Studio Photoshop » Places to Photograph

I’m Just A Junk Yard Photographer!

randy — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 12:00:13 +0000

I photographed in a junkyard! Yes, a junkyard and I had a great time. A fellow photography and instructor from the Morean Art Center, Chuck Vosberg, set up a photo walk inside a auto junkyard. This was quite an experience as it was 93° outside and in the sun with a lot of Florida humidity, get the idea, it was really, really hot. We photographed for about two hours and probably lost 4 pounds of water in that time.

I was really excited about photographing in the junkyard, as I have been looking for textures to use in a photographic project I’ve been working on. Broken glass, wheels, rims and engines gave me a lot of the repetition and textures that I was looking for. I also found an old fire truck, and had a happy surprise finding a fireman’s hat sitting on the seat. I photographed at a couple ways as I’m going to try to use Photoshop’s hyper focus and see if I get the whole thing sharpe from front to back. But, it looks really cool and HDR two. There was his building that housed all the engines that were for sale, thank goodness I brought my tripod as I had some exposures going as long as 30 seconds.

Here’s some of the photos from the junkyard.

TAPPA Photo Safari

randy — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 12:00:30 +0000

This past weekend Lee Burgess and myself led a photo safari for TA PPA in historic Ybor City. Lee is a commercial and fashion photographer in Clearwater, Florida and he was showing us some of his approaches to photographing models. We got one of the design students from the International Academy of Art and Design to furnish some of her design clothing for the model and Lee also supplied a slightly more racy outfit.

Now as you may know I am not a fashion photographer, so I made a few mistakes as I photographed Ashley. I learned that I have to set my ISO higher so that I could use a faster shutter speed and actually capture actually the model without any movement. When you have over 20 photographers trying to tack photos of a model you have to shoot quickly and then get out of the way, get stomp on. just kidding about getting stomped on, everybody was very courteous of each other.

I decided since I do a lot of HDR that I would convert some of these single images into HDR and then paint back in the model for a little bit more of a grungy or look. I’ll used use Nik software’s Silver Efex Pro and added a black-and-white copy of the HDR image, placing the image on top of the HDR image and change the blending mode to Soft Light. Doing this give the image a little bit more depth and feel that I just couldn’t get using just HDR only. I then stacked my original image on top of the other layers and painted back in the model’s face and wherever skin was exposed, but leaving the nylons alone on her leg.

Here are a few images from the photo shoot, and I want to thank Lee for all his help.

New HDR Programs

randy — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 15:14:44 +0000

There is a lot of HDR news coming out about new programs that will be released over the next few months. Adobe started this rush with upgrading their HDR plug-in in CS5 to HDR Pro. They had to upgrade because there old plug-in was just horrible and with HDR Pro they now have a program that works. If you are looking for photorealistic this will work for you and it is included with Photoshop CS5.

Unified Color Technologies has release there new HDR program HDR Expose. This is a nice program for photorealist images, the interface takes a little time to get used too, and until July 31^st they have a special price of $99. Watch the online video to get an idea of where to start to tone maps your HDR photo.

Nik Software will be releasing there very first HDR program very soon and it looks like it can give you that photo illustrative look that you get from Photomatix Pro. Knowing how well Nik integrates their plug-ins with Photoshop and Lightroom I am looking forward to this new program.

It has been rumored that HDRsoft, makers of Photomatix Pro will be up-dating their software in the near future. It has been the workhorse for working with HDR for the past few years and I hope in this up-date they work on reducing noise, especially in the sky when you push Photomatix to that illustrative.

So hold on to your hats as all the new HDR programs come out. Here is a new HDR photograph from Dinosaur World near Tampa Florida.

24mm Panoramic with CS5

randy — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 20:59:32 +0000

When I was teaching a workshop in St. Augustine a few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to photograph a church early in the morning with a group of students. I had learned that Photomerge in Photoshop CS5 was able to put together a panoramic using a wide angle lens. Before CS5 you had to use either a normal or telephoto lens to produce a good panoramic images with Photomerge. This was usually fine as I would turn my camera vertical and take as many photographs as needed and then merge them together. But this time I was up very closes to the church and even turning my camera vertical I was not going to be able to photograph it using a normal lens, so I put on my 24mm lens and shoot this group of photos.

I wasn’t content with just trying to put together an image with wide-angle lenses. I decided I had to do it in HDR. So I took all these images and convert them to HDR using both Photoshop’s new HDR Pro and Photomatix Pro. In Lightroom I selected the eight converted HDR images and ran Photomerge to create this one image, and I was really surprised at how well it put them together.

Here are the eight images that were used in photo merge to create the one image on the bottom, I had to crop a little bit and use a little bit of Content Aware Fill, but in the end I really liked how this image turned out.

Keep an eye out in the video tutorial section later this month for a video on how to do this.

"Vacation with Vanelli" What A Great Time!

randy — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 17:58:55 +0000

I just returned from teaching at a workshop in St Augustine, FL, hosted and instructed by a friend of mine, most of you will know him as V, or Vanelli, his full name is Robert Louis Vanelli, but no one calls him that. V has a great workshop he created called “Vacation with Vanelli”, where he works with people in great locations and teaches them his program called the “5 P’s of Photography”. He asked me to come to St. Augustine and teach a three-hour breakout session with his students, he also invited the public to attend this breakout session.

I spent a lot of time with V and besides not getting a lot of sleep, I came to really respect how he teaches his students, his enthusiasm for photography and what a great guy he is. The other instructor that V brought in was Sandy Foster. I have met Sandy at Photoshop World before and had a great time photographing and working with her and the students.

Vanelli and a couple of the students and I decided to go photograph some abandoned WW II air planes that one of the students had heard about. When we got there we discovered that it was all fenced in and if we entered it was at our own risk. Well the risk was to Vanelli! As he was going over the fence the ladder acted like a seesaw and he fell right on his head. We got some great photos and when I talked to V the next day he informed me that his head was a little black and blue.

I know V will be holding more “Vacation with Vanelli” seminars over the next few months, and I would recommend this to anyone for a unique experience in learning photography and Photoshop and how to enjoy doing both. It really was a fun time and I’ll do it again in a heartbeat.

Here are some of the photos that I took in the day and a half I was there.

Early Morning Shoot

I could have photographed for hours, if I was not worried about getting arrested!!!

What's left of the inside of one of the WW II Airplanes.

Vanelli after his head crash!!!

Vacation with Vanelli – A One of a Kind Experience!!!

randy — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 19:31:03 +0000

I will be teaching a three hour “Break-out Session” on HDR and Architectural Photography that is open to the public for only $59. V is running a few contest for free “Break-out Session” tickets, here is the link:vacationwithv.com

Vacation with Vanelli is a unique style workshop that teaches the art of digital work-flow covering the FIVE P’s: Plan, Photograph, Process, Print and Post. Vanelli and friends travel to exciting places working on projects for their books and portfolio. Vacationers get a chance to work and learn along side these amazing photographers as they refine their own skills. Imagine having a personal instructor looking over your shoulder whispering tips and tricks!

Vacation With Vanelli Cost: $395 – space is limited
Saint Augustine, Florida
June 16th – 19th, 2010

Break-out Session Cost$59
Friday, June 18th – 11am – 2pm open to the public

The HDR Argument!

randy — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 14:22:44 +0000

There’s a lot of talk about whether HDR is really good photography, or bad photography made to look good. I find this argument, or question somewhat comical as whatever we do to photograph, specially in the digital world, weather using a plug-in, filter or different effects in Photoshop we are still creating a photograph, good or bad. Some people say that because we use HDR to create this photograph that we are cheating, or using a crutch to create a good image, but I say if I’m looking at an image and I visualize it using HDR, that I’m taking my abilities to another level by pre-visualizing it.

I have heard people say that if you look at the normal image before the HDR effect was added, that the photograph is really usually meager or not that great. But I say if you don’t have a good photograph to start with, no matter what effect you add to it it’s still a bad photograph. You have to have all the elements of a good photograph, even with HDR, to create a good photograph. If you have junk and add the HDR effect to it, you still have junk that is amplified with the HDR effect; you need a good images to start with no matter what.

I have to admit that sometimes people can take the HDR effect a little too far, but if HDR is used correctly you can create some spectacular images that even the purest will admire.

Here are a few more of the images from my trip back from Tallahassee.

Zion Park-Part 3 Snow Canyon

randy — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 15:50:28 +0000

On our way back from Zion National Park my buddy Jeff and I decided to stop at a state park called “Snow Canyon”. It’s not far outside Zion and a little over two hours outside Las Vegas. When we arrived at the park we wished we had gotten there earlier and had more time to spend and photograph. Inside the park are a great many diverse geographical elements. You have both red and white cliffs, black rocks from lava flows, prettified sand dunes and red colored sand dunes.

I love the one photo where a brush has grown in the middle of an circular depression in the rocks, I wish I could come back after a rain shower and photograph it with water in the depression. The contrast of some of these features makes for great and interesting photographs and would be time well spent photographing in this place where not many people visit.

Here are a few of the photos from Snow Canyon.

Zion National Park – Part 2

randy — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 20:19:11 +0000

There is a special place inside Zion National Park called the “Virgin Narrows”. It is an unique spot to walk, experience and photograph. You have to take a shuttle to the back of the valley most times of the year and then hike a mile to get to the start of the real trailhead. The way you start is to step into the cold Virgin river, and when I say cold I mean within a few steps you feet are num for the cold water, this is a good thing, that way when your feet slide and bang against a rock you don’t feel it.

As you walk up the river and the cliff walls rise strait up hundreds of feet on both sides, and let in very little direct sun light. Because of this you need a tripod and have to use long exposures to capture any photos, this has the added benefit of letting the rushing water have some movement over the rocks, and adds some excitement to the photos. One of the many thrills was when you came around a bend and having this golden glow on the cliff side as light bounces from the other cliff side. In one photo you can see how it is almost magical.

After doing this photo hike here a few things I would do differently. Get there earlier so I could avoid a lot of the other people walking up the river. I would walk further up the river before I started taking photographs, this way I would be ahead of other people and I think more of the interesting shots with better light. Renting water shoes and neoprene sock would have made my feet and ankles feel a little better, but you don’t have to in the summer time.

I was there in September and by about 3:30 the light was losing the glow on the cliff wall, as it took us six and a half hours to walk as far as we did we packed up and it only took us an hour and forty-five minutes to walk back. This will give you an idea of all the opportunities you have to photograph. I will definitely go back and photograph this river again, as I did not get as far up the Narrows as I would have liked.

Zion National Park – Part 1

randy — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 20:16:27 +0000

Every year I work at the PhotoshopWorld convention in Las Vegas, and I always go out early to photograph with my friend Jeff Leimbach, someplace around Las Vegas. Last year we pushed it as far as we could and photographed at Yosemite National Park. I came back with some great photos, but it was a lot of driving, so this time we decided to not go so far and stay in one place the whole time. We chose Zion Nation Park in Utah.

Zion is about three hours outside Las Vegas and has plenty of hotels just outside the park with a shuttle system that works well from both the town of Springdale and the park entrance. Most people spend most of their time in the canyon, but as we discovered the area on the other side of the tunnel had some great photographic opportunities. On the way to an overlook of the canyon we found this great bee hive looking rock formation that most people walk right by to get to the over look.

A mountain goat walked out on front of us as we where driving and stopped traffic as it had a snack on the side of the road.

There were so many different slip rock formations on this short drive that you could stop and photograph around each corner. The great thing was there were very few other people around to get in your shots. One of my goals was to shoot some of the idyllic photos from different angels and try to something a little new. Here is one from the bottom of the Checkerboard Mesa; I went to the base instead of the overlook that is photographed most often.

There are a lot of other great places in Zion and in the post I will be talking of walking up the Virgin Narrow. Part three will be on a small State Park called Snow Canyon.