Christine #4

Another photo of Christine at the Pearland photo shoot ... more explorations of color shifting and toning -- texture overlays, tinting layers, and edges -- all done in Photoshop. 1/250 sec at f/1.7, 85mm.

Christine #3

Another photo of Christine at the Pearland photo shoot ... more explorations of color shifting and toning -- this time with texture overlays and various tinting layers, all done in Photoshop -- no third party filters. 1/250 sec at f/1.4, 85mm.

Christine #2

Another photo of Christine at the Pearland photo shoot ... more explorations of color shifting and toning -- this time with Nik Color Efex and some of the vintage tints. 1/350 sec at f/1.7, 85mm.

Christine #1

I thought I'd devote the next couple of images to our shoot with Christine -- photographed at the Galveston County Photographers group meet-up several weekends ago in Pearland. Part of our objective that day was to change the overall ambient light from a flat overcast day to warm, golden light. I was shooting with Larry Patrick, and he has some great examples of those efforts on his blog here. A little later in the day Christine moved out from the barn, and I shot her in natural light, wide open, shallow depth of field. And I've been experimenting with various toning and texturing techniques on some of these images. Here's the first of my efforts. 1/180 sec at f/1.7, ISO 200, 85mm, along with some toning and textures in post.

Emili

Photo above was taken a couple of weekends ago at a lighting session with the Bay Area Photo Club down in Galveston at Gately Paper Company. We were putting together some examples of unusual and creative lighting scenarios for a presentation on March 21. This is Emili, who's modeled for us before. Two SB800s with red gels from behind on either side, one SB800 with a purple gel directly above her head -- all shooting directly into the camera position, hence the flare and bokeh. In post, I drove a little blue into the shadows in the background. 1/40 sec at f/16, ISO 200, 32mm.

Shannon and Rene Engagement Shoot

I had the pleasure of taking some engagement photos Saturday of Shannon and Rene, pictured here on the beach in Galveston. I arrived a little early and was taking some ambient photos of the sky over the water. Didn't think much about them. Later during the shoot I asked them if they wanted some photos in the dunes, and Shannon scrambled right up to the top. I couldn't possibly hold the sky in that shot, so I exposed for them and let the background go white. After thinking of those early underexposed sky shots, I grabbed one and easily masked out the background from the dune shot and dropped in a new sky -- I think a big improvement. Converted to black and white with Nik Silver Efex. Base exposure: 1/800 sec at f/6.3, 80mm. Lesson here: don't delete those test shots.

Corey Senior Photos #2

Seems like most portrait photo shoots end up like the photo above -- balancing an ambient sunset with a flash exposure on the subject. After a few years you learn the little things that make this shot work -- gelling the flash and dropping the shutter speed to a level where the sunset becomes more dramatic. This photo of Corey was taken behind Farmer's Copper and Marine off Harborside in Galveston -- not exactly the most picturesque part of Galveston. But there are a few subtle things that I really like about it -- the backlighting around Corey's jacket and jeans, his gesture of looking skyward ... little things, but it's those little things combined that make a memorable photo. 1/250 sec at f/8, ISO 200, 56mm, light from an SB900 in a Lastolite EZYbox on a paint pole from camera left.