Final Class

Well this Thursday is my final class. It's sad. I really enjoyed the projects that were assigned and learning to look at photography differently. I find that I now concentrate on many more things when setting up a shot, more then I have in the past. I look at the entire scene, and I try to visualize lines, and colors, and angles... and the most important FOCUS. I still am having a issue that focus. I'm not sure if it is because I rely on auto focus, if my auto focus is set to the wrong setting (which is a good chance) or if I just don't concentrate enough on it at the moment I click the shutter. But I digress....

I found that I am actually using the manual settings on the camera more, and surprisingly prefer them to "auto". The manual settings allow you to have more control over the outcome of the shot, and I am actually learning what is used and not used to get the shot I'm looking for.

Framing, color, lights, darks, ideas, persuasions, feelings, angles, details, aperture, ISO, space.... These are all things that I have become more aware of as I shoot.

I am very pleased with my progress, and I am very happy that I was fortunate enough to be able to take this class. I truly wish it was not over, just a few more weeks would have been perfect. Even my classmates were great. A real mix of characters. I have to admit that I had more fun in this class then... well... 90% of the classes I took when I was in college. It wasn't because of the lack of an over load of written assignments, or massive amounts of research for homework that made it better, because I did do a lot of writing and have been doing lots of research on photography and experimenting with new techniques (even if they were not assignments by the professor). This time I enjoyed myself and the information I was learning, to the point where I was pushing myself to learn more out side of the class syllabus. And yes my classmates pushed me. Some of the images they would take would challenge me, they were so good and so not "me". I'm so used to looking at "my" work, but not looking at or thinking what someone else would interpret the same idea as. I learned a lot from them.

Now, lets hope all things go well and I will be able to take the next class which concentrates on learning Illustrator and Photoshop to more depths. (Cross your fingers, its a day time class)

On that note I say... good bye to my class and hello to my future of digital photography. I have big plans for myself and hope that I do follow through on them. I will be keeping this blog going although it will probably have a new name, maybe even a new address.... But I will keep you posted...

Restoration 5a

I have done some work with my 5th Restoration project. I am please with my progress but I do have my problem spots. But here is a side by side comparison of my progress so far.

Color Corection

I have been working on restoring old photos and, for a beginner, I think I'm doing very well. But there is a trend. They are all black and white. Color. Ugh Even saying it terrifies me. What do I do if a photo is too blue? or Red? or Green? Now I would probably go in and manually adjust all the colors in "color" adjustment layer. This is ok, but from what I've seen, I've been guessing. And after a few hours of looking a bright LCD screen, your eyes get a little wacked out. Causing bad color decisions.

During a total random search, I cam across a "restoration forum" WOW, can I say that again? WOW. There are actually videos, good videos on the "How Too's" of simple photo fixes. The one that caught my eye was the color restore video. How simple did they make it look! Here I was guessing while sliding the little bar left and right, and thinking to myself... Ok that "looks" good. Here is the tool to actually bring you very close to what is really good. As simple as it is, all I need to do is go in and adjust the color levels with the graph.

I don't have an example at the moment. But one is sure to come soon!

Restoration 5

I found this photo as a "test" to asses the talent of applicants who are applying for a Photography Restoration job. I would credit the site here, but alas I have totally lost the web page. IF I find it I will post it here.

But this is the original damaged photo, it is much more damaged any anything I've attempted so far. But I'm willing to give it a try. Learning as I go.

Restoration 4a

I spent a few more hours working on this photograph. So far I have removed all the major cracks and lines. Now all thats left is the fine dust and specks.

Before

AFTER

No Flash

I've needed to learn how to take photos with my camera with out a light set up and with out a flash. Now, outdoors is easy, there is lots of light and all you would need at most is a bounce. Although some would say a strobe will help with the "fill light" But what happens if you want to take a picture of something/one indoors and all you have is sunlight.

I decided to put this to the test. I grabbed my dog and put her in the living room. After many many different camera settings I finally came up with something that works, but would still need tweaking in post production.

It' still a little dark, but if I slow down the shutter speed any more I would need a tripod and well, the do would most likely move. In the photo below I adjusted the color temp, since it came out a bit yellow in the original. I never did adjust the Metering, it was set to Matrix, I wonder if spot metering would have lightened up her dark side of the face?

Image Stats
Exposure mode : Shutter
ExP + : +5
Flash : None
Metering : matrix
Focal length : 32mm
Shutter : 1/20
Aperture : 4.5
ISO : 800
White bal : SUNNY
Light source : Large window on camera left, small window behind the subject slightly to camera right.



Here is a similar image without any post adjustments taken with the same settings. I'm not really sure which one I like better. But I do know I wish i had some fill light. Maybe all I needed was a reflector on camera right.










Now this image is with the flash... even Piper didn't like this setting. Obviously I forgot that adding a flash in the manual settings will not work. The camera will not adjust settings for the flash, I would have needed to do that. But since I didn't want to change any of the setting of the camera so I could remember them for this posting, I stopped using the flash.

Picture Restoration 4

Here is a really big job I'm working on. I started in the top left corner, which is actually the most damaged. I think it's coming along well. I do wish I had more of a background in all the tools in photoshop, but from what I know I think it's working.

Natural Light Shooting

I've been doing some searching around at other photographers Portrait work. It looks to me that the photographers who do remote shooting don't always have elaborate equipment set ups like I do. It looks like a large bounce board and a good on camera flash, or no flash to that matter. They just use the avaliable light at the location.

This makes me nervous. Natural light... how many different white balance options are there? I need to work on this and figure out different senerieos. If a customer/model wants me to photograph them at their house, but there is no room for lighting, or if they want me to photograph them in their yard or at a park. Then what? I can't lug around lights or worst deny work because of this.

My next venture is to photograph with natural light. This will be very hard however since I do not have a good on camera flash.

Oh do I wish I had the SB 900 Flash for my camera. The built in on camera flash is so harsh and unflattering. I don't even understand why it's there. Well I know it is useful, but damn, it's just not flattering.

Even better yet one of those ring lights would be perfect as well. It looks like some attach right to an existing flash, like the SB800, and "light up" from that light. I can only imagine how nice and balanced and soft this light would look on a close up portrait.

I guess this topic turned in to "flashes" instead of natural light. But I wonder if they actually do go hand and hand. There will be a need for some fill light in a natural light setting. A bounce board will do the trick, but what if it's at dawn or dusk where there isn't a lot of sunlight.

Picture Restoration 3

I spent about 2 solid hours on this restoration. As simple as the fixes were, I believe it makes it 1000% better. Click on the Image below to see the example larger. This is a picture of my grandmother circa early 1950's.

Photo Shoot 4

This photo shoot I had a really great time. My only battle was the ceiling height. It was literally 7' high at the beams!!! This made it very very hard to light my models but I think I did very well. I am SUPER happy with my results. However I did have some lighting issues, so there are a bunch of shadows on the faces that I could have done with out. But here are my favorite shots.