Friday, September 28, 2018

How to Grow as a Photographer

The Process

Maybe growing better as a photographer is a misnomer and what I should say is, “How to grow in the field of photography” instead. This article is really dedicated to my wife, because she was the one who would even say, “Your photos look so gritty and grimy, how can you make them look light and fluffy?”

That is a great question, I sincerely thought what I was doing looked good, that it looked edgy and artistic. Looking back on the photos I took just a few years ago, I realized how wrong I was and how right my wife is.

Looking Back

Well, let’s go back to 2 years ago, the place where I made my decision to take photography from a hobby to a business. The Grand Canyon. I will say this, that place is a magical place that any photographer, hobbyist or professional, needs to go to and capture. The Grand Canyon opened a drive inside that took me down the path that I live today, and I will always love it for that.

We were there, with family, visiting the South Rim of the Canyon. We had about half a day, a full night, and another half day to get as much in as we can before having to head back to my Uncle’s house in New Mexico. The first day we were there, there had been some rain storms moving through, however, they cleared up and we were able to get up to the edge of the Canyon and be floored by the amazing vista before us.

We Were On A Family Vacation

We did like most families do in these situations, got our phones out and started taking photos. I, however, was fancy and had my first DSLR, my Canon EOS Rebel T5 with my kit lenses. I have had the camera itself for a few years at that point, and thought myself a pretty good shot and loved taking photos of anything and everything I could. I had a good eye for composition, lines, contrasts, and all the other words you learn in art class. I seemed to pride myself on my “Style” of editing, and it was a “Signature” of my art.

So I got to taking photos, a lot of photos. Some were ok, some were good, some were off, but I wanted to capture as much as I could while I was there. The unedited photos came in, it was clear I still didn’t know how to adjust the aperture or anything about the actual manual settings on my camera, but I was proud of them.

The Unedited Shots

Overall, these came out ok, a little flat (That is always intentional, I at least knew that so I can do more in post, but I digress) and dark but they were ok photos.

Then I did the unspeakable to them.

I decided to edit them.

Forgive Me For What I Have Done

I’m almost ashamed to post these, but it’s an important lesson to not just look at a photo with your eyes, from your own thoughts on “What looks good to you”. If you make people look like crap and you think that it looks good, it will still look like crap to everyone else. This isn’t art, this was me not understanding the tools I was using. This was me cranking out on Contrast and using “Clarity” and sharpness to make a mess. Click on them to see them in their full resolution.

I can’t believe what I had done, in my head when I took these I was excited because they looked sharp and high contrast. They showed definition and some sort of stoicism in all of the portraits. I posted them to social media and went on with my life.

Fast Forward 2 Years

I’ve learned a lot of new techniques and tricks to make a photo, even if it’s already there, better overall. I even learned how to quickly do this, instead of taking 5 – 10 minutes per photo like I had back then, I can get 1 or 2 done a minute now when I get my settings dialed in. I generally do a first pass to correct tone and such, before I go in and do any heavy editing.

So, I decided to go back, and apply my new knowledge to these photos. Here are the before and afters:

Lesson in Photography

I learned a valuable lesson, besides “Listen to your wife”. I learned that there is a million ways to edit a photo, none of them are wrong per se, but a lot of them don’t look right.

When you find your passion and figure out your style, you can adhere to simple rules to keep your portraits looking better without losing your “integrity as an artist”. In the future, I will be doing videos of how I went about fixing this. For now, enjoy the full resolution re-edits I had done for this article in particular.

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Wednesday, September 26, 2018

How to Plan A Cosplayer Photo Shoot

Cosplayers Make The Best Models

Most people who see a portrait done of their favorite cosplayer or model, just see the finished version of a the photo. However, there was a lot of thought and setup that had gone into that. I have shared the few shots I had done for the 3 cosplayers at Dragoncon this year. But what a lot of people don’t seem to know, is how to take a shot from, “A picture I took with my camera” to “A professional portrait of a model”.

My sentiment really is that Cosplayers make the Best Models. Because they are the models I get along with, we’re all gaming, anime, movie, book, etc nerds.

This is more to showcase the behind the scenes of a portrait. I won’t go into specifics, but you can then see the subtle changes from start to finish on a photo. We’ll break down some basics of what I saw, what I shot, and how I came to the end product.

Jill Valentine

Let’s start with Bunnie.

This shot, I loved the backaground and odd setting, not ever portrait needs to be tight and cropped, and most importantly, I was planning ahead. Bunnie was cosplaying Jill Valentine of Resident Evil fame. I wanted to give her this feeling of being stuck in a place where things are going wrong, it’s gloomy and feels like a dire place to be.

After Cropping it down, bringing out the model, making it grittier, and then adding after effects like the seemingly blood soaked walls, gives it the feeling of what I had in mind when I took the shot initially.

Next up from Bunnie we have what may be one of my favorite shots. By itself, is a decent portrait, however, it’s easy to elevate it to a new level.

Tonally, I brought more warmth back into Bunnie, while getting some darker tones into the background, adding shadows and eventually staining the walls red to give it the true Resident Evil vibe. Making sure not to take away any of the integrity of the model, I made sure to leave her unchanged from the initial adjustments, this gives her a, “pop”, over the grungy background. It forces you to look at the model and not get distracted by the setting.

Cortana

Up next we have Audrey and her amazing Cortana.

I approached this completely different than Bunnie. Having knowledge of the character is helpful, knowing that Cortana is an AI, but can manifest in a holographic form was something I had in my head, but also how she was human like and would fit in well with sharper angles and some nature elements, we took to the spot I had scouted. We quickly found a perfect spot and captured one of my favorite shots of the series.

While i really like how this came out, I wanted her to be more vibrant in a harsher world. So I made sure to sharpen the rocks and bring in more saturation and lighting to her. Finally adding the faint blue glows around her to show she is a being of energy and light and not a physical being. I really love the finished product.

For the next shot I showcase here, I loved how light bounced off the area we were in, however, the background was giving me so much of an issue that I had to plan ahead. Audrey was such a great model, giving these ethereal poses and these amazing looks to the camera.

Now, we ended up cropping tighter on her, because the background was becoming too much. I became unsatisfied with it and went with, “Cortana in a haze of Blue Smoke”. Sure this might be “The Easy Way” out, but in this case, it worked perfectly. Now, one part of cosplayers and the south, any body paint is going to start to run, so I made sure to fix the spots by the collar to be consistent across her neck. Let me see you try to keep any paint on when it was just raining, 90% humidity and 90 degrees out, she did an amazing job.

Link

Joshua Morse blew me away with his amazing Link cosplay. It was worn, aged, and felt like the adult link we never got to see in any game. This made for, hands down, my favorite shots of the day.

We’re going to start with what seems like a simple shot but turned into something far more. You’ll notice this shot is just off center, not level, and has all the weird background stuff going on. But that’s not what I saw. I saw Joshua commanding the water from across a 30 foot fountain.

Naturally, we cropped and leveled off the photo. I killed the business glass doors behind him. Then created a smoke effect coming from the water, as if he had extinguished a flame around him. I loved this shot so much.

It was this shot of him that turned out to be the favorite shot of the entire day. We joked how Link loves to smash pots. So, we saw a giant “pot” and was going to have him go lift it up. We had a few different shots of it, but this is the one I loved and we had settled on. In itself, it’s funny yet serious, shows great intention of Link being Link, all while showcasing the accessories of Link clearly. It was a good shot.

I cropped it down to give it a tighter feel. Then went with a higher contrast pass to make sure to feel like the grown up harder link. Then I had to get rid of the cars and buildings to get us set into the Hyrule setting. Finishing off by adding accent smoke and shadows of colors from his clothing and shield.

That is just a small and short glimpse into what goes into a portrait. If you want to know more or have any questions, feel free to contact me, leave a comment or two below or head over to Facebook and leave me a message there!

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Tuesday, September 18, 2018

Behind the Scenes – Headshot Photography – With a Pug

This is a behind the scenes look into headshot photography. With my favorite model who I never have to pay with money, just cookies, Philomena the Pug. This video will basically show you what happens when I set up to do headshots or even portraits. My process and more importantly my love of photography. Below the video are the finished products. And of course head over to the gallery to see other photos I’ve done.

Granted this is with my dog, but this can easily be translated into any headshot session. You don’t even need to have all the gear mentioned, the Interfit S1 is really nice, but I’ve seen a lot done with just the 2 Studio Lights, which is completely fine as well! (I’ve used a 2 light setup myself when I didn’t feel like setting my flash up.)

This is something that any beginning photographer can do.

If you have any questions, comments, feel free to send them my way!

Equipment used in this shoot (I will have a review of all this gear up soon):

Canon Mk7dII
Sigma 18mm – 300mm
Interfit S1 Flash
Interfit S1 TTL Remote for Flash
Impact 28″ Beauty Dish
Impact Air Cushioned Light Stand
Neewer Pro 10×12 Ft Backdrop Stand
Denny Manufacturing 5×8 ft Poly Cloth Backdrop
Neewer 480 LED Studio Lights

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Thursday, September 6, 2018

The Toxicity of Photography

Toxicity.

I am going to do the cliché of defining toxicity.

the quality, state, or relative degree of being poisonous
an extremely harsh, malicious, or harmful quality

That second definition of toxicity is something that we as photographers have come to see every day in our profession. There is a lot of toxicity in any profession, and photography is no different. But, I want to take a moment to talk, as a male photographer (don’t get upset with this, hear me out first) in a world of a lot of toxic behavior that stems from… male photographers.

A little about myself, beyond what my “About” section says, I’m a gamer (again, don’t get upset with this), which these days carries a pretty disgusting stigma that makes me ashamed to be a gamer and enjoy video games, though it’s been a hobby and past time for me, for over 30 years now. I’m a streamer on Twitch (https://twitch.tv/ghengis317 shameless plug), which also, has somewhat of a stigma about it on both sides of the fence, with guys being gross and even woman doing some questionable things on twitch. Not everyone, mind you, (shout out to https://twitch.tv/atombombbody who is a good online friend and partial inspiration for this blog). Some of us just want to play games with friends and chat with internet friends while we do that, without being zany or insane or gross. You know, some of us just want to be human beings.

I’m part of these worlds that have increasingly toxic groupings.

This came to a head from a recent photoshoot I had at Dragon Con in Atlanta. The shoot went fantastic, the cosplay models were great and friendly. Everyone had a ton of fun, everyone was comfortable. It was during the middle of the shoot that I had a chat with one of the models and she said something that struck me odd.

“I have to say, you’re really professional, we feel comfortable, we are all having fun, and you aren’t creepy like most photographers I’ve had to deal with”

This statement sat with me for a while, for a few days actually as Dragon Con wrapped up a few days ago. I ended up chatting with another model/cosplayer/gamer/streamer about this and even told her, “I feel bad for every female cosplayer on a deeper level before… because these models had some super gross people to deal with on shoots before”.

That’s when the sentiment was continued when I was told by my friend about shoots she would go to, where the photographer would be taking advantage of the models that were younger, 18 – 20 year olds, and convincing them to do nude photos to “help their portfolios”.

It seems to be the same story I hear from a lot of different models.

It was heart breaking.

I didn’t understand why a lot of people would be apprehensive about doing photoshoots with me over the years, and only friends would be the ones who agree to them.

It’s because the stigma of a photographer that deals with models, cosplayers, whatever you might be doing, is that the photographer is going to be a shady gross dude.

And I don’t blame them.

I’ve been doing some form of art nearly all my life. While I know nudity is nothing to be ashamed of, the tactics in which some of these “artists” use is really disgusting. I remember being in college and doing live model studies of friends and strangers, and some were completely comfortable in being nude. Here is the thing, I would never ask someone to be nude in a photoshoot or drawing study, I always leave this up to the model, if he or she is comfortable being nude, then we can proceed on your comfort level.

Why do I bring this up?

Because this should be something that is discussed up front, between your models and photographers, before your shoots. This shouldn’t be a, “Surprise! Get naked”, situation. I never want to have a model feel uncomfortable with me or with a situation that I will be putting them in when it comes to setting up a shot.

My advice to models looking into shoots with a photographer, which is sometimes hard to follow, is to ask some of the models that have shot with them before. If you really like their style and they are well known, it can’t hurt to ask how they are to shoot with.

I feel so horrible that I am part of these groups of people who are toxic to a degree of making me not want to associate with them.

In the end, I just want to create art with people, and I hope to make people feel comfortable and have fun in the whole process.

What Happens When You Are A Decent Human Being and People Enjoy Shooting With You?

If you want to see what happens when you have fun with the person you are shooting with, are comfortable with them, and most importantly, aren’t a huge creepy photographer dude.

Here you go, these are the shots I had done from Dragon Con this year with Bunnie (https://ift.tt/2M4cUct) , Audrey (https://www.instagram.com/forestwraith/) , and Joshua (https://ift.tt/2Q8CrUS)