OK, so I am going to cheat a little with this tutorial.  I did not take this photo for the purposes of writing something up about it.  Yet, the more that I think about it, the more it makes sense to use such a photo.  How many times have you put something before a client that you really thought out and they passed right over, yet they rave about something you took in passing?  So this tutorial covers some basic and quick steps you can take to give a quick portrait a little more pop. Read more »

If you are like me, you love finding resources online for your work.  When they are hi-res that is great.  When they are hi-res AND free that is even better.  Here are 8 new hi-res grunge textures for you to use in your work.  All of the images are 4256px x 2832px and 300DPI. Read more »

Recently, I was over come with spam.  Maybe overcome is putting it lightly.  I was getting more spam email in my inbox than I was actual email.  Which for reasons that are far too obvious is a horrible thing.  Thankfully I found a fix. Read more »

After reading through Maciek Lesniak’s Flickr stream I found it to be overflowing with helpful diagrams and setup shots.  You see, if you are a photo geek like myself, you enjoy the setup shot almost as much as the shot itself.  It is great seeing what someone came up with, how they positioned their equipment, and what settings they used to produce the final image. In several setup shots I saw a DIY beauty dish for Nikon Speedlights and became intrigued, which led to a trip to the store, and obviously to this post. Read more »

As my business partner and I continue to grow our photography business, we have been looking to build our portfolio.  As he has many more years experience with photography than I, namely weddings, we lean a lot on his body of work.  As a testimony to his ability, he shot my wedding, and did so with a Pentax medium format camera.  While the photos were great, the drawback is having the work in negatives when we need them digitally to work them into our website, studio books, etc. Read more »

I was out playing with the camera today, trying to snag some shots of the leaves.  Not that it would be difficult, considering my yard is being overtaken by them.  After taking a few quick shots, I brought them into Photoshop.  I wanted to enhance the image just a notch with additional sharpness, and since it was something that I could use again elsewhere, I thought others might as well. Read more »

There are many ways to soften skin in Adobe Photoshop. Recently I found a process that I have enjoyed, and one that is quite simple as it only involves a few steps.  Given that those steps are typically the same each time, I packaged the steps up into a quick Photoshop Action and am offering here for free download. Read more »

For you Nikon shooters out there that have not yet had the opportunity to experiment with the Creative Lighting System (CLS), you are missing out.  While at first it takes some adjustments, it is really quite fun.  And while not the solution for every shoot, it certainly has it’s place within the photographer’s toolbox. Read more »

If you are a geek like me and also in possession of an iPhone, you most certainly have looked around at the various photography related applications available. I have been trying my hand at two of them, CameraBag and CameraKit, and wanted to share my thoughts with you should you be in the market to purchase one yourself. Read more »