Tuning The Final Look

One of the fantastic things about modern digital cameras and the high quality optics in lenses is the incredible detail possible in images. One of the rotten things about modern digital cameras and the high quality optics in lenses is the incredible detail you end up with in images. Something that may not be obvious about interacting with someone in person is that you tend to focus more on the whole person. A scar, a slight blemish, a (gasp!) pimple, any kind of flaw in the skin becomes less significant when people are talking and experiencing each other for real. All of those little imperfections that fade to gray in real life, the things that help make us who we are, jump out in blinding detail in a photographic image. Even the beautiful people aren't immune.

Of the handful of models I've worked with since getting serious again about photography, Ashley probably represents the most successful shoot up to this point. The whole thing happened right in her tiny little apartment and yet the resulting images show a nice range of looks, attitude and emotion. I keep going back to her pictures, playing, tweaking, digging deeper into what I can pull out of a particular image as a photographer and artist. After initially skipping this particular shot, I took another look and ended up spending most of an afternoon crafting it into the best finished result I could get.

I think something I have to learn is to be more patient both in shooting and in post production. This time around I got really patient, pulling out all the stops on the basic retouching, brightening up her eyes and then carefully going through a process I've been practicing that gives the skin a smooth, healthy glow. I've got a ways to go before I can match the pros in post production techniques, but I think I'm making headway.

In my head I keep seeing some of my images in black and white, but haven't had much luck getting the result I'd like through the functions in photoshop. While working on this image I came to the conclusion that it's the channel mixer Stupid! Or at least in this case that's what it was. Although there's more than one way to do things in photoshop, it was converting the image to monochrome in the channel mixer and then tweaking the red, green and blue channels back and forth that gave me the tones and contrast I was looking for. Wanting viewers to really be pulled into how amazing Ashley's eyes look, I cropped in tighter and went horizontal with the framing to add tension against the verticle shape of her face. Was that the way to go? I'm still thinking about it. Would it be better back in the verticle framing? Maybe. Regardless, since putting this black and white version on my Flickr page, it's received more comments than any of my other images. There must be something about it that works.

The knife image is another study in lighting, shape, composition and whether or not it works better in color or black and white. It's a shot I've been thinking about for months and quite frankly, I've been a little bit afraid of it. Why? Probably because I knew it was going to take a fair amount of time to set up and shoot and the end result was questionable. Being hungry for more quality work in my portfolio finally got me off my indecisive butt and starting the step by step process of constructing the image.

The easy part was jamming the knife point into a scrap piece of 4x4 lumber and folding the handle over. The harder part was figuring out how I was going to light the silly thing. The main light source was a portable flash unit off to the right. A snoot funneled down a narrow beam that illuminated just the top part of the blade and handle and made the Gerber logo pop out. The bacground is a sheet of black foam board with another flash aimed at it. I figured with a knife like this the background color had to be dramatic. A red gel over the flash gave me the rich crimson I was looking for. The last touch was to hand hold an LED headlamp from the left to pop just a little light into the top edges of the knife and using a slow shutter speed to give the continuous source a chance to register. The flashes were fired with a CyberSync trigger and two receivers.

The imperfections that show up on a person's face? It happens with product shots too. Those little specks of dust just wouldn't go away no matter how much I brushed and blasted with compressed air. Some slight shifts in the texture of the metal also had to be dealt with. So I settled in for some serious retouching, did my usual contrast adjustment, the final digital sharpening and ended up with a finished image that's pretty darned close to what I originally had in mind.

The conversion to black and white was a bit simpler than what I went through with the image of Ashley. Once again, is it better in color or black and white? I've had numerous compliments on the color version and I really do like the way it turned out. But there's something to be said for the rich tones of black and white too. I guess in the end it's all a matter of opinion.

Models Are Cool

Northern Minnesota, the land of ice fishing, maple syrup, moose hunting and boreal forests, isn't really a prime location for working with fashion models. Fashion up here generally consists of L.L. Bean shorts, hiking boots and mosquito netting in the summer and fleece sweaters, giant insulated boots and hats with ear flaps in the winter. Finding models for fashion and beauty oriented photo shoots isn't out of the question, but it does take a bit more effort. Thankfully, there's the Internet and sites designed to get photographers and models together.

Ashley lives in Duluth, is going into nursing and wants to do some modeling on the side. We connected on one of the Internet networking sites back in February. Last weekend, about two months after meeting, we finally managed to put together a shoot.

Even though the April weather is improving and it was a nice day in Duluth, we did the shoot in Ashley's apartment, which is just big enough to let us move around some and for me to set up some lights and reflectors. With the end of the school year coming up and a busy schedule, Ashley could only commit a short block of time to our shoot, which ultimately amounted to a couple hours. It was a bit of a scramble to make the most of the time we had.

I mentioned fashion at the beginning of this post, but this shoot was more for filling out our portfolios. And god knows I need the practice in working with a model. After looking through her existing work that leans more to moody, low key shots, I decided I wanted to brighten up Ashley's look. I had wanted to get more elaborate with my lighting set ups, but with the short amount of time we had I opted to go more basic with the lighting and concentrate on the overall attitude of the images.

I wish all models could have more of Ashley's personality. She's friendly, seems to be very comfortable in her skin, laid back and easy to work with. She offered up a range of looks during the shoot and seemed to have fun doing it, which keeps it fun for me and makes the whole process more enjoyable. After working with her once, I have all kinds of ideas bubbling around in my head and hope we get the chance to build on what we started.

Out There

"It's not about the camera. It's the image that counts." That's a comment I've seen so many times from a collection of successful, outstanding photographers. And as I play with the technological marvel of my own camera, I try to keep in mind that it's just a tool, a means to an image that will move not only myself, but someone else somewhere in the world.

The image above is from a cool, hazy day back in March. With patches of snow and ice still laying across everything, it was nice enough to venture out past the Coast Guard station and Grand Marais harbor to the breakwall that connects Artist's Point and the lighthouse. Looking out over the rock island and Lake Superior to a pale horizon that marked the break between water and sky, I knew there had to be a picture that might be worth the time it would take to find. So I set my camera up on the tripod with the self timer at 20 seconds, pressed the shutter button and ran out to a spot on the rocks. Over and over I did that, running back and forth, checking the image on the screen, pressing the shutter button again and running back out to the rocks, bracketing exposures as I went.

Predictably, even with the range of exposures I collected and the care with how I composed the shot, the image straight from the camera was . . . well, honestly pretty blah. I let it set idle in the computer for several weeks, until last night when I decided to take another look. I tweaked the curves, the contrast, the sharpening, I cropped, I un-cropped and then started digging into the Photoshop filters. More tweaking, more experimentation, more playing until this particular image emerged and I started thinking, maybe this is it. Quite frankly, it looks more like a painting, or a colored pencil drawing, even a cartoon, but finally exhibits some of the mood I felt when I was standing at the edge of Lake Superior, looking out there. One thing I've noticed is that the bigger it is, the better it looks. So click on the image, watch it expand on your screen and see if the color, texture and feeling of space speak to you at all.

As I try to grow as a photographer, I study what others are doing. Off to one side of this blog is a list of other blogs I follow. Chase Jarvis is a photographer based out of Seattle. http://www.chasejarvis.com/ I think he's only in his thirties, but he's reached a pinnacle of success I salivate over. What makes him so interesting beyond his creative talent with a camera and business sense, is his personality and sheer enthusiasm. The guy moves forward by digging into the world and sharing his own world with just about anyone who asks. He's one of those intoxicating types who vibrates positive energy, a pied piper of fun and meaningful pursuits. On his own blog he recently included information about another photographer, Doug Menuez.

I pulled up Menuez's blog where he ruminates about his search for those special images, not just good pictures, but images that have meaning in the world. Then I pulled up his website and looked through his work resulting from some thirty years as a photographer. The greatest percentage of his work is black and white and astonishing in its depth. It's all there, thought provoking, cute, humorous, sometimes sad, exhibiting many aspects of the human condition, a beautiful range of work that is admirable and inspirational. http://www.menuez.com/

So with that in mind, I'll keep looking for my own special images. Keep moving, learning, sharing. Some of those images are right in front of me. Some of the others, the really special ones, are out there.

A Fine Art Day

Although it's a gray, rather dreary day, I wanted to get outside at least for a while. At first my plan was to head out on one of the trails . . . maybe not even take my camera. The whole idea was just to get out and move. But the wine bottles hanging at the corner of the cabin were whispering color at me in the flat light.

My first few shots were handheld. Didn't take me long to slap that camera on the tripod. I wasn't looking for blurred images and when the end of the lens is creeping up on the subject into micro mode, it pays to have the stability a tripod offers. As I tried several different spots and compositions around the bottles, the aperture settings on the lens went up and down. It's hard to tell sometimes how an image will benefit from great or shallow depth of field, so I played it safe and went for a range.

Today felt like the time for rich color and defined shape and I let myself go wild in Photoshop, playing with curves, contrast, sharpening and cropping. What finally made these images pop the way I envisioned was digging into the Photoshop textures section. I don't want to be the kind of photographer who relies too heavily on all the bells and whistles a computer and post production offer, but this time around it resulted in images that announce themselves as fine art. And a little bit of art helps brighten an otherwise gray day.