Studio Photoshop » Places to Photograph

Where Have I been!

randy — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 10:00:16 +0000

I have been all over the place and am now in Grand Rapids, MI for a art competition with three of my brothers for $250,000 for for first place. I have gotten a great response to my entry and my brothers are all in the top 25 in there areas. Here is my image and my brother Tracy talking to a group of school kids about his art work.

Photoshop World Day 1

randy — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 21:21:59 +0000

I am at Photoshop World this week having a great time, but you know sometimes, things happen that are unexpected and you just have to run with them. Case in point, the 1st night I was here there was a concert in the pool area, not really a party but more like a rave, one of the other moderators and myself were invited into photograph. Here are some of the photographs that will explain that experience.

I moderated Dave Black preconference Photoshop World and let me tell you it was a great experience. Dave is an awesome sports photographer and someone who paints with light that is just incredible. I was able to participate with the class and take a couple shots so here they are.

Happy Photographic Accident

randy — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 10:00:34 +0000

When I was up in Vancouver Canada two weeks ago and I wanted to photograph a lighthouse in North Vancouver. I had turned off my data service so I would not get charged outrageous roaming fees and because of that I had no GPS and was having a hard time finding this lighthouse. Before going further, and saying bad things about Canada that will have Dave Cross writing comments on my blog, I have to say I loved the British Columbia area, from sea to the mountains I was blown away by everything I saw. Now after saying that, their road signage sucks! I guess in America we are all dummies, so we have road signs that tell us everything and how to get everywhere, but in Canada, it seems to me that it’s a little bit more about guessing as to how you should get there. It took me two tries to finally get to the lighthouse to take pictures.

Because of the bad signage, one of my wrong turns turned into a happy photographic accident. I found this little seaside town called Horseshoe Bay and was able to take this photograph of it. I just did a video on how I created this effect for this photograph, but as I go through my over 4000 images, I think this is becoming one of my favorites.

Whenever I go out on a photographic excursions I do like to plan and do research to decide where I’m going and what I want to photograph, but as you can see taking a wrong turn because of bad signage in Canada can lead to a great image.

So my question is; was it really a wrong turn?

Vancouver Canada

randy — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 10:00:09 +0000

I just got back from Calgary and Vancouver Canada from a trip with Kelby Training and had a great time meeting some photographers from over the boarder. I was working on Scott Kebly’s one-day seminar “Light It, Shoot It, Retouch It” and I have to say that Scott was great and I think the attendees took away a lot of good information.

I decided to stick around the Vancouver area for a couple of days and do some photography of my own. I have lived and been to some great places and I now count myself lucky to add Vancouver to that list. It was Awesome! Driving the Sea to Sky highway was just incredible; with its snow caped mountains going down to the bay was unbelievable.

I had heard of a lighthouse in West Vancouver that I wanted to shoot and after getting lost and passing the entrance two or three times I finally found it. After climbing over rocks and jumping over water I was able to capture this image.

I ended up in the mountains at a location called “Lost Lake” up by Whistler where the 2010 winter Olympics where held. I happened to be there with thousands of mountain bike riders and fans, as a big tournament was being held that weekend. I was still able to get this shot from that night.

I had to try an HDR image with a waterfall and see how it came out with rushing water, and I mean rushing. This is Squamish Falls and one of the easiest climes I had all day. Everywhere I turned there was another waterfall in British Colombia and it wanted to be photographed, I had to stop or I would not shoot anything else.

You will be seeing more over the next few weeks as I work on the thousands of photos I took.

Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta

randy — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 10:00:14 +0000

Two weeks ago I was in Atlanta for a Professional Photographers of America affiliate leadership meeting and had a chance to meet up with a friend and photographer Jim DiVitale. I work with Jim at Photoshop World twice a year and I have to tell you he is one of the nice people in the world. Jim has always told me that If was in Atlanta that we should meet up and go out and photograph. Jim took me to the historic Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta Georgia.

This cemetery sits on top of the hill and you can see the skyscrapers in downtown Atlanta from it along with some damage that was done from tornadoes a year before. Jim’s assistant, Keith came along and he showed me some of the Confederate gravesites and the Confederate Unknown Soldier Memorial. We were photographing in the middle of the afternoon and it was extremely hot and humid, so in that short time here are some the images that I was able to capture that day.

New Video Monday

randy — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 10:00:49 +0000

Correcting Perspective

This tutorial will shoe you how to correct a buildings perspective using Free Transform in Photoshop.

What Happens In Mexico Gets Posted

randy — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 10:00:38 +0000

I’m back! I’ve taken a little break from blogging and now I’m coming back in full force. I had just gotten back from a trip to Mexico and I wanted to share with you some of the images that I’ve taken. These photos are just a few that I taken last week and are still a little rough, but I want to give you an idea of some of things I’ve been doing.

Over the next few weeks I hope to show you some more images that I’ve been working on, along with some videos on how to refine some of your HDR images. I will be bringing back new stuff Fridays with some of the new pieces of equipment or software that I find that I think are interesting or cool.

Hope you like these images and you’ll probably be seeing more over the next few weeks.

Photoshop World – Orlando

randy — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 10:00:43 +0000

I love Photoshop World. Not just all the great instructors, classes and events, but seeing all friends and coworkers that work the conference. Photoshop World also has a great Tec Expo with some of the biggest photo and Photoshop manufactures and retail vendors. One of the exhibitors was Westcott, they sell lighting equipment and modifiers. In Orlando they set up a shooting area with four different themes and models that changed each day. Here are a few photos from their booth.

Bert Monroy in the graveyard set.

Bert and his over 20 foot image that took him over 3 1/2 years to complete.

RC being shown how to wear a dress by a model.

This was supposed to be a Lady Gaga setup.

The Westcott Booth with a mob of photographers

My photo from that set.

Here is V in all his glory.

I never thought I would see Vanelli in a dress!!!!!!!!

A softer side of V! One I hope I don't see again.

Architectural Photography with HDR

randy — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 12:00:45 +0000

I just finished the job photographing the Morean Art Center and three other buildings, including the Dale Chihuly Collection, the hot shop and their Clay Center. I want to share with you a few of the images that were shot at the Chihuly as they were all photographed using HDR. I had to photograph using HDR as the extreme contrast for the galleries were great; we had dark rooms with brightly lit colorful glass. I could have used tungsten lighting, but with the cost of the artwork and how delicate all the glass was I felt there was too much of a risk, plus using HDR allowed me to work very fast.

I use Photomatix Pro to process these images, their fusion conversion works very well for creating photorealistic architectural images. I was really impressed by the low noise that Photomatix produced and how easy it was to do the conversions and get the results that I was looking for.

The exterior photograph of the Morean Art Center is also an HDR image and was a seven-stop bracket. The window in the front left corner was actually covered up as they’re using that as gallery space, so I had to take a photograph of one of a different window and replace that into that window to add more interesting shot. There is also a lot of retouching in this photograph, the orange building on the left side lost two floors to give the art center more drama and some of the windows on the third floor were not lit so we had to replace those with other Windows and modify them so they looked different.

I Need Your Help!

randy — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 16:46:23 +0000

Hi everyone. I was hoping you could help me out by voting for this image that recently won honorable mention in a Unified Color HDR Contest. I am now in the running for the Grand Prize, which is a National Geographic Expedition trip. To vote go to:

http://www.unifiedcolor.com/contest-vote

You have to log in to vote. I appreciate your help and if you want to tell your friends Great!