by successfulbob | photography, photography - art quote, photography education
Sunday Photo/Art Quote – Charles Maring
Met Chuck at a WPPI convention quite some years ago.
Impressed I was then. And even more-so now. He has grown and pushed his skills in tremendous ways. He has been at the forefront of creativity, and I have enjoyed watching his growth. He has leveraged technology to improve his photo and art imagery and expanded his skill set to include video production to rival pro houses. He is a great marketing person; I think you should take a look at the Maring’s website. Notice the plural. I would be remiss in not mentioning the Chuck is part of a team. As they say behind every successful man, there’s a strong woman. His wife Jennifer fulfills that role exceptionally well.
Can you tell I’m a fan of the Marings?
Here’s the quote that I grabbed from his art website that led to today’s post.
“The ability to observe and capture truth with eloquence is an art form that takes instinct. However, even instinct can be honed, and when the experience solidifies one’s sixth sense, it becomes intuition.” Charles Maring This quote continues
I often reference practicing your skills here on Successful-Photographer along with not being afraid to fail as that is one of the strongest ways to learn. I believe what Chuck is referring to in his quote is the ability to push and practice and study until you move to the place where your mind is working so well that you almost don’t even know all the thought that went into the creation of an image.
I’ll ask, to remind you once again, how much have you practiced this week? How much have you studied? Have you pushed enough to make your thought process in creating imagery intuitive?
If the answer is no, time to get on the stick.
Yours in creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | fine art musician portrait, Lumix GH4, Lumix Lounge, musician photography, photographer of musicians, photography, photography creativity
Sound Bites Grill adds Melanie to the Wall of Fame
Remember Woodstock?
Me either. A little before my time.
But I do remember I grew up with a lot of music from that era. One of the artists recently appeared at Sound Bites in Sedona, Arizona. Melanie put on a fun show with a reprise of her classic hits like New Key and Look What They Done to My Song along with some newer material. Follow up with Melanie’s website here for more music info, tour dates, and history.
One of the benefits of being the house photographer at SBG is I have the opportunity to attend a lot of shows and view lots of entertainment. The other bonus is Stephen and Michele appreciate the work I do and allow me to create the art pieces from the live performances.
Melanie from her live performance at Sound Bites.
ORIGINAL CAPTURES WITH LUMIX GH4 35-100MM F2.8 VARIO LENS 1/40TH SEC F2.8 ISO 3200
Here’s the process. I photograph the performers through their show. Once images are downloaded, I cull the non-keepers. There can be quite a few of these due to blurred movement, changing lighting conditions, etc. Then I choose one that helps to tell the story, and I extract the performer from the image using Adobe Photoshop. I’ll open another file and import the extracted image. Then I’ll experiment with bringing in different textures as Layers. Changing the Blend Modes of the layers changes how they interact with the layers below. Layer Masks allow me to be selective about where changes will show. I have the artist sign their autograph and ‘message to the house’ in black marker on white paper. That is scanned and brought into the final art. That layer is inverted making the text white, and the Screen Mode is used to make the paper disappear.
Melanie & Family – Melanie has some incredibly talented progeny. They joined her on stage. Son Boe wails on the guitar. Daughter Jeordie is a singer/songwriter in her own right. (she’s playing some dates down the road in Phoenix in the next few days) All in all a great show.
You can see here that while the same general technique was used on both images, there is an entirely different ‘feel’ to the imagery. I enjoy the challenge of trying to do something a little different for all the art that hangs on the Wall of Fame. If you find yourself in Sedona stop by, grab some grub, and check out the ‘Wall’ in person.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | black & white, infrared photography, landscape photography, Lumix G6, Lumix Lounge, photography, photography creativity
Infrared Photography on the Oak Creek
My job is tough!
Yesterday I took on the task of going hiking in Oak Creek Canyon in Sedona, Arizona to capture infrared photos. OK, maybe tough isn’t the correct word for this assignment. I love almost all aspects of working in photography. Getting out into nature and exploring is high on the list of the good parts.
I’m up in Oak Creek Canyon between Sedona & Flagstaff. The picnic area is called ‘Halfway.’ So named because it’s halfway between the hugely popular (& crowded) swimming hole known as Slide Rock and an excellent trail called West Fork. Halfway is a little less traveled spot as you have to scramble down a fairly steep embankment while climbing over rocks. Once down to the creek there’s a bit of rock hopping to navigate your way around.
LUMIX G6 20MM LENS F1.7 LENS @F9 ISO 160 1/200TH SEC
But I digress.
On to today’s thoughts on working the with a camera converted to infrared. I had my Lumix G6 converted by LifePixel with a standard IR filter ad it is working out pretty much as I had hoped it would. I find myself using the 20mm Lumix f1.7 lens quite often. It’s sharp, fast, light and has a very low profile. I guess at a 40mm full frame equivalent it pretty closely matches a standard field of view which I feel lends itself to most of my infrared captures.
As I make my IR captures I have been bracketing exposures. When I first started I was bracketing by five stops as I was learning how the camera ‘sees’ with the IR filter installed. I’ve now moved to a three-stop exposure bracket but I also set an exposure compensation adjustment depending on the dynamic range of the scene in front of me. I am capturing the images in RAW plus jpeg with the camera set to black and white. White balance is set to daylight.
The image above is two jpegs blended together to achieve the tonal contrast for which I was looking. After getting the tones blended in Photoshop using a mask, the Layers were merged and a trip to NIK Silver FX Pro 2 for some sharpening. I used the Structure and Fine Structure settings si tweak the sharpness and change the resulting layer blend mode to Luminosity. Only the luminous information is then transferred to the image. Then NIK Color FX Pro 4 was added utilizing the Glamour Glow to add some IR life to the highlights. The shadows were protected from the glow.
LUMIX G6 20MM LENS F1.7 LENS @F14 ISO 400 1/200TH SEC
This image was processed from a single jpeg which was opened in Adobe Camera RAW. Jpegs can be opened in the RAW editor to use the controls available but it does not have all the information of a RAW file. I was just trying to control contrast with this treatment so I didn’t feel the need to start with the RAW file. Exposure was adjusted as well as the highlight and shadow detail. A soft light layer was added for some dodging and burning. A vignette completes the treatment. I enjoy all the textures and tones of this scene.
Infrared photography can take midday, which is usually a tough time of day for making photographs and turn it into a blast.
That was my play yesterday. I created a few more scenes I’ll share with you tomorrow.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | fine art photography, inspiration, photography creativity, photography education, tuesday painterly photo art
Tuesday Photo Art – Michelle Parsley – M.Photog.M.Artist.Cr., CPP
Another country heard from.
Michelle does a lot more painting of elements by hand than other artists that have been featured in this space. This shows that there is more than one way to skin a cat when creating art from photography.
Painted image by Michelle
Here is the base image for the painting above.
Michelle explains.
“I’m not the best beginner Painter teacher because I create so much of my images by painting freehand. However, Heather the Painter is one of the best beginner Painter teachers I’ve ever had the pleasure to work with. If your readers really wanting to delve deep into learning to paint with Corel, they can find her online tutorials at heatherthepainter.com.”
A finished image. Note the attention to detail in the lighting patterns & color temperatures in various areas of the painting
Base images for the painting above. Center image © Patty Hallman – Michelle used with permission.
Michelle suggests, “If you like the painted look but don’t really want to spend several hours on a single image, Heather and I teamed up to create a wonderful tutorial set that can allow you to go from a simple photograph to a painted look in roughly ten minutes. Combining Heather’s hand painted backgrounds with a few simple and affordable plugins, a painted look can be achieved in no time flat. You can find my tutorial called “Create a Painting n 10 Minutes or Less!” on my site at elevateyourart.com. Use the code $10OFF to save $10. Inside the tutorial is a discount code for Heather’s backgrounds, Alien Skin Snap Art, and Topaz Labs. This technique can also be used to reduce the amount of time needed to create an image in Corel by simply using Corel to refine the features a bit at the end. it is a very speedy workflow for those of us that create painted portraits regularly!”
See more of Michelle’s art here. https://parsleyfineart.com
Yours in Creative Photogrphy, Bob
by successfulbob | photography, photography education
Write Better Blog Posts
The PAIN!
The AGONY!
I don’t know what to write in my next blog post. Arrrgh!
Been there done that. No more. I bought Jenika’s Irresistible Words quite a while ago and it made it easier to come up with new material for my posts without straining my brain.
What will Irresistible Words do for you?
Highlights:
• Learn to write a blog post in 20 minutes or less
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• How to gain and keep an audience.
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• Will make all the communication you need to do easier during the summer high season.
Jennica is the driving force behind Psychology for Photographers and here lessons are easy to follow. She spoon feeds you the information in tasty bites. You almost don’t even realize you are learning.
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Irresistible Words teaches you how to fill that website with words that lead people to book – without making you feel like you’re “selling.”
Remember, along the way, you’ll learn to write blog posts in 20 minutes or less, avoid 2 key mistakes that sink your bookings, and 9 surefire ways to end writer’s block. (Full info here.)
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
PS – I am an affiliate with Psychology for Photographers. I do receive and affiliate fee for sales when you buy, but I really enjoy this product myself!
