Had a radio show interview with Mike Tabback on the weekly Tech Talk radio show. I’m on once a month to chat about cameras, photography, shooting techniques, Photoshop and more…
In this weeks episode we chat about some of the new Lumix cameras and our Luminary meeting in Sarasota, Florida. In the second half we talk about the International Photographic Competition for photographers put on by Professional Photographers of America. I am one of 45 the Judges who volunteer almost a week of their time to judge and critique entries. It is quite an honor and intense experience to be part of that event!
Finally catching up with some of my posts after being on the road for an entire week working with the Lumix Luminary Team and helping to judge the PPA International Photographic Competition outside Atlanta.
Here’s an image from our first night in Sarasota. This was captured with the Lumix FZ1000, a camera I find in my hand on a regular basis because it is so versatile. As they say, the best camera to create an image is the one you have on you. With a built in 25-400mm f2.8-f4.0 lens that weighs under two and a half pounds it makes it pretty easy to have on hand.
Sunset after processing with NIK Filters and Adobe Camera RAW Renders the scene closer to my memory of the scene. (OK maybe a little extra zing but not much)
Capture straight from the camera. I could have preprocessed the image in camera but we were busy enjoying getting together with fellow Luminaries and even though we are all photographers we tend to ‘grab’ some images when we are not officially being paid for a specific job.
Oh wait! It’s not Elvis it’s Chance Tinder’s tribute to Elvis with the Kentucky Rain Band and it was at Sound Bites Grill the other night. But, you wouldn’t know it wasn’t the King. Chance has a great Elvis voice but doesn’t go hooky with it. He’s very interactive with the audience and from my perch in the back I could see almost everyone dancing in their seats. And, scarves were being shared with women who were willing to head on up to the stage and share some dance moves. Chance is very much the professional actor. Here’s a description from his web site…
Chance’s secret is believing that it’s not always the voice, that plays the most important part, but it’s knowing exactly how to become the man himself on that stage! It’s basically the attitude of Elvis Presley… Shy but confident… Knowing exactly what he’s doing. Chance isn’t an ‘impressionist’ doing a spin Elvis Presley. Rather he’s Chance Tinder, the actor, recreating a character… Much like actor ‘Joaquin Phoenix’ portraying ‘Johnny Cash’, or entertainer/actor ‘Jamie Foxx’ re-creating the great ‘Ray Charles’.
Chance Tinder as Elvis live on Stage at Sound Bites Grill with a bit of artwork by yours truly for the ‘Wall of Fame’.
Man I can’t recommend catching this show enough. Lots of fun and memories seemed to appear out of the air taking me back in time.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
PS – Same basic gear, settings and post production as in this post.
Here’s a reminder of a way to keep your name in front of your clients. I write a column for the local newspaper sharing with people how to make better photos. The idea is when it comes time for the choice to hire a photographer I’ll be front of mind…
Article on photographing portraits… Note the credit line with links to web sites.
When you share solid information about photography people will realize there is much more to capturing a good image when they try… And when it comes time to hire a pro your name should be at the top of the list.
Just before leaving town to judge images for a week at an International Competition I photographed Sedona restaurant Sound Bites Grill who hosted Rockin’ guitarist Jennifer Batten to a packed house. Jennifer has some serious licks! She plays to a sound track that allows her guitar to shine. In addition there’s a video show to accompany each song. If you like great hard rock and blues guitar and you see her coming to town, don’t miss her!
Images were captured with the Lumix GH4 and 35-100mm f2.8 lens ISO 3200 f2.8 1/50 sec. with -2/3 stop exposure compensation in Aperture Priority Mode. The GH4 is able to retain the lighting from LED lights yet still not block up shadows.
Jennifer’s Sound Bites Grill ‘Wall of Fame’ image. This image uses my ‘Photo-Synthesis’ technique of blending Layers and textures.
Batten live on stage during the show with video in background. Used NIK Silver FX Pro 2 for black and white conversion.
Art print from the restaurant of Michael Jackson with Jennifer. See her video below with Jackson for a taste of her hard rockin’ guitar.
He was an artist in his own right as a coach. He was an inspiration to his players and all those he came into contact.
John Robert Wooden (October 14, 1910 – June 4, 2010) was an American basketball player and coach. Nicknamed the “Wizard of Westwood,” as head coach at UCLA he won ten NCAA national championships in a 12-year period, including an unprecedented seven in a row. Within this period, his teams won a men’s basketball-record 88 consecutive games. Wooden’s streak of seven consecutive NCAA Championships is even more remarkable and impressive due to the fact that to this day no other coach or school has won the tournament more than two consecutive years.
You ask, “Wait a minute Bob! What does a basketball coach have to do with photograph and art?”
“Make each day your masterpiece.” John Wooden
It has to do with art & photography because Wooden was an incredible motivator and being motivated is an important part of creating great art. Think about how you can stay at the top of your game. That’s one reason I keep looking toward short quotes to keep motivation front of mind. Here’s a few more from the coach…
“Nothing will work unless you do.“
“Success is never final. Failure is never fatal. It’s courage that counts.“
Look for inspiration in, and out, of photography. It’s a big world out there…
We had the Lumix Luminary gathering over the last couple days where we get together and share ideas, techniques and new information about the Lumix cameras and their capabilities. They were long days but very productive. We broke into teams and created some videos together. Video not being my number one priority in my business I learned a lot. Saw quite a few ways to add some value for my stills clients through using video and some new ideas that were introduced.
Here we are working on the beach. I’m getting the audio ready for the shoot and Armed with an FZ 1000 on one shoulder and a GH4 on the other. Image capture with the new Lumix G7 f8.0 200 ISO 1/640 sec It was shot by Dan using Tom’s G7 and 14-140 lens. He imported into his phone and messed with it using Snapseed. Added an HDR Scape layer and a Drama layer then used the Vertical Perspective under Transform and may have adjusted tone a bit..
(I’ll be sharing some work and features shortly from the G7. Pretty powerful camera!)
Sometimes as photographers running a one-man show our world can become a little insulated. Having an intense couple days with colleagues working and sharing ideas can be a great infusion of energy. Even if you can’t get together with a group like this I highly recommend at least getting together with a couple photographers and go out and shoot together for a couple hours. Then have a cup of coffee or an adult beverage or two. The relationships that you build doing things like this are wonderful!
Still working on photographing the Phoenix Airport Hilton after their eight million dollar refurbishing of the property.
It was great working with the staff while on the photo shoot. Everyone was as helpful as possible in getting the areas set for the photography. This makes the shooting day go better, smoother and leads to better photographs.
Sales manager Mike Manginelli was great in letting me know specifically what he was looking for. We were able to shoot to the IPad from the Lumix GH4 using the built in WIFI and Panasonic Image APP (free download) so he could see exactly what the camera saw as we worked out angles and ideas.
A bonus in operating and controlling the camera from the IPad (or IPhone or Android device) is when making multiple exposures to handle lighting situations with bracketing the camera is not touched. This allows for exact registration for blending various exposures using Adobe’s Photoshop Layers and Masks.
The Saguaro Room set for a reception.
Exterior night image.
Ballroom set for meeting.
Another bonus to shooting from a remote system is being able to ‘paint the room’ with multiple pops of a flash and see the results as you go. These images are blended into the final scene adding light where necessary to fill shadows or creativity for esthetic reasons to add interest. I used a Paul C Buff light with a strip light box attached and a Vagabond battery pack to stay mobile. The Buff wireless triggers complete the remote set-up.
I’ve found the ability to ‘light my images’ with multiple exposures has made my shooting more efficient giving a better quality image to my clients. I spend more time in post production but my clients time is not wasted and I’m able to get the property rooms back online so there is little revenue loss when I photograph.
How do you work your interior and architectural shoots?
I believe we all go through stages when learning photography of learning to see as the camera sees. Most of us start out by making images that have some decent composition and maybe the occasional lucky lighting scenario and people tell us we should become professional. These are usually family and friends that don’t have a lot of visual and artistic background and that becomes the standard by which we judge ourselves.
Then we practice.
Study.
Learn.
Practice some more.
Learn more.
Realize that we aren’t really creating images that have depth and dimension and start our work in earnest in becoming the best professional photographers we can be. At least that’s the way it seems to be working for me. Artists through time have recognized that many people look, but not all people see…
“There are three classes of people: Those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” – Leonardo Da Vinci
There is something about finally learning to see that is quite exciting. Perhaps I’m a slow learner or as I think, it takes time and study to really see. I’m not even sure I’m there yet… I’m still studying, art and other artists as well as photography and other photographers. Here are a couple of bonus quotes from other photographers.
“The camera doesn’t make a bit of difference. All of them can record what you are seeing. But, you have to SEE,” – Ernst Haas
What do I see? How do I use the camera to communicate the feeling I have about what I see? – Jim Graham
And, once we have learned to see, can we translate that into an image that others can see?
I’m still searching. How about you?
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
PS – here’s one of my favorite Ernst Haas photographs
New addition for the Sound Bites Grill ‘Wall of Fame’ in today’s post.
These musicians all reside on the Wall individually but they assembled into a great jazz/pop group and are playing Sunday nights at SBG. I saw them last week with my wife Holly and stayed until the last song was played. Eric Miller is a songwriter/singer/guitarist and is one of our favorite local artists. Eddie Barrattini bangs on the drums. Troy Perkins plays excellent bass on a guitar that he built himself.
From left Troy Perkins, Eddie Barattini and Eric Miller
It’s pretty amazing the musical talent we have living and performing here in Sedona!
Images were captures with the * Lumix GH4 and the 35-70mm f2.8 Lumix Vario lens. The GH4 has enough density range to capture detail in the shadows yet still have enough information in the highlights that are created with LED stage lighting. The tough part about photographing LED lighting is that the colors are very pure and don’t have a large spectrum of color as when we photographed tungsten lighting with gels over them.
The individuals were isolated by selecting and Masking in Photoshop. The individual Layers were then blended together with multiple texture images to create the final art in a process I call Photo-Synthesis.
For infrared conversion of my cameras I use LifePixel. Infrared allows you to put an older camera to use and opens up a new time time of day for productive image creation.
Fotopro tripods are well worth checking out. You can learn about the ones I use and recommend by clicking on the Fotopro Tripods link at the top of this page. If you want to see what other tripods might fit your needs check out the Fotopro.com website. Check back with me before you buy as a Fotopro Ambassador I’m able to get you discounted pricing including complementary continental USA shipping for my followers that you won’t find through retail outlets.
Learn Photoshop in a fun environment. Aaron Nace applies the right amount of fun with easy to understand and follow tutorials. Actions and brushes are included with lessons!
Lightning, waterdroplets, sound, time-lapse, HDR sequences, smiles and much more control for your camera!
Cameras Get Smarter -
A High Speed Smart Camera Remote
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Platypod has become a great resource for being creative in getting your camera gear easily into unusual places. As an Platypod Pro I get to work/play with the gear even before it comes out. Head over to Platypod, subscribe to the newsletter and you will get special discounts reserved only for subscribers.
