A Big Thank You
I just got back from teaching a multi-day photography seminar to the Professional Photographers of Pennsylvania. A big thank you to WHCC for sponsoring me, and to all the photographers in Pennsylvania who came out and made this such a great event.
The Images from the Photo Shoot
For one of those days, we did a live shoot on the beautiful street of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, just outside the convention hotel. They had this very pretty high school senior model for me to photograph so that I could demonstrate various lighting techniques while shooting fashion images.
The big take-away I hoped photographers would get out of my program was that no matter the location or lighting style, images should be so good in the camera that they don’t need retouching. Eyes should pop, skin should glow, and people should look better and thinner because of your lighting techniques – not retouching.
And great images straight out-of-camera means a quicker work-flow, cleaner retouching techniques, and far more powerful photographs because they’re believable.
As a followup to that shoot, I wanted to post some of my favorite images – unretouched of course. I spent my computer time picking favorites with the photographers there in Pennsylvania. When I got home I took a few of those and added some color toning to some (using my action set), then finished them with edges from my edge set. Other than that, no retouching, no eye whitening, no skin softening, nothing. I hope people can see how great these images look. In fact they’re better than most people’s images after retouching.
During the workshop I showed how to create and design collages for clients and I shared my quick retouching techniques. So in this collage two photographs are retouched – the two that I retouched in front of everyone in Pennsylvania. The rest are not. I doubt most people could tell which ones are and which aren’t. If anything I hope people don’t notice that at all and instead appreciate the variety of personality and expressions from such a short shoot.
And here is a fun trio design using photographs shot just inside the stoop of an old building. You saw two of these larger above.
This next image is actually a painting that I created in front of the crowd of photographers. So this was first retouched, then used as a reference to create this painting. I love paintings because they’re so unique and different. And they look stunning on the wall.
The blue tone to the background is not a computer effect. It was done in camera with just lighting. This street was fantastic to shoot on. Every building and doorway was quaint and engaging. We had a lot of wonderful meals on our downtime in this area, all within walking distance.
And to finish up the shoot back at the hotel, a few images in the hotel lobby using a couple strategically placed strobes for the right lighting.
I also did a second shoot with an adorable little girl. I hope to post some of those later. But for now if you’re a photographer and would like to train with me, I do a few live events around the country each year. But I also offer right here on this site, full online courses on everything from lighting like a master, to getting great expressions, to the quickest workflow using Adobe products. Those courses are great for people who want to learn at home, or get a head start on a live training event with me, or for those who want even more training after a live event.
And for kicks, here is an iPhone pic of me in action shot by one of the photographers. Aside from my entertaining “stance” (which is the correct way to bring your camera-line lower), I like this photo because it shows my camera meter. I believe strongly in constantly measuring the light from all directions. And it also shows the how the street scene and the model look normally with “natural light” (which is how the iPhone sees things) versus in my photographs which have specific lighting techniques added.
And until next time, America.