set to ‘continuous focus’ in order keep band members in focus which is very important for a band like this that are constantly moving.  You really need to be quick on adjusting which focus point you are using as the subject will be all over you view finder.

Well that’s about it. I hope you all enjoy this photo as much as I do. And please leave a comment below. Peace.

Hello everyone. Here is my first attempt at a Photoshop tutorial. In this video we are going to take a photo of my friend Samantha and turn it into a more gritty and intense photo. Please feel free to let me know what you think and if I should do anymore of these in the future. And if so what topics would you like me to cover. The video is best viewed at at least 720p and at full screen.

Again please leave a comment and if you learned anything please tell your friends.

Peace

Now in order to do this you need a nice fast lens. For this shoot I used the 50mm 1.8 Nikon lens. Would have used a 1.4 but I currently don’t own one of those lenses. Another thing you need to remember is you will have to up your ISO to heights you never thought you would. So you need to use a pretty decent camera in order to not get so much noise that the photo is unusable. Luckily with the new noise reduction in Photoshop CS5 you can get up to those higher ISOs and feel comfortable in Photoshop’s ability to make the photo very very usable. 

As always, thanks for stopping in and looking around. Please feel free to look around and leave any comments either here or on the Flickr site.

Thanks and Peace

Eric