Tag Archives: Post processing

Aviatrix at WAAAM

27 Wednesday May 2015

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Recently, I completed a model shoot at WAAAM with some of the old biplanes there. The route to this shoot was nebulous and the original point of the shoot got lost a little bit, but we made something great out of it. I believe WAAAM will get a great photo to hang in the lobby out of this and I certainly got some nice new additions to my portfolio.

I’ll begin my narrative with the human side of the story, as the shoot was an incredible experience, and this part of the story isn’t necessarily evident in the story.

I have been working with Ken Olsson with various things at WAAAM for several years. Initially, we met when I was writing a story about aviation museums in Oregon. I’ve always enjoyed talking with Ken, he’s friendly, and we’ve always had plenty to talk about. I met Carrie Strahle, of Carrie Strahle Makeup Artistry, at an ASMP event, and exchanged business cards with her. She is the kind of person that instantly strikes you as a friend, despite the brief encounter. In discussions with Carrie later, she suggested Sami Van Der Westhuizen might be able to help me with a project that I was beginning to think about at that time. Thus I contacted Sami on FB.

So when I came up with the idea for this project. I started by having a meeting with Ken and Judy at WAAAM and discussed this as well as a few other ideas. I did not want to move ahead with other elements of the project without making sure it was ok with them; although, I had discussed the idea with Carrie in friendly conversation and got her ideas on whether the logistics of this could be worked out or not. After getting approval from WAAAM, for a slightly different idea than what you see before you, I put out a casting call on FB. When someone suggested Sami, I wasn’t aware she met the height requirements we had at that point, I thought perfect. I asked Sami if she would be interested. Next step was to ask Carrie if she would be willing to do the project.

Finally, the day came. The photographic crew met at Joe Wilson’s studio, Joe is the membership chair at the local chapter of the ASMP. Sami was the only person involved I had not met in person. She came in with her boyfriend and I must say, they are some of the nicest people you’ll meet. So, with one of the friendliest, fun crews around, we got to work.

In summation, the shoot was a blast, in addition to producing some great imagery. I was able to make contact with existing friends again and make some new ones. On the professional side of things, Sami was amazing, what I noticed immediately was her ability to help me aim the lights shaving minutes off setup when I changed the lighting. Carrie’s work was fantastic; I especially loved the curls she gave Sami for the shoot.

One thing I learned about myself that had to do with the human side of the shoot, is I do get in a bit of “a zone” when I photograph. During most of the shoot, I got in this zone where I was only aware of Sami, myself and the plane. I came out of it occasionally to share what images we were getting. I was not aware of what others were doing around me on set. It really struck home for me when I started retouching images and I would notice a frame or two when a strand of hair on Sami would fall out of place and then suddenly, the next frame, it’d be all perfect again. From this it was apparent that Carrie was stepping in to touch up. Looking at the bts images my assistant (dad) made, it was more apparent; Carrie doing touch ups, everyone very attentive to what was happening, confirming what I had earlier suspected about me falling into “the zone.”

If you are a photographer needing a model and makeup artist, I recommend putting Sami and Carrie at the top of your list of possibilities. They do excellent work and will certainly help keep your set a fun place to be.

A young model posing as a late twenties aviatrix with a Curtiss JN-4D "Jenny" at WAAAM. (Rick A. Brown)

 

Now to move on to a technical thing, I wanted to explain how I made the above image.

It was inspired by a promotional video on the Profoto web site. I started by setting my ambient exposure such that everything would fade to black. Setting ISO 100, 1/160th of a second and f/16 ensures that happens really quickly under the indoor setting. I setup one light in a strip bank, as close as possible to directly above the Jenny. It was slightly in front of the plane and then tilted at a slight angle to make sure the light shone far enough back on the plane. Then, I lit Sami with a very large octabox placed 45° to her front and 45° above, essentially Rembrandt light. The octa was also aimed across her, feathering the light onto her face. This was primarily done to prevent spill on the background, but also makes the light softer on her.

Post processing on this image was really simple. Basically, it comes down to I applied Tonal Contrast from Nik’s Color Efex Pro4 on the plane and Sami’s clothes.

Please take a closer look at the images from this Aviatrix at WAAAM shoot, or my updated people portfolio.

Setting up a Personal Project Shoot

15 Wednesday Apr 2015

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Personal projects are very important. Photographers must always develop their skills, practice those skills, invent new techniques, and keep their portfolio updated, these are all things that personal projects can provide. They can be intimidating to setup, however. One idea I’ve heard from several sources lately is to approach the project as if you were shooting an assignment for someone. This helps provide direction to the project that helps one cope with the intimidation. I’m going to tell you a bit about how I setup my most recent project.

I came up with the idea that I would shoot as if I was creating an ad for a cultural/musical festival. I did have a specific festival in mind, although I don’t want to name it here.  Belly dancing was a great fit and I had worked with a dancer before whom I felt would be willing to do a shoot like this again. However, for this project I felt it important to include her dancing partner. So I asked them both if they’d be interesting in doing a trade shoot.

We then set out trying to come up with an appropriate location. I was thinking something that would create a Mid-Eastern coffee house sort of feel. After trying to come up with something for a few weeks, we decided it would probably be best to use one of the dancers’ home.  I set out to come up with an idea that would give a similar ambience in her home.

What I came up with was to use a piece of fabric I found that’s color was close to saffron. Then in Photoshop, I would add a texture to the solid color. In the end I decided not to add the texture to all the images. When lit appropriately, this created the look and feel I was after.

The shooting itself was fairly easy. I let what images were most successful from the earlier shoot guide me. The only real challenge was positioning two dancers so that behind them was the background we made and nothing else. Portable backgrounds are only moderate size out of necessity and this can cause difficulties at times.

I’m not going to tell you the details of the post-processing step by step this time, but I will list a bunch of resources that I used. Lightroom and Photoshop were the main tools of course. I also used Nik’s Color Efex Pro4 (tonal contrast and glamour glow) and Silver Efex Pro2. Furthermore, shortly before we shot this, Scott Kelby hosted a guest blog by Regina Pagles, where she detailed her methodology step by step. Now, I did not follow it precisely, but this blog post did provide inspiration for post processing for many of the images. I’m sure you’ll be able to tell which ones.

Go take a closer look at the images from this belly dancing shoot, or take a look at my people portfolio.

Currently, I am working on producing another personal project. The production on this new one is a little more involved, but keep an eye out for it here.

Do You Smooth Skin?

11 Wednesday Mar 2015

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Do I smooth skin in my portrait photographs? ABSOLUTELY!

This is entry is going to be less of a how-to piece and more of a philosophical piece on retouching. I will start however, by giving a very brief explanation of what I do. I currently use the “high pass skin softening” method as discussed in Scott Kelby’s Professional Portrait Retouching Techniques for Photographers Using Photoshop. I am considering learning the frequency separation method, but it looks considerably harder and I am quite happy with the results I am currently getting.

Now on to the real subject here, the philosophy of it all.

To me it seems like there is a growing tide of people pushing for totally unaltered images. I would say that at the minimum, this is horribly misled. PHOTOGRAPHS ARE NOT OBJECTIVE TRUTH and they never have been. There are many parts of the photographic process that make it impossible for a photograph to be an objective recording of what we saw. Starting with the fact that a camera can only capture a limited view and the photographer determines what is capture within that frame. Secondly, sensors and film do not function the same as your retina and lack the interpretive power of your brain, which has an immense impact on what you see.

Now, I do have a problem with retouching that drastically alters how a model looks. If your finished image has the model looking 50lbs lighter than she does, you are being dishonest. However, downplaying how noticeable a wrinkle is or something of the like is totally acceptable in my view. In fact, I find that an image presented straight out of the camera actually exaggerates how noticeable wrinkles etc. are, so retouching will more closely match the experience of standing before the person.

Furthermore, when talking to some who want to see zero retouching, I get the feeling that they also cringe at us using a softbox to light our subject with pleasing light. Thus, in acknowledgment of the “give ‘em an inch, they’ll take a mile” phenomenon, this could get ridiculous.

I think we need photos that do not lie, but feel also that this does not mean that the only thing a photographer is allowed to do is push the button. In my estimation, some are beginning to push this issue too far.

Take a look at my people portfolio.

Pass on Your Knowledge

04 Wednesday Mar 2015

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As a high school senior I was taking physics. I have always been very interested in science and thus took pretty much every science course my high school offered. Physics went very well for me overall, with a minor hiccup when we were studying electronics. As the school year was coming to a close, a young lady who sat next to me in class asked if I’d tutor her in physics. I agreed.

What I discovered while helping her with the material is that doing so was absolutely the best way to study. By explaining the class material to her, I found that I was learning the subject material very thoroughly, without any additional study. I continued getting my A in the class, in fact my test scores were now perfect, and I was putting far less effort into the class. I always value this sort of efficiency.

Fast forward ____ years (exact number withheld for authors pride, or is it that I’m too old to remember :)) and I run into a photo student while shooting some stock at Governor Tom McCall Waterfront Park in Portland. She asks me for some tips regarding  her exposures for the exercise she is shooting. Her curriculum has her shooting manual all the time. I have mixed emotions about this, as I feel it is a good way to learn but not sure how much a photographer would do this in the real world. I do usually shoot manual while using flash, (find it easier to balance ambient and flash in the unusual ways I like) but pretty much always aperture priority when using available light.

Anyhow, I help her with the exposure advice. We exchange business cards. I head home.

Approximately, a week later she contacts me and asks if I can help her shoot some portraits for an extra credit assignment. I agree and we make arrangements to meet at the same location. She and her friend had come up with the idea of photographing the friend in her wedding gown, with some red rubber boots, with a very quirky “disgruntled bride” kind of flair to them. Sounded like fun.

We got there, I read over her assignment and we got to work. After she shot the first scenario, I asked if the two of them minded if I snuck in some shots. I need to update my portfolio, so I wanted to get some images, although I definitely wanted to keep her learning as the priority. So we proceeded taking turns with the shooting. We shot available light first, as her assignment was available light and then I gave her some tips on my flash techniques.

In the end, it was a very fun day, I met a couple of cool ladies and I was able to make some images I doubt I would have ever made had this situation not come up.

Take a look at the crazy redboots shoot.  Or my current people portfolio.

How Do I Light Heroic Portraits?

25 Wednesday Feb 2015

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Ok, so I’m going to tell you a bit more than just how to light images like these.

To start, I typically place the plane, car, or whatever object I want to photograph the person with for a shot backlit by ambient light, however, you can see in the images included with the post, not 100% of the time. I then determine what my exposure will be for the ambient light and set it with manual mode on the camera, so that it will not change due to any momentary changes in light on set. Typically, I set this ambient exposure such that it is perhaps a full stop darker than if I was taking a “normal” photo.

I have a speedlight in a softbox with a quarter or half cut CTO on it. I typically place this on a handheld boom for an assistant to hold in place, but will use a light stand if I can’t have an assistant on the shoot. I use the speedlight in manual, in the past triggered by a cord, will do it with pocket wizards now. I start with the speedlight set on full power as that will be what is normally necessary. The softbox is also positioned as close to the person as possible without being in frame. I typically have it directly where the subject is looking and about 45° above the subject. Having the light as soft as possible, rapid falloff, and as bright as possible are all positive attributes for this look. I use a 24-105mm lens wide open. Position the person 2 to 3 meters in front of the plane, car, or whatever and shoot a test shot. Adjust the speedlight setting to get the person as bright as you want.

Once you get all the lighting values set as you want, play around with various compositions. Generally you will want to keep the camera low as looking up at the person a little as well as them appearing large in relation to the plane, etc., is a big part of where the look comes from. I think I would actually prefer to shoot this with an even wider lens, but of course that requires some investment.

Once I get the shot to Lightroom, I create a virtual copy. The original copy I will apply a preset I made that increases the contrast about 20, +80 on shadows, -80 on highlights, clarity +40, and vibrance +30. I then set the whites and blacks so that there are tiny areas of both pure white and pure black, although I won’t set the whites darker than the starting point or the blacks brighter than the starting point. The other copy, I choose the camera portrait profile and do a very basic edit on it. I then select both copies and choose the “Open as Layers in Photoshop” option of the “Edit With” command. I then make sure the “camera portrait” layer is on top and mask out everything but the person’s skin. I then blend using opacity to get as much of the “crispier” look of the bottom layer without making their skin look strange.

I then press shift, ctrl, alt e to merge all visible layers to the top (actually I programmed one of the buttons on my Wacom tablet to do all that.) I set the blend mode on this layer to “overlay” and set the opacity to 40%. This creates a glow. I mask that so that there is no glow on the person or airplane. Finally, I open Color Efex Pro4 and apply Tonal Contrast. I mask this so that it only shows on the airplane and the person. Then I might apply a vignette, depending on the individual photo.

In this explanation, I left out any skin retouching etc. This is very dependent on the individual, makeup, etc.

You can take a look at the images from the Sport Aviation shoot, where most of the images in this entry came from. Or please take a look at my People Portfolio.

Finding My Style

03 Thursday Jul 2014

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One of the main things anyone interested in photography as a business hears is to find your style. This is something very difficult to do, because creative people can be scared to have all their images look stylistically similar. So for a long time I struggled with how to do that.

The process started with going to an ASMP event called Portfolio Perfect. I paid close attention to the response of my reviewer. He certainly had a bigger response to my edgy, in your face, exaggerated detail, and exaggerated perspective photos. He even made mention that the other photos I showed him look like they were done by someone else.

Next, I looked at what I like. I certainly do tend to like photos with that edgy, larger than life Hollywood movie hero look.

Finally, I looked at what other photographers I know, shooting in the same areas and genres are doing. I looked at what I like about their images, what others like about their images, and finally what I don’t like about their images.

Finally, I decided on a style that would define most of what I do. Not every photo I shoot fits this mold, but the majority does.  This style starts by shooting in tight to my subjects with a wide angle lens when possible. I am also drawn to dramatic skies and backlighting as part of this style.

In post processing I will tend towards a wide dynamic range as well as high local contrast, while still maintaining a photographic look.

To this end, in Lightroom I developed two presets for my work. Both have high contrast, the highlights are brought down to around -80 and shadows up to around +80. Clarity is high with a setting around +40 on one preset and +60 on the other. The big difference between the two presets is saturation levels, one is very desaturated and the other I increased Vibrance to +30, with the high contrast that makes the colors pop. I prefer to use the low saturation preset with things like military vehicles or silver vehicles where I want to minimize color contamination and use the vibrant preset for everything else.

When desired this style can be further augmented in Photoshop and Color Efex Pro4. One way I do this is apply a glow to most of the photo, but Tonal Contrast to my subject.

To see my new style in action, take a look at the Shuffle and Boeing 40 departure gallery, the Wings and Wheels gallery, my Aviation Portfolio, or my Automotive Portfolio.

Piper J3P at WAAAM

27 Thursday Mar 2014

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Piper J3P Cub (Rick A. Brown)

The Piper J3 Cub, like many aircraft is available with various power plants, the letter at the end of the model number denotes what engine is on the plane.  The P indicates a Cub manufactured with the 50hp Lenape Papoose, a small 3 cylinder radial. There were only approximately 50 Cubs completed this way and from what I’ve heard, these numbers are now down to two.

This one, with the color scheme reversed from the typical Cub, resides at Western Antique Aeroplane and Automobile Museum, in Hood River. WAAAM flies this aircraft fairly regularly and took it to the Piper Cub anniversary Airventure at Oshkosh. The plane was trucked across most of the country and then flown the last few miles to the fly-in.

I made this particular shot to highlight the unusual look of the Papoose engine. So I positioned the camera as close as I could directly in front of the propeller hub. After looking at the resulting photo, I thought it would look particularly good in B&W, so I took it into Silver Efex Pro2 and processed it with the High Structure Harsh preset and toned it Sepia. The resulting photograph is my favorite B&W aviation photo up to this point.

Take a look at some other images from the March 2014 Second Saturday.

Pursuing Greater Realism in 3D Text

18 Monday Nov 2013

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1932 Waco UBA at WAAAM. (Rick A. Brown)

This blog entry is going to be pretty short, because for the bulk of the technique here I’ll refer to Corey Barker’s article in the November 2013 Photoshop User (follow the link if you’d like to join NAPP and get the article.)

With this image I was trying to increase my abilities with the 3D text and trying to realistically blend it into an image. To do so I started with this image of the 1932 Waco UBA on grass, you can see this plane in person at the Western Antique Aeroplane and Automobile Museum. I felt that the mixed field of grass and clover would provide greater challenge in making it appear as if the text was sitting on the field.

The making of the 3D text went smoother and faster this time. My improving familiarity with the process made things move much faster, but the render still took a long time. I was doing this on a full res image, however. If you do it on a smaller image, I’m sure it will go much faster.

The real fun came after the render was complete. I created a layer mask on the 3D layer, then lowered the opacity of the layer a little to help me see the grass and clover under the text and shadow. Then with a very small brush with about 80% hardness, I painted on the mask in black over blades of grass and pieces of clover that I felt would be sticking up from the shadow into the light. Also I painted on the mask over grass and clover I felt would be sticking up in front of the letters. In reality, the clover was shorter in the area the text now rests vs. where the plane sits.

Take a look at my 3D text experiments, or my images of the Waco UBA.

August 2013 Second Saturday at WAAAM

11 Wednesday Sep 2013

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The August 2013 Second Saturday at WAAAM was an interesting one, centered around the items in their collection I know the least about, motorcycles. I have always liked the image of the young man coming back from a war a bit disenchanted and drops out of society and wanders around on his motorcycle. However, I’m just not personally comfortable on a two wheeled vehicle moving faster than bicycles. (You can ask the few folks who’ve given me a ride on a motorcycle.) Thus, I’ve never learned that much about them, nowhere near what I’ve learned from approximately 35 years of being fascinated with planes.

Thus, it was cool to get a chance to get a closer look at many of WAAAM’s old motorcycles and just days before they acquired a 1947 Indian, the sort of bike that fits my ideal of what a motorcycle should look like.

The Command Aire also flew for the first time since coming to WAAAM. It was a bit windy for flying planes of this size, but it all went great and it was really nice seeing this plane flying around. There was also a little Servi-Cycle that was setup as a parts delivery bike for Command Aire and it was really cool seeing these vehicles together.

There was also the surprise visit of an Austin Healey club. It was a total shock to see that many Austin Healeys lined up in the field.

I was able to make an image that day that met the vision in my mind’s eye about the veteran biker pretty well and had a great time along the way. This particular image was worked up using the layered B&W and color technique I described here, except the initial image was not an HDR file.

An early Harley Davidson at WAAAM. (Rick A. Brown)

Take a closer look at my 8/2013 Second Saturday Photos, or all of my WAAAM images.

Cycling Lifestyle Photos

03 Tuesday Sep 2013

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Previously I discussed building a lifestyle photography portfolio. So this past month I contacted the fiancé of the young woman I previously photographed cooking dinner and asking him if he’d be willing to ride his bicycle back and forth across one of Oregon’s many covered bridges at either sunrise or sunset for me. I was quite surprised when he said sunrise would work better for him, although morning does tend to work better photographically. First of all, despite the light being very similar, it’s usually a little better in the morning and secondly there’s usually less traffic to put up with on the roads, etc.

So we met at Gilkey Bridge at 6:00am. I had looked at the maps and tried to evaluate which one of the bridges near Scio would look best at sunrise. I eliminated Shimanek Bridge from the considerations because of the limited vantage points available that don’t place you squarely on a farmer’s land. This is something I wouldn’t do without permission.

We started the shoot with some backlit portraits. I was going for a casual look with some flare. When post processing I accentuated the flare a bit using the new circle filter in Lightroom. I centered it on the brightest part of the flare, inverted the mast to affect the center of the filter more. Then I increased the exposure a bit, reduced the highlights a tiny amount, reduced the clarity and saturation a bit, and finally added a tiny bit of yellow. Then in Color Efex Pro4 I applied the Glamour Glow filter to finish enhancing this look.

USA, Oregon, Scio, a cyclist, first thing in the morning. MR (Rick A. Brown)

Then, when the sun had gotten slightly higher in the sky, we began with the real work of the shoot; photographing him riding back and forth across the bridge. I worked it from many angles, using fill flash in a soft box with ½ cut CTO on the backlit images. The one limitation that frustrated me a bit was where the ground sloped away to the river did limit me from some of the angles I would have liked to have shot. There just wasn’t any way to actually stand in those locations.

Anyhow, overall I am very pleased with the results. Take a look at my portrait portfolio.