by successfulbob | photography software
Aurora 2018 HDR Software Deal
I’ve found the Aurora HDR software to be the cleanest in creating images with a full range of tones and not having to fight the halos that often come with processing HDR files. Not a fan of the what used to be the ‘HDR Look’ but love having a full range of tones avaialble when the situation calls for it.
Skylum is having a sale on the software and upgades. The deal you see below can be sweetened by adding my code COATES for an additional ten bucks off.
Aurora 2018 HDR Deal
AURORA HDR 2018 72 HOUR FLASH SALE OFFER INFORMATION:
Aurora HDR 2018 + 10 sets of proffesional brackets for the lowest price ever!
Current users of Aurora HDR 2017 may upgrade for $39 ($29 with my coupon code);
New users can purchase Aurora HDR 2018 for $79 ($69 with my coupon code);
OFFER AVAILABILITY: Now through Sunday, May 20th.
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Aurora HDR 2018 – The most advanced photo editor for Mac & Windows.
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10 sets of proffesional brackets.
Don’t forget to use my coupon code of COATES to get the additional ten bucks off.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | graphic design, photography, photography creativity, photography education, photography retouching, photoshop tutorial
Texas School
The Best Little Photography School in the World
I spent last week in Addison Texas attending Texas School. This was my first time at this week-long orgy of photography education. It is intense. You spend a week with a single instructor getting a deep dive into their techniques in creativity. It was a blast.
The class I choose to attend was with Richard Sturdivant. (Check out Richard’s work and his tool shop) Sturdevant brings an artist and graphic design background to create composite images that transcend photography. To say I learned a lot would be an understatement. Richard’s use of tools in Photoshop is an eye-opening experience. New tools. New techniques. New ways of looking at the world to enhance reality into fantasy with a hyper-realistic look.
Here is an example of one of the projects which the class worked on.
My finished piece from the class project.
A photo session was shown using MoLights which can change the way you photograph subjects that have movement. A post will follow specifically about that. In the photo session, the model was asked to perform, and these lights fired as fast as the camera could fire. With my Lumix G9 that means twelve frames per second. NO misses!
Photos were made of a couple of models in a period dress, and stock files were shared. Each student worked with the images with a base of instruction but each finished piece produced was different. It’s kinda like when you give ten photographers the same subject, and you’ll end up with ten different interpretations.
Below see some of the working pieces from the project. There were tons more, but you get the idea.
Look at the final image and see how many elements were added from the image directly above.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | commercial photography, LumixGH5, people photography, photography, photography gear, photography lighting resources
Go Pet Friendly – Part Two
Here’s a follow-up to the post from the other day about shooting an author’s photo and some support images for a book project. Amy Burkert and her husband Rod are on the road searching and researching pet friendly travel venues and a book is being written about traveling with pets as an addition to the Go Pet Friendly website
One of the images was the whole crew and the thirty-seven foot Winnebago with which they travel the country. Lighting conditions were a bit on the contrastly side with high sun and shade under the awning.
Go Pet Friendly home on the road and the family that lives there.
I used two Paul C Buff White Lightning X-3200 lights to control the contrast of the scene. The main light was fitted with a thirty-six-inch Octabox and the other was used for fill with a thirty by sixty inch foldable softbox camera right. A couple of braketed exposuers were made to get a lighter exposure on the tree that was in shadow to bring back some detail that would have blocked up otherwise.
The lights were powered with Paul C Buff Vagabond Mini battery packs. Portable power comes in very handy on location as it keeps from dealing with cords. It makes it easier to position lights exactly where you would like them to be.
Amy also wanted to show off her ‘children’ Ty and Buster.
Amy and her dog Ty pose for a portrait
Amy, Ty and Buster pose in front of the RV
Images captured with the Lumix GH5 and the Leica 12-60mm G LEICA DG VARIO-ELMARIT PROFESSIONAL f2.8-4.0 lens
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | commercial photography, lighting, LumixGH5, photography lighting resources
Go Pet Friendly – Book Session
I don’t often share my commercial work on Successful-Photographer. I probably should.
So I will.
I received a call from a pleasant voice asking about a photography session for a book cover. Images needed would include an RV, two people, and two dogs. The owner of the friendly voice is named Amy Burkert. She and her husband Rod have been on the road for about six years traveling the country in an RV, looking for pet-friendly places and sharing their findings via their blog https://blog.gopetfriendly.com
The main photo Amy for which Amy was looking was her back cover author’s image. Especially for the book, she has written, the image should make her appear open, friendly, and inviting while telling a bit of her story. I always ask plenty of questions before coming up with a plan for the capture.
What is the layout of the book? Do you need a horizontal or vertical photo/ Have you considered your wardrobe? What background would you like to have, studio or environmental? What story do you wish to convey?
Amy at the wheel of the thirty-seven foot Winnebago
After all the questions were answered, we ended up with Amy behind the wheel as she does most of the driving while they are on the road. There wasn’t a lot of room for supplemental lighting which made me reach into my bag for LED lighting bricks from Fiilex. With three of the bricks, I was able to add some fill light and get some background separation. These battery operated lights are color and brightness tunable and can be tucked into tiny spaces.
I choose a high angle from which to shoot to enhance Amy’s friendly and open feel. When the subject is looking up in an image it makes the viewer feel they are looking down on the person. It didn’t hurt that the camera likes Amy and she was entirely comfortable in front of the camera.
I supplied a horizontal and a square version of Amy’s portrait. Additional support images were made of the RV with Rod and the rest of the crew including the two dogs Ty and buster which I’ll share in a future post.
Images were made with the Lumix GH5 and the Leica 12-60mm f2.8-4.0 Lens
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | fine art photography, graphic design, inspiration, Lumix G9, photography, photography creativity, photography gear
It’s Good To Have A Muse
Having a fellow artist who encourages you to explore new areas and ideas within your specialty is a fabulous tool to supplement your creativity.
Meet Pash.
She is my muse.
Pash Galbavy – Learn more check out her website
Pash is a life model, dancer, mask maker and performance artist. Her tagline is ‘Masks, Movement, Modeling and More.’ She often is performing new concepts and pushing boundaries that inspire and inform new work for me. Just yesterday Pash asked if I would cover a life posing event for her with her artist group. This day would find Pash and her group at the gallery of John and Ruth Waddell in Cornville, AZ. The Waddells have created a magical space with bronze sculptures dancing and cavorting around the property. A truly magical area that Pash enhanced with her interaction while the artists sketched and drew their interpretations of the scene.
Pash in a pose integrated with John Waddell’s bronze
Pash asking me to photograph and document her event had me make this image
Which led to me isolating some areas in moving toward a new piece of art
Working sketch experimenting with beginning textures
A picture I am currently calling ‘Merge’ (working title)
Images such as this are put together utilizing multiple photos of textures blended using Adobe Photoshop Layers, Color Modes, Blend Modes, and Masks. I sometimes will experiment with ten to twenty different versions before settling on a final image. This one is getting pretty close.
Images in this post were captured with the Lumix G9 and the Leica 12-60mm f2.8-4 lens.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | bird photography, fine art photography, Lumix G9, LumixGH5, photography, photography gear, wildlife photography
Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge – Part Three
If you have followed my work for any length of time, you know that I enjoy moving my work into a more painting-based look. I have taken a term I heard from Julianne Kost and adopted it for my new business. “Lens Based Artist.” I have decided to start promoting my more art based images and have begun gallery representation and selling my work as art.
More on that in future posts. (things are starting to take off. YAY!)
Back to Blackwater images and the post-processing. Here are a few photos of which I have played using the PhotoSynthesis process I have been working on over the years.
Geese in Flight. Love the wing positions and pattern of the birds in the sky.
I worked on this image on the plane while en route back to Arizona from my speaking engagement in Maryland where the images were captured. My seatmate was fascinated by the process, and I talked him through my thinking as I worked on the photo. There are several layers of multiple images blended using Adobe Photoshop’s blend Modes and masks. The geese in flight created their art with all the different wing positions. I was able to capture their flight using the **Lumix GH5 and the Leica 100-400mm lens. The reach of this lens with the stabilization in the camera are making captures such as this easier than ever.
Great Blue Heron on the shoreline.
After working on the piece and adding layers of textures, I pulled the image into Skylum’s Focus CK (part of the Creative Kit or available as a stand-alone) to add a bit of selective sharpness to the subject and vignette and slight blurring to the rest of the image. I use this tool in the Macro setting quite often. I could do the same thing directly in Photoshop, but it would take much more time and many more steps to accomplish the same thing. Plugins are very handy. I decide whether to purchase plugins based on how often I perform specific techniques. When I find the plugin saves me the time or makes it possible for me to do something I would not be able to accomplish otherwise, I buy.
Heron in Flight – All images are © Bob Coates Photography – All Rights Reserved
I don’t think any of these images are ‘ready for prime time’ as yet. I think of them as sketches testing ideas and pointing to the direction I wish to go.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
** I’ll be using the Lumix G9 in the future for most of my wildlife shooting. Designed with the stills photographer in mind, it adds 6 1/2 stops of handholdabilty (GH5 has 5) along with a better grip and button design for still photographers.
