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The End of No Shave November

After a month of growth, today marks the last day of November as well as the end of my beard (for now). It’s interesting to see how even a simple chore such as taking my own photo every day starts to make my mind wander into new territory. I started out just using the same lighting and spot and then started experimenting with the way I was lighting myself – changing the umbrella configurations, playing with gels, and using the walls as a giant bounce flash. I actually learned a bunch doing this because I let myself play around with it. If you find yourself in a personal project such as this one, by all means you should exploit it! I only wish I started stepping out of my element sooner.

You can check out the whole set on Flickr here. Here is today’s final photo. I half-assed it.

Happy Thanksgiving

Just a quick post from the Magic Kingdom from my family to you. We have a lot to be thankful for, especially these two happy and healthy kids who we get to spoil every now and again!

This picture was taken with my camera by one of the street photographers on Main Street.

A Change Of Pace

For the last couple of Thanksgiving holidays my family has traveled up into the mountains of North Carolina for some sledding, hiking, and Turkey. The picture above is my son gliding down Beech Mountain last year. This year, we’ve decided to change it up a bit and head to warmer pastures. We’ll still be spending our time with family, but also with the giant mouse and his gang in Florida. I’m kind of sad that we wont be playing in the snow, but who can resist the allure of Space Mountain five times in a row during “Magic Hours”?

I will try to post a short update or two during my vacation and I will still be updating my “No Shave November” self-portraits here.

To all of you folks out there reading this, I truly hope you can take some time during the holiday to reflect on all of the positive things in your life. No matter what cards life deals you, there is always something worth living for in everybody’s life. The challenge is to identify and accept the gifts you have, then have the strength to employ them.

I for one know that the most thankful thing my family claims at the table every year is small, fluffy, and likes to sleep on top of my head at night. Happy Thanksgiving from my family to yours (and to little Lola too)!

The Shot Between The Shots

If you read a lot of photography blogs and/or books, you will hear the veterans of the craft talk about the shot between the shots. That it, the real shot is the one that is caught when the subject is off guard and their true personality shows.

Over the weekend, I was walking my dogs with my son and when we came upon a small pond in our neighborhood. The morning light was awesome and my jaw dropped when I looked up and saw the color of the trees behind the pond. I immediately decreed that it was time to take fall portraits of the children. Unfortunately, my wife and daughter were working at a community garage sale and then I had to take my daughter to piano practice right afterward. That meant no picture taking until the ugly hours of the middle afternoon. Booo. As luck would have it, a bunch of clouds rolled in and turned the ugly direct sunlight into soft diffused daylight! I dragged an umbrella out to the pond that afternoon and asked the kids to stand together for a portrait to send to their Grandmother for her upcoming birthday. I swear, I almost lost my mind trying to get these two to stand still and smile. After only a couple of attempts, this was the best I could do:

I wish I had the patience with my own children to somehow get them to cooperate, but within seconds after this shot my kids were rolling on the banks of the pond and then my son ran off all upset at his sister! Here I was, just getting started, and they were finished. When shooting kids – there’s no practice time. You’ve gotta get it right immediately or else you lose them.

I asked my daughter to smile pretty for some shots after my boy ran off. When I did that, she put on what was obvious to me as the world’s most forced smile and pose. If I could see it, the world would see it as well. So, I began to talk in a crazy demon voice and she started to giggle at my silliness. Luckily, she was in frame. That is the shot at the top of the post, which was my favorite of the day – the shot between the shots. That’s my daughter – a happy kid who loves to laugh, and that’s how she looks when she’s doing it.

New Charleston Themed Prints

Just in time for the holidays, I wanted to offer two recent photographs I made at Mount Pleasant’s Riverfront Park just after the sun went down. There’s a short magical window of light where everything gets a very deep saturation and it’s one of my favorite times of day to shoot in. This photo below was taken a few minutes before the one up above, and you can see the difference in the intensity of the color in just a short span of time.

Just a reminder, if you are planning to purchase framing through my store and want to do a mat or use glass, those options are not available when you choose Metallic Printing as the printer states a problem with it sticking to the glass. Personally, I don’t think you would have a problem if you use a mat because it would separate the print from the glass, and I’ve been pleading with them to change it. Until then, the color paper option still looks fantastic.

BarCampCHS 2010 Photo Session

Before I get into my recap about my photo editing session at BarCamp Charleston 2010, I wanted to share with you a quote from an interview I heard this morning while walking my dogs. The great Ron Bennington was talking with the legendary Quincy Jones, and Mr. Jones said something that just sent shivers down my spine. “I always wondered who was the designer of all of this stuff…. From races, to flora, to the whole universe. It’s astounding design” to which Ron responded, “It’s interesting how we all knew that when we were babies – everything was amazing, and then somehow we just forget about it”. To that Quincy Jones told Ron, “I never forget”. The man is the quintessential artist, and he summed up the reason why I ever wrote a song or made a picture. Life is amazing, and we should never forget the details of what, to quote Quincy Jones, make it so astounding.

OK, so back to yesterday’s event. I got up at an ungodly hour to go to BarCamp, but when I found out how far some people traveled to be there (a bunch of people from the far reaches of SC, NC, Georgia, and even one guy from Italy), I quickly got over my grogginess. I wish I knew this beforehand, but after we checked in we had to pitch our session ideas to an auditorium filled with attendees. I had nothing prepared, which was particularly evident when the people doing a salsa session has music and brought out dancers for their 30 second pitch! After I stumbled though mine, we all had to anxiously wait for the schedule of sessions to be made. I got stuck with the last hour of sessions of the day, which was at 5:00PM. That was cool – it gave me plenty of time to get the shots I needed for the session I was presenting.

The Photo Session:

The first person I tapped to be a model for me was a girl named Ebony, who was wearing an outfit that looked like she knew she was going to be in a photo shoot. She’s got the look of a model, but I don’t know if she actually knows that yet. When I met up with Ebony prior to the portrait session, she was talking to another girl who was wearing cat ears on her head and was appropriately named Cat. Bingo, another outgoing girl who was very photogenic! I enrolled her into my posse of tech conference models.

After I shot each of them individually, I asked them to pose for some shots together:

The girls were awesome, and as you can see in the shot at the top of this post, they were very energetic and easy to direct. Once we started and the lights were flashing while I was barking out directions, a small crowd started to gather around us. I overheard someone asking another bystander if this was an outdoor conference session on photography – I guess in a way it really was. That’s the beauty of BarCamp – there is no rigid structure, it’s all done on the fly. Even a local reporter, Andy Paras from the Post & Courier tweeted the photo shoot!

After I was done shooting Ebony & Cat, I needed at least one more victim, er, I mean model. I saw two girls standing nearby and told them what I was doing the shoot for and asked them if they would like to participate. They seemed happy to help out. Now, I didn’t want to do the same thing I did with the other two girls, but I did want to use the same location. I asked them what they were at the conference for, and they told me they were attending for art. Awesome! I pried a little deeper and found out that they are behind Charleston Art Magazine, and they had a copy of it with them. OK, we have something to work with here. I had Stacy and Olivia sit on the stairs and read their magazine.

It was looking great and then a third girl came over and wanted to join in as well. This created a problem, because for the way I wanted to position them in the shot, a shadow was being cast on the newcomer. I grabbed my other SB-600 flash and handed it to Stacy, one of the art mag girls, and told her to point it at the inside of the magazine as a flash bounce. Now we’re talking – all three girls had beautifully lit faces.

I didn’t even have to give these models much direction after that because they were having a lot of fun with the whole thing.

Developing Photos In A Digital Darkroom Session:

During my session on editing photos in a digital darkroom, I picked 3 photos from the shoot to edit. The first one I did was of Cat jumping alone. Here’s the original shot of her unedited and shot in RAW (the following originals were all converted to JPEG for the web in iPhoto):

We talked about the basic theories in editing photos. Our goal with this photo was to show the high energy of Cat. We started out by minimizing the distractions and problems. The biggest problem with this shot is my umbrella in the top corner and the bright sky just underneath it peaking through the leaves. We decided the most effective way to eliminate this problem was to crop it out. We also wanted to slightly darken the white parts of the cat ears because they were reflecting the light a lot and drawing the eye away from her expression. We then added a graduated filter to the bottom left corner because the bright foliage was pushing the eye out of the frame. We added some vignetting to further pull you into the center – the lines of the palmetto tree and the building all add to the energy and direction of her jumping, but with the vignette we are able to stop the motion from immediately leaving the top of the frame. Here’s the final edit:

BarCamp Session Portraits Cat Final Edit

Next up was a photo of Ebony on the stairs. Here’s the original (click it to enlarge it):

Once again, we needed to minimize or remove any distracting elements. In the top left corner, the pole from my umbrella crept into the frame as well as a leg from the stand on the bottom left corner. Easy stuff to miss on the 3″ LCD screen of your camera. This time a crop wouldn’t be good because we agreed that the composition was just right and we didn’t want to change it at all. So, we discussed the options, and decided to use the spot removal tool in Lightroom to remove the unwanted objects. The top one was easy as the wall was a flat surface devoid of any patterns. The bottom was a bit more difficult because on the pattern of the stones. We eyeballed it to recreate the lines of the stones with a couple of spot removal areas, and it worked out really well. After that, I wanted to demonstrate how to use the adjustment brush to whiten her teeth. The problem was, she, nor Cat, were in need of it! We went through the motions and shared a laugh when I went the wrong way on the brightness slider and turned her teeth black. After that I wanted to show everybody how to diminish the bags under her eyes, but once again, she didn’t need it. Ahh, to be young again! Again, we went through the motions and dumped the file into Photoshop and used the clone stamp tool, set to lighten, to slightly diminish the extremely minimal darkness under her eyes. Back in Lightroom, we talked about the tone curve, and used it to adjust the contrast and then used the basic panel to brighten it up and pull the saturation ever so slightly. We also talked about the name badge she had plastered on her sweater, but for the sake of time I decided it would be a bit more elaborate to remove than the stuff in the corners and we just talked about the possible ways to use Photoshop 5’s new content-aware filter to remove it. I might try that on my own on another shot of her since I really haven’t given that tool a good test drive yet. Here’s the final shot:

BarCamp Session Portraits Ebony Final Edit

For our last photo, I wanted to talk about techniques for converting to black and white. I used a shot of the Art Magazine girls for this edit. Here is the original of this shot:

First off, we got rid of that sneaky light stand leg in the bottom left corner. We used the spot removal tool, which we decided was not really appropriate this time around, but would have to do since we only had a few minutes left in the session. I also adjusted the crop to remove the windowsill at the top of the frame after trying to darken it with the paint brush tool because I also wanted to get rid of the handrail on the right. Normally, I wouldn’t convert this image to black and white because I like the color of it, but it does have some great elements for a monotone image – great lines, the awesome texture of the foliage, and the light on the girls’ faces. So, we talked about the conversion process a bit. I showed them that we could simply remove all of the saturation and vibrance to make a black and white image, or we could just click on the black and white option of the basic panel in Lightroom to open up some fine tuning options in the B&W panel. We went through adjusting the different color sliders to see the effect they had on the image. Then we discussed a third option that turned out to be what we finally used for the conversion which was exporting the image to Nik Software’s Silver Efex Pro. We quickly ran through the presets and picked the “full spectrum” preset and made some minor tweaks to the contrast and structure sliders. Here is the final image:

BarCamp Session Portraits B&W Final Edit

And here’s the same image again in color, because frankly, I still like it better in color!

And with that the session ended, as did the “unconference” that is BarCamp in Charleston, SC. I was honored to be a participant in this years event and can’t wait until next year!

Happy Veterans Day

I just wanted to quickly thank the people who defend the country I live in. The people who serve in our military do so to protect their families and loved ones, and to make it possible for us to pursue our own happiness. Whatever your belief is politically, when it comes to the men and women who protect our right to hold those beliefs, all sides stand united when we say thank you.

My Theory On Post Processing

I wanted to focus my philosophy on photo editing before I give my session on developing photos in a digital darkroom at BarCampCHS this weekend. To me it is an important element in photography that is often skipped by many. I don’t know if it is because people feel that it is too difficult or too time consuming, but since when is anything worth while easy? OK, here goes…

When I was a musician and my band recorded our first CD, we didn’t know anything about mastering. It was something that we cheaped-out on and the sound quality suffered because of our ignorance. We put all this effort into making a record, but didn’t put the right icing on the cake! Post processing is like sound mastering. You don’t need to change the product, you are just trying to enhance it – polish it up and make sure it looks the best that it can look.

This doesn’t mean you should ever shoot with the mindset that you can fix it in post. You should make the best digital negative you can in the camera. The ideal post processing situation is one that takes only minor tweaks to establish your final product. Proper exposure means a clean digital file, and good composition will yield you the highest possible resolution. These are skills that still need to be mastered, but the skill of post processing is just as important.

For my realistic editing techniques, I’m looking to make the photo pop, or stand out. The edits are subtle, and for most people they are not even noticeable, but they are very deliberate. I want to enhance a point of focus, or guide the viewer’s eye through the photo to drive home whatever point the photo is trying to make.

For more creative editing, when I’m trying to create a certain look, I start out by experimenting with different techniques while capturing the image that will allow me to successfully manipulate the file afterward to make my vision a reality. Sometimes there is a fine line between photography and digital imagery. It’s up to you how far you want to take the editing process. I sometimes will dabble in the unrealistic representation of a subject, but I would much rather leave the subject in tact and use the editing tools to further define a feeling or meaning though saturation, dodging, burning, contrast, etc. Most of the time that mood or feeling was there when I made the photo, but sometimes you want to smack the viewer over the head with it. That is completely OK, because there are no rules to this!

Lets take a look at a self portrait I made yesterday for my “No Shave November” personal project. I want to show you the original file first. I shot this in RAW (which is the file format you want to shoot in if you plan on editing your photos). RAW doesn’t show you all of the fancy in-camera optimizing magic that your camera is capable of doing when you shoot in JPEG. It’s the raw data that your camera sees. it’s a digital negative. So here’s the RAW file of my giant head from yesterday (converted to JPEG for the web in iPhoto):

I chose this photo to show you because the shooting method I used to capture it was done deliberately to capture a specific look that I wanted to realize in Lightroom. I was standing a few feet in front of a wall, and there was a wireless Nikon SB-600 flash on a stand right behind me pointing at the wall. In front of me is another SB-600 shooting into a Photek Softlighter umbrella. I shot at f/4.5 at 250th of a second and ISO 200. There was a lot of light going on. I wanted to cut the ambient light and only capture the light from the flashes, so I shot at the fastest speed possible and adjusted accordingly. Admittedly, I could have adjusted it a bit more to get an even better exposure, but doing a self portrait is a pain in the ass, so I’m happy with what I got!

I brought the photo into Lightroom and made some heavy deliberate tweaks to achieve the look I was going for. The major changes are illustrated here in the basic panel of Lightroom’s develop module:

The other panel I wanted to show with you here is the Tone Curve panel. Notice the very strong “S” curve. This is a typical high-contrast curve. The beauty of a program like Lightroom is that you can visually tweak this curve to your taste. There is no mathematical formula to this, it is purely an exercise of taste.

Also, as part of my project, I limited myself by only using a square crop, so this is my final image after I cropped it and did some other minor tweaks such as lightening my eyes and diminishing the bags under them:

As you can see, the integrity of the image itself has not changed at all, but the quality of it is much better. Sure, if I shot in JPEG, the image would look better than the RAW version I showed you straight out of the camera, but the edited version not only looks better to me than anything my camera could do for this type of shot, it also looks exactly the way I envisioned it to.

On Saturday, I plan on shooting some photos in the morning at the conference, and then I’ll walk you through the editing process for three different techniques for developing them. It should be fun and I’m excited for it – I hope you are too!

What’s Going On At BarCamp CHS 2010?

The name BarCamp is very misleading. At first glance it looks as though it might rival CupcakeCamp – thoughts of free exotic alcoholic drinks for everyone enter my mind, except if that were the case, a completely darker scenario would most likely unfold as inebriated attendees start invading each others personal space with stories of near-misses, high school sports accomplishments, and the good old days when computers ran on 5¼ inch floppy drives, eventually leading to at least 3 fist fights and countless inappropriate advances on the opposite sex. Don’t get me wrong, I would still go if that were the case, but I would most likely leave the family behind. Nope, this BarCamp thing is nothing like that – well except maybe for pining about 5¼ inch floppies.

I couldn’t attend last year’s BarCamp in Charleston, so I don’t have first-hand experience with it. The video above is from last year’s event, and it was made by my buddy Geoff. It should give you a good feel for what to expect. It’s a user-driven conference that covers a broad range of tech-related topics. To pull some quotes directly from their website, “BarCamp Charleston provides local area techies, developers, designers, and entrepreneurs with an open environment for learning and sharing.” and the addendum to that statement, “BarCamp Charleston is typically geared towards technology topics, but considering all of the creative diversity in the Lowcountry, we want to broaden the scope and encourage all digital artists, writers, designers, non-profits, and more to participate.”

The session that I have proposed is “Developing Photos in a Digital Darkroom” and I plan to talk about my theories about post processing and I will share how to develop three different styles of images using Adobe Lightroom. The theories and techniques can be applied using any kind of photo editing software, so there is no need to dismiss this if you use something like Aperture or Elements. I think it will be an exciting session as I see a lot of amazing photogs out there that are reluctant to finish the job they started by developing their digital negatives, usually rationalizing that you should get it right in the camera. Of course you should get it right in the camera, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make it exactly like you saw the image in your mind! We’ll dive into that topic on Saturday.

For $10, you get admission to the conference, which is at the College of Charleston this year, along with breakfast, coffee, soda/water, lunch, a t-shirt, other goodies, and entrance to the after party, which might turn into the scenario I imagined above. How could you not want to do this? You’re getting more than your money’s worth in food and clothing alone!

Lets talk about the diversity of some of the other sessions that are proposed at this time.

For those that like trading stocks, there’s “High Frequency Trading In Today’s Market“, which could go hand-in-hand with “Salsa dancing for noobs” and “Homebrew 201 – Taking your brew to the next level“. See, clearly there are options for your non-techie friends! While they’re learning how to drink, dance, and make more money, you can be “Creating a web presence with Joomla” or designing “HTML Email Newsletters & Double Rainbows” Wait a sec? Did somebody say double rainbow?

Another photography related session is “Photoshop: fun tips and tricks“. I think a popular session will be “The Social Graph – Who knows who?” which might prove to be an interesting networking opportunity. I’m also interested in “Good Vibrations: Take the Anxiety out of Goal Setting“, but mainly because the presenter’s name is Shoshanna Szuch, and I have the urge to yell out, “Au revoir, Shoshanna!” at random times on a daily basis.

I hope you can make it on Saturday, you should buy your tickets soon before they sell out!

CupcakeCamp Charleston

Friday night I saw a blurb on Twitter about CupcakeCamp Charleston, and it immediately caught my eye. I didn’t know what it was about, what the point of it was, or who was even doing it – I just knew that my family had to be there. That is how powerful a name like CupcakeCamp is. For all I knew, this could have been the second coming of the Jonestown Massacre, but I was hypnotized by sugary goodness and had to check it out.

We arrived to the Aloft Hotel in North Charleston to a lobby full of the happiest people on earth. Just look at that photo above, there ain’t a single unhappy person in the place. I didn’t know what was going on, but people were sitting around high on cupcakes, and there was a huge line snaked throughout the hotel of people waiting to try more. It was decadent to say the least. Just imagine a G-rated version of Studio 54, with sugar instead of cocaine.

Did I mention that the cupcakes were all 100% free? I’m surprised that the place wasn’t rioting! Do you understand what I’m saying? Dozens upon dozens of exotic cupcake flavors – all you can eat – FREE!! I think we might have died and went to heaven, but instead of fluffy clouds, there was fluffy icing.

I think there was some sort of contest going on, but I couldn’t tell you who won. Who cares? I won – I got to eat carrot cake cupcakes followed by banana pudding ones. Contest??? Who the hell could choose? After 3 cupcakes, you’re stoned on sweetness. It was absolutely crazy. These people below looked like they were officiating something though:

I don’t even know what to make of this. I just hope it happens again… Soon. Like tomorrow. Please, God.

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