by successfulbob | fine art portrait, people photography, photography - art quote
Sunday PhotoArt Quote – Chuck Close
Some people know how to smack you upside the head in just a few words.
I often find that the fewer the words often, the higher the impact.
“Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work.” Chuck Close
Pretty sure I have used this quote here before but I believe it bears repetition. If you wait for inspiration to strike you could well be standing on the platform when the train travels past leaving you behind. In my study of artists of all types in looking for inspiration I find that in almost all genres including writing, painting, sculpting and photography, the advice most offered to becoming a stronger artist is just to do it. Of course, you want to practice well but just getting in there and producing whether making mistakes or masterpieces will move you down the road to becoming more proficient at your craft.
Daguerreotype – Self-portrait © Chuck Close
Chuck Close was one of the photographic artists who inspired me with a larger than life portraits printed on various strata. Even though he suffered a spinal artery collapse that left him paralyzed he kept working and painting creating photo-realistic work that continues to inspire me today.
Time to get to work. I still need more practice.
How about you?
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
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by successfulbob | fine art musician portrait, Lumix GH4, Lumix GX7, Lumix Lounge, musician photography, people photography, photographer of musicians
Photography of Musicians at Sound Bites Grill
The Black Market Trust
Photographing musicians during a live performance can be a bit of a challenge.
But I dig it!
If you follow this blog you know I am charged with creating the marketing images for bands who play at Sound Bites Grill in Sedona. Also, the ‘Wall of Fame’ is a record of performers who have graced the stage and is becoming a history of entertainment at the restaurant. To date, there are over eighty art pieces presented on the wall.
Here is the latest.
The Black Market Trust Band
Here is the finished piece as presented on the ‘Wall of Fame.’
While the band is performing, I isolate each member and extract them from the scene and then blend them back together while creating the art piece for the wall. These were captured with the Lumix GX7 and the 35-100mm f2.8 Vario lens. After each member is placed on the new canvas layers of texture, drop shadows, and lighting effects are added to create depth and dimension.
While the musicians are on site, I gather their ‘message to the house’ and autographs for inclusion in the final art piece. These are signed in black Sharpie on white paper. After scanning, using Adobe Photoshop they are imported to the final image, sized and inverted to white text. The Blend Mode of the Layer is changed to Screen. This makes the inverted paper, which is now black disappear with no further selections necessary.
Images for the newspaper are also prepped. I shoot in color but do the prep to black and white for the best printing results. Many times a color image is just changed to greyscale by the paper and using NIK Silver FX Pro 2 makes for better contrast and tones. These were captured with the Lumix GH4 and the 12-35 f2.8 Vario lens.
Black & White photo The Black Market Trust Band
Color image of the BMT Band
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
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by successfulbob | black & white, infrared photography, landscape photography, people photography, photography education
Infrared Photography – Some Members
of Infamous Mopar AZ Chapter Car Club in Sedona
You never know who you might run into when you are out photographing clouds. While I was catching some infrared photos at Bell Rock Vista in the Village of Oak Creek in Sedona, three pretty cool cars started backing into spaces right behind me. When I realized they were lining up to take photos of their cars I moved out of their frame.
We started to chat, and it turns out we have a lot in common. They are members of the Infamous AZ Chapter Mopar Car Club, and I once had a cat I named Mopar because of the way she purred. OK, I have a weird sense of humor, but you get used to it I think. I believe all people are connected in one way or another.
Since the cars were lined up, I captured some photos with my infrared set-up. (see this post on processing infrared files from this session)
Here are a couple of captures.
Three couples from the INfamous Mopar AZ Chapter
The three couples I met while photographing with my infrared Lumix G6 camera at Bell Rock Vista. This image was processed in the same way as was described in the other post.
Cars from the Infamous Mopar Car Club AZ Chapter in front of Courthouse Butte in the VOC, Sedona
Straight out of Camera (SOOC)
This image was processed in a different manner from the on above. I started with the RAW file. In infrared converted cameras, the RAW image will have a severe magenta cast.
ACR Palette with settings
First stop was into Adobe Camera RAW for initial processing. Settings were to move the Temperature Slider all the way to Blue. The Tint Slider all the way to Green. Exposure boosted 1/3 stop. Contrast increased. Highlights were lowered, and Shadows raised. Whites bumped up a bit, and Blacks brought down. A small amount of Clarity was added, and Vibrance was lowered. 
Adobe Photoshop Layers Palette
The Background Layer shows how the image comes out of Adobe Camera RAW with the processing shown. It is quite a Sepia tone which cold be OK but not the look for which I was going Above that is a Black & White Adjustment Layer. Next up, is the Layer generated by a trip to NIK Silver FX Pro 2. (available free of charge from Google) It created the full black & white conversion. I added some structure, grain, and controlled the intensity of the black and white. There’s a Layer Mask to allow some of the original image to show through without the processing from NIK. Above that is a Layer in Soft Light Mode for dodging and burning. The top Layer is a Curves Layer to allow some selective lightening of the image to bring some extra attention to the cars.
I think these infrared images would look great printed on metal.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
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by successfulbob | photography, photography creativity, photography education, tuesday painterly photo art
Tuesday Painterly Photo Art
John Hartman, M.Photog.Cr, CPP, A-ASP, EA-ASP
Jealous.
If I have one word to share about John that would be it. I am jealous of his ability to absorb information and ideas about photography and photographic arts and then find a way to earn income from it. John has been sharing his photography and business knowledge for over thirty years and he’s still breaking new ground on a regular basis.
Throughout his 42-year professional career, this Wisconsin-based photographer has made it his life and business mission to find out what everyone is doing and then doing something different. One of his recent personal projects has been mastering the art, science, and business of the technique of painting with light. Exposing dozens or sometimes hundreds of separate shots with continuous LED lights and then blending them together in Photoshop, a light painted photograph simply looks like no other image.
All images in this post are © John Hartman. Light painted art.
Before Light painting
Once the process was mastered, he began testing the commercial viability of this new product. Clients have responded enthusiastically, resulting in commissions that include images up to 10 feet long and sales that often reach into five figures. Subjects include automobiles, jewelry, food, architecture, motorcycles, musical instruments, farm tractors and aircraft. His clients include corporations, collectors, hobbyists, enthusiasts and others who own and appreciate the finer things of life.
Light Painted Fire Truck in station 
Single Capture of firehouse
One of his light paintings of a Ferrari F12 Berlinetta was chosen as a Grand Imaging Award finalist at Imaging USA in 2015, and was also included in the 2015 World Cup Photographic Competition.
Interestingly, nearly 100% of John’s light painting clients are males, who are proud of their ‘babies’ and are willing to invest whatever it takes for a unique image for their office, home, garage or man cave.
Motorcycle Garage Light Painting 
You got it. This is before!
“The process of painting with light is neither simple nor intuitive,” says Hartman. “The high skill level required ensures the look will remain unique and will not be bastardized or diluted by a set of actions or plug-ins. The photographer willing to invest the time and effort required to become proficient in light painting can develop and retain 100% of that lucrative business in their market area.”
Violin & case Light Painting
The violin looks just a wee bit different in the before image
John is currently experimenting with an unmanned aircraft vehicle (a drone) using a mounted LED to light paint larger subjects such as buildings, landscapes and large vehicles such as farm implements and fire trucks.
You can see a short video showing him light painting a 1957 Lincoln Continental Mark II here.
Photographers have taken notice of John’s work, and requests to learn his process have resulted in a four-city tour titled The John Hartman Light Painting Workshop, to be held in his hometown of Stevens Point, WI, as well as in Pittsburgh, Seattle, and Sedona, AZ (hosted by Bob Coates). Click here for more information.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
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by successfulbob | black & white, HDR photography, infrared photography, landscape photography, Lumix G6, Lumix Lounge, photography creativity
Infrared Photography Panorama Style
“The sailing clouds went by, like ships upon the sea.” — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Clouds scudding across the azure skies. Words can take you to some beautiful places but as the Chinese say, a picture is worth a thousand words. That’s why I keep an eye peeled on the sky. When the clouds start racing, or even lumbering through the red-rock country of Sedona I grab a camera because interest is added to the scene.
Even if it’s mid-day, I grab a camera and head outdoors. My camera of choice for these times is infrared. I enjoy the high contrast black and white rendering of clouds rendered against a deep dark sky. A Lumix G6 was converted by LifePixel and it has expanded my shooting times as infrared shines when it’s time to put the camera up for regular color photography. I used the Kit lens that came with the camera and was pleasantly surprised at the solid quality of the captures. (G Vario 14-42mm f3.5-5.6) It makes for a super light-weight combo.
Bell Rock Vista in Sedona – Infrared Panoramic image with Courthouse Butte
I tend to try to push the envelope and experiment when I’m on self-assignment. In yesterday’s adventure, it was to add panorama to infrared. It took quite a bit more work. I’ll let you be the judge to see if it was worth it.
Five images overlapping by about 40% were captured. With the camera set to black & white, three exposures one stop apart were saved in jpeg format to ensure detail in highlight and shadow areas once they were processed. Each set of three images were treated in Aurora HDR software.
Screenshot of images used before processing
Each of the final five images was loaded into Adobe Photoshop to process the panorama. Whoops! That was an unusual fail. Could be the handheld capture caused some extra deformity in the files. Usually, I can depend on Photoshop to render a solid panorama but with this set of images, there was way too much distortion in the resulting output. (I’ll experiment with these files again when I have some more time and see if different rendering intent might be of help) I couldn’t find my AutoPano Pro software on this computer so I resorted to having Photoshop load all the files into Layers and added my own Masks blending the images together by hand. It’s good to remember the ‘Old School’ methods when the automatic software options aren’t there for you.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
PS – Another cloud description I enjoy. “Clouds hastening like messengers through heaven.” —John Hall Wheelock
PPS – Cloud quotes referenced in this post were found in The Free Dictionary by Farlex. I’m book-marking that page for future reference!
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