by successfulbob | Lumix GH4, Lumix Lounge, musician photography, photographer of musicians, photography, photography creativity
Jeff Dayton Band – A Salute to Glen Campbell
Last Saturday night The Jeff Dayton Band played their Salute to Glen Campbell at Sound Bites Grill in Sedona, Arizona. Jeff and the band share stories of backing up Glen Campbell on the road and in the studio. It’s a fun show that’s an emotional roller-coaster with lots of laughter.
Stories and music led to Steve and Michele to add Jeff and the band to the Sound Bites Grill ‘Wall of Fame’. Here’s the band.
Jeff Dayton Band – Salute to Glen Campbell
Jeff Dayton
Images were captured with the Lumix GH4 with the 35 to 100mm f2.8 Vario lens. Then the individual musician images are selected and cut out using Adobe Photoshop then layering the images together then using textures and blend modes to create the artistic look.
I really enjoy photographing and creating art for musicians. And sharing ideas with you.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | commercial photography, marketing, photography education, photography marketing
Bob Coates Photography Commercial Web Site
Like the cobbler that left his family without repaired shoes because he could always get to it eventually my commercial photography web site was in need of a serious overhaul…
So I finally got off my butt and went to work on getting a new, more current look. My wife was never happy with my old site even though it did pretty well for me. When she overheard me chatting with a potential client & I said, “Glad you liked what you saw on my web site, but it does need a bit of an update.” She jumped on my case and motivated me to fix it up. Here’s the result you can see it here.
Screen capture of my newly refurbished Bob Coates Photography web site
Don’t be like me and wait to long to stay on top of your marketing! Put your best foot forward. You only have one chance to make a first impression. Make it a good one!
Your in Creative Photography, Bob
PS – My wife is happy about my new look. How about you? Any suggestions for improvement? It’s still a work in progress. I’ve still got a few more pages to add…
by successfulbob | photography - art quote, photography creativity, photography education, photography marketing
Sunday Photo/Art Quote March 6
Usually the Sunday Photo/Art Quote is devoted to creative arts and how to get better as an artist. Today it’s kind of a two-pronged thrust tied in with business. We are artists. But if we don’t get paid enough and often enough we’ll be out of business and not able to stay in this creative field.
Today’s quote comes from a man who is all business, yet appreciates and collects art. He is the founder of the Wizard Academy (an out-of-the-box-place-of-learning) and writes a weekly piece you can subscribe to called the Monday Morning Memo. (I know I look forward to the Memo and the subsequent foray through the Rabbit Hole that touches on art, science, business, the weird, music, art – well you gotta go there to understand)
But I digress. Here’s today’s quote…
“Every door of opportunity begins as a window in the mind.” Roy H. Williams
The reason this quote came forward this morning was because I gave a talk to the professional photographers of Michigan on ‘Personal Projects – Why to do them, how to do them and how to make money doing them’. The talk ties creating art for it’s own sake and finding a way to monetize it. I realized that every project I assigned myself I ALWAYS learned something new and found it led to at least one, if not more, of these five things…
• Service to my community. • Press releases. • Photographic competition images. • Food. • Money.
And, not necessarily was that list in order of importance. Most of the time I wanted to learn a new skill and then found a way to tie it to the list for extra benefit.
Think about his quote. Sit with yourself and quiet your mind. (I know it can be hard to do with the circus running ’round in there!) But do your best. Relax. Clear. Be in this moment for a little while. Can you see the window? What is just outside that you would like to do? Dwell there for a bit. Expand the idea.
Go do it…
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
PS – have some thoughts you’ like to share? I appreciate comments and moving this into a dialog. Agree? Disagree? Let me know….
by successfulbob | 4K photo mode, art books, landscape photography, Lumix FZ 1000, Lumix Lounge
Gotta tell ya’ FZ1000 is Great for Travel
It’s hard to beat the Lumix FZ1000 as a travel camera. At two and a half pounds there’s no problem having the camera on your shoulder all day long. The 25-400mm f2.8-4 lens is pretty sweet. With the Macro Mode on you can focus down to less than an inch. what more do your need?*
Here’s a few images from 34,000 feet from the window seat of an American Airlines plane wending it’s way from Detroit, where I was speaking and judging at a photography convention, to Phoenix on my way home.
Love the movement of the water through the scene. Gives the story about how some of the landscapes are formed over the years.
It’s fascinating watching the country unfold from way up high! Toto I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore…
Lots of different views from above…
I find myself inspired to take these images after reading Julianne Kost’s Window Seat – The Art of Digital Photography and Creative Thinking. Great images and story of how she created her book.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
* Well you may not need it but the camera also has 4K video and Photo Mode so you can pull 8MP stills from your video and a whole bunch more features that come in quite handy.
by successfulbob | inspiration, Lumix FZ 1000, Lumix Lounge, photography, photography creativity, photography education
Shoot the Moon
Long reach.
Gotta tell ya the Lumix FZ1000 has one of those.
Pulled into the driveway the other night and saw the full moon starting it’s ascent from the eastern horizon and I immediately ran for my camera. Now we’ve all had the wonderful (I say sarcastically) experience of photographing the moon and being disappointed by the amount of volume it took up in the entire image surface. You know, way too small for what we had in mind when we made the photograph.
The FZ1000 is 400mm at the long end of the zoom at f4. While solid even that is pretty short for something that is 238,900 miles (give or take a centimeter or two) away from the camera. The camera has a setting called Digital Zoom and shows and captures the image at a larger size. 1600mm in this case. This does degrade the image vs having optics do the job. But have you priced a 1600mm lens lately? In spite of a bit of degradation of image quality I like the Digital Zoom because I can see exactly how the image will fill the frame.
Even after cropping in there’s 2300 pixels of moon that when made smaller and placed in an art piece will have plenty of detail
Now are these images good for study of the craters on the moon’s surface? Heck no! But will they be good for art projects where a moon is needed? You betcha!
One way to add interest to a moon shot is to silhouette an object. I wish I had thought about this a bit more but didn’t have much time to scout out a more appropriate subject but you’ll get the idea with these mesquite branches starting to bud out with our warm weather.
Moon with mesquite branches
One thing to be aware of when attempting this when you have the foreground element in focus there will be a blob of light behind your subject. To help this along I took one of my plain moon images and placed it under the mesquite layer and put it into Multiply Blend Mode. This allowed the image of the moon with detail to show through.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
