by successfulbob | fine art photography, Lumix Lounge, photography, photography education, photography seminar
At the end of the week I’ll be winging my way to Tennessee to present a couple all day programs on my techniques for creating fine art painterly images called Photo-Synthesis.
Get more info here
The first day will be in-depth starting with the basics in Photoshop and is hosted by the Photographic Society of Chattanooga and sponsored by Panasonic and the Lumix line of cameras and is $20 Contact the society to sign up and pay. Day two will be more in-depth and hands on. We’ll hit the streets to capture images to work with then go to our individual computers to create artwork with me stepping you through the process… That class will be $49. Get in touch with me to sign up and pay. [email protected]
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | black & white, Lumix FZ 1000, Lumix Lounge, photography, photography education
Take away the color!
Let the shape, form and tones come forward… Simplify.
It’s easy to do but not necessarily simple.
Making black and white conversions of our images can give a whole new level of depth to our image making skills. With the ability to touch every single pixel we have more control than ever before. Ansel Adams would have been in Heaven to have this level of control to achieve the image he saw in his mind. That was what the Zone System and his special ways of exposing the scene and processing film not to mention choosing paper, light source and dodging and burning in the darkroom to pull the print he wanted.
Today’s subject is a green bloom from a Gopher Plant. Lots of green tones from light to dark are represented in the capture. By the way I used the Lumix FZ 1000 in Macro mode. When zooming in to 400mm you can fill a frame pretty well with it’s minimum focusing distance of 3.3 feet. If you shoot wider you can focus down to 3 centimeters but without adding supplemental light I find I have too many shadows to deal with so photographing from a distance can be helpful. In this case I was back just a bit with a 27mm equivalent setting.
Original capture.
Different settings and conversions to black and white.
You may or may not like the one I choose which is a combination of some of the settings seen above. The point is through experimentation and using different ways of stripping color from an image you can create many different feelings from the same information. One of my favorite programs for converting to black and white is Google’s NIK Silver FX Pro 2. By the way if you own a license for almost any NIK product Google will hook you up at no charge for the full NIK software suite. If you don’t have a current one you can get the suite for, I believe, $149. This is some solid software with lots of creative possibilities.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | Lumix FZ 1000, Lumix Lounge, photography
While at the Virginia Professional Photographers Association Convention in Richmond I tended to have the Lumix FZ 1000 in hand. The more I use this the more it seems to want to become my second camera. It weighs just under 2 and a half pounds but has a huge zoom range. 25-400mm at f2.8-4.0. The optical stabilization is pretty darn amazing and it handles quite well. It’s not a pro camera but has a ton of pro features.
I like to have a camera with me almost all the time because you just never know what you want capture at a moments notice. Here is a hallway captured in two different ways at the same time using a preset and using the RAW plus jpeg setting.
Liked the lighting in the hallway with the father and son walking…
Caught this rendition of the hallway scene at the same time using a preset that I tweaked to black and white.
This lighting class with Jeff was shoot in a completely darkened room. Opened the RAW file and pulled up the shadow slider a bit and pulled down the highlights slider and was able to tame the contrast.
Word is ‘proper tool for the proper job’ and I find the Lumix FZ 1000 camera under at $895 MSRP and available on Amazon for $717 to be an amazing deal…
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
PS – remember if you like the info being presented here using the links (like to Amazon) help support the web site with small affiliate fees.
by successfulbob | Lumix FZ 1000, Lumix Lounge, people photography, photography, photography gear
When fellow photographers ask for a quick portrait even though lighting conditions are less that ideal and time is very short you take a crack at it. This is Kathleen and Marc who were kind enough to pick me up at the airport when I went to Richmond, Virginia to speak and judges images at the annual convention.
Kathleen and Marc Busch. Fellow photographers from Virginia after a little Photooshop photo.
RAW capture of Kathleen and Marc
As you can see even a quick photo grab can turn out quite nice. Never pass up the opportunity to capture a memory. Photo made with the Panasonic Lumix FZ 1000 a bridge camera. 25-400mm f2.8-4.0 4K Video. Not quite a pro body but has amazing features that take it way above an advanced amateur camera! Becoming one of the cameras I like to have with me all the time to cover my butt when I see something cool but can’t have the entire pro kit with me.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | Lumix GH3, Lumix GH4, Lumix GX7, Lumix Lounge, photography education
I’m here in Richmond, Virginia at the Four Points Sheraton for the Virginia Professional Photographers Association Annual Convention (VPPA). Thanks to Panasonic and the Lumix Mirrorless line of cameras for sponsoring me to be here. It looks to be a really great turnout. I’ll be speaking tonight (Friday) from 6-8PM and judging with a fine panel tomorrow. If you are in the area you might want to come on by to see my program called Photo-Synthesis on creating painterly artwork using your photographic images.
Lots of other great speakers for the next few days too.
Here’s my speaker badge. First time I’ve seen the new designation M.Artist. in my credentials. Way cool!
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
