The Scratching Post

Drawing a Blank

2011-04-12T20:09:00.001-07:00

My internet has been down all afternoon, and there’s nothing like a bit of disconnectivity to get me thinking—and writing a bit about why I haven’t been writing, or photographing, or doing much of anything creative.

I'm in a creative slump. A lull. A block so big it puts Kubrick’s monkey-loving monolith to shame. It has sucked up every shred and tatter of what little creativity I possess and has been holding it ransom for months.

It’s frustrating. Downright infuriating, really. I know it happens to everyone, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

Part of the problem is my life, lately, is uninteresting. My job is interesting. I myself, I hope, am interesting. But I spend all day and night at home, tucked away behind the four walls of my home, rarely having the need to go outdoors. Hell, I even have my groceries delivered, so I can go a week without stepping outside.

Some days I think I might have a slight case of agoraphobia, but most times I recognize that I’m just an extremely introverted person. I need down time from social situations. I enjoy the seclusion. Most days.

Other days, I confess, I get a bit angry at myself. How much am I letting pass me by? How much laughter, experience, opportunity, living am I missing out on?

All because I’m horribly over-self-aware. I find social situations exhausting because I’m constantly editing myself. Don’t do this. Don’t say that. Do they think I’m pretty? Stupid? Funny? Horrible? Do they like me?

Do they like me?

This question lies inside the minds of many burgeoning creatives. Supposedly, if the many interviews and blogs I read of other artists I admire are to be believed, there’s some sort of enlightenment way up ahead: the “eff it if they don’t like me/my art--I do" moment.

Where is that moment? When is that moment? Considering it’s how I live my life, not just my art, I wonder if I can actually find the where or when. I think the answer, for me, is “not without change."

I’ll be honest, I’m terrified. Change frightens me. But tying myself up in a little, perfect box and never letting anyone, ever, any time see what’s inside—least of all myself—frightens me much more.

I want to break free. Break out. Break away.

And with one block removed, perhaps all the rest will come tumbling down.

This isn’t going to be easy—but I suppose nothing truly worthwhile ever is. I only hope I have the strength not just to take one step forward, but many. Repeatedly.

Best of 2010

2011-01-18T12:22:00.000-08:00

I'm a little behind on this tradition, but I finally went through my photos of 2010 to cherrypick my favorites. Less creative shoots this year, but I plan to make up for that in 2011. There are several shots from Italy, a workshop that had a profound effect on me last year.

I find it useful to do these annual reviews as it reveals where I improved, what I left behind, where I still have work to do. It's an exercise that keeps me growing!

I May Never Grow Up

2010-11-17T06:52:00.000-08:00

Last week, I went out to dinner with a neighbor, and we later stopped by Target so she could finish shopping for gifts for children in need. She needed to buy supplies for three girls and three boys of varying ages, and I was happy to help.

At one point, I spotted a huge Hello Kitty display in the children's clothing section and squealed out "Hello Kitty!" with exuberance before I could stop myself. An employee I hadn't noticed in the area burst out laughing, and I cowed my head, embarrassed, because I hadn't realized how loud I was. As we passed her, she said to me, "That's awesome. Even I'm excited now. I love your enthusiasm!"

My neighbor then said, "Kerry, the older girl is about 12. I think Hello Kitty may be too young for her."

To which I replied, "I'm 32 and haven't outgrown Hello Kitty yet. I think we're safe."

Some Hello Kitty Band-Aids eventually wound up in the gift boxes. =^_^=

I get stupid excited about silly things, to the point I actually lose my inhibitions in my passion. I become completely un-self-aware, which is a welcome break from the hyperawareness I practice the rest of the time. Sometimes I catch myself, like above, and the hyperawareness takes over with crippling embarrassment, but nearly every time the person I'm with comments on how they envy my passion and hope I never lose it.

I find I hope the same.

My passions can be blinding, to the point I throw myself into them without abandon and momentarily forget everything else around me. I've lost hours doodling or futzing with a photo concept until I get it just right, forgetting sometimes to drink or eat meals.

I still remember once, when I was much younger, using crayons to create a stippling rendition of a tree while sitting on a balcony of some hotel I was staying in with my parents. My parents had been calling me for a while, but I never heard them, so intent was I on making those little colored dots on paper. When they found me and spoke my name from right behind me, I was startled so badly I dropped my crayons, and the drawing was whisked away by a gust of wind. I was heartbroken, and we searched for it as well we could, but it was time to leave.

To this day I think it may have been the most beautiful, inspired thing I've ever created. And I keep chasing that moment of utter devotion and creation that takes me into my own little world for however brief a time.

It's why I keep picking up my camera. I know that the pictures I take aren't world-shattering or world-expanding the way many images I respect by fellow artists are. Most of the time, I'm okay with that. At others, I wish my humble images would open another view of the world to others, shake their foundations a little, or make them contemplate the grandness of life and its infinite variety for just a moment.

...and then I'll get an idea that washes all that angsty self-doubt and loathing right away, and I can't wait to go creating again.

Sometimes, it's just wonderful to act like a kid again. I highly recommend it.

Stop overthinking it. Just go create.

And laugh a lot while doing so.

Italy: Framed

2010-06-17T17:44:00.000-07:00

Well, look what showed up all unexpected-like today! The folks at Artistic Photo Canvas really surprised me with the speed and quality of my very first super-huge canvas print. The customer service was great, as I hadn't realized custom sizes were an option. Knowing I was concerned about any cropping since my composition went right to the edges, they contacted me and said the size I selected would crop the sides, and a 32 x 48 would ensure no cropping.

Three days later, I have a gorgeous new addition to my walls. Color me super impressed, APC!

So without further ado, the unveiling...

I love the texture and feel the canvas gives my print.

The deliveryman arrived while I was eating dinner. I somehow found the constraint to finish my meal before eagerly hanging this in its new home.

I'm off to go sit and stare in awe at it the rest of the evening...

When Pressing the Shutter Really Matters

2010-06-16T17:14:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've written anything here. Shortly after my last post, I received some disheartening news, and from there life—and seemingly unending travel—rudely got in the way. I've spent the past couple weeks trying to gear myself up for this post, because I needed to not have the keyboard blurred by tears when I wrote it.

So far, so good.

Three weeks ago, an amazing woman died. Her name was Dorothy Hartnett. She was my grandmother.

...hang on. Apparently I will need a tissue for this.

Grandma Dot, as she was affectionately known by her grandkids, lived for eighty-six years, and in that lifetime she accomplished some amazing things.

Several years ago, a school project required me to phonetically transcribe part of a subject's recorded speech. Since we were in Texas, and my grandmother was from Wisconsin, I thought I'd be different and submit something other than the Southern drawl we were bound to hear from all the students. What I ended up with was a two-hour interview of my grandmother telling her life story, without interruption.

She was a first-class welder on the Liberty Ships. She was a photographer in a dance hall. She hitchhiked rides from home to school on a regular basis, lassoed a moose in a lake and had it drag her through the water, and burned her eyebrows off with a stove. She lived with Macy's models for a time, and she later managed a small shop in a ritzy hotel (where she was warned not to go upstairs with any of the guests; her friend did not listen to the sage advice). And she met a young man named Joe, who she referred to impishly as "the little fat boy." She also had this irritating habit of ending most of her sentences with a trailing "and that..." which made me want to ask, "And what?"

She was amazing. And stubborn. Right after Christmas she had another heart attack. My mother called and said they didn't expect her to last another week. Family descended upon the house to say their farewells, last rites were read, and we waited.

My grandmother was always a bit mischievous. She lived on for months afterward.

A year ago, my parents believed enough in my photographic ability to gift me with a new camera. I spent four hours reading the manual, then I wandered around the house taking pictures of whatever I could.

In the back room where my grandmother stayed, there were two recliners. She always sat in the one by the door. For some reason, this one day when I had a camera in my eager hands, she was sitting in the second chair, which was next to a large window. I raised my camera. She protested she didn't want her picture taken. I said something to the effect that I was a spoiled grandchild and she should spoil me on this one.

As we were preparing for her services, my aunt asked me for those photos. I went through them and had my breath catch when I saw the photo at the top of this post. That image, with her slight smirk and knowing eyes, is my grandma. That expression conveys everything I knew and loved about her. I feel like I'm sitting in that back room with her again, and she's spoiling me in some way. Devious. Impish. Loving. Wise. I will forever cherish this photo.

Too often I spend my time pointing my camera outside: at other people, objects, or places I have seen and experienced or are important to other people, other families. Too rarely do I turn the camera in, to capture memories of those important to me. It's rather silly, really, to not photograph what is so dear to me. I forget, much too often, that photography is not just about a perfect exposure or composition. The goal isn't just to have a pretty picture. Photographs are memories.

I will remember.

Grandma, thank you for always indulging me. I would not have this memory of you if you'd ever stopped spoiling me.

My Dream Job ... Isn't Photography?

2010-01-28T17:17:00.000-08:00

I'm sorry, photography. It's not you, it's me.

Actually, it's editing, standing over there in the corner, brazenly brandishing that saucy red pen.

She is my first love, and I've never gotten over her. Truth be told, we've been in a long-term relationship the past ten years.

You, photography, are wonderfully captivating. Bright and new. I will always love you. I will always pursue you. But I'm afraid you will never oust editing from my heart.

Especially not when the job I've dreamed about since chasing after my English degree a decade ago just posted an opening. One I finally have the experience for. At the imprint that's pressed its mark into my heart ever since that first black spine drew my eyes.

So please, don't hold it against me. We'll always have Paris, and Russia, and Madrid.

But London's calling, and I have to try to make it work with editing. I couldn't forgive myself if I didn't.

The Self-Portrait Project

2010-01-21T18:50:00.000-08:00

Last year I embarked on a 365 project. I more-than-half succeeded. Finally, all those crazy self-portraits may do me some good.

I've just learned about The Self-Portrait Project at Artists Wanted. Thinking not enough people had seen my silly SP antics, I threw my port out there for more public embarrassment. If you have a moment, take a gander. And if you like the portfolio, give it a vote, would ya'? You can vote once every 24 hours, if you feel so inclined.

Faithful Travel Companion for Sale

2010-01-05T15:26:00.000-08:00

We first met in the summer of 2006. I was getting ready to embark on my first extended overseas vacation, and I knew I didn't want to go alone. We flirted at first; tried some new things. It wasn't long before I knew we were a perfect match. A few weeks later, we were on our way to Reykjavik.

From there, we traipsed through London, Paris, and Madrid, and we never parted. Thankfully, my companion took up very little space, making it easy to share the small European hotel rooms without ever feeling cramped. Together, we watched many sunrises and even more sunsets.

Since then, my companion and I have added a few others to our entourage, and we all have experienced deserts in Moab, winding roads in Wales, golden fields in England, rustic hills and heather in Scotland, cold summers in Stockholm, star-gazing in Helsinki, and palaces in St. Petersburg.

But last year, our time together began to grow short, as I found another companion to suit me better. I had outgrown my first, and we both knew it. Now, as the winter chill sets in and the snow drifts down over our memories, we hope that another traveler out there needs a new companion.

For Sale: One well-loved and faithful Nikon D80, with constant companions Nikkor 12-24 and 18-200, as well as newcomer RRS BD80-L Plate.

To get to know your potential new co-traveler better, please visit this thread on DGrin.

Safe travels!

Best of 2009

2010-01-01T18:25:00.000-08:00

Hopefully everyone survived the new year with minimal damage. Welcome to 2010!

To kick off the year, I took a moment to review the previous year and pick out my favorite shots. It's become a small tradition to see how or if I've grown photographically during the year, and how I might build on what I've done in the next year.

So without further ado, a brief look at what I consider my top shots from 2009.

Found on SmugMug

2009-11-25T12:37:00.000-08:00

In what I hope signals the start of a great holiday, I learned today that the good folks at SmugMug featured my photography on their "Found on SmugMug" blog. Go check it out!

They even have a sneak peek of the series I'm currently working on.

I'm honored and flattered they felt my work was worth featuring. Thank you, SmugMug!

Toddlers and Twins, Oh My!

2009-11-02T12:50:00.000-08:00

It has been a very long while since I've photographed children for an assignment, and the one and only previous occasion involved a newborn, who really didn't move. God bless babies that don't move, because I bit off a bit more than I could chew with this second assignment involving kids. Toddlers. Eighteen months old. And twins to boot!

These boys could scoot! I got a good workout chasing them around the house and front yard.

The mom, a good friend of mine, offered to forward my business information onto a group of moms with twins. Once I recovered from the shock, I asked her to hold off on that just long enough for me to recover from her terrors. ^_^

My muscles are still aching...

What I Learned from Joe McNally

2009-10-29T07:38:00.000-07:00

When I signed up to participate in Paso Robles Workshops' “Hot Shoe Diaries” with Joe McNally, my first thought was, “Is this like ‘Red Shoe Diaries,’ but steamier?” I mean, they both involve gorgeous-looking people under great lighting, right? Uh, the models, not Joe. (You’re ruggedly handsome, Joe.)

Okay, not really. My real first thought was more like, “Holy Hell, I get to spend a week learning directly from Joe McNally with a small group of photographers, AND it involves shooting models the entire time? Heck, yeah!” It didn’t take much arm-twisting from a friend and fellow photographer to encourage me to sign up.

The Paso Robles Workshops are a fairly young venture run by Syl Arena and his awesome wife Amy. Homegrown and handspun, they have created something amazing in a picturesque town I’d never been aware of before. Paso Robles is a fantastic location, full of local characters, that wonderful small-town feel, but with a variety of cuisine and the best damn food concentrated in a four-block radius. When they say lunch is included with the workshop, do not expect sandwiches. A week in Paso Robles will be one of the best-fed weeks in your life. And let’s not forget about the wine! If you manage to recover from the hangover and food coma, you’re in for an incredible experience.

Joe McNally is a character himself. Humorous, down to earth, full of stories, and one of the best damn teachers out there. And he doesn't have a huge ego, though he has every right to one. If you don’t agree, then you haven’t looked at his work. Go look. Come back later. I don’t think anyone can understand how much knowledge and experience he truly imparts during one, short week without perusing his body of work. The guy is a quick-lighting genius. And he divulges all his tricks. He is open, honest, and generous with his feedback during critiques and in the field, and he never hesitates to answer questions in the same way.

I’m not sure I can fit everything I learned from Joe into one blog post, but here are the highlights:

You can be the most celebrated photographer in the world and barely be scraping by financially. If you’re not in this photography business for the love of it, you’re going to have a very tough time when the going gets tough. You’ll have tough times even if you do love it, and hopefully that passion will see you through.
You will never love every picture you take. Being self-critical is not a bad thing. It makes you try harder next time, or even in the next frame. And eventually you will get one shot that makes your heart soar and will obliterate for a while all the bad ones you had to take to get there. Keep striving and keep shooting.
It’s okay to turn down the best-paying gig in the world if it goes against your practice as a photographer. Saying no can be even tougher than saying yes, but sometimes it needs to be done. Trying to balance the need to make a living with your love of photography can be difficult. Don’t let anyone talk you into a bad decision just because it pays well.
The photos you love won’t always be the photos that are published. But it’s important to keep taking the photos you love.
You never stop learning, no matter how good you are.

Oh, I also learned some amazing things about lighting in very tough situations with small flashes. Things that I had read and comprehended, but I was never able to put into practice successfully. Joe forced me to put them into practice, every day, until it all finally clicked. The biggest “aha!” moment for me was this:

Expose for ambient first! Then add one flash at a time.

I know it’s simple. I know I’ve read it elsewhere. But until I was forced to do it (and fail at it a few times in quick succession), I could never actually do it. By the end of the week, I was having a lot of fun trying to add lights quickly and creatively to a scene, and I wanted to do more. The workshop was so inspiring, I wish it could have gone on another week. It lit my mind up with ideas.

If you have a chance to learn from Joe—and his awesome assistant Drew Gurian—or if you’re debating about attending a Paso Robles Workshop, do it! You will have no regrets.

…except perhaps a slightly expanded waistline from all that fantastic food!

I Don't Shoot It, So I Don't See It

2009-08-19T17:44:00.000-07:00

I read a comment from another photographer that struck me as a bit close-minded earlier today, and I wondered: will I be that biased when I've been shooting for 40 years?

Now, this person is an amazing photographer in a genre on the opposite side of the "portrait" spectrum from what I choose to shoot. The photographer has won awards, been published in national magazines, and, frankly, has some jaw-dropping work I can only wish to achieve many decades down the line. I, on the other hand, am a n00b. I recognize that we look at the work we do completely differently, and our approaches to photography as a practice are likely nowhere near similar.

This photographer has been shooting for more than 40 years. Me: 3 years.

There's no question who the better photographer is.

But when this amazing photographer refuses to even look at another genre of photography, claiming they have nothing to learn from it, I am stunned a moment into silence. Could that be true?

I'm certain it's because I'm new that this way of thinking abhors me a little. Then again, I've always been a knowledge hound and am constantly looking for new things to learn, so maybe it's just a personality trait totally unrelated to photography. In my world, I can't imagine turning away from any source, no matter how far-fetched it is from what I may like or choose to shoot, just because I don't like shooting it. I would never think another person's work has nothing to teach me.

For example, I will never be a macro bug photographer. I hate bugs. Vehemently. Scratch-my-arms-to-ribbons-at-the-merest-hint-of-buggy-feet hate. But I still learned from it. I employ the "hold your breath and sway" focusing technique, and it's something I never would have learned if I hadn't viewed macro photographers' work and read about how they achieved them. I'm still never going to shoot bugs, but I'm grateful there are people who do because I have things I can learn from them.

The potential for lost inspiration by refusing to view an entire genre of photography also saddens me. Who cares if you don't shoot it? Does that really mean you shouldn't look at it, either?

So, dear amazing-award-winning-experienced photographer, I will continue to admire and learn from your work. But your bias I refuse to take as a life lesson.

Moving Pictures

2009-06-14T11:00:00.001-07:00

Playing around with Animoto to create a short promo video. Very addictive.

Shoot, Shoot, Shoot, Pass Out

2009-06-12T06:33:00.000-07:00

Been busy lately, which has been a nice change of pace. Things will be calming now as I prepare to head to Scandinavia and Russia in a couple weeks.

Here's a snippet of what's been keeping me busy:

It'll be a bit jarring to switch gears back to landscape and street photography for a while, but I'm so looking forward to it!

Launch of a Lifetime

2009-05-16T06:44:00.001-07:00

It may sound aggrandizing to call what I experienced on Monday, May 11, 2009, the "launch of a lifetime," but it's quite the literal truth. STS-125 was the last—the very last—servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. Never again will two shuttles be posed on launch pads 39A and 39B at the same time, one ready to undertake the mission and a second on standby for rescue. It's the last time anyone will see that sight. It was equal parts breathtaking and saddening.

Space Shuttle Atlantis launched on a sweltering hot afternoon at 2:01 p.m. From seven miles away on the East Causeway, there's no sound beyond the chatter and excited conversations of the thousands of onlookers surrounding you. Suddenly, there's a flicker of flame beneath the shuttle then bounds of billowing smoke as the heat interacts with the water sloughing the fire trenches to create copious amounts of steam. Then there's this sudden, intense brightness as the shuttle lifts off. The light hits you long before the sound and is startling, especially from seven miles away. It isn't until the shuttle begins to arc away that the sound finally rolls over you and beats down your eardrums, giving the impression that the sound cuts out here and there because it's beyond what your ears can fathom.

I rented a 600mm lens for the occasion and put together a short movie of all the stills captured with it. It didn't feel right going through all the trouble of getting the lens to Florida and only using one still for a print, so this is my consolation effort.

In a few days, the mission team will return and Hubble will hopefully live on to 2014. More than that, I hope NASA decides to service Hubble in the future. I'd sorely miss those amazing interstellar images if ever Hubble were to retire.

A Little Noir

2009-04-12T17:30:00.000-07:00

After a few weeks of doing nothing more than look at my camera, I finally had a shoot this weekend, which made me both excited and nervous. The model wanted film noir, and I went in with too many ideas. She was fantastic, but I really struggled with the lights. It made me long for the new JrX Radiopoppers all the more. I would have killed for a way to pop both my Alien Bee and my SB-800, enough to overpower the sun during late afternoon.

Despite my frustrations with myself, I did manage to grab a few shots of which I'm quite fond. I've only just begun to process, so this is a sneak peek.

Taken with a Nikon D700, 50/1.4 at f/5.6, 1/160 sec, ISO 100, one SB-800 above the stairwell pointing straight down behind the model.

It was a long, tiring session, but it felt great to be shooting again.

Creationary

2009-03-11T20:50:00.001-07:00

It's nearly midnight now, and it's more than the recent (superfluous and idiotic) time change keeping me up past my usual bedtime. I've spent the past few hours immersed in other people's creations, particularly Imogen Heap's, and a slow, rumbling, glow of a burn has begun seething in my brain. And, frankly, the damned thing isn't allowing me to sleep. I want to create something. Now. Right now. But I'm stuck in this limbo between too many ideas and not one good one to throw myself at or up against, repeatedly, until I either bloody my nose or break through.

It all began yesterday when Imogen posted on her Twitter page that she would be approaching her biography and cover artwork for her upcoming album in a quirky, fun, slightly silly, and altogether brilliant new way: her Twitter followers—or fellow Twits—would do it for her.

A burbling brook of ideas bubbled up from my heart to tickle my brain with tingly effervescence. I'm not certain I can put into words the excitement and thrill even the possibility of working with Imogen for a week on an artistic venture inspired in me. A gust of giggly, wild ideas blew through me before drawing back in like caught breath to capture the details and colors and to desperately try to pin a few down before they fluttered back out again and far away beyond my grasp.

I've spent much of this evening relistening to her albums, which I've long loved, and perusing her past vBlogs on YouTube. And since I cannot do more than send along samples of my work and then wait, wait, and wait some more, my digging efforts to learn more about this amazing sound artist—"musician" just seems a woefully inaccurate description to encompass all she does—have done nothing more than to feed my creativity even more.

My photography and writing urges now piqued, the educational fuel from literary agents I recently discovered on Twitter, including Colleen Lindsay (mastermind behind the recent and brilliant #queryfail) and Angela James, has served only to puff at the embers of my ideas. Unable to photograph half what I imagined at the nonce, I thought instead about adding more to a short story I began a couple years ago just to get the creativity out and materialized so I could get some blasted sleep already.

Unfortunately, I ended up hating much of what I'd written on that story (still like the idea, but the prose made me heave a little), and that little flicker of an idea was quickly snuffed.

I'm unable to sing full voice, as I'm wont to do when this type of energy stuffs itself up inside me so much that it cottons up my throat, because the hour is late and my downstairs neighbor is an unfortunate gent I'd prefer to have as little run-ins with as possible. Especially after the hooker Christmas present he gave himself last year that ended up screaming naked on his front porch after midnight.

So I can only pour out here, a small sieve to drain a little of the energy out and stop the jittery bouncing of my feet and fingers.

But I know as soon as my head hits the pillow, I will think again of trying to capture the feathery, brilliant spirit of Imogen; of other dream photography assignments; of the neglected characters I left sitting stymied in ink; and of many more things unknowingly tangential that my mind hasn't even yet realized.

How do I get this out? Onto paper. Onto screen. Onto canvas. Onto scraps. Onto ink and color and words.

And why doesn't my muse keep more sensible hours?

Painted Lady

2009-02-24T06:35:00.000-08:00

So what do you get when you take four and a half gallons of paint...

...a teeny-tiny bathroom...

...and a beautiful model...

...and toss a photographer into the mix?

A night goddess, apparently.

And lots of giggly laughter during the process...

Recreating the Classics: Behind the Scenes

2009-02-02T11:29:00.000-08:00

Before I ever set up lights for this shoot, I pulled on my knowledge and love of classic B&W films for styling ideas. The model and I had a lot of exchanges about appropriate wardrobe, hair, and make-up, and she came well-prepared. I flipped through a wonderful book of Edward Steichen's photography for ideas on lighting, poses, and fashion, though his fashion work pre-dates the 1940s look we were trying to achieve. Can't go wrong studying Steichen as far as I'm concerned, though.

I also created a storyboard of poses and any changes in lighting I wanted to try. I do this because once I begin a shoot, I get so into the work and excited about what I see on my LCD screen, any planning or forethought I might have had goes right out of my head. A storyboard keeps me grounded and provides ideas on direction in case I or the model get stuck in a posing idea rut.

Okay, enough planning. The lighting set-up was one Alien Bees B400 with barndoors. Yep, that's it. For variation, I would add a 30º grid, move the light up or down, move the barndoors to grow or shrink the background spill, or place a tall tungsten lamp opposite for some fill. Since these were to be B&W shots, I didn't bother gelling for the mixed light.

A lot of my work is done after the shoot. I'm a processing addict. Yes, sometimes it's a problem. So I thought I would share this problem with others so I don't feel so alone in the world as I frantically huddle over my Mac laptop futzing with Photoshop.

To get the polished, pristine look of the 40s, I was a bit extra anal about every detail. Take this shot for example. Here's the image I started with straight out of the camera.

I love this shot as is, truth be told. The model's pose and expression are wonderful, I managed not to chop off her elbow, and I'm a bit in love with my yellow walls. However, I knew for the classics 40s look, a straight B&W conversion wasn't quite going to cut it.

My first step was to clone out or heal any distractions, i.e., anything that makes my eye move away from the model's awesome expression too quickly. In this case, I cleaned up the skin a bit and parts of her blouse that were rumpled and ruining the arched line of her back, as well as some stray bits of hair. I used the spot heal brush and clone tool mainly, relying on the liquify filter to fix the bumps in her shirt.

My next step was very slight skin smoothing, using Scott Kelby's technique. This helped darken her raised arm slightly and smooth the shadows on her face just enough for my taste.

Next I brightened the eyes, again using Scott Kelby's technique. This involves creating a curves adjustment layer and setting its blending mode to screen. I usually invert the mask and paint the eyes back in with a white brush, then lower the layer's opacity to 50% as a starting point and jiggle it from there until I'm happy that the eyes pop enough without making the person look radioactive.

I noticed the catchlight in her forward eye wasn't visible when zoomed out, which bugged me a bit, so I dabbed a spot of white paint on the original catchlight to make it pop a little more.

My standard beauty treatment done, I walked away for a bit and came back to the image. I found her shirt and lit arm still pulling some attention away from her face, so I burned them in a little. I also darkened her back eyebrow a little to balance it better with the forward one.

Some of these changes are very subtle. If you have tabbed browsing, I highly recommend opening the steps in different tabs and flipping back and forth between them quickly to see the changes better.

Content with the image in color, I finally converted it to B&W using the Totally Rad Awesome BW action as well as the Antique Tone action. While processing the first image from this set, I played around with many different BW actions and manual conversions until I found one I liked, then used the same formula with small tweaks for the rest of the set so the photos would look cohesive when viewed together.

And my final step was a bit of sharpening. The technique I use most often now is based on Manny Librodo's technique. I found instructions for the type of sharpening he applies floating around in the interwebs and created my own action from them.

Whew! That's it. Then we completely switched gears for some color "broken doll" shots.

More on that part of the shoot later. ^_^

Recreating the Classics

2009-01-31T18:51:00.001-08:00

After celebrating an unmomentous birthday, I got off my duff to shoot my first model. Ever. And I had a blast.

The concept was hers, but I did a lot of research, planning, and storyboarding to prepare. I've only just finished processing the first half of the shoot, so I'll post a set-up shot and some behind-the-scenes on processing tomorrow (EDIT: Make that Monday. Promise!)

Now to plan for tomorrow's shoot!

And a New Year Begins

2009-01-27T20:21:00.001-08:00

Welcome! Today marks an ending and beginning. I finished my photo-a-day project today, and I decided to start this blog to fill in the gaping hole the absence of that project will leave behind.

I celebrated with cake.

I hope to use this blog to focus on photography: the bizarre creative concepts, the technical stats to achieve them, and whatever new things I learn about this money-sinking hobby.

Hopefully you'll get something out of it, too.

If not...well, there's always cake.