Teach it Tuesday - "hope"
I recently shared an image on Facebook that got a lot of love so I thought I give some behind the scenes as to how the image came together.
Last week I was at the Mission. A crazy rainstorm had just blown through town and I was waiting for one of my amazing couples to arrive for our engagement session. As I sat on my bench I just loved how the scene before me was presenting itself... I took out my camera and did my best to grab what I was seeing.
The gear I used:
Nikon D800, Nikon 24mm, Lee Big Stopper, Manfrotto tripod, timer shutter release.
Here is the image right out of the camera. As you can see there are several things that stand out as annoying to me. Lines going in weird directions, dust on the sensor, a weird color cast and some distracting background elements.
When exposing this image I was careful to make sure that I did not blow out the sky and at the same time that there was detail in the shadows / blacks on the statue and background trees.
Source frame, right out of the camera.
I tried to make my adjustments in Lightroom but... it just didn't have the horsepower so I had to boot up Photoshop. Using Photoshop, I straightened the lines, enhanced the detail in the clouds, statue and cross and then played with the color. I warmed it up to give the image a little more "hope". When that step was done I dug into my personal stash of "stuff" and pulled out a few bird samples. Using layer masks I hand painted the birds in behind the statue and shaped them to match the lines of the statue.
The finished image below reflects about 3 hours of work in total.
Final image.
Holiday Card roundup.
I am, primarily, a wedding photographer. On average, I spend about 60 hours a week planning, photographing and processing wedding photographs. I really have to limit the other types of photography projects that I get involved with because I simply don't have the time... one of those side projects I can't wait for is Holiday Cards.
Planning for this year started in April and I had my first session in September. Crazy right? One of these cards took over 40 hours in total while a few were wrapped in less than an hour.
Here are a few of the cards that I so excited to share, starting with mine:
Teach it Tuesday.
Well. we will be using the term 'teach' very loosely today. A couple of months ago my best friend and award winning designer Bryant called me up and told me about this poster he was working on. He had a concept and some illustrations that he had created but was having some trouble with one piece in particular... a giant pair of scissors.
Our first hurdle was finding a perfect pair of scissors. They had to be silver, "antique looking" and GIANT. I searched the prop shops here in St. Augustine and Bryant went through the thrift stores in Jacksonville with a fine tooth comb... after weeks of searching he finally found stumbled across the perfect set of scissors in his mother-in-law's sewing room. As soon as he got home he sent me an image of what he needed:
I setup a simple seamless background and took several photos of the the scissors. It took me several iterations to get the light, opening, angle and the contrast right.
Bryant took the image of the scissors, flipped it and used it as a reference as he illustrated it by hand... I want to point out, there is no Photoshop shortcut for this kind of thing... it took him about 8 hours of drawing lines and shapes until it is perfect. He then added this single element to the other 30 or so items that he had created and arranged on the poster. As you can see from the final shot, it is epic:
Take a second and bend your mind around all of the detail in this image that he hand drew. Awesome right?
I hope seeing this poster inspires you to go out and create something you love... if you hit a hurdle, call a friend and put your heads together. Make it awesome.