Winter at the Beach #1

One of the great things about Texas in the winter is that you'll never know when you might get a string of good weather days. That happend this week, and we were fortunate enough to have scheduled a shoot with Sarah and Lauren on the beach in the west end of Galveston Island. Light from a Nikon SB900 shot through a 36" Lastolite octabank from camera right, 85mm, 1/250 sec at f/11. Postprocessed with Nik Color Efex 4.

Santa Fe Architecture

Image above is from a trip to Santa Fe over the summer. I am always amazed how well Nik Color Efex brings out texture and color, and it did not disappoint in this shot. 1/500 sec at f/9.

Kari and Tad #2

Another photo from the portrait shoot with Kari and Tad several weeks ago, again in the alleyway near the Strand. Light from an SB900 in a Lastolite EZYbox from camera right at about 1/4 power. Postproduction with Nik Color Efex 4. 1/100 sec at f/5, ISO 200.

Birth of Venus

Splash screens. Every time you open a program, work on a file, or check an image you see them...probably take them for granted, right? Christmas, 1988 -- I was a new employee in the graphics department at the university where I work. A project had come in -- illustrations for a book chapter, and I somehow got picked to work on it. I think I was chosen mainly because most people were on vacation, but nonetheless it was my first big project. And long about the same time this new program was installed on our Macs -- Adobe Illustrator '88. Now back then, when Mac Draw and Mac Write were considered cutting edge, this new Illustrator program was a different beast -- vector-based drawing, setting type, all WYSIWYG. Pretty advanced stuff. So for about a week or two, I learned Illustrator and worked on this project. I bought a book about the program, and learned it from the ground up. Back then, before Adobe's Creative Suite and its monochromatic color coding of applications, there was this splash screen when Illustrator booted up based on Botticelli's Birth of Venus painting. I found an interesting history of the program and the splash screen here.

Fast forward 23 years, and Illustrator is still the program that I use every day for logos, medical illustrations, graphics to accompany manuscripts, and graphic design projects. Illustrator has become the swiss army knife of graphics programs and is usually the resting place for most things I work on. It's like an island in the tumultuous sea of Powerpoint graphics and Excel charts and graphs. If I can somehow get a graphic into Illustrator, there is hope. I never really thought about the splash screen change as Adobe transitioned to Creative Suite and dropped the Birth of Venus image in the early 2000s.

I took the photo above at the Renaissance Festival in late October. What initially drew me to the shot was the parasol and the radiating lines. But the more I looked at it, I realized how similar it was to the old Illustrator Birth of Venus splash screen -- the facial expression, hair, slight tilt of the head ... all harkening back to the time of a start of a career and the comforting thought that things are gonna be ok when Illustrator opens.

Kari and Tad

Photo above was taken a couple of weeks ago at one of my favorite alleys to shoot in down in Galveston. This is Kari and Tad, a really nice young couple who I had the privilege of photographing. The plan was to work our way down near the water to shoot some ambient backlit sunset photos near dusk, but it was such a dull, grey day that we stayed in the alley. This was taken near the end of the shoot facing west. I was struggling to bring up the ambient because it was so dark and dull. Light from off camera left from an SB900 in a Lastolite EZYbox. 1/50 sec at f/5.6, ISO 320; postprocessed a bit with Nik Color Efex 4 to add some exposure and texture to the overall scene.

Taos Sunset

Photo above was taken in Taos, New Mexico in July. I've been to that part of the country a couple of times, and you hear a common theme from artists and photographers -- how beautiful the colors are around sunset. This photo was taken near the Rio Grande River Gorge, which you can see at the very bottom of the image. The town of Taos and Taos Mountains are in the background. The view here is actually the eastern sky at sunset, opposite the setting sun. 3 bracketed exposures at f/9, merged together with Nik HDR Efex and enhanced further in Nik Color Efex 4.

Renaissance Festival 2011, #6

Another photo from the Renaissance Festival in October. Please click on the image for a larger view. Honestly, when I took this photo I didn't realize what a spectacle the eyes were ... purple/blue irises and long black feather eyelashes. When you're in a hurry to get a shot and thinking more about your camera and light, sometimes it's those things that are lost ... until I looked closer at these files. 1/125 sec at f/3.5, light from a Photoflex softbox from camera left; postprocessed in Nik Color Efex Pro 4.

Renaissance Festival 2011, #5

Photo above is from the Texas Renaissance Festival a couple of weeks ago. I've been reading a lot recently about color grading and gradient mapping colors, so this is color shifted a bit for artistic effect ... kind of towards vintage tones; also vignetted with a nice new technique from Calvin Hollywood.

Kacey High Key

After Doug's comment below, I decided to give this image a square crop. Also made it black and white -- almost high key. There are literally so many different directions you can take images. It's really a matter of personal taste. I guess since I've been using Color Efex so much recently, I'm thinking more color than black and white these days.

Kacey

Portrait of Kacey taken several weeks ago at Challenger 7 Park in Clear Lake. The usual processing: shallow depth of field, backlight, Nik Color Efex 4. Cheated the sync a little here: f/5 at 1/320 sec with light from a small softbox from camera left ... got a little vignette at the bottom, but in the spirit of David Ziser I think it doesn't hurt the image, in fact maybe provides a nice dark base.

Influences

There are times as a photographer and artist work flows fast and furiously and other times painfully slow...peaks and valleys, I guess. It's inevitable. I have definitely been inspired recently and most of that is because of a couple of big influences: 1) the recent upgrade to Nik Color Efex Pro 4, which is truly one of the most amazing photo processing plug-ins out there. There are times when you wonder if an upgrade is really worth it. But hands down, version 4 is revolutionary. It puts so much power in one package, it's really amazing; 2) I've also been watching a lot of tutorials on retouching by the German photographer and artist, Calvin Hollywood. If you can make it past the German accent, he's doing some of the most innovative photo retouching out there. Sometimes you just have to sit and watch a video a few times and let it sink in ... like inverting a layer, converting it to a smart object, putting it in vivid light blend mode, then running a high pass filter on it to soften skin .... WHAT? ... but it works. Truly ground-breaking; 3) I've also been following the work of Boulder, Colorado photogapher Charles Hildreth lately. Not sure where I saw his stuff first, but I like his style a lot -- alt process, color shifted, backlit, shallow depth of field ... all things I've been tinkering with lately mainly because I've seen how it can be done well by Hildreth.
The image above was taken 10 months ago. It was basically an out-take from a photo shoot with Sarah in January. She picked up Larry Patrick's camera and I took a few photos. Now, 10 months later, I start playing -- color shifting and adding an illustrative look with Color Efex, skin smoothing and adding definition ala Calvin Hollywood, and desaturating like Hildreth. Influences.

Red Chair

Taken in the Garden District of New Orleans on a hot August afternoon. Three exposures blended together with Nik HDR Efex, then finished with Nik Color Efex 4.

Sedona

I was looking through some old files this morning and came across some images from Sedona, Arizona taken in May. We were there several days, and on the last morning (as we were leaving) some nice clouds moved into the area. I stopped at a few road-side parks and took some shots as we headed out of town. Three bracketed images merged together with Nik HDR Efex, finished off with a few adjustments with Nik Color Efex 4.

Renaissance Festival 2011, #4

Motion blur abstract -- taken 10-29-11 at the Texas Renaissance Festival. 1/30 sec at f/11.

Renaissance Festival 2011, #3

Bella Florita, Gypsy Dance Theater -- Saturday's Texas Renaissance Festival.

Renaissance Festival 2011, #2

Tsura, Gypsy Dance Theater -- Saturday's Texas Renaissance Festival.

Renaissance Festival 2011, #1

I made the trip up to Plantersville again this year to the Texas Renaissance Festival. Back in 2008 when I was first learning off-camera flash, we ran ourselves ragged shooting anyone who remotely looked interesting ... and there were plenty. Years go by, and you become more selective in what you photograph at the festival. This year it was photographing performers and doing a few select portraits. This is Soraya from Gypsy Dance Theater.

Fall Color

Photo of Lauren taken recently, 85mm, 1/60 sec at f/2, Elinchrom Quadra with a beauty dish from camera left at minimal output.

Horse and Rider

This image has made the rounds recently -- 500px.com, facebook, and the Bay Area Photo Club. It has only appeared in black and white until now. I always envisioned it as a high contrast black and white, but when I retouch an image I always work on the file in color until the very end and then do the black and white conversion. So those of you who have seen the black and white version either online or in print, this is the layer before the black and white. It was one of those rare instances of good luck ... when you have to react fast and things work in your favor. I probably took about 12 frames of Lauren in this basic pose. And for a brief second at about shot #3, the wind kicked up just enough to blow her hair in this great line following the horse's neck.

So, I took the shot and hoped for the best -- hoped that f/4 was enough aperture to carry focus from the horse to Lauren, hoped that the flash had recycled and was ready to fire, hoped that in my rush I framed it correctly. And at the end of the shoot, it's one of those frames you scroll to and zoom in a couple of times just to see if you got lucky.

Great White Egret

Great White Egret at Armand Bayou on Saturday. Spot metered, 1/1600 sec at f/5.6, 300mm, -0.3 EV.

Kacey

Photo above is from a shoot with Lauren and Kacey last weekend. I was experimenting with backlight, which seems to be a common theme for me lately. Modern cameras and lenses continue to amaze me in how they perform in these backlit situations -- holding detail, minimizing flare. No flash was used here; natural light; f/2.8 at 1/640 sec, 85mm. In postprocessing, I added some additional tint and texture.

Jackson Square, New Orleans #4

After that last post, I couldn't help think that black and white was a possibility. I've been demo'ing Topaz's latest black and white product -- comparing it to Nik Silver Efex. So this was done in Topaz B&W Effects -- a selenium conversion with a lot more contrast.

Jackson Square, New Orleans #3

Travel tip for New Orleans: August isn't the greatest time to visit. It's hot and humid like Houston. After a day of walking around the French Quarter and Jackson Square, I finally realized you could actually go inside St. Louis Cathedral. And the cool air in there feels pretty good. Tons of people milling around. I took some shots, played with ISO...but decided that I'd get there early the next morning after 7:00 am mass and take some interior shots with a tripod. No signs were posted against that, just that you couldn't shoot during services. So at 8:05, there I was with tripod firmly planted clicking off brackets. Must have shot for 20 minutes, until I realized a crowd had gathered behind me letting me have clean shots free of people walking up and down the aisle. Nice of them; and as anyone who has been around me when I take photos can tell you, sometimes I get a little preoccupied. I had great hopes for these shots -- surely an entry in our photo club's architecture assignment in September. But somehow I never got an image I was really excited about. Colors seemed muted -- cream, beige, gold. They are accurate colors, just not the rich reds, greens and blues you'd like to see in a cathedral shot. The shot above is 3 bracketed exposures, f/11 at 12mm.

Jackson Square, New Orleans #2

Another photo of St. Louis Cathedral on Jackson Square in New Orleans -- this one taken late in the day from the plaza area in the front left corner. The colors were pretty blah, so converted to sepia, almost a split tone. Pretty non-traditional crop with the fence in the foreground, but somehow I was drawn to that. I have a few variations of this one in my files -- muted color, black and white, etc. But ultimately I think I like this one the best. I used Nik HDR Efex Pro on a single frame to bring up the texture in the clouds, also Nik Silver Efex for the toning. 1/100 sec at f/6.3, -0.3 EV, 35mm.

Jackson Square, New Orleans #1

This is from a recent trip to New Orleans -- Jackson Square and St. Louis Cathedral, early morning on August 12. I wondered why the flags were at half staff and later found out that it was in honor of two Louisiana soldiers who were killed in Afghanistan. For the next week or two, I'm going to be posting some images of the square and church. This one was taken from across the street on the elevated plaza; three handheld frames merged together in Nik HDR Efex Pro.

San Francisco De Asis Church

Taken in July, this photo is the back of San Francisco De Asis Church in Rancho de Taos, New Mexico. This structure is supposedly one of the most photographed, sculpted, and painted structures in New Mexico. People like Georgia O'Keefe and Ansel Adams have all taken their turn portraying this church. After I took this photo, I was looking through some portfolios of Ansel Adams and saw he had a similar view of the church as this one -- from behind, no windows, doors, or crosses shown -- just the graceful lines of adobe and stucco. My modern spin was to do a single image pass through Nik HDR Efex Pro to give everything a little more texture; also desaturated it a bit. If you're interested, here's Ansel Adams' image. I have to admit, it's a little like the Alamo in San Antonio. You hear of these places, and you imagine them to be out in the middle of nowhere, but just as the Alamo is in the heart of a busy city, San Francisco De Asis in the middle of a gravel parking lot with restaurants and tourist gift shops all around.

Backlit Bee

Taken at a park in Santa Fe, NM over the summer. I was going through files recently and ran across this image. Maybe it's summer or maybe it's my evolution as a photographer, but I find myselft shooting more and more backlit. 300mm, f/5.6 at 1/320 sec, +1 EV, a little texture and tint added in post.

French Quarter at Dusk

This photo was taken several weeks ago in the French Quarter of New Orleans -- three bracketed images merged together with Nik HDR Efex Pro.

Summer Portraits #4

Here's another photo from our shoot with Nina earlier in August. I've been experimenting lately with some new software and techniques for retouching, so thought I'd try them out on this image. It doesn't look much like summer, but this was taken late afternoon, and I purposely was trying to darken the background to bring her face forward. Probably could have used some lights for the hair to separate her from the background, but the whole purpose of our summer shoots has been to work with one light. For this image we used an SB900 in a Lastolite EZYbox above left, and I had Nina hold a gold tri-grip to bounce a little warm light back in her face. 1/250 sec at f/4.5.

Oak Creek Blur

Before I took the previous picture, and while I was waiting for the sun to drop a little, I walked down Oak Creek to see if I could get any better vantage point. I couldn't. But what I discovered was some swiftly moving water. So while a family and their dog played in the water, I started experimenting with blurring the water in camera -- slow shutter speeds in the 1/10th of a sec range, handheld -- just seeing how things looked and if I could get things composed and sharp enough. My tripod was back on the banks waiting for the Cathedral Rock shot. And while I was taking these images, I knew they were more artistic and interesting than the classic Oak Creek/Cathedral Rock photo. Must have taken 200 photos in about 15 minutes -- playing with camera angles and compositions. These will eventually become a series, but for the photo club's water assignment this month, I took two images and blended one into the other creating a longer-than-normal image, split it into two squares, and made the diptych above. The raw file was converted twice -- one cool for the water, another warm for the yellow highlights. Another adjustment layer was added in Photoshop for the auburn colors, which were the rocks just below the surface.

Cathedral Rock

This photo was taken back in late May in Sedona, Arizona -- the very iconic Cathedral Rock and reflection in Oak Creek. About 10 years ago, I stood at this very spot, even waded out into the creek and watched the sunset behind me and saw an incredible sky light up this formation. And for some reason, there was no camera around then -- point and shoot or anything. I regretted it for years. This view is probably photographed every night from this very same spot. It's a postcard shot. It's cliched. It's, as they say, a mature subject. In fact, on this night there was a group of photographers from an Arizona Highways tour taking this very same shot. But something sticks in your head when you miss an opportunity, and cliched or not I'm glad I finally had the chance to drop my tripod on the banks of Oak Creek and get this photo.

Summer Portraits #3

Here's another recent photo -- this one taken Sunday night at Bay Area Park near Armand Bayou. This is Bushra, a friend of a fellow photo club member. Still working on mixing flash with ambient, especially when the ambient sunset starts to get really interesting and you have to work fast to keep up with lighting and your exposure. 1/125 sec at f/4.5, ISO 200, -.3 EV, 32mm; light from camera right from an SB900 through a Lastolite EZYbox.

Summer Portraits #2

Here's another portrait taken last weekend. This is Nydia, sister of one of our photo club members. For me it was a time to play with shallow depth of field portraits. After a year and a half of shooting sub-f/2.8, I'm finally starting to "see" interesting backgrounds for portrait subjects -- not really see, but recognize how light and pattern will render at those open f-stops. Light from an SB900 in high speed sync through a Lastolite softbox from camera left, 1/500 sec at f/2.

Summer Portraits #1

The photo above was taken last Saturday at a portrait session with the Bay Area Photo Club at Clear Lake Park. This is Nina, who is the niece of one of our members and graciously volunteered her time to model for us. Flash from high camera left in high speed sync, 1/400 sec at f/3.2, -0.7 EV. In postproduction I used a glamour glow layer from OnOne Phototools that added a nice color and contrast boost.

Old Town Emporium

This photo was taken in the Old Town section of Albuquerque last weekend. There are a lot of things I wish I could change about this image. Wish I could have taken it in softer light. Also wish I would have seen, as I took this photo, that the New Mexico flag to the right of the doorway was twisted around the flagpole and I had walked across the street and fixed that. Photoshop can do a lot, but it can't straighten out a flag. So when all else fails, there's the crutch of HDR. Single frame HDR done with Nik HDR Efex. Some day this will be re-shot and done right.

Migrating Hummingbird

I was in New Mexico this past weekend, and was pleasantly surprised to see a bunch of migrating ruby throated hummingbirds at a stop we made near a ski lodge near Angel Fire, New Mexico. I'm not an expert, but I assume these are the same group that makes an appearance in the Houston area in August and September. It's always a challenge shooting these little creatures, made even harder this time because I was limited to my travel gear. Shot at 300 mm with the Nikon 28-300 with a pop-up flash, f/5.6 at 1/250 sec handheld while trying to duck as they buzzed me. My metadata said distance to subject was 1.5 meters.

Lauren Senior Photos #4

Another senior portrait of Lauren. I really liked the peacock dress and had a lot of fun playing the color against the background. For this one I stood on a step stool to give it a little different angle. 1/400 sec at f/4, flash from camera left in high speed sync.

Lauren Senior Photos #3

I used a vintage treatment for this one of Lauren in a swing. 1/60 sec at f/25, panning.

Lauren Senior Photos #2

More high speed sync flash with Lauren -- 1/640 sec at f/4; flash from camera left. I liked the color combination here a lot so tried to push the colors a little to really emphasize that relationship. In post, I also tried to bring up the warm tones in the tops of the reeds in the background.

Lauren Senior Photos #1

I thought I'd post a few senior photos I did with Lauren recently. She just graduated from Clear Lake High School. During the session I used high-speed sync a lot, trying to knock down the ambient light. This image was shot at f/4 and 1/640 sec, light from an SB900 in a Lastolite EZYbox from camera right. I've also been studying some of the postprocessing techniques of Calvin Hollywood. He's known for a very textured, detailed style. Thought I'd try some of those techniques here, although I masked them off all skin tones so the texture would only affect the clothes and environment.

Pikes Peak

From our trip to Colorado in April -- this is Pikes Peak as viewed from Garden of the Gods Park near Colorado Springs in the early morning of April 11. Processed entirely in Nik HDR Efex. 1/320 sec at f/6.3, 90mm.

Chyree

Photo above is from a quick photo shoot I did this week with David LeMaster and Neal Kelsoe. This is David's sister, Chyree ... shot at Clear Lake Park Wednesday night. I was experimenting with shallow depth of field portraiture, an ongoing project of mine. I asked Chyree to stand in the middle of some tree branches and began playing with the filtered light from a parking lot behind her. Nikon D7000, f/1.4, cheated the sync up to 1/320 sec, with light from an SB900 through a Lastolite EZYbox from camera right. Black and white conversion done with Nik Silver Efex Pro, followed by a color tinting layer to soften the contrast and add some warmer tones.

Boulder Karma and Bokeh at f/5.6

The photo above was taken in Boulder, Colorado back in April. The portrait subject is Amy Tharp -- a Colorado native and author of a children's book that will be published soon. This was no planned portrait -- in fact, far from it. I was out walking along Boulder Creek shooting moving water, pretty much playing around with no real purpose, just killing time before sunset. Amy needed a head shot for the book she's writing, and just happened to be out walking near the same creek in Boulder. She approached me and asked if I'd take her photo. I asked if I could use my camera and did a mental rundown of about 5-6 things I would like to have when shooting a portrait -- fast portrait lens, speedlight with a remote trigger, softbox, some kind of diffusion for the sun, etc. Well, I had none of those things. I had a D7000, a 28-300 lens, and a pop-up flash -- not exactly awe-inspiring portrait gear. But this is when all those afternoons shooting impromptu portraits at Dickens on the Strand and the Renaissance Festival paid off. OK, I thought, let's make a portrait.
I threw everything on the camera into manual, shooting at f/5.6 to try and eek out some kind of out-of-focus background, placed Amy on a rock with the creek in the background with the sun providing some hair light, and used my pop-up flash as fill. Luckily, I found a place with some nice shade on her face, and the specular highlights from the water luckily turned into some nice bokeh at f/5.6. And the portrait was made. The image was double raw converted -- one warm version for Amy and a cool version for the water -- and both layers masked together in Photoshop.
It's funny how things happen when you have a camera in your hands. Sometimes you find yourself in the most unexpected situations -- in the center aisle of a church chapel in London as snow falls outside, on the back of a boat in the Gulf of Mexico hanging on for dear life, and knee deep in a snow bank in the Rocky Mountains. As a photographer, you curse the moments that you miss an opportunity, you become frustrated because all your images seem to look the same, and you take shot after shot knowing that the next one will be "the one." But ultimately photography can be a passport into so many things in life -- and this was truly one of those times that will be long remembered -- Boulder karma as Amy said.

Cathedral Rock

Cathedral Rock from the banks of Oak Creek, Sedona, Arizona. 1/160 sec at f/10, 50mm, polarized.

Breezi #2

This photo of Breezi is similar to the previous post. I'm experimenting with OnOne Software's PhotoTools product, so all effects here are done within the plug-in -- color enhancement, masking, and texturizing.

Breezi #1

Here's an image from a senior shoot I did recently. This is Breezi, a soon-to-be graduate of Ball High School in Galveston. I've taken photos in this particular alley quite a few times and always had this long shot down the alley facing west in mind, but never really had the opportunity to do it. I was happy Breezi was willing. I did quite a few variations of this shot, figuring out how best to pose her, keeping in mind the shallow depth of field and her legs. I finally settled on this shot with legs out to the side. Highlights in the background are a block away and are the sky between buildings. 85mm, f/1.4, 1/200 sec. Light from top left from an SB900 in a Lastolite EZYbox.

Photo Club Portraits #2

Here's another photo from the Bay Area Photo Club portrait field trip a few weeks ago. This is one of our models, Jessica. This was taken later in the day when I was experimenting with a color gel on the background light -- a dramatic orange filter ... again shot through a Lastolite EZYbox with DIY strips to create the pattern you see on the wall. Got lucky with the light direction and the wind on this shot as we were feathering the light and it just so happen to catch a nice highlight on her hair with the skimming light as the wind picked up. 1/125 sec at f/13, 52mm.

Photo Club Portraits #1

A few weeks ago, the Bay Area Photo Club had it's annual portrait field trip. This is one of our models, Shannon, who was nice enough to pose for us for a few hours. Black and white conversion done with Nik Silver Efex Pro. 1/160 sec at f/11, 75mm; back light from a Nikon SB800 in a Lastolite EZYbox with homemade black fleece strips in place of the diffusion panels; front light from a Nikon SB800 through a Photoflex Lightdome.

Boulder Flatirons

I discovered this scene is pretty iconic in and around Boulder, Colorado -- the Flatirons. I saw photos of these mountains all over the city when we were there a few weeks ago -- in art galleries, city buildings, you name it. I figured I had to shoot them. No snow or no great cloud coverage here. About the only thing I did in post was to add a lot of extra sharpening to bring out the trees and texture of the rocks. Black and white done with Nik Silver Efex Pro. 1/30 sec at f/14, 50mm.

Rocky Mountain National Park

Six elk feeding -- Rocky Mountain National Park. This image was processed 100% in Nik HDR Efex using the single image tonemapping feature. f/5.6 at 1/250 sec; 150mm.