by successfulbob | photography
Have I Got a Story for You
I made plans for getting solidly back on my blogging stories, ideas and creative photography ideas.
You’ve heard that expression about making plans and hearing God’s laughter? That’s what got in the way this time. It wasn’t for lack of performance in posting or finding material and ideas to share. It was a bit of a health hit.
Then I spent a week in hospital
I won’t get into too much detail about what has me knocked on my ass at the moment. It is an unusual thing. I had an abscess that went septic on my iliopsoas muscle. It’s one of those muscles that runs through your butt area.
Here is what Wikipedia shares about that muscle. “The iliacus originates in the iliac fossa of the pelvis. The psoas major unites with the iliacus at the level of the inguinal ligament and crosses the hip joint to insert on the lesser trochanter of the femur. The iliopsoas is classified as an “anterior hip muscle” or “inner hip muscle”.” This causes an amazing amount of pain. I am now on rehab road trying to get the pain out and mobility back in. This happening while I need to infuse liquid antibiotics via a pick line three times a day.
Enough about that.
This was a reminder to not take even the simplest things for granted. I had all sorts of plans and ideas and I guess the universe has asked me to slow it down a bit.
Message received!
I am working on some new blog posts as I also work on the recovery process. Just sent you guys a great deal on the purchase or upgrade of Skylum’s Aurora 2018 HDR software. (see details here only good through Sunday) Remember that using the code COATES will save you an additional ten bucks!
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | photography software
Aurora 2018 HDR Software Deal
I’ve found the Aurora HDR software to be the cleanest in creating images with a full range of tones and not having to fight the halos that often come with processing HDR files. Not a fan of the what used to be the ‘HDR Look’ but love having a full range of tones avaialble when the situation calls for it.
Skylum is having a sale on the software and upgades. The deal you see below can be sweetened by adding my code COATES for an additional ten bucks off.
Aurora 2018 HDR Deal
AURORA HDR 2018 72 HOUR FLASH SALE OFFER INFORMATION:
Aurora HDR 2018 + 10 sets of proffesional brackets for the lowest price ever!
Current users of Aurora HDR 2017 may upgrade for $39 ($29 with my coupon code);
New users can purchase Aurora HDR 2018 for $79 ($69 with my coupon code);
OFFER AVAILABILITY: Now through Sunday, May 20th.
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Aurora HDR 2018 – The most advanced photo editor for Mac & Windows.
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10 sets of proffesional brackets.
Don’t forget to use my coupon code of COATES to get the additional ten bucks off.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | Lumix G9, photography creativity, photography gear
Spring has Sprung
Spring is an excellent time of year to go out and about in our neighborhood in Sedona. Color is starting to splash itself in the form of flowers in many areas. Watching for the cactus to start popping their colorful blooms out of their calloused, thorny, green shells.
In the meantime, some spring blooms have hit the street.
Purple Robe flowers that were crawling out from under a fence. In the post-processing I dipped into Skylum’s Luminar 2018 Jupiter version. I made a copy of the layer then opened Luminar. This allows for adjustments to be made ‘after the fact’ using a mask.
And, of course, I’ve got to play a little. Moving the camera in different directions with a bit of a slow shutter speed can lead to some exciting captures.
Of course, then you can take that to an extreme with time exposure and faster movement. This could be utilized as a background or for an album design element
Using Photoshop, we can get a bit more depth and dimension by replication the layer, rotating it and changing the Blend Mode of the top layer.
Which give lots of options as many Blend Modes give other versions that feel different
And as Russell Brown says, “But, wait there’s more!
Here the Layer is rotated, and a drop shadow is added.
I think you get the idea. We can take a simple shoot with a few flowers and with the help of a little imagination while making the photographs and adding some spice in post-production there are many variations on a theme.
All images were captured with the Lumix G9 flagship stills camera and the 100-400mm Leica Vario-Elmar f4.0-6.3 lens a combo that is becoming very familiar to me. The more I use the G9, the more I like it!
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | graphic design, photography, photography creativity, photography education, photography retouching, photoshop tutorial
Texas School
The Best Little Photography School in the World
I spent last week in Addison Texas attending Texas School. This was my first time at this week-long orgy of photography education. It is intense. You spend a week with a single instructor getting a deep dive into their techniques in creativity. It was a blast.
The class I choose to attend was with Richard Sturdivant. (Check out Richard’s work and his tool shop) Sturdevant brings an artist and graphic design background to create composite images that transcend photography. To say I learned a lot would be an understatement. Richard’s use of tools in Photoshop is an eye-opening experience. New tools. New techniques. New ways of looking at the world to enhance reality into fantasy with a hyper-realistic look.
Here is an example of one of the projects which the class worked on.
My finished piece from the class project.
A photo session was shown using MoLights which can change the way you photograph subjects that have movement. A post will follow specifically about that. In the photo session, the model was asked to perform, and these lights fired as fast as the camera could fire. With my Lumix G9 that means twelve frames per second. NO misses!
Photos were made of a couple of models in a period dress, and stock files were shared. Each student worked with the images with a base of instruction but each finished piece produced was different. It’s kinda like when you give ten photographers the same subject, and you’ll end up with ten different interpretations.
Below see some of the working pieces from the project. There were tons more, but you get the idea.
Look at the final image and see how many elements were added from the image directly above.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | commercial photography, LumixGH5, people photography, photography, photography gear, photography lighting resources
Go Pet Friendly – Part Two
Here’s a follow-up to the post from the other day about shooting an author’s photo and some support images for a book project. Amy Burkert and her husband Rod are on the road searching and researching pet friendly travel venues and a book is being written about traveling with pets as an addition to the Go Pet Friendly website
One of the images was the whole crew and the thirty-seven foot Winnebago with which they travel the country. Lighting conditions were a bit on the contrastly side with high sun and shade under the awning.
Go Pet Friendly home on the road and the family that lives there.
I used two Paul C Buff White Lightning X-3200 lights to control the contrast of the scene. The main light was fitted with a thirty-six-inch Octabox and the other was used for fill with a thirty by sixty inch foldable softbox camera right. A couple of braketed exposuers were made to get a lighter exposure on the tree that was in shadow to bring back some detail that would have blocked up otherwise.
The lights were powered with Paul C Buff Vagabond Mini battery packs. Portable power comes in very handy on location as it keeps from dealing with cords. It makes it easier to position lights exactly where you would like them to be.
Amy also wanted to show off her ‘children’ Ty and Buster.
Amy and her dog Ty pose for a portrait
Amy, Ty and Buster pose in front of the RV
Images captured with the Lumix GH5 and the Leica 12-60mm G LEICA DG VARIO-ELMARIT PROFESSIONAL f2.8-4.0 lens
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
