248

Learning a new technique is always a process. As much as I like shooting on location there is a different element of gratification to be able to tell the weather and or time limits or whatever other constraints you may have for a shoot to piss off. Having this kind of flexibly can be quite liberating. I am experimenting more and more with compositing lately and it is a lot of fun. There are tons of amazing photographers who do this, Dean Bradshaw and Joel Grimes are my two favorites. The process of making a believable composite takes a new set of skills that I am still pretty green at. I have read its much easier to shoot your background first then match the lighting to your subject when you shoot them. I did the oposite. And it was a pain in the ass. BUT I learned a lot from it!

The shoot: I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted the final image to look like so I knew what kind of background light i wanted as well which helped a lot. Planning is so important! going at something like ...

I struggle with low energy. Coffee, energy drinks, the "right" amount of sleep... They all have varying effects on my over all energy level. The one thing I have found that consistently gives me amazing energy (even sometimes too much, keeping me awake) is creating images. I rarely drink any energy supplement when im creating, maybe on a long shoot but thats about it. I can edit a single picture for eight hours straight, make my self go to bed, and then have trouble falling asleep because my body and mind want to create. To learn. To grow. I think when you find something that can drive you that effectively you owe it to yourself to everything you can to DO THAT THING.

This image has been rolling around in my head for a little while now. It is much more simple that the last few but it did have its challenges and overall im kind of underwhelmed by it. But its time to move on to the next image, which should up the bar by quite a bit. This was more of a lead up to next weeks image by pra ...

What do Aaron Nace's Poes Angle (Link), a picture in a blog post on balancing household chores (Link), And the Glitch Mob (Link) have in common? This image.

Seemingly random things can inspire us in very odd ways. I have a friend who has been taking belly dancing classes recently and she proposed getting together and taking some cool pictures along that theme. The idea had potential but I wasn't sure how to make it more than just her belly dancing. Sure, those pictures would have been fine, and in fact we took several that are quite nice but they didnt fit with my 52 week project in any real way. So the idea went to the back burner. A few weeks later I was haphazardly scrolling through my long list of blogs in my feed reader when an image opened up flood gates. It was a simple image of a woman with six arms holding various cleaning products and tools seeming very frustrated about something (I never did read the article). But it sparked an idea. Instantly a new tab was open in my brows ...

Sometimes we jump into projects without knowing how we will over come some of the main hurtles involved, whether it be cooking some type of sea monster or just making an image that depicts the act of doing so. Putting ourselves in a positions to fail hones us. If we fail, we learn if we succeed we learn. Win Win. The only way to loose is to not even try.

It was late, sunday, and I had no idea what I was going to shoot. The idea came quick so i started setting up. I knew what I wanted, I wasnt positive on how to get there but I did know I could probably, maybe, possibly figure it out. The main shot was smooth. A beauty dish just off camera at the top of the frame with a with my trusty Buff PLM for fill.

The tentacles were another story. It took a while to find images that i thought might work. Out of the 10 or so pictures I found i ended up using only 4, and even then im still not 100% happy with the ones coming out of the pot but for not being able to shoot/create them myself im 90% ...

Ah, the ol week 3 posted on week 4 bit... I dont do much black and white work but i think i should do more. I think everyone who wants to really sharpen their chops as a photographer should do more. The trick is not to just convert an image to black and white but to think about black and white before you ever even pick up the camera. Think about tone, contrast, lines. When you only have values of light and dark to tell a story it forces you to get creative. To think about your scene and how you are going to show off your "hero".

This is my first time shooting specifically for black and white with a strobe. I knew i wanted my model to be the hero so i took a few longer exposures to make sure i was abel to gather the detail i wanted for the back ground then i took shots while holding a single speed light on a stand at higher angles pointed straight at my model. I combined 4 shots, one for each of the trees and the last for my model. Edited in photoshop and silver effects pro

As for th ...