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.
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?
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.
Been photographing the Phoenix Airport Hilton lately after their eight million dollar remodel. There are some photos it can be a little more difficult to make sexy but lighting and awareness can make them stand out.
Take, for example, a boardroom photo. Here’s a utilitarian room with office chairs around a large table. We looked at a number of angles and one of the things I thought set the room apart was the fact that A – it had a window and B – there were palm trees outside the window. The wonderful thing about collaboration is that some of my best ideas come from other people!.
Mike Manginelli has been heading up the photography project from the hotel side. We discuss each photo, the use, how they want to present it to potential clients then we set up the shot. Mike said, “Hey what if the photo was taken from here?” As soon as I set the camera in place I was all over it. Once that decision is made…
Then it’s time to make the room shine from a lighting standpoint. I work with multiple images for different exposures of different areas. Inside in shadow. Inside room lighting. Outside daylight needs a totally different exposure from indoors. And then some additional accent lighting which adds that ‘certain something’…
Here’s the base exposure. Curtains are closed so I can control the glare on the tabletop to allow the wood and grain to show and not be blown out from the reflection.
Added a flash exposure to highlight detail and throw some light into the shadow area under the table.
Curtains were opened to obtain exterior view. Flash added to curtains to not have trouble blending inside/outside from flair around window. A little of the reflection was allowed on the tabletop.
Final boardroom image with a Curves Layer to open up shadows just a bit.
Layers Palette from boardroom photo showing various Layers and how the Masks were applied.
A handy feature on my Lumix GH4 is the built in WIFI that talks to my Ipad (or Iphone or Android) via ‘Image App’ (free download from Panasonic) so I can control the camera without touching it. All controls including shutter release and bracketing are available on the phone or tablet. When shooting multiple exposures, making adjustments to the camera, like exposure changes, firing the shutter, etc. makes it much easier to blend the images together in post production when the camera is mounted on a tripod. I used the 7-14mm f4.0 lens for this. There is no distortion in the lines on this lens. It’s one of my favorites for architecture work requiring a wide angle view.
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!
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