by successfulbob | commercial photography, fine art musician portrait, graphic design, Lumix GH4, Lumix Lounge, musician photography, people photography, photography, photography lighting resources
Honored…
That’s what I am when I am asked to help fellow artists, in this case musicians, to photograph and create images and packaging to help them sell their CD.
Eric Miller and Ralf Illenberger are releasing a new music project on March 22nd at Relics Restaurant in Sedona and asked me to come by and make a photo showing them in their creation space. Of course, I asked what vision was in their mind and I headed for the shoot with all sorts of ideas on how I was going to light the scene. And then found them in this ‘closet-like’ space and had to start from scratch on what I was going to do. First we had to revisit the vision. Recreate working the feeling of working late into the night… Possible moods to depict? Serious, fun, thoughtful, etc…
Small room. Large window. First task – make the sun go away by blocking the light from the window. 2nd task – find a way to light the scene. Used the wall to bounce a large strobe because there was no room for light modifiers. Note that the walls are painted reflective gold and deal with the color change that would occur. Add a small LED light from camera left to fill shadows and add detail. Find point of view. Choose a viewpoint outside the door looking in to give the viewer a sense of peeking in at these guys at work. Almost voyeuristic.
Process image for the mood I was looking. Change mind as experimentation led to processing a warmer gold tone image taking advantage of the golden walls. Sharp. But layers of soft at the same time. A little painterly kind of fantasy look.
To the design. Choose one working photo for the cover and add several additional photos to help tell the different moods of the story. Choose fonts. Design.
Show initial layout. Get feedback and more information. Refine layout. Retouch.
Repeat.
Move graphics and refine to create CD information. Send for final review of layout, spelling clearance and last minute tweaks.
Convert files for the printer. (repeat a couple times as we found a couple small errors and additions)
And here it is.
Heart Tree CD Jacket for Ralf and Eric
The capture was with the Lumix GH4 and the 12-35mm f2.8 Vario Lens. I ended up using just the 250 watt modeling light on the Paul C Buff White Lightning X-3200 light plus a little kicker fill from the Fiilex Brick LED light This is a pretty handy light to have in your quiver. Color balance and brightness is adjustable and the light is quite soft. Give you a nice WYSIWYG and doubles as a video light.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | Lumix FZ 1000, Lumix GX7, Lumix Lounge, photography, photography seminar
First time I’ve been in the sanctuary of a church since I was an alter boy!
Speaking at the Photographic Society of Chattanooga this past weekend and the hall where we were originally going to have the program was in use for a basketball tournament. Te ‘Photo-Synthesis’ program was well received and no lightening rained down from above so all was well.
Speaking in the sanctuary…
This is a great group and they said they were very appreciative of the sponsorship from Panasonic and the Lumix brand of cameras allowing me to join them. In showing the Lumix line of cameras the Lumix FZ 1000 was the hit of the day. followed closely by the Lumix GX7.
When people ask me for advice on which camera they should buy I never jump with an answer until I’ve quizzed then to find out exactly what they want to accomplish with them. The line up of capabilities of the different cameras is pretty amazing but there seems to be one built for almost every need. It’s wonderful to help people get the proper camera that meets their needs…. and budget.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | architectural photography, fine art photography, graphic design, Lumix FZ 1000, Lumix Lounge, photography, photography education, photography seminar
Exercise.
Makes you stronger.
Exercise makes you better.
Exercise doesn’t have to physical to be helpful to you.
As part of a workshop I conducted for the Photographic Society in Chattanooga, Tennessee we all went down to the aquarium and waterfront area downtown to begin the day. I shared ideas I have about gathering textures for the ‘Photo-Synthsis’ technique I teach. The exercise was to gather textures and subject matter to work with later in the day. There was one mandatory subject, the Market Street Bridge. After heading to our computers we all were tasked with creating an image of the bridge. It proves once again that you can give multiple photographers the same subject to work with and come out with a variety of finished images. Here’s a few the class shared with me.
This was by Mickey Rountree. If you would like to see more of Mickey’s work which contains, as he says, lots of HDR and pin up art. (I saw some of Mickey’s work and it’s definitely worth a look. Some very stylized interesting techniques) Go here. © 2015 Mickey Rountree
“Bob, I thoroughly enjoyed both days (of instruction) and have enough new ideas that it will take weeks to play around with and learn the techniques well. You are a great teacher; knowledgeable, enthusiastic, and yet easy going and approachable. Hope you enjoyed your time in Chattanooga.” Mickey
This one is by Myra Reneau. © 2015 Myra Reneau
“Thanks Bob for a great workshop both days this weekend. I especially liked today. Thanks for your help in working on my selections (as well as well as everything else). Anyway, safe travels! I am looking forward to learning more. Thanks again,” Myra Reneau
By Rosemary Jardine. In addition to using the textures and techniques we talked about in the class I enjoyed Rosemary’s
composition and framing of the secondary bridge. © 2015 Rosemary Jardine
“Thanks for the compliment using my work on your blog! I shared the link on my facebook page. Here is my finished project from the workshop yesterday. I finished this up with a layer that I painted some highlights on the water canons as well as a warming mask. Thank you once again for coming to our area and sharing your knowledge with us. most of my current skill came from the internet, tutorials and so forth. It was a blessing to have the personal training. You have given me the desire and skills needed to proceed forward with my passion for fine art photography. I can hope to one day produce they quality of work you, yourself are doing. That is if I have enough years left in my life, although I do consider myself a fast learner. I also want to let you know your slide show is perfect, the music suits it so well!” Sincerely, Rosemary Jardine
© 2015 Bob Coates
I used the Lumix FZ 1000 to have a complete zoom range to vary my captures. Able to go wide for scenes and also able to get close-ups of various textures. A handy camera to work with indeed! Here is my Market Street Bridge rendition…
Four photographers. Four images with a totally different feel. Have I told you lately that I love photography!
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | bird photography, fine art photography, graphic design, Lumix Lounge, photography, photography education
WOW! What great people in the Photographic Society of Chattanooga!
Taught an all-day class today, thanks to Panasonic Lumix being a sponsor, and prepping for tomorrow with an all day advanced Photo-Synthesis class and after coming back to my room after a wonderful dinner I received my favorite kind of email from one of the attendees…
Hi Bob,
I really enjoyed today’s seminar and am looking forward to the workshop tomorrow. I couldn’t wait to put some of the new knowledge I gained today into practice. Below you will see my before and after images. I am not happy with the birds, but as you taught today I saved my work in PS format so when I am fresh I can go back and tweak it. I put my mouse away, used my Wacom and keyboard shortcuts, I need a cheat sheet! I used 4 texture layers three with masks, an burn layer ( I learned about that today ;-) ) added a vignette and dropped in a few birds. I also increased the detail from my original image using topaz adjust.
Oh I forgot to set a timer and now need to move and stretch. Thanks again for such a great seminar!
Until tomorrow,
Rosemary
Here’s the original image © Rosemary Jardine used to start playing with ideas she learned in yesterday’s
Photo-Synthesis class at the Photographic Society of Chattanooga.
Art image using textures, blend modes and masks by © Rosemary Jardine.
Way to put the ideas to work Rosemary! Can’t wait to see where you take your images we talked about in class and what we’re going to learn about tomorrow in the advanced class! I figure you had a good basis to start… Hopefully some of my thoughts spurred you on to this, and more, creativity….
Your in Creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | fine art photography, Lumix Lounge, photography, photography education, photography seminar
At the end of the week I’ll be winging my way to Tennessee to present a couple all day programs on my techniques for creating fine art painterly images called Photo-Synthesis.
Get more info here
The first day will be in-depth starting with the basics in Photoshop and is hosted by the Photographic Society of Chattanooga and sponsored by Panasonic and the Lumix line of cameras and is $20 Contact the society to sign up and pay. Day two will be more in-depth and hands on. We’ll hit the streets to capture images to work with then go to our individual computers to create artwork with me stepping you through the process… That class will be $49. Get in touch with me to sign up and pay. bob@bcphotography.com
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | black & white, Lumix FZ 1000, Lumix Lounge, photography, photography education
Take away the color!
Let the shape, form and tones come forward… Simplify.
It’s easy to do but not necessarily simple.
Making black and white conversions of our images can give a whole new level of depth to our image making skills. With the ability to touch every single pixel we have more control than ever before. Ansel Adams would have been in Heaven to have this level of control to achieve the image he saw in his mind. That was what the Zone System and his special ways of exposing the scene and processing film not to mention choosing paper, light source and dodging and burning in the darkroom to pull the print he wanted.
Today’s subject is a green bloom from a Gopher Plant. Lots of green tones from light to dark are represented in the capture. By the way I used the Lumix FZ 1000 in Macro mode. When zooming in to 400mm you can fill a frame pretty well with it’s minimum focusing distance of 3.3 feet. If you shoot wider you can focus down to 3 centimeters but without adding supplemental light I find I have too many shadows to deal with so photographing from a distance can be helpful. In this case I was back just a bit with a 27mm equivalent setting.
Original capture.
Different settings and conversions to black and white.
You may or may not like the one I choose which is a combination of some of the settings seen above. The point is through experimentation and using different ways of stripping color from an image you can create many different feelings from the same information. One of my favorite programs for converting to black and white is Google’s NIK Silver FX Pro 2. By the way if you own a license for almost any NIK product Google will hook you up at no charge for the full NIK software suite. If you don’t have a current one you can get the suite for, I believe, $149. This is some solid software with lots of creative possibilities.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
