Playing With Fire

Kids, don't try this at home! This is my first submission to Shootmaster Challenge 2: Night Light. I missed the deadline for the first challenge, so I was determined to enter something immediately. I wanted an orange glow around my face, neck, and fingers. Since this was a self-portrait and I was alone, it would have been too dangerous to ignite a large fireball and suspend it near me. Instead, I gaffer taped a candle in my hand. Even this "harmless" little flame burned me a few times! Why not just use a flash and a tungsten gel to emulate the flame? I experimented with that last year, but found that the flash was too powerful even at its lowest setting. I'm not giving up on the flash yet, but I wanted something quick and dirty today and was willing to risk getting singed! To create the fireball, I took a separate shot of the candle. Then in Photoshop I smudged it outwards to make the tall flame look more like a ball. Lastly, I composited the two together and voila! I don't like the way the fireball looks. It looks like a scoop of orange ice cream. I'm considering creating an actual fireball with wadded up paper/cloth and some lighter fluid. Stay tuned. :-)

Much More Photoshop To Learn

My girlfriend Sherrie challenged my friends and me to create compelling images of food. She gave us over a month, but of course I procrastinated. The image I submitted was very rough, because I couldn't figure out how to clean up the background in Photoshop quickly. I attempted to use the smudge tool, but after an hour, it still didn't look good, as you can see from the photo above. In fact I missed the deadline by one minute. The next day she told me I could have used my time more efficiently by creating masks then stretching pixels (?), adding Gaussian blur, and finally applying Gaussian noise to create a nice clean background where non existed before. I asked her to show me, and she did a "rough cut" in under four minutes!It's not perfect, but in the time it took me to find the smudge tool she created a far superior image, all while explaining her steps and watching Ugly Betty. Plus her computer is much slower than mine! Friends, I have much to learn. For reference, here's the original:

Two Uncles vs. Baby Nephew

The kid had no chance...Should photography always be a force for good? Probably. But come on, who could resist doing this to their baby nephew? :-)

Get Inspiration From Anywhere

Months ago (yeah, it's been awhile since I've posted to the blog) I was minding my own business and watching television, when I saw this U2 commercial for the Blackberry. Ten seconds into the commercial, I saw an image I had to try and imitate: Bono's face all dark except for just a slice of his face lit from the side. My final image of Brian actually doesn't look very much like the one of Bono, but I captured an image that I would not have thought to if I hadn't seen the commercial and got off my couch. So how did I do it? It was really simple. Just one umbrella plus very little ambient light, BAM! :-) Go here to see more shots of Brian.

Get In The Way

Most of the time I try to keep out of people's way when I'm shooting candids. But with babies, it's a different ballgame. In these shots, including the one on the right, I stood behind my brother and used his shoulder as a quasi-tripod to shoot our nephew while my brother changed his diaper. Talk about intrusive! If only I had a photo of it! By perching myself on my brother I was able to: 1. Shoot from a stable platform. 2. Shoot from a perspective that nearly mimicked what my brother was seeing. 3. Focus only on shooting Jakey without having too much of my brother in the shot. This technique isn't something I'd employ all the time, but with babies, they don't know what's going on anyway, so as long as the other adult is fine with you perched on their shoulder, you're golden.

A Frivolous Post

This post isn't educational nor even that interesting, but when I scanned through my Flickr account, I encountered this photo, and I just had to post it. This is a shot of my nephew's double chin, which I will use against him if he ever acts up as a teenager! :-)

Oh So Close!

In this ongoing saga of my night shoot with Brian (which is taking far too long!), I want to focus on how one problem can mess up a shot. What I liked about the shot: 1. Brian's bored "I'm about to go home" expression. 2. The directional lighting at camera left provided by a hot shoe flash shot through an umbrella. 3. The overall subdued earthy tones. 4. The out-of-focus twinkling lights behind his head. What I didn't like: 1. The out-of-focus twinkling lights behind his head. How can I both like and dislike the same thing? Look at how I composed the shot. The lights look like they're sprouting from his head. It really bothers me. Once again, this is a reminder of how important it is to be mindful of your composition.