by successfulbob | 4K photo mode, Lumix G7, Lumix Lounge, photography gear
As any who know me can attest I’m not too much of a sports fan. I like to see a good football game no matter who is playing. I’ll root for my home team but I’m not rabid about it at all. Basketball I wanna see a well played game. If it weren’t for the fights I’d be a hockey fan. But baseball? Not so much.
But I was in a local elbow bending establishment and ‘lo and behold’ the World Series was on. And just show I’m not totally prejudiced I gave the game a passing nod.
I even gave it one of my highest complements. I took a picture.
OK maybe I was taking a picture of my beer and the TV happened to be in the background. But that counts right?
Just a reminder that the Lumix G7 camera has 4KPHOTO Mode so you’ll never miss World Series type moments in your photo capture!
To all the true baseball fans I wish you the best and I hope your team wins!
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
PS – All right. I confess. I had to make two images and combine them or you would never have known that was baseball on the tube in the background.
by successfulbob | black & white, Lumix GX8, Lumix Lounge, people photography, photography
It is a lesson in asking.
When we are out and about we run across people who have character. People who have lived long and are happy to share about their lives if you only open the dialog. Over the years I have met or seen many people that I would have liked to have photographically captured an image of but was too nervous to ask.
I’m finding that I get more interesting conversations and life stories when I ask and share my wish to capture an image. People who know me might say, “Bob, SHY??! You’ve got to be kidding me?” But I have let situations go by where I just didn’t feel comfortable asking to create an image. usually it was all in my own head and I’m getting better thanks to spending time with Levi Sim. Levi is a wonderful person who connects with people in a great way. I enjoy his techniques for getting to know people and making them comfortable in front of the camera in a nano-second. When I was with Levi in Chicago I watched as he approached a guy on a motorcycle, in traffic, and had him maneuvering his bike in order to get a better background. The guy was happy to do it… Remember this is in traffic, in Chicago.
Here’s Gary…
Met Gary at Bella Vita Ristorante in Sedona.
It was a wonderful conversation my wife and I had with Gary. He shared that he was born and raised in the desert. He loved tramping through the high Sierra Mountains where Ansel Adams created many of his iconic images. This came about because I had my camera (Lumix GX8) and after chatting with him asked if I might make a few exposures. He was flattered and we had a very pleasant time.
I had the 20mm 1.7 lens on and shot wide open. ISO 3200 This is a sweet piece of glass. I added just a bit of blur in the background to render the other people unrecognizable.
Word is eyes are the window to the soul. I find I enjoy seeing the results of the aging process on hands. Love the story I see here in Gary’s hands.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | cloud photography, Lumix Lounge, Lumix LX100, photography, photography books, photography creativity, photography gear
Love looking out from the window seat at 33,000 feet. The views and cloud formations can change at a moments notice! I am inspired now that I am flying quite a bit to capture images. Main inspiration comes from Julianne Kost and her book Window Seat – The Art of Digital Photography and Creative Thinking
On this quick trip to Professional Photographers of America headquarters in Atlanta for a committee meeting I was able to grab some pretty interesting images. Some can stand alone but I have a feeling that most will enter my files as textures and forms and vistas for my art creations.
Here’s a few of the captures…
Sun rays over clouds
Jet wing over clouds
Phoenix skyline from airport at sunset
I used the Lumix LX100 which I have dubbed the “Professionals Point & Shoot” camera. It has fast glass opening to f1.7-2.8. 25-75mm Leica DC Lens. Full video capability including 4K Photo capture. I really enjoy that all camera controls are ‘Old School’ in addition to the menu capabilities. All settings are available via dials on the exterior of the camera including aspect ratio, exposure compensation, focus settings, aperture and more. It’s a rugged little camera that is almost pocket size.
The LX100 was the only camera I brought with me on the trip and I wasn’t disappointed with what I was able to capture. It’s a sweet little machine.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | black & white, commercial photography, Lumix GH4, Lumix GX8, Lumix Lounge, musician photography, people photography, photography gear
Last Saturday night I was on hand to photograph not one but two wonderful artists at Sound Bites Grill in Sedona, Arizona.
Part of my job there is to capture the musicians live on stage and create artwork for the Sound Bites Grill ‘Wall of Fame’. The other part of my gig is to create ‘straight’ photography images to help in promotion and things like press releases for when the artist returns for a future performance.
Here’s a few from each of the performers…
First up was Grant Ferguson…
Here’s a description from his web site where you can check out his music. (I particularly like ‘Everlasting Desire’!) “Propulsive, melodic rock guitar in the hands of Grant Ferguson is a powerful reminder of the instrument’s glory days. Influenced by some of the great axe masters: Jeff Beck, Gary Moore, The Edge and others, Ferguson is pushing his all-instrumental sound toward a new rock vision.”
Grant Ferguson makin’ some beautiful sounds flow from his guitar. – Camera Lumix GX8
Live on stage at Sound Bites – Camera Lumix GH4
Grant captured with the new Lumix GX8. All images used the Lumix 35-100mm f2.8 lens
Following Grant’s set there was a break and we heard from Blues guitarist Leroy Miller.
A little about Leroy from his web site. Check his music (Try Over You from the self titled album) “Los Angeles blues sensation Leroy Miller has worked on countless recordings for music’s brightest stars like John Mayer, Macy Gray and Smash Mouth. Leroy has toured all over the world as a supporting act for bands such as Aerosmith and the Dave Mathews Band.”
Leroy Miller got the crowd up and dancing with his high energy rock guitar. Camera GX8
Leroy Miller – Camera Lumix GH4
Leroy Miller wailin’ it! Camera GH4
In putting the images together I make conversions to black and white for all of the press images. This guarantees the best look when printed on a press. If someone just converts a color image to grayscale the reproduction of the detail can get lost especially in newspaper reproduction. I often use Google’s NIK Silver FX Pro 2 for making the conversions. It gives me lots of options to make the Black & White have tones from light to dark without getting muddy or flat.
On this shoot I tried out the new Lumix GX8 for the first time under LED stage lights to see how it held up to the dark shadow areas and the lack of full spectrum in the stage lighting. I was impressed. While I would replace my GH4 camera with the GX8 I wouldn’t hesitate to use it as a back-up or grab it in a pinch. The quality of the images wouldn’t suffer one bit.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
PS – I’ll show the Grant and Leroy’s ‘Wall of Fame’ images in a couple days.
by successfulbob | cloud photography, Lumix G7, Lumix Lounge, panorama, photography
I dig clouds!
This time of year Arizona can lay out a pretty nice palette for us to enjoy. It’s called monsoon season and thunderheads will pop up in the afternoon and put on a show. I gather all kinds of cloud formations for use in my artwork. I decided to challenge the Lumix G7 (new baby brother to the GH4) to see how well it could do in capturing some panoramic photos of the sky in camera. In the past I’ve found that sometimes the lack of definition in sky scenes made it difficult and I would find stitching errors there occasionally. So I shot some soft cloud formations and some harder edged formations and here’s what happened…
I really thought that the camera might have problems with the lack of definition with this panoramic cloud capture. No problem at all!
Overall did a great job on this one. There was one small area on the left that I had to look hard to find a small stitching error that was easily rectified with the Patch Tool from Adobe Photoshop
Here was another that had an error. It was off to the right and was in the transition area from bright clouds to very dark clouds. After a quick crop this is what’s left.
And, not to forget that the camera can create panoramas in different directions. No stitch errors on this or about 10 other files I let the G7 create.
My overall thoughts on the new panorama stitching in the G7 gets high marks. I always recommend using good camera technique. I point my body to the direction where I want to end up. Then using stomach muscles turn back to the start of the panorama and slowly pivot using the stomach to make the movement to capture the image. If it is a very important pano I will always shoot it several times just in case. Many times an in camera stitching error can be traced to operator error of not capturing the scene smoothly. Even though you can play back the panoramic image at a larger size on the camera you might miss small errors that wouldn’t show up in another pass with the camera.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
