Busy Bee…

So yes, here the scoop. I’m working furiously on my book with very specific ideas.

Last shoot I did was a beautiful editorial with Amber Mortensen of Painfully Hip and Jonna Francis from S.I.M Agency. Be on the look out for some beautiful beauty from a shoot I did with my team, Xenia Vayne and Stefani Annaliese with Katie Flanigan from Ford/RBA.

S.I.M Agency’s blogged about it and Touchpuppet.com a beautiful fashion blog posted the photos.

It’s shaping up to be a busy month which is always exciting.

If you haven’t already, add me on Facebook which always has my most recent work on my Photography Page.

Jealously guarding secrets…

…isn’t the way I can be. I’ve noticed that the artists in this industry tend to carefully guard their technique. I understand the thought behind it and have no problems with others doing so but personally I will share my knowledge if I am sincerely asked.

I’ve seen some amazing retouchers share their technique on retouching forums and not worry that others will suddenly be just as good as they are and stealing their work. In this day you can pretty much learn anything you want really quickly. There are books and DVD’s that show everything you need to know. And then there is the internet.

I can show you how to retouch a face, get my colors, or how I light. Someone else using the exact same set of circumstances will just come up with something different even if their sole intention is to copy. Also, I will move forward and do something new. You should be moving forward constantly as an artist, and having stiff competition certainly gives you pressure.

I might someday copy Norman Jean Roy’s beautiful light and color, but that doesn’t mean I’m suddenly in Vanity Fair with my editorial. Context, time and place, and who you are as an artist mean everything. The thing is, nothing trumps experience and your own personal artistic expression. Just my two-cents. What’s your opinion?

Shoot with Ashleigh-Taylor

who was adorable. I haven’t done any BW in a while so it’s nice to have some new stuff and I gotta shoot BW more often!

Style: Xenia – StyleAZ
MUA/HS: Stefani Hernandez

Einstein from Alienbees

It’s now available for pre-order. I’ve been waiting for these and I think I’ll pick up a couple later on. Alienbees are one of the cheapest and easiest ways to go about getting started with strobe lighting and so far every time I’ve dealt with customer service they are awesome. As for the so-called temperature inconsistency, the only time I’ve really noticed it is if I’m shooting too fast and not waiting for the lights to re-cycle. I wish the older AB strobes had a beep for recycle complete. Einstein’s do though.

Morshivi – Wonder

So my real first and true love is music. A while back I started a music project with a friend of mine, Gwen Foote (sorry for pausing the project since I got really busy Gwen!) who does the lyrics/vocals and I write and play everything else except for drums which I write drum loops. I’m not very good at playing them. I was practicing them for a while but then I got busy and traded my brother his piano for my drums

Here is the last song called Wonder that we’d finished. It deserves to be heard and not stuffed in a closet I think. Then name of the project is Morshivi.

I’m actually sitting on three other songs that are done and just need to be tweaked.

New Zandrea Shot

One of the images from a shoot I did with Zandrea last weekend. I swear I didn’t make her skin look like porcelain or blur her skin. Look at the original image size if you really want to see. It’s just the combination of fine pores on her skin and the lighting setup with low contrast not causing many shadows on her pores. The new technique I used on this image was combining different RAW interpretations with different exposure, color and detail settings to even out tone and extract more detail. Natalia Taffarel describes the technique on a preview sample of her new retouching DVD here. I was pretty happy with the results so I’ll be using it often.

Lighting is standard clam shell with a medium white umbrella up top and a medium softbox underneath for shadow fill and to give a bit of kick to the eyes.

Raw Processing Comparison

I wasted a few hours today comparing Capture NX 2(I shoot with a Nikon), Lightroom 2 and Capture One 5. I’ve been using LR2 exclusively for about 6 months. So far here’s what I found.

NX 2
I love the color and my pre-sharpening pulls out great detail out of the file right off the bat. It’s a little awkward since it modifies the RAW to save the your modifications. The interface basically sucks but the processing you can do in NX saves you some time from massaging your image into what it needs from my experience with Lightroom. I definitely would not want to use NX to batch process.

C1 5

This was pretty interesting to use. I’m still not quite sure what to make of the interface but the color and detail were also great. I’m still getting over all the details of just how to use the program. I need to do more tests to see how it handles lens issues like CA.

LR
I’m used to massaging it’s output into what I want. I think C15 and NX2 images were better in terms of detail and color but I think LR’s processing, which is easy to make an image”flatter”, is easy to work with in post-process. Not happy with LR’s lens issue correction at all. Batch processing is a cinch which is a big benefit in it’s favor.

Overall
I’ll have to test more. The better detail/color I get out of C15/NX2 will probably win out in the end but I still like the simplicity and processing of ACR in Photoshop and LR2. We’ll see what conclusion I come to later after more time with everything.

I’m now behind in my work for all the time I spent on this. Better get back to work.

Outdoor shoot with Jayla Rubinelli

So, my 3rd outdoor shoot was a smashing success. Outside light is pretty awesome. The sun caresses and the shade softens. Just the way I like it. These are all 100% natural light with only a reflector for fill. Pretty different considering all but two of my shoots have involved strobe lights. I’ll be bringing my strobe lights outside soon though.

A big thank you to my awesome team who made this shoot great with their talents.

Style: Xenia – StyleAZ
MUA/HS: Stefani Hernandez

Click pix for larger views and you should. They look gorgeous larger.

Busy busy…

Backed up as usual on retouch work but some great stuff coming soon. I did an outdoor shoot with my old friend Miss Jayla Rubinelli. Shooting with friends is always a blast. It’s very laid back and sometimes you forget to actually work. Thank you to Michelle my MUA/HS Stefani’s sister for assisting also. Time to start doing more outdoor shoots and scouting for some sweet locations.

Also, I just discovered Miss Li from an iPod commercial. I listened to her entire album Dancing the Whole Way Home and loved it.

Why I love Gavin O’Neill’s Photography

Gavin’s work is pretty interesting to me. His use of hard interesting shadows especially. His images have a really “dry” look to the skin that I love. As of now, I’m going on 7 months of photography and I’ve been searching for my style and looking for inspiration. Gavin’s approach to beauty, especially his recent work, is just outstanding, unique and an inspiration to me. The makeup is always beautifully fresh looking and the retouching impeccable.

This image as an example I’ve stared at and studied for a while. The beauty is in the light that is defining the shapes. The highlight in her hair, the light on her neck and shoulders, and the gobo’d light on her face.

Another image that just blew me away. There is nothing soft about the shadows here and the contrast is just so strong and bold. Typical of his outdoor lighting.

I urge you to check out more of his work at his website here.