“Bring the Rain” | 52.10

So it is safe to say I have been slacking with this 52 weeks thing.  No really, slacking.  It has been nearly 3 months since my last weekly shot, but you see, I have good reason.  Back in January my wife and I welcomed our second daughter into the world and life has not been the same ever since.  The free time I get is used very wisely and naturally paying gigs come before my personal projects.  Still, this project provided a much needed outlet for me, something I have been missing quite a bit.

Thus the reason behind this image.  Lately, with the amount of stress my wife and I are under, it feels like all we have to do is reach out to feel it start pouring down on us. We are extremely thankful for this new addition in our life but the adjustment period has left us feeling exhausted, drained, and shells of what we were. It feels like no matter how often we see dry land, we end up with the feeling of keeping our heads above water.  I would love to say more but this is a photography related blog, right? Just a very stressful time right now.

Enough complaining…

The setup here was relatively simple.  I knew in the back of my mind the direction I wanted to take and needed an initial shot to get this started off right.  This was shot in the studio against a white backdrop.  There were two Calumet Genesis 400s shot into umbrellas to blow the white backdrop out.  Directly in front of me was an Alien Bee ABR800 ring flash with a 56” moon unit.  The lights were all triggered with Cybersyncs.  The shot was taken with a Nikon D700 and Nikon 24-70mm lens.  Settings were ISO200, f/10, and 1/250th.

The shot was actually taken last week, but I just have not had the time to process it the way that I would have wanted.  Here is the original shot from the camera:

Yea, you can tell the light to my left needs some adjusting as the backdrop is not blown out.  Ugh. Here is a shot zoomed out a tad

We were still getting the settings correct and the lights where we wanted.  Without our blockers on hand we used the umbrellas to block the spill from the back.  A little rough around the edges but we got it done.

There was a wide array of processing done using brushes and textures (include Les Blumes and Skeletal Mess).  I looked around for specific cloud images and just couldn’t find what I wanted, so I purchased this image from iStock and then used it to create the clouds as I wanted them.  Here is the final:

“Midnight Snack” | 52.9

Something interesting happened to me the other weekend. Someone asked me “Hey man, what is going on with your weekly project thing?” I was not really sure anyone had been following along, which is partly why I did not feel super guilty for missing a few weeks. So where have I been?

Life here has been…well….hectic to say the least.  My wife and I are expecting our second girl (due date of Feb. 1st, 2010) and I have been fighting a sickness for a few weeks now.  Throw in an incredibly hectic schedule and this project just took a back burner.  But something clicked when asked about it and it kinda lit the flame back, so I thought I would pick things back up.  My brother-in-law and I have really been working hard on our own photography business and studio.  With so many irons in the fire, some things have to get let go.

Enough of that…

The shot of my head was taken at our studio using two Calumet Genesis 400 lights shot through 45″ umbrellas.

I brought the image in, flipped it so the lighting would match what I shot of the fridge, and then processed it a bit further. The image of me looking into the fridge was shot using two Speedlights.  On the second shelf of the fridge I had an SB-800 shot @ 1/8th up toward the top of the fridge.  I also had an SB 80DX behind the open door @ 1/4th power shot toward the door.  This light ended up not being much in the final image given the post-processing.  The camera was mounted on a tripod and set on a timer.  The Speedlights were fired with CyberSyncs.  I don’t have a behind the scenes shot for this one because I really just wanted to get the light out of the fridge and close the door.  Plus nobody really wants to see a shot of my messy fridge.

The greenery was a stock photo that I purchased from iStockPhoto.  I looked briefly online but couldn’t find exactly what I wanted.

“Sad Times” | 52.7

Despite our President’s claims that the “economy is back from the brink“, it most certainly isn’t.  Businesses are closing on what seems like a daily basis.  This week, a local newspaper, The Henry County Times, announced it would be closing up shop, after serving the community for years.Who cares, right?  Just another paper.  Just another form of dated media biting the dust.  Print is dead.  Blah, blah, blah.

It hits home with me more than it would have a year ago.  As of right now, I am also a small business owner, and operate in the same community that this paper served.  So it is sad to see them make the decision they have made.  While I understand times are tough, it doesn’t make it any easier. A fellow citizen, Beau Kelley, has put it better than I:

You might ask: Why do you care so much about this?  Don’t you have more important things to worry about?    Yes, I do have other things to worry about.  But being a good citizen means more than worrying only about yourself.  I care because I am tired of seeing our community disintegrate.  I’m not comfortable losing the things I love that make our community special.  I’ve lived in Henry County all my life.  This is my home.  And I am willing to fight for my home.  I am not willing to sit back and watch Henry become just another place to live and work.  It’s time we start supporting each other.  It’s time we become a better community.  This is a wake-up call.

That same citizen has taken it upon himself to setup a website, www.savethehctimes.com, in order to help keep the paper alive.  I applaud his efforts. Since opening our photography studio, local business is vital.  Our family does the very best it can to spend our dollars locally.  It feels like we spend our money wiser that way.  It feels good supporting other local merchants and to keep other businesses going.

Equally sad to me is the fact that The Times was a community supporter.  Mickie is a great person and I am thankful to have met her.  She also supported the arts.  While president of a non-profit art organization, I knew she would run press releases about the group, and she did.  In fact, she always supported the arts and anything that made the community better.

On to some positive stuff, below is the setup:

I took this in my garage while my girls took a nap.  The setup shot makes the garage look horrible and messy.  I almost didn’t post it.  Regardless, with the camera on a tripod/timer, I used the ABR800 as the main light and a Calumet Genesis 400 with shoot through umbrella as a fill light.  I had another Calumet Genesis setup as rim/hair light, high camera left.  I put a little card on the ground to remember where to stand once I get the settings the way that I wanted them. Camera settings were: f/22, ISO 200, and shutter of 1/250th.  Lights triggered via CyberSyncs.

Also, this was not what I had planned for this week at all.  I had something Halloween related in mind, props purchased, etc.  But the loss of another local business was just on my mind.

Last, but not least, gotta give moiht a shout for the inspiration. Prints can be purchased as well.

“Back to Work” | 52.6

This past week I have been looking forward to a little down time with my wife and daughter. The drama and retardation of others that has surfaced lately was almost causing my brain to shut down.  I needed a break.  My wife needed a break.  So we hit the road on a weekend trip and got some fresh mountain air.  It was great.  We hardly had any cell service, which turned out to be a bonus, except for needing the GPS on our way to the cabin.  It was nice not to feel so connected.  I did not feel like I had to respond to anything on Facebook, or had to respond to any Twitter message, or had to respond to any email.  I just had to spend time with my family.  Toting the camera along, I also snuck some recreational photography in.

On the trip, I had my sketchbook for ideas (which did not get used) in case something interesting crossed my mind for this week’s image.  I had a lot of ideas actually.  None of which I felt like doing when I got home.  None of which felt the way that I felt when I got home either.  I dont want this project to be just a quick snapshot of me.  That takes no thought.  Even if it is not readily apparent to the viewer, I want each image to convey something, and if possible, I want that “something” to be an emotion of my own.  I love vacations but hate coming home because going back to work lurks on the horizon.  I am usually somewhat ready to go back and in other ways totally unprepared.  Either way, I can rest assured that I will have a full cup of coffee in the morning!

The setup was pretty simple.  The camera was tripod mounted and set on timer.  Facing me was an Alien Bee ABR800 at full power.  Behind me for rim lighting were two Calumet Genesis 400s set at half power.  Everything was triggered with CyberSyncs.  The camera settings were f/14, 1/200th, and ISO of 200.  The setup shot is below:

I tried my hand at a new sharpening technique.  Not sure if I like it completely or not, but it is certainly growing on me.

And I realize that this might be a bit stronger if in a different environment.  But you have to cut me a little slack in not taking it in a more public place.  It was a little more comfortable taking this shot in the privacy of my back yard!

Now that my vacation is over, I am ready to get back to work.  Well, not entirely…

Drowning In It | 52.5

Some days you are the toilet.
Some days you are the paper.
Most days you are just drowning in it.

Many times working off of some type of feeling makes it easier to get an idea out.  I am sure I am not the only one who grows tired of drama and theatrics from those around them.  It is a drag.  Its lame and it drains you.  Thus the image.

In wondering how to best visually represent this theme, I stumbled across Snorkel Salad by Black Scarlet Love and was more than impressed.  I often times see images that I like and to learn, I will do my best to recreate something similar.  But what fun would it be to get a toilet image and do the exact same thing.  I wanted to put my own twist on it, however, in an attempt to learn but also make it my own.

I went to Target and bought a mask and snorkel and the rest was history.  But I have to say, that this project has really helped me learn.  This week I learned some limitations.  I had three lights setup in the house for this shot until I later realized that I could not use them.  With an ABR800 in front and two Calumet Genesis 400s behind me to blow the wall out, I just could not get around the huge glare from the lights on the front of the mask.  Getting frustrated, I turned the strobes off and shot this with ambient light (f/2.8, 1/30th, ISO 400)
 After all, my goal was to bring the photos into an existing image for further processing.  Given that the final image would be textured, I didn’t need the sharpness of a professional studio shot.

The urinal image was purchased from iStockPhoto and modified to fit the layout that I had in mind.

One of the great things about the inspiration image would be the fact that he included links to the resources that he used.  Several of them I opted to use as well, in addition to incorporating some of my own.  Here is my list:

• Brown Stain: http://greeneyezz-stock.deviantart.com/art/Brown-stain-90745436
• Swamp: http://naughty-ang3l.deviantart.com/art/Swamp-52507533
• Crack: http://skornedwolfe-stock.deviantart.com/art/cement-crack-9732124
• Skeletal Mess: http://www.flickr.com/photos/skeletalmess/
• Stains: http://illusionofperfection.deviantart.com/art/Yellow-Drops-I-52601937

Anyway, still seem to be coming up with images for this 52 Weeks project.  At least for now!

Target Acquired | 52.4b

Deep in the furthest mountain recesses, I conduct my secret missions.  Void of curtains, plants, family photos, my bunker decorations consist of bullets and schematics.  Under the security of night, I roam.  Yet lately I feel eyes of the enemy, possibly scanning my location.  I need to be more careful in maneuvering the countryside. Whole out on patrol, ensuring my sector has not been breached, I hear rustling.  Subtle, but I certainly heard something.  My training will not let me avoid it.  Could the enemy have found me?

So this was an accident.  In setting up for the “Not Tonight, Honey” image, I took a quick shot of me with the facial mask on.  Using the ABR800 (@ ¼ power) I took a quick self-portrait using our bathroom door as a backdrop. This was not shot with the end result in mind.  This was not shot with the intention of ever doing anything with it at all.  After stumbling across a night vision image while researching another project, I wanted to see what could be done with this image.

Camera Settings: D700 | Nikon 24-70mm ƒ/2.8 | ƒ/20 | 1/250th | ISO 200

“Something is afoot” | 52.2

Sitting at home, draped in Nike shorts and sipping on a funky fresh cup of fruit punch, a disturbing noise could be heard outside the window.  A slight groan. Possibly from one of the undead?  Had I found myself in the middle of the zombie apocalypse?  Something is afoot…  It might be a zombie.  I better grab the shotgun and check it out.

So here is one of the worst setup shots I have taken.  I guess I was more worried about getting the shot the way that I wanted that I didnt think too much about the setup shot itself.    I took this photo in the small wooded area next to my house.  One SB-900 was shot into a collapsed Westcott 60″ umbrella to put a bit more directional light on my and the ground below.  I also fired a bare SB-800 behind me for rim lighting.  The camera was tripod mounted and triggered with a remote.  The Speedlights were fired with CLS.

I learned a good deal about the distance limitations with CLS and being outdoors.  As you can see in this setup shoot, the far Speedlight didn’t even fire here.  I was in a direct line of sight with it and was not too terribly far away.  I had figured it would have fired but it didn’t.  I ended up moving the tripod closer than I really wanted in order to get CLS to trigger the Speedlights.  Yea, yea, I need to pick up some Pocket Wizards or Cybersyncs.

Above, is the final image.  I was using a single Genesis 400 light shot into an umbrella directly above the camera.  My D80 with nifty fifty was mounted on a tripod, firing the flash with a Genesis remote.  My wife applied the make-up (which freaked her out just a bit) and the rest was history.

Rather than post a before and after shot, which is a little boring, I opted to create a short video to show the steps involved in creating the image.  Enjoy!

A lot of the photos and tutorials, and to some extent the resources, have a serious tone to them.  Last night I decided to have a bit of fun and what better way than to create a project which enables you to laugh at yourself? Creative self-portraits are fun, but can be a little tricky.  Resources are important, however, a plan is even more critical to your success.

First, here are the items I used:

• Nikon D80
• Sigma 18-200mm
• SB800 Speedlight
• Tripod
• Two different outfits
• Giggling daughter (optional)

The first piece is to have a plan.  Think of a theme.  Think about how the image will come across.  You do that anyway (or you should) when you take pictures any other time, so this should be no different.  In fact, here is where it is more important because you are telling a story with the images you are creating.

I was initially inspired by fellow creative Kriegs who setup a self-portrait shot in a pool setting.  The photo portrayed him sitting on the edge of the pool with his feet in the water.  He brought in another photo of him as if he was about to push himself into the water.  I thought it was a really neat shot and thought that I could try something similar.  But I have no pool and if I did, I wouldn’t want to just duplicate what he did.  Being limited in what I could actually do at the time I wanted to do it, I thought about something in the living room.  I wanted to portray two sides of my personality, one serious and one playful.  So that would need two different sets of clothes.  The idea came to me about sitting down trying to read but being bothered by my own practical joke side.

With an idea in place, it was time to put it into action.

Since I was setting up in the living room, I setup the tripod where I wanted.  I took a few quick test shots to make sure the settings were what I wanted.  Then it was time to put on outfit #1 (serious mode).

I will be the second to admit that I am still learning when it comes to taking my D80 off auto and moving into more manual settings (the first person is my friend Dave).  Would you be surprised to know that up until last night, I did not know how to set the timer on the camera, or if I would even be able to do that.  So let’s start with that first.

A quick plug to The Complete Guide to the Nikon D80, who offers an extremely wonderful resource on the D80 camera.  For those who want a manual for their camera, I would start there.

On the top of the camera, you will need to locate the frame advance button.  Press it until you see the timer indicator.

The camera will also allow you to change the timing of the shots, but I found that 10 seconds was enough for me.  I pressed the button to fire off a shot, which triggered the timer, and then ran around to the couch to try and look somewhat serious.

The next shot, with outfit #2 (not-so-serious mode), took a few tries to get correct.  Obviously I am standing over the other me and looking down, so I wanted to make sure that everything was as seamless as possible.  For example, I tried this with another position in the living room, and the me that was standing up was not directly looking at the me sitting down.  So it took some planning and going back and forth to and from the camera to check the image.  The standing shot needed my eyes looking down at the me sitting.  I also needed to have the brown bag close enough to the other me so that it would make sense what I was doing.  I actually had to take this shot about 9 times to get the position and lighting correct.  When I was done, I had the following two images:

Since I used a tripod when taking the shots, merging the two images in Photoshop is relatively easy.  I opted to use the first image as the base image and the second one was imported into the first.  I then took the photo of me standing and trimmed away the background.  There were some slight lighting differences in the two so I used a combination of levels & brightness/contrast adjustments to match them up the best that I could.  The merged image was as follows:

Notice that I also did some slight cropping and resizing.  In the photo of me sitting down, you can see that I am wearing the same black Nike shorts as I am standing up.  So I cropped that out and sized the photo up just a tad so you can’t see them.

We all know that I seem to be unable to stay completely away from Photoshop and knowing that, you can understand why I kept going with the post-processing of the image.  I made a copy of the entire image and then pasted that into a new layer in a new group.  This way I have the original merged layers (if I want them) and can continue to edit with a new group using a copy of the merged photo as a base.

I copied the merged photo into a new layer and converted it to black and white using “Desaturate” (Control + Shift + U).  I changed the blending mode to multiply.  I also brought out the colors of the brown paper bag and my watch to help punch up some of the colors.  I also made a copy of the black and white layer (with blending mode again set to multiply) and applied a Gaussian Blur to it.  After that, I trimmed away me from the image so that only the background was left.

The next step involved applying some subtle textures to the image from Ghostbones and Paul Grand.  The last step was to add one final adjustment layer for curves to help accentuate the final image.

Feel free to drop a comment here or on the actual Flickr page.