the shenanigans never cease....
You know what? People that use the word 'postmodern' piss me off.
And so do photographers that pose a hot nude model on a rock in the woods and give the piece a gag-me-with-a-spoon title like "Flesh and Stone" or some crap like that.
Guaranteed gag-free photos of my first outdoor portrait project on my DeviantART gallery.
---
Anyway, I just underwent somewhat of an equipment upgrade. Yep. I gots me some picture-editin' tools. After getting paid for a big job, I bought a Wacom tablet, which lets you control the cursor with a pen-like pressure sensitive stylus on a flat 4x5 tablet. Basically, it lets you sketch in photoshop as you would on a paper. The joke at school is that trying to edit with a mouse is like trying to draw with a brick. Immediately I was sketching in little retouching subtleties in photoshop that I never thought to do with the mouse.
Then I bought a monitor calibrator so that the colors on my screen are 100% true. Kinda important in this line of work... and now my screen colors are all nice and purdy.
Last, I bought some flash accessories: A reflective umbrella, strobe reflector, and remote radio flash trigger. Like a kid at Christmas I attached my new flash gear to my monolight, stuck the radio transmitter on my camera, and took some test shots in Dark Haired Girl's living room:
... upon which the transmitter promptly died. They're sending me another one, though. Very good customer service, Fotodiox. They've got fantastically low prices, and you get what you pay for (I'm not expecting Speedotron, Profoto, or Pocket Wizard quality here), but their sales department is an absolute joy to work with. I mean that, I'm not being a smart-ass.
---
So this quarter is Portrait 2, which is all outdoor location and available light shooting. No studios allowed! (Yay!) So my next project is Environmental Portraits, which include much of the surrounding areas, not just head-and-shoulder or 3/4 length shots. There's this gorgeous field of wildflowers that I drive by here in town, so I asked Angela to meet me after work at the coffee shop across the street from it for some test shots:
Ok, so the flowers look more dense as you're zipping past at 35 mph. And I forgot to account for the industrial schmutz in the background. I'd spent the earlier afternoon tromping around scouting locations, and found a few. One is this cool waterfall and pool that I know of. I went there only to find that in the midst of this drought, it was bone-dry. To my advantage, though, it revealed this neat wall of layered sedimentary bedrock. I did come across some interesting graffiti, though, and caught this little detail that for some reason appealed to me:
Maybe it's because it looks vaguely like something from South Park. Who knows...
---
Later on, a future project this quarter is window lighting, so I asked Ruben (Zen Master and all-around swell guy) to pose for some practice shots while spending a lovely afternoon off at my favorite watering hole:
I can see that being a potential location...
And so do photographers that pose a hot nude model on a rock in the woods and give the piece a gag-me-with-a-spoon title like "Flesh and Stone" or some crap like that.
Guaranteed gag-free photos of my first outdoor portrait project on my DeviantART gallery.
---
Anyway, I just underwent somewhat of an equipment upgrade. Yep. I gots me some picture-editin' tools. After getting paid for a big job, I bought a Wacom tablet, which lets you control the cursor with a pen-like pressure sensitive stylus on a flat 4x5 tablet. Basically, it lets you sketch in photoshop as you would on a paper. The joke at school is that trying to edit with a mouse is like trying to draw with a brick. Immediately I was sketching in little retouching subtleties in photoshop that I never thought to do with the mouse.
Then I bought a monitor calibrator so that the colors on my screen are 100% true. Kinda important in this line of work... and now my screen colors are all nice and purdy.
Last, I bought some flash accessories: A reflective umbrella, strobe reflector, and remote radio flash trigger. Like a kid at Christmas I attached my new flash gear to my monolight, stuck the radio transmitter on my camera, and took some test shots in Dark Haired Girl's living room:
... upon which the transmitter promptly died. They're sending me another one, though. Very good customer service, Fotodiox. They've got fantastically low prices, and you get what you pay for (I'm not expecting Speedotron, Profoto, or Pocket Wizard quality here), but their sales department is an absolute joy to work with. I mean that, I'm not being a smart-ass.
---
So this quarter is Portrait 2, which is all outdoor location and available light shooting. No studios allowed! (Yay!) So my next project is Environmental Portraits, which include much of the surrounding areas, not just head-and-shoulder or 3/4 length shots. There's this gorgeous field of wildflowers that I drive by here in town, so I asked Angela to meet me after work at the coffee shop across the street from it for some test shots:
Ok, so the flowers look more dense as you're zipping past at 35 mph. And I forgot to account for the industrial schmutz in the background. I'd spent the earlier afternoon tromping around scouting locations, and found a few. One is this cool waterfall and pool that I know of. I went there only to find that in the midst of this drought, it was bone-dry. To my advantage, though, it revealed this neat wall of layered sedimentary bedrock. I did come across some interesting graffiti, though, and caught this little detail that for some reason appealed to me:
Maybe it's because it looks vaguely like something from South Park. Who knows...
---
Later on, a future project this quarter is window lighting, so I asked Ruben (Zen Master and all-around swell guy) to pose for some practice shots while spending a lovely afternoon off at my favorite watering hole:
I can see that being a potential location...
posted by Grover at 8/01/2007 09:27:00 PM
2 Comments:
Yes, you did email me a comment, but I've pointed this out to you before so it wont be a shock that I am doing it again...
Whenever you get involved with someone, this blog suffers and you forget about those who've supported you from the beginning. Now the only thing in your life seems to be photography and DHG. Lather, rinse, repeat ad nauseum. I miss the days when you spoke more of yourself and your mind and less filling the space with photos.
Also, the Angela pictures would have been better without the industrial background. All field and just her would have been much nicer. It loses something to see a store backside and loading dock behind such a beautiful face.
I have to admit I agree here, no one hardly hears from you anymore. I have sent you a couple emails about hanging out, I will be in all day Sunday, and we leave to drive home the next day. Hope the classes are going well or went well. Are you doing ok???
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