by successfulbob | commercial photography, Lumix GX7, Lumix Lounge, photography education, success education
One of the ways I keep in shape with my photography skills is to practice and try new things on a regular basis. Yesterday I was having an IPA (that’s India Pale Ale for the brew bereft) I quickly photographed the chilled glass of beer and then the bottle before enjoying my libation… By the way it was quite tasty!
Then, before I went to bed I decided to build a mock up of a magazine ad for the brew. Here’s what I started with…
IPA beer bottle capture.
Frosted beer glass with a nice head. Images captured with the Lumix GX7 and the 20mm f1.7 lens.
Then it was off to Photoshop with three different textures and the tools to separate the bottle and the glass from the background. Using Layers and Blend Modes some drop shadows and a little VooDoo Magic I came up with this…
IPA ad mock up.
How have you stretched and practiced your skills lately?? Let me know…
Yours in Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | landscape photography, Lumix GX7, Lumix Lounge, photography, photography education
Mirrors are funny critters… They will lie to you as you look at them thinking, “Wow, I look good!” Whoops! wrong blog post. Back to our regularly scheduled conversation…
The focus point in a mirror is on a totally different plane than the frame that contains it. Been caught by the, photographed the bride in the mirror and found either the subject you wanted to have in focus in the glass or the surrounding area surprisingly out of focus?
Here a possible work-around when you would like to have everything in focus but don’t have time to get on a tripod with a really small aperture. And even if you had time to do that you still might not have enough DOF to make it work. This is an extreme example with several focus points in play. The background which has the sign telling us where we are. The side view mirror on the car. The side view mirror. And the convex utility mirror for helping to keep the driver out of accidents. All are important to telling the story I want to share so I made an exposure for each of those individual surfaces then blended them together in Adobe Photoshop. Here’s the result…
The assembled photo with all the pertinent information in focus. Bell Rock Vista in Sedona, Arizona.
Here are the raw captures before assembly.
Photographed with the Lumix GX7 and the 35-100 f2.8 Vario Lens while focusing through the range of the scene.
Now how about that bride shot with mom reflected in the mirror and crying???
If you have any questions don’t hesitate to give me a shout or comment on this post.
Yours in Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | Lumix GH3, Lumix Lounge, photography, time lapse
Tom Tayback and the Daddy O’s play a monthly show at the Sound bites Grill in Sedona, Arizona. When you see the show it is a seamless presentation of music and stories from the 50’s and 60’s called the Graffiti Gold Show. What you don’t see is the proverbial feet of the duck paddling underwater like crazy to make it work.
That’s why I like time lapse photography.
Here I take an hour and a half and show it to you in about one minute. I used the Lumix GH3. It has a built in intervalometer that allows you to set all your specific times, number of exposures and time between images captured. It even has a readout that tell you how long a time period will be covered with the settings saving some time with the calculator. On my previous camera systems I had to buy accessory equipment in order to accomplish time lapse images.
This is about 1400 images photographed every 3 seconds. The playback is at 30 frames per second…
Getting the Graffiti Gold Show show set up is quite a job…
by successfulbob | commercial photography, Lumix GH3, Lumix Lounge, photography
This is continued coverage from yesterday’s post of a photo shoot for the Sedona Integrative Medical Clinic….
The sense of place is important to show in your marketing materials. The mood and decor are helpful in making people comfortable in coming to your establishment. I can help you tell the story you want to share with your customers… Here’s a sampling of some images from the Center and the Medi-Spa.
Natalie at the front desk working the computer.
Dom at his station in the back office.
Looking over the Jane
Patient care with Vanessa.
by successfulbob | commercial photography, Lumix GH3, Lumix Lounge, people photography, photography, photography education
The Sedona Integrative Medical Clinic was a great opportunity to shoot in many different styles of work on one job. The catchphrase of Bob Coates Photography is ‘Making people, places and products look better than good.” Here was the job. Head shots, group shot, action images (for sense of place) and product images.
What a great group of people! I went to get some Physical Therapy from Eric and suggested I might be able to help in dressing up the Sedona Integrative Medical Clinic’s web site and marketing material. First on the docket was to update the Facebook header with a group image of the staff.
Nicole, Dom, Linda, Eric, Tera and Vanessa. Staff of the clinic.
I was looking for a very clean background and went with white to help give a clean medical feel. The font is Trajan Pro from their logo to tie together with previous marketing and is reversed with a drop shadow to keep with the white theme. Images were captured with the Lumix GH3 with a trigger to set off studio lights I brought in for the job. Paul C Buff lights were used one equipped with a shoot-through umbrella. A second light was outfitted with a regular umbrella on the same side as the shoot though for form fill. This gives a nice shape to the faces but doesn’t let the shadow side go too dark.
One suggestion I make for offices with multiple people is to photograph each individual separately and then assemble them into the group photo. This saves trying to rally all the staff for a new photo when there is a change of personnel. When that happens now we only need to photograph the new employee, remove the employee that is leaving and insert the new employee in the image. This saves tons of time and allows the staff photos to be up-to-date with little additional fuss or the cost of redoing the entire photo. Many different styles of background or lighting may be chosen with this approach.
I also set up a quick faux studio to highlight different product lines offered for sale. If this was a shoot for the manufacturer’s advertising there would have been a lot more attention to detail and lighting, but since this is just for web use I think we did OK using the ivy wall as a background and white surface as the base. I had Dom hold a scrim over the product in order to control the overhead lights giving an even illumination with no hot spots. Here are a couple examples…
Using a shallow depth of field allows the product to come forward in the photo.
Light coming form the window behind adds depth and dimension by
also helping to separate the product from the background.
The scrim Dom is holding spreads the light and keeps distracting
highlights from taking your attention away from the product.
I always ask in my business blog posts, “How may I help you tell your business story in a professional way?? Give me a call or drop me an email to have a chat about your wants and needs. No obligation and as always if you aren’t thrilled with the images we’ll work it again or I’ll refund your money.” And give them contact information.
I’ll show you some more images tomorrow that help tell the story of the clinic.
Yours in Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | Lumix GH3, Lumix Lounge, photography, photography education, video
While capturing some images of Esteban for the Sound Bites Grill ‘Wall of Fame’ I set up the Lumix GH3 to capture some video.
TECH STUFF – Panasonic H-HS12035 LUMIX G X VARIO 12–35mm/F2.8 ASPH X Series Lens set to 18mm at f3.5 1/60 sec ISO 3200. We didn’t have the capability to get sound directly from the house sound board. I mounted the shotgun mike on the camera and gave it a shot. In order to minimize wait staff traffic and too many heads in the frame the camera was high on a tripod. Instead of jumping on a chair or small ladder I turned the articulating viewfinder so I could see it from below for framing and focusing.
PROCESS Stuff – No real fancy editing here. I used ScreenFlow from Telestream (Learn more here). It’s actually a pretty versatile piece of software for the MAC OS 10.7 and higher that’s designed for capturing video and audio from your computer. It does allow you to do most video editing like add transitions, split clips, delete video sections, add captions and text and do some minor color correction and sound processing. I added video actions to gently zoom in and out to give the piece a little more professional feel. For under a hundred bucks you can’t beat this software especially if you also want to produce how-to tutorials on your computer.
Esteban with his daughter Teresa Joy on violin and percussionist Emilio Santiago
live at Sound Bites Grill in Sedona, Arizona produced with ScreenFlow
I am an affiliate of SreenFlow but I think this is a kick-a** product for the money. You can also get a trial version to see how you like it… If you have any questions give me a shout.
Yours in Photography, Bob
