MichiganPhotographer

Taking away things you don't like

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I hope everyone had a great time during the Holidays. For Lisa and I, we sure did. We got to spend some family time. As with any event, you always want pictures. In this case, it was no different. We went to a restaurant in the Cincinnati, Ohio area, and after we were done, we wanted a quick picture. So you got it, the waiter took it with my iPhone. The picture is great for us. It did what we wanted. A memory.

We got back home, and I looked at the picture, and I thought. I wonder what this would look like if I got rid of the distractions. This will be an excellent picture to practice on. With that said, I opened photoshop and started to get rid of what I call the easy distractions. The easy thing I used is what is called the patch tool. Easy items would be like the glasses in front, the silverware in front. For me, it starts looking good. Next was let’s finish it with some of the hard things. Like Lisa with the napkin. Notice her hand is blocked. With that, I needed to make fingers that looked like they belonged. Out came the clone stamp. I had other tuff things and used a combination of clone stamp and brush tool. I got what I think is a better picture.

Final Image

Practice makes perfect, the old saying goes. I m always practicing something. One to keep up with the new things out there, and second, to be good at anything, you need to practice and, yes, practice some more. That's what this exercise was all about. You see, the first picture will be fine; after all, it's not going to any magazine, but my thought was, what if a client wanted something removed? Can you do it?

Merry Christmas to the Greatest Generation

They call this one the Greatest Generation, and I understand why. I was so fortunate to talk with some of these heroes from the ’40s and ask questions about the war. The older I got, the more I wanted to understand. The big lesson they did not feel that they were owed. Responsibility, Work Ethics, Faith and Humility They love America and what it stands for. Freedom. Merry Christmas to the Greatest Generation.

How the mind works if you let it

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II have been watching the past week some adobe lesson’s on all of their products. That is what hit my inspiration on the composite shown below. I am using 11 stock photos, and with the help of Photoshop, I came up with what I had in my mind. As I said before, I can’t draw, but I can imagine, and I know what I like. So with Photoshop and also, in this case, the help of Illustrator is my composite. So what are the 11 photos?

Winter night

  1. It started with the background mountains.

  2. next was the cabin, and I blended it with the snow of the mountains

  3. Next was the tree close to the cabin. I cut it out from another photo and used it.

  4. The middle tree

  5. The smaller tree on the left.

  6. Next was adding the Buck.

  7. I added the two Does.

  8. After blending everything in, the cabin needed smoke. I added smoke.

  9. Change the sky from sunny blue sky to star night sky. I wanted this to be nighttime.

  10. Added the moon to show bright light was coming from something

  11. After looking and thinking I was done, I thought if this was real, I needed to footprints of the deer. This is where Illustrator came. I made them and copied and pasted them in.

  1. There you have it, 11 photo’s to make 1. Thanks, Adobe, for your classes. I get inspired all the time. This project took me some time to work on. But, I am happy with how it came out.

Playing and learning

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The cool thing about photography is that you can do it anytime. I like to practice and learn and then practice some more. Today I wanted to play with gel lights and practice shadows and highlights. So I grabbed something that would not complain, and I worked with what I had. For I was at a bed and breakfast place, I had no idea I would do this.

Luminar-0898.jpg

I had two lights, one light stand, and my gels. The first thing I wanted to do was light from behind to give it backlight. Using a CTO gel and a MagMod Grid, I set this up first. I liked what I had, but way too much shadow in the front. I knew I wanted to reflect light back into the front but did not have one, or did I. Yep, pillowcase to the rescue. I brought in really close to the left side and got what I wanted. Next was to set up the fill light. I wanted the shadows to fill in with blue—my second light I set up using a blue gel. I had no light stand, so I set the light on the floor and flashed on the ceiling. Yep, I took advantage of a giant softbox with a flash of blue to fill in shadows with blue. It worked and did what I wanted without using Photoshop.

So much playing and learning. Just another thing to put into my back pocket.