Body Painting on the Island #4

Photo #4 taken at Edwin Soriano's Artistika Meet Up in Galveston. Same stained glass model as in the previous post. On this shot I used Nik Silver Efex and some duotoning and texturing to create the toned version you see above. Lighting was a speed light in a 26" octa from above shot on a white background.

Body Painting on the Island #3

Photo #3 taken at Edwin Soriano's Artistika Meet Up in Galveston. This body painting was stained glass, and we were using a long veil as an accessory. Lighting was a speed light in a 26" octa from above shot on a black background.

Body Painting on the Island #2

Photo #2 taken at Edwin Soriano's Artistika Meet Up in Galveston. This one is a composite of a body painted super hero and a public domain image from NASA. Lighting was a speed light in a 26" octa from above and another speed light shot into a white background, which made it pretty easy to extract the model.

Body Painting on the Island #1

Photo above was taken two weeks ago at Edwin Soriano's Artistika Meet Up in Galveston. Edwin's a talented photographer and artist who used his skills at this event for airbrushing and make up for five body painted models -- this one a Sea Goddess. Lighting was a speed light in a 26" octa from above and another speed light at 1/64 power behind her to spread a little splash of light on the black background. When processing these files I discovered a blue and green texture that matched the make up perfectly, so I blended that into the splash of light on the background. I used that in soft light blend mode at 75% and blurred it slightly to leave just the color, no real texture.

Spring Portraits #5

Not really spring, but now summer. This photo was taken a few weeks ago out near the airport in Galveston towards the end of a shoot with Haley. No shade to speak of so I put the setting sun right behind Haley to use her to shield the sun from my camera while creating some nice back light. I also placed a 1/2 CTO gel on the flash to help warm her up in relation to the background. Final specs were: 1/200 sec at f/5.6, ISO 200, 250mm, full power SB800 in a Westcott Rapid Box from camera left.

Spring Portraits #4

This photo of Haley was taken earlier this spring at Galveston Island State Park. The original image was full length. I was playing around with some monochrome conversions and liked it, also decided to crop it more cinematic which I think works well with the blowing hair. 1/200 sec at f/8, ISO200, 100mm with a speedlight in a Westcott Rapid Box from camera left.

Spring Portraits #3

In late March I went up to College Station to take some senior photos of Kelsi at Texas A&M. This one I particularly liked -- great location and great light. I think I had a 1/4 CTO gel on the flash from camera right at the time. I opened up the shutter speed a little to let the highlights bleed in through background a little; also enhanced those a bit in post. Finals were: 1/125 sec at f/6.3, 150mm, ISO 200.

Spring Portraits #2

The composite photo above was taken several weeks ago. I asked Roxann if she'd be interested in doing a fairy in flight photo composite, and she was up for the task. I shot her against a white background leaping in the air, then added the textures and lighting effects in Photoshop. Final layer count was 38, but some of those layers were turned off or used in very low opacities. Fun project.

Spring Portraits #1

I did some portrait work over the spring, so I thought I'd post some of that here on the blog. When Luke Boor was in Galveston for Mardi Gras we arranged a photo shoot. It was great to catch up with him. We shot at a couple of locations, the one above at a corner building on 17th and Postoffice. Galveston always provides such interesting and free photo locations. One light portrait -- a speedlight in a Westcott Octa from camera right, shade white balance to warm up the scene, 1/250 sec at f/4. I added some lens flare at the top right in post.

NRG Stadium

Photo of NRG Stadium taken from the ferris wheel at the rodeo. We just happened to be there on one of the few beautiful days during the rodeo in March.

Floral Macro

I was getting some of my floral macro images together a while ago and started looking back at when I started this series. My first serious effort was Christmas Day 2008 -- so six and a half years later I still shoot these images with extension tubes and a 50mm lens. I try different things now and then. When I started I was using speedlights in umbrellas, and it was a good learning experience for me at the time to trigger off-camera lights. That experience largely became used in my portrait photography for the past seven years. I now try different wrinkles -- sometimes manual flash, sometimes TTL using a pop-up flash on camera as the trigger. On this particular day I was using TTL and for some unknown reason the TTL flash was a little under what I normally use but I liked it on this astromeria.

NRG Stadium at Dusk

Photo from the rodeo a couple of weeks ago. I was waiting on one of the upper balconies as the rodeo was ended, and it was near dusk. Three handheld frames here with the Sony A6000, merged and processed through Nik HDR Efex and Nik Color Efex.

Old Red Front

One last shot of Old Red -- from the front. I've taken quite a few group photos on these steps. It's one of the few and best places on campus to shoot a group of 10-50 people. The south-facing facade here lights up quickly and warmly. The building's been under a lot of remodeling the past few months, but now seems back to its grand appearance. Just for fun I'm posting a photo below of the building when it was completed in 1891. As you can see, the 1900 Storm forced some remodeling and streamlining of the top. The top turret is now gone and the smaller turrets on either side are now skylights.

Old and New

Here's another photo of Old Red. I took photos for about 15 minutes on this particular day, and by coincidence Life Flight just happened to fly over when I was there. I was bracketing 3 frames, so the movement of the helicopter caused some minor artifacting when the images were merged -- even at 11 frames per second. I did some minor clean up in Photoshop. I thought this was interesting though -- the oldest medical building in Texas with modern day medicine (Life Flight) in the same frame.

Old Red Colors

This photo was taken at the same time as the previous post. Interesting because the color palate is nearly identical, but this is the back side of Old Red, where there are lots of pipes and infrastructure of the UTMB campus. Here, the orange and beige colors are reflections in the pipes. Not the most photographed area of campus for sure. Sony A6000, handheld bracketed frames. Merged with Nik HDR Efex.

Old Red

Above is a photo of Old Red, the venerable building on the UTMB campus that was the state of Texas's first medical school. This photo was taken last Friday when it was probably the last time this area has seen the sun and a pretty day. Still tinkering with the Sony A6000. This image is actually a 3-frame HDR merge. It is amazing how simply and how well this camera handles bracketing, and at 11 frames per second, I'm not sure I'd ever need a tripod unless I got into an extremely low light situation.

Mardi Gras #2

Photo of Luke Boor performing on the main stage at Saengerfest Park for Mardi Gras Galveston 2015. Kim and I have to constantly ask ourselves: "Wasn't it just yesterday that this young man was the ring bearer at our wedding?" Sony A6000, 1/500 sec at f/5.6, ISO3200.

Mardi Gras #1

A few weeks ago, I found myself at a place I thought I'd never be -- down on the Strand in Galveston for Mardi Gras. Being a long-time Galveston guy I've always resented having to pay to get on the Strand for Mardi Gras. Or maybe I'm just cheap. But on this particular day, Luke Boor -- an old friend -- was performing on the main stage at Saengerfest Park. It was Friday before the large Saturday parade so we ventured down to see him play. Luckily, Kim and I made it into the area before they started charging admission. As we were leaving near dusk I snapped this picture of the Railroad Museum. As you can see, the crowds were thin ... a calm before the storm.

Levitation #2

More experiments with compositing and levitation. This is an image of Alyssa that I took in December in the studio.

Levitation #1

I've been tinkering around with composites for a few years. And recently I've also been tinkering around with a Sony mirrorless camera. Lots of experimentation and learning curves with both ... definitely taking me out of my comfort zone and pushing things pretty hard in Photoshop with the composites. The above composite was inspired by the work of Brooke Shaden, who I've been following for about 6 months -- very conceptual and artistic. And above all it's challenging to put these constructs together -- getting the pieces, masking, color toning and making something that's obviously surreal somehow believable visually. So, lots of hours and layers and megabytes and experimentation here. Photo of April (my model) was taken in the studio; photo of the trees was taken at Frankie Carter Randolph Park. I started this as a personal challenge for myself but as things evolved, ended up entering into the Bay Area Photo Club's February assignment: Out of Context.

Traveling Light -- Washington, DC #3

Another photo from Washington, DC -- this one taken with an iphone from atop the Washington Monument looking down at the Tidal Basin and the Jefferson Monument. I applied the blur at the top and bottom to mimic the tilt shift miniature effect. I've seen it done many times, but this one of the few times I felt I had an image that fit that style. Interesting effect. It really gives it a unique perspective. It really looks miniature.