by successfulbob | commercial photography, photography
Having a professional image to use to promote yourself throughout the community is important. We tend to dislike having a portrait made because of several reasons. Number one may be because you’ve never had a professional portrait made. What’s the difference between getting a picture taken and having a portrait crafted? Plenty!
I’m a fan of the square crop but zoomed in to have more impact because these images are usually displayed small.
When people look at photos taken of themselves usually it was taken when they weren’t ready, were in poor light and due to past viewings of photos they always say, “I don’t look good in pictures!”. So tension rises leading to an even more uncomfortable looking photo. Add to that idea we see ourselves in the mirror which means seeing our face reversed from the photo so this compounds the problem of our self image. Lets add one more thing… We tend to freeze our self image in our brains to a time when we looked younger and supposedly better.
Many things go into deciding how the shoot should be accomplished. What is the message the person is trying to share? Powerful, friendly, approachable, knowledgeable or some combination of all attributes? Who is the audience for the photo? In what media will this be used? Knowing this information will determine the position the camera, wardrobe selection, lens choice, background choice and ultimately the success of the session. Remember that shooting into the shadow side of a person’s face adds depth and interest even if it is a subtle lighted area. This was a formal head shot of Walt who is in business development and a global IT services company with a focus on Energy and Utility companies. Let me know if you think we got it right….
Official formal business portrait. note the highlights on the short lit side of Walt’s face.
Square crop for social media site like LinkedIn and Facebook.
by successfulbob | landscape photography, Lumix GX7, Lumix Lounge, panorama, photography, photography education
Gotta tell you the more I use the Lumix GX7 the more I like it!
At a friends house for dinner last night and the light started to get pretty nice on the red rocks. Had the GX7 with me because it’s so portable (read small). Tried the in-camera panorama stitching and pretty darn amazed at the result. The camera tells you if you are moving too fast or too slow during the stitch panorama shooting. If it doesn’t think it’s got a good capture it doesn’t waste card space – it just tells you to start over. This is handheld and swept from left to right with what sounded like 12 exposures.
The good and the bad and the good again… Good – This looked beautiful on the back of the camera even when I zoomed to take a fairly close look. Bad – When I opened the file there were a couple areas in the sky where there were some light bands when I got to view it on the studio monitor. Good again – The bands were easy to remove using the patch too in Adobe Photoshop CS6. I have a feeling as I get more accustomed to shooting with the panoramic setting that banding will become less of a problem.
In addition to cleaning up the two bands in the sky I took out a little bit of encroaching roofs from the bottom and added a tone curve to bring down the sky a little. Had I been thinking I could have added the tone curve in the camera as the panorama was being captured. Yes you can add curves and other special settings in camera! There was no adjustment to the image for a warping which happens many times when processing out files into panoramic software.
Let me know what you think!
Panorama photo in the Village of Oak Creek, Sedona, Arizona
by successfulbob | fine art portrait, photography, photography education
One of my fine art photography clients came to me with a photo of a recently deceased restaurant owner from his favorite restaurant in Prescott, Arizona. He wants to create a gift of a framed art portrait printed on canvas to hang in a place of honor to remind patrons of the vibrant, fun host he was.
Here’s the challenge. The photo was a snapshot taken with on camera flash with a busy background. Take this image and turn it into a 40 inch canvas. Challenge accepted! I used my ‘Photo-Synthesis’ technique to create this art piece. First I isolated the subject from the background using various selection tools and placed him on his own layer. Then using the stamp tool I moved the catch lights in his eyes to set the direction of light. Painted some shadows using the soft light layer mode using a soft black brush to add some shadows to his face to add some depth and dimension. Because it’s an Italian restaurant I selected several textures captured from walls in Europe and blended them together using Adobe Photoshop in various blend modes. Added some painting techniques I’ve been studying and toned the image to a warm reddish golden color. The art portrait has not been through final tweaks and possible color changes that my art patron can ask for if he desires, but I thought it was far enough along for me to share with you.
Here’s the before and after… You decide. Success??
Art Portrait created by Bob Coates Photography from snapshot.
To see more art images from Bob Coates Photography check out this web site. If you would like to talk about a me coming to speak to your photography group about these techniqes or other photography education programs give me a shout. If you have enough members my expenses may be picked up by Panasonic as I am a Lumix Luminary.
by successfulbob | photography, photography - art quote, photography education
Sunday is a great day for noodling around ideas inspired by the photography/art quote I have chosen to chat about. Amazingly it’s already Labor Day Weekend. Where did the summer go. (Guess it’s time to put away the white outfits?)
Today’s quote is from Elliot Erwin who I think expresses the feelings of a lot of photographers, including me, in that if we weren’t doing photography for a living we’d be photographing for pleasure. There is a tendency to at times take this thing that we love, and due to the need to make a living from it because we choose to become professionals it becomes a labor instead of a love.
One way I combat this is to assign myself personal projects. It could be creating a specific new to me type of art with my camera and Photoshop, approaching a person with character and asking to photograph them or just going on a photo hunt for grins.
If you are like Elliott am me grab your camera for a little while this weekend to start playing like you used to when you were still an amateur and bring back the love and leave the labor for another day.
“I am a professional photographer by trade and an amateur photographer by vocation.” Elliott Erwitt
PS Just as I have found to have learned the most when first attempting to create photographic images by experimenting I see my personal projects extending my photography skill-set and adding to the tools in my professional quiver.
by successfulbob | fine art photography, Lumix GX7, Lumix Lounge, photography, photography education
As part of the Fine Art Photography portion of my class in Oakbrook, Illinois at SCU Summer Session I photographed the Doubletree Hilton hotel where the conference was held. As part of the lesson I showed techniques to convert the property image into an artistic rendition suitable for wall art, marketing or showing off on the web site. The art photography stems from a technique I call ‘Photo-Synthesis’. Adding textures, in this case textures photographed around the property, adding them as different layers and using blend modes and masks to control how everything comes together. Here’s what I came up with after returning to Sedona to tweak and refine the image I created in class. 
This fine art photography rendition of the Doubletree Hotel in Oakbrook, IL. was captured with the Lumix GX7. I really like the dynamic range of the file achieving detail in the light and dark areas of the image. I did however expand that range a bit more by taking a 3 stop bracket to achieve an even greater range. This setting is easily achieved and the motor drive of image capture makes it easy to align the images even when hand-holding the camera. As a Lumix Luminary I was able to use this camera in advance of it’s release on October. Gotta tell ya’ I’m likein’ it!
As a shameless marketer I have sent a copy of the image to the sales department of the Doubeltree Oakbrook Hotel with the idea that they might want to have it as a decor image for their lobby or use it in their marketing materials… We’ll see how that goes.
by successfulbob | marketing, photography, photography education
While in classes at Summer Session at the Doubletree Hilton hotel in Oakbrook, IL we had a serious look at how to get your photography business name out through marketing… without spending a bunch of hard earned dollars. This portion of the class was about three hours and covered info like networking, business card design, price lists and press releases among other tips and tricks. Here’s some of the feedback from students –
“Bob, The class went very well. I don’t think I’ve had a more concise and effective marketing session. What you do is not incorporate marketing into your workflow and lifestyle so it does not overwhelm..it just is. I like that a lot”. Eric Wojtkun
“Bob, Fine arts photo training from you is not for the faint of heart as your class is kind of like drinking from a fire hydrant (in a good a way). What’s clear is you know art, photography and the business thereof. Thanks for inspiring me. Thanks for sharing. Regards,” Cortez A. Carter
“Bob, If I were to summarize what I got of today’s course in one sentence. ‘ In a one day session Bob Coates delivered a high level view of how his businesses work along with a “deep dive” into his process and vision of creating photographic fine art.’ I am very glad that I chose to attend this session of SCU Summer School. It helps re-enforce my feeling that I know I can be successful in the world of fine art photography. It reminded my of some of my weak points in my business plan and firmed up my resolve.” Bob Fairbairn
All in all it was a solid class and I enjoyed seeing the ‘lights go on’ in student’s eyes as they saw things they could put to use in their businesses.
