Project: Product

I was attempting to photograph product for Kicks N Grins Arts & Crafts

when my son thought that meant that he was suppose to be the model.

I figured, why not?!

If you sell products online why not use your kids or family members to show off the product. It humanizes the product and adds another level of interest for your clients.

Project: A Day of Rain

It was a cool rainy day. I kept looking outside and saw all that GREEN! I love to photograph in the rain because the colors in everything are so vibrant and beautiful.

Try to go out and photograph everyday objects in the rain and see how much better they look!

Photographed with Canon DSLR Rebel XTi, 50mm lens, F2.8



Me and my son Endry, he had fun watching me take pictures.

 

Project: Drama

Add some drama to your everyday photos.
Below are some images that I snapped while out with my son at the park. I didn't even use my "fancy"camera. Here are some Before and After samples on easy things to do.

All images taken with an Olympus x-42 point and shoot camera.

12 mega pixels, set on Auto with auto flash

Use Filters, Crop in close, change the Color, Adjust the Contrast,

Exaggerate all of the above to create a mood,

and never forget Desaturation (aka: black and white).

There are so many ways to change your images just enough to make them a little more interesting. Your family and friends will be wowed at your skills!

Remember when looking for a "fix it" program that you find one that allows you to change the angle of the photo when cropping it by turning the corners. Also experiment with what you have! Don't just stop when you think it looks good...go a little bit further until you think it looks BAD. Then you know where the threshold is.



the Art in Nature

Beauty can be found in even the most basic places.

I took my son on a trip to our local zoo and found lost of natural art...sometimes you just have to "frame" it.

Images were taken with a Canon Rebel XTi on AV mode 18-55mm lens :

F4.5/F5.7 ISO 100 (shutter speed varied)

Remember when going on sight seeing trips to take a camera that allows you to get in close and offers the ability to take images in lower light situations without your flash. This allows for a more intimate feeling and natural look.

Vintage Style

Another trick for all you Adobe Photoshop users.
Ever been looking through professional photographs and seen images like these?

   

This style has become very popular in modern Portrait Photography. However, this style does not come natural. It is what you do to the photograph that give this interesting Vintage look.

the Vintage Look

**First of all you need to make sure that you have a version of Photoshop that allows you to make actions (that way you can save the steps and only have to push one button every time you want to create this look).**

You can accomplish this type of look many different ways, but my favorite is to go online and find someone credible who has already made the Actions for you....cuz lets face it a Mom really doesn't have time to be doing much playing around on Photoshop making her own Action.

My favorite site is WDL  

(they are a web design blog with lots of awesome Freebies and Tutorials)

The above link will take you to a page of Photoshop Actions for Vintage looks. Just scroll through the different styles and find the one you like. I used one from "photoshop actions- 63 (6 actions)". After downloading the zipped folder you can go here to know exactly how to use the Actions in Photoshop.

The magic is done for you...all you have to do is push the "play" button and then adjust the layers if you wish.

(before and after example below)







I used #7 in the list of actions of the set 63 by night-fate



original

So, now it is up to you, stay subtle, go glam or wash it out!
Happy Actions!

the Magic of Photoshop

More people are spending more dollars on professional photography equipment and tools. Some of the most popular are Canon or Nikon DSLR cameras and software like Adobe Photoshop CS5 (of which there is also Adobe Photoshop Extended CS5 Student & Teacher Edition available for a considerable discount).

Now, although technology is getting better and the price points are becoming so much more affordable, these advanced products are still very complex for most consumers. To use these product and get more professional results from them; many are forced to read instructions and look up tutorials off the Internet. There is nothing wrong with that...I even do it occasionally. However, even then you may not get what you are looking for.

Below I have created a few tips to make your snapshots more professional looking.

This it the original photo...taken by my mom in our back yard!

You might think "Hey, that is pretty good." and you would be right it is pretty good, just not great!

So, the first thing is to crop in just a bit, get a little closer to make the image appear more intimate...but in this case I still want to show the whole family so I will just take out some around the edges (tip: always crop an image with the same original dimensions - this is easily done by holding down the shift key when you crop. This keeps all your ratios the same-normally a 4 x 6 ratio-).

The second thing we do is go to our Image, Adjustment tool called Brightness/Contrast... This is a great tool to give you more depth to your images. Play with the tool a little and bump up the contrast tons that way you know how it looks and stop when you like it. Remember that you need to start with a well exposed photo (this will not work well with an under or over exposed photo)

Now we are looking better. See how the blacks are blacker and there is more separation between the subjects and the background?...that is the added depth from upping the contrast.

This next step is optional, but I think it is nice.

We will create a "halo" effect that helps to bring the eye to the center (where our subjects faces are). First go to Filter, Distort, Lens Correction...it will pull up a box and you want to to read: Remove Distortion 0.00, Fixed Red/Cyan Fringe 0, Fixed Blue/Yellow Fringe 0, Amount -100, Midpoint +65, Vertical Perspective 0, Horizontal Perspective 0, Angle 0, Scale 100. This should give you a good halo to put on most photos that need darker edges to help emphasis the center subject.

and this is the finished product!

So, you can see that you don't need to have mad skills to get a good photograph, you just have to know how to set up your shot to get a good exposure and know how to use your photographic tools to get the look you want. I hope this helps you achieve something beautiful!

— please leave a comment if you have a photo/photoshop question you would like answered and I will do my best to address it —

Age has Nothing to Do with It!

A good portrait has nothing to to with age or equipment!

So many people get caught up in taking photos of perfect looking models and purchasing the most expensive "professional" equipment out there in order to get people to take you seriously.

I say, "THAT IS CRAP!"

I have found that some of my best work has come from a $50 35mm film camera. Photographing regular people who are allowed to just be who they are. I think that talent comes from photographing with basic equipment and normally looking subjects and make something magical and fun happen.

Below is a set of images taken with a Canon Rebel XTi, 50mm lens

and the subject is much older than she looks!