Studio Photoshop

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.

An Eye Opening Drive

randy — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 19:22:56 +0000

I just got back from giving a speech to the Tallahassee professional photographers guild, and had a blast, the guild members were great and I could not have asked for a better audience, and they had a lot of great questions on HDR. I met my friend Martin at his studio outside Tallahassee in a small town called Madison. Martin was a gracious host and took me out to lunch to his favorite BBQ place Ken’s. On the way back we made a couple of stops to photograph some of the flavor of Madison. The two shots where taken from a small business run by a great older gentleman, whom Martin referred to as the Lawnmower Man. I could have spent hours photographing at this location but we were short of time.

On Friday I had decided to drive down some of the back roads of Florida, and experience something besides a freeway. As I drove down Highway 19 and some of the other rural roads I had an eye opening experience. Just so you know, I have lived in the city most of my life in many areas all around this country, but as I looked at some of these rural areas, I saw poverty that I have never seen before. I don’t know what I’m going to do about it yet, I might try to do some photographs that show some of what I saw, or I might do something else, I’m not sure yet.

I did find some exciting images driving down Highway 19 and then over to Highway 41, here are a few of the images from that drive and you will probably see a few more over the next couple of weeks.

Photographing A New Hospital

randy — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 02:59:47 +0000

I just completed four days of photography at All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg Florida. I worked for four different companies, and it was spread out over three weeks because they were still working on the hospital. I found out that it takes more to be a photographer than just taking pictures, and so did my assistants. We had to install furniture, rewire workstations and become a maid service and clean floors, windows and furniture. I really like how the photography turned out and here are a few examples for you take a look at, but one of my favorites is of me in an operating room. The operating room had already been sanitized, so I had to put on the blue disco suit and lovely hat to photograph this one workstation.

Most these images were photographed using available light only, or just one strobe and I used Lightroom and Photoshop to really enhance these images. Lightroom did a great job of bringing up shadows and giving me a well-balanced image to work on in Photoshop. I did not have the freedom to style these photos as we would like, as it was a brand-new hospital that had not been in use, and in a few days they were going to move all their patients from the old hospital over to the new building in one day. Many of these photos had to be heavily worked in Photoshop because of the limits of moving equipment around and not having anything to use as props for the shots.

New Class and Workshop Schedule

randy — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 16:12:07 +0000

I just posted my new classes and workshop schedule for the next few months. The winter and spring classes that I will be teaching are designed to push you to the next level. They are designed to make you work on projects, look where you photography is going and in the end produce photographs that is a cohesive group of work that you can take and advance yourself. I really excited about my new two day HDR workshop, I have redesigned the workshop so that we will be going out and photographing and then take them back into the classroom and have some hands on fun with them.

I will be teaching the classes and workshop at the Morean Art Center in downtown St. Petersburg. Please checkout my workshop page for more information.

Photography Holiday Wish List

randy — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 15:37:56 +0000

It’s that time of the year when you start your holiday shopping and I thought I would give you some ideas to make your holidays more photographic. So here is some of the thing I would like to add to my gear bag.

Canon’s 17mm and 24mm Tilt-shift lens
I had a chance to play around with the 17mm tilt-shift lens at the Florida Professional Photographers convention in August and fell in love with it. With both the 17mm and 24mm you are allowed to shift and tilt on the same plane, where with the old 24mm you could shift or tilt one plane of angle. This is a great improvement and they have reduced chromatic aberration substantially. Price 17mm $2499/24mm-$2199

Think Tank’s Airport International V 2.0
This is the camera case I am dreaming of getting. Some of the thing I like about this case is you can lock up the bag and then with an built in cable lock it up in your room. I fits international carry on restrictions and is well made to handle the kind of use I put my bag though. The case can hold two pro-size DSLR’s and the all the lens and flashes you would need on a trip. Price $329

Wacom intuos4 Tablet
I use the intuos3 already and I drooling to upgrade to the intuos4. The new pressure sensitive pens fix an issue I hated with the previous pens and how they would move just a little when you lifted the pen up from the tablet. Price $360

Really Right Stuff
Some friends of mine have this ball head and quick-release plates and I saw how fast you could place the camera on the tripod and I also liked how when you placed your camera for a vertical shot the camera is right over the center of the tripod and on off on the side, which is not as steady. Price varies on system

LaCie Rugged Hard Disk
When I shoot architecture I need to backup lots of photos on an external hard drive I like LaCie Rugged Hard Drive. It comes in many sizes and speeds, but the one the is on my wish list is the 500GB (7200rpm) with the FireWire 800 you have an transfer rate of up to 57MB/s and is shock-proof up to over 6 feet. Price $199

This is it for now, but here will probably one more installment before the Christmas is over. Have a great Thanksgiving.

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.

Landscape Photography

randy — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:38:28 +0000

Landscape photography has to be a passion of most photographer when they start taking pictures, and I can be counted among them. I feel as if I am on a safari stalking that great image. I feel a thrill when I am at my computer an see those first images pop up on my computer screen. I teach workshops in landscape photography in Florida and soon will be expanding my workshops to other locations around the county. Please check back in a few weeks to learn more on these workshops.

Black & White Photography

randy — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 03:42:27 +0000

In the digital age, we have many options for manipulating our photographs at the tips of our fingers. A beautiful black and white photograph is more than a color image converted to grayscale with a software mouse click or camera switch, however. A black and white photograph begins before you activate the camera’s shutter. To photograph in black and white you must change your perception and see in grayscale, light and shadow. A challenge for all photographers is squeezing a three or even four dimensional world into a two dimensional image. The art of black and white photography entails the extra step of taking a world we see in color and telling it’s story with only shades of white, black and gray

HDR Photography

randy — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 02:00:09 +0000

I love the look I can get from HDR photographs, it allows me to give them a almost illustrative look. I have been working a group of images of places that are disappearing from Florida. Some of the places that I have photographed are now gone or soon will be, so I feel a sense of responsibility to capture these places before they are gone forever.