Finally

Hey everyone, I', back, FINALLY! I took a hiatus from blogging for a bit, not much to talk about, and I don't like to type unless I have something to say. Anyway, so we did a wedding on Saturday......wait, did I say A wedding, meaning one? My mistake, we did TWO weddings. That was pretty interesting. The first one was pretty simple. On a beach, decent wind, no problem. Now the other one, THAT was a different story altogether. First, I loath church lighting. Second, Donna's camera died on her right after the actual ceremony. That sucked big time. All in all, it was a great day though. Now it's back to real life and editing pictures, which I am coming along smoothly.

Day 14

Hello all, it has been a great day. Went with some friends, well, more family than friends, to watch a momentous occasion....the adoption of a child to a great and hard working father. Not only did we do that, we got to ride the yamaha, which felt good. Donna took some pictures while I just stood back and enjoyed the proceedings. So, tonight we booked another wedding for this weekend, Donna doing one and me doing another until she can meet me there. I'm looking forward to it, it isn't often that we can 2 weddings to a port, at the same time. Plus, it gets my camera in my hand, and documents another joyous occasion, which is always good. I took out my camera tonight and practiced shooting moving target, in raw and also in manual jpg, since I won't be able to shoot in raw for this wedding. It sucks, BAD, but my cards just aren't big enough to handle the volume of pictures that I will be taking. So, I took it out of raw, stuck it in manual, and played with the f stops, shutter speed and iso again to get back used to it. Don't wanna do that DURING the wedding. The wedding party might not be too happy about that. Whoops, sorry guys, I had a camera malfunction, just wouldn't do. LOL!!! So, again, I am off to bed, but tomorrow is another day, and I am sure that it is going to be better than today was, especially with the wife that I have, who is my partner in every sense of the word. Love you babygirl.

Day 12

Hi again all! Unfortunately, I don't have much to say in the way of photography. You see, between my school, my house chores, my daughter and my wife, things have gotten off track the past 2 or 3 days. Oh, did I mention the laundry list of items for me to accomplish everyday, including the photo edits? But I'm not complaining, I love every second of it. Tonight wasa photoshop teaching session for Donna, and boy did she take to it like a fish out of water! She has a different way of looking at things, and that has helped me in broadening my mind a bit, getting off the straight and narrow of photoshopping and making my own creations. I vacuumed and shampooed the carpets and cooked dinner, so that took up a bit of my time too. I am looking forward to our wedding shoot next weekend, and the possibility of another wedding shoot at the same time, in different locations. That will be putting me and Donna doing separate weddings. Should be fun and interesting! The only problem I am going to have is that I am going to have to shoot in jpg because of lack of memory space on my card. BUT.....I think I have a way around that. Let me chew on it for a few days, and then I will unveil my secret plan. Well, off I go, but I will be back tomorrow, so look out world! Goodnight!

Day 11

So, today we are going to talk about perfection. We say that there is a difference between an amateur photographer and a professional photographer. Well, there is. There are a few different definitions of each word, but for this blog, an amateur is either unskilled in the field he or she is partaking in, or doing it for the satisfaction, not for monetary gain. A professional is either showing professionalism in manner while on the job, in the office, etc., or a person who does his activities for monetary gain. So, who out there does shoots for free or for fun? Then that, by definition, makes you an amateur. Who does it for monetary gain? Then you are a professional. Who does it for both? So what does that make us, because I do it for both. I have seen amateurs who could blow area some of the professional work I've seen, and I have seen professionals who really shouldn't be allowed to hold a camera. So let me explain a few things, and then you can form your own judgements. In our world, we deal in perfections. For a model shoot, the model has to be perfect by  modeling standards, the picture has to be perfect, and the editing has to be perfect. If one of those three is off, then the picture is a bust, by peer/professional standard. You say no Shane, that's not true, but ask yourself this, how many models do you see in Elle, Vogue, Marie Claire, that aren't 5'9? Very very few. Name one if you can. I know of one but I'm not telling. How many of those pictures of those models in magazines are crap? Again, very very few. How many of those pictures are photoshopped badly? Again, very very few. In a wedding, the poses have to be perfect, the photog....perfect, the editing....again, perfect. All of these perfects, and every one of them has to match up perfectly, no lines showing, nothing askew. So now ask yourself this, how many of those types of photos have you done? Mine are not in any magazine, but let me tell you, I have done some perfect picture, I mean PERFECT. But how many pictures have I taken in ratio to those perfect pictures? Maybe one in 100, and I am being generous to myself. Oh, maybe half of those are great shots, but they fall below perfect. How about you, how many have you done? We go through so many pictures per shoot that it's insane. If it were film like in golden days, WOW, think of the amount of money wasted! Again, if you don't agree with me, try doing a no look, 2 shots per pose, photo shoot. When I mean no look, I mean no checking that view screen to see how you did. If you are good, then no need to check your work, you already know it. I have stopped checking my work because I think it ups my game, makes me more aware of my style and my lighting. Between not looking and only having so much space on my card from shooting in Raw, I think it's making me really good. But I still take 4 or 5 shots of the same pose, and only about 2 of those are up to MY standards. I can pose someone quite well, my eye for poses has gone up considerably, and my photoshop skills have gotten much better, thanks to CS5 Extended, tutorials and my sister, who is a photoshop guru. The girls I shoot are not perfect. Some of them have everything but height, but I do have a few that are the complete package as models go. But do I consider myself a professional? Yes, outwardly I do. And I think my current work speaks for itself. But inside, where it really matters, no, I'm nowhere near a professional stage in my life. I look at pictures I did a year ago and think, OMG, what was I thinking and why didn't Donna take away my camera and cut off my trigger finger? I won't be a professional until I can look back a year from now and say, I thought I was good then? I'm 10 times better than I was! But I'm going to hope the same thing next year. So I do great work, sometimes perfect, I have great photoshop skills, I have great models and poses. I have great family and friends who tell me what they honestly think, and I have a decent camera. I sometimes get paid for the work I do. Sometimes I shoot just for the love of it. So what does that make me? Maybe a little of everything and a lot of nothing, but in the end, who cares, I'm living, I'm shooting, I'm helping people reach their dreams and preserve their memories, and sometimes making a little money for it. In my book, that makes me something more than a professional, though I'm not sure what that is. So what about you, deep down, where only you can see, what are you?

Day 9

Nothing to say today, I have just been doing photo edits and I am soooo tired. This new u-turn is kicking my but. Tomorrow I will comment on some blogs and do a substantial blog in between photo edits and homework. As for now, I'm feeding the dogs and going to snuggle with my honey. Goodnight.

New week, day 8

So here it is, the beginning of a new week of posts and learning. I haven't done much today, got up later, did some homework, tried to work on some pictures, but I just couldn't seem to get anything going. IDK, maybe I'm just tired or down or something, got the blah's, who knows. Anyway, I am going to go to bed, get up early and start my day off right, and maybe then things will go better. Goodnight all.

Last post of the week!!!

Well, I've managed to meet a HUGE goal of mine, and that was to post every day for a week, no matter what. I'm happy to say that I have met this goal and have enjoyed it. I am looking forward to continuing. Here is something that I learned today. On Sept. 10, 2009 Donna and I went to the Bear Creek Cattery in Florida and took pictures of some of the "cats" they have on site there. It hasn't been quite a year, just a little under a month, but I am just going to call it a year for the purpose of this blog. I went back through those pictures today, and WOW, I SUCKED!!!! My focus was off, badly, I had no angles, no play with shadows, and for some ungodly reason, I wanted to take every picture about 2 feet away. It was horrid. But I'm not ashamed of any of those pictures. They were a stepping stone. I am a good 50 times better now than I was then. Everyone has to start somewhere, but it's an eye opener when you find something done a long time ago and get to see first hand how far you're come.

I'm still counting this

Maybe it's cheating but since i haven't gone to bed yet, i'm still counting this blog. Well, today Donna and I did a maternity shoot, well, it was her shoot, but I went with her and took some pictures. First off, let me tell you this, I have done Donna a huge disservice, an EPIC FAIL, but not making sure that whatever I knew about cameras she knew. This was always her dream and I just followed along, so I have just always assumed that she was good by herself. Unfortunately, when the other half knows something and doesn't share that knowledge, then what good are we. So for now on I am going to make sure that I give her all the help she may need instead of going off on my own and not paying attention. Maybe then I will learn something too. Anyway, the subjects in our camera lenses were/are are awesome. Patty and Dannon Glover, who are also photogs, very good ones too, I might add. Again, thanks for letting us take pictures of you and thank you Dannon, for helping Donna out. Oh, and for showing us that awesome gem of an area. Simply beautiful. Well, off to be I go, tomorrow start my school again, and I am about 4 photoshoots behind.

Another Day Done

Okay, very short blog because I only have like 2 minutes until it's tomorrow. I didn't take any pictures, but that's okay. I got a lot of work done in photoshop. Pictures to show tomorrow. Nite!

Day 4, Photoshoot Day!!!!!

Okay, so I had a great photo shoot today, lots of new photos to edit! Not sure if I am going to post later tonight, James and Jess are coming down, and I still have to make my photo cuts before I "develop" the pictures, but I will try to get some of them done and talk a little about my shoot and what I have learned today. Well, gotta go, have to help my baby girl with her mid-terms, gotta love a college student! Btw, thanks for helping me with the shoot Donna!

365- Day 3

So here it is, day 3, and I can say that today has been a great day. Nothing spectacular happened, but nothing boring happened either, and for me, that makes all the difference. Tonight I wanted to play in the studio, learn the lighting, the shadows, how to use the fan, and more importantly, will the fan work  the way I hope it does. Here are my findings....no, the fan will not work exactly like I had envisioned it to. Oh, it still works for my purposes, and quite well, but not like I had hoped. The hair shows up just fine until right around the end, then it blurs. I'm not sure about that one. Maybe adjusting the shutter speed will do it, but then I have to adjust for my iso with the lighting. pitting it on auto iso won't work I don't think. I will have to experiment some more with that one. But all and all, my shoot with the girls was a complete success. I am very happy with the results and hope everyone else it too. Thank you my darlings Donna and Jackie, for being patient with me and allowing me to play in the studio. I love you both.

Day 2

  So, this is day to of my personal 365. They say if you can continue doing something for 2 weeks then it becomes a habit or something like that. Well, let's see how far we can go. I went out to the park today with intentions of getting a few snapshots to show you what a visual difference shooting in camera raw makes, opposed to just auto jpg. So, here are my results.

Only the last photo has been edited in any way, except in the conversion process, and that edit was done DURING the conversion process. Now for a comparison between photographs.

         







The  photos on the left are much more vibrant than the ones on the right. The ones on the left were taken in camera raw. My challenge to you is this, take and develop a photo in 8 bit jpg and have it come out as vibrant as the ones on the right, without the benefit of altering the photo through a program like paint or photoshp. Kinda like the Pepsi Challenge. Lol                                                                                                                                                                 

Shooting in .ARW (RAW)

So, I've been shooting in Camera Raw now for a little while and there a a few things, most of them very important, that I have learned. Let me tell you this first.....I never stop for directions (points at himself- GUY), I never read manuals, and I am to impatient to wait for someone to teach me something once I hear about it. So, my wife told me about this thing she heard from a photographer, called shooting in raw, or something crazy like that, and she said it was supposed to be awesome. So I figured, hey, sounds cool. Her friend said when she had time, she would tell her about it.  Well durn, my impatience alarm is starting to faintly sound. We go to walmart, to grocery shop and the like, and as I am walking to the dog food isle, I am constantly wondering what this raw thing is. So my impatience alarm went to code red and I whipped out my trusty  Droid Eris, went on Dolphin and searched for shooting in raw. By the time we left walmart, I knew what it was, but now I had to find out if my camera could even do it. I have a Sony A350 (love it) btw. Well, I looked around online for about 30 minutes and could find nothing, so I headed straight for the manual. WHATEVER, remember, me-GUY, so no manual, right for the camera and started hitting buttons. After about 20 minutes and some frustrated monkey actions, I FOUND IT! IT COULD DO IT! I WIN!!! Wait, what the heck did I win? I won MORE IMPATIENCE! I still have no idea how to actually use it. So, here is the skinny on the shooting in Camera RAW. First, camera raw is not just for professionals. Anyone can, and should, use it if they are serious about some quality photos. So, what is camera raw. Camera Raw is a .ARW file, like the .jep or .psd files that we normally see. .ARW stands for Alpha Raw. What does that mean, who knows, it's one of those things that just is. In other words, I haven't figured that out yet. Anyway, there are pro's and con's when shooting in camera raw, but wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. On your camera, IF it supports camera raw, go to your camera's menu and find your QUALITY tab. Mine is in there, and I think it is in something close to that on my wife's Nikon D60. That being said, pro's and con's. The pro's are.....in order for a camera to produce a photo, it takes in information from the outside world. This image is turned into data. The average digital camera takes in data, in RGB (red, blue, green) format, with somewheres on 12 bits per channel. The average photographer has his/her camera set capture data in the 8 bit jpg format. With 12 bits there are more colors and shades in each channel. So right there you are throwing a lot of information, making your pictures less than what they could be. So, the answer is, shooting in RAW allows the camera to save ALL the data that comes across it's sensors. So, the pro's are, there are more colors, more shading, more color detail and you don't destroy your photo. Raw files are opened with a raw conversion program. Edits done to a raw file are done as an overlay, allowing you to revert back to the original file that you started with, so in the end, you have lost nothing. And you can save the images as a .psd or a .jpg when you are through. The cons, and yes, there are con's unfortunately. The first is, raw conversion programs can get a bit pricey. I would recommend Adobe Lightroom 3 unless you have a Photoshop program with a Camera Raw program. I use PS5 myself, but that is for other things besides camera raw. Another con is file size. This is a big hit. Taking in more information means a bigger file. I have a 4GB Sandisk compact flash card. In jpg, I can get around 1000 pictures if not more, depending of the creative qualtiy I have it set to. Shooting in raw drops me down to 185 pictures.....period.  You can also shoot in raw - jpg mode, where the camera stores both types. I can only take 154 pictures with that. So either keep more that on card if you have small ones, invest in a large one, for me a 64GB card is around 4- 600 bucks, or plan on taking a whole lot less photos. Next con is speed. Don't expect to shoot in burst (continuous) mode while in raw. It CAN do it, but the results will be lacking. Again, remeber the file size. It will take the camera a longer load and recover time, so you can forget it. I would say that if my camera could take 20 frames 10 seconds....I have no idea btw....then in raw I will get maybe 6 or 7. Another con is that a raw file needs to be edited. THAT IS A MUST! A jpg or a tiff file can be seen as is, a raw file cannot. unless you have a converter program, you, nor anyone else, can see it. Again, it HAS to be edited. That is about it in a nutshell. I personally will only shoot in raw now, unless I want something in burst. The quality and clarity of pictures is so much better. Just think of it like this, when you take a picture in jpg, what you see is what you get. you can edit the picture, but from the beginning, that is what it is. A raw file is different. Think of editing a raw file as if you were an old time photographer from the good old days, editing in a dark room. THAT is what editing a raw file is like, no joke. Almost done with this blog so if you're still with me, hang on a bit longer. This is a few things I have learned through trial and error. First, shooting in raw is just that, so what the camera "sees" is what you get. You can't take a B/W or any other effect in raw. It may show it on your view, but when you get home and think your B/W session was awesome, you will find that it never was a B/W session until you make it so. TRUST ME! Wink Wink. Something else, be careful of you iso setting when you are shooting in raw. I would say that as a general rule of thumb, on a nice day, go no higher than 400. you might even need to drop down to 100 in bright light. If you hit the higher iso's, like 800, 1600 or 3200, your picture will come out grainy and it is a test of your skills to clear it up. you won't get it completely cleared, so if you want to save it, go B/W and add noise to make it look like it was supposed to be that way. So, that's it for today. I hope that gave you something to chew on and try. TTYL!

Photo 365

So, there is this thing a lot of photogs do, the Photo 365 thing, which is a pretty good idea i guess. I figured why not, doesn't hurt and I can take more pictures and talk about them, which happens to be my 2 favorite things to do, besides stare at my beautiful wife and daughter, and I can say that you two, this is MY blog. Anyway, I am going to put a little spin on this though, as usual. This isn't going to be a standardized blog, you know, take a picture every day, read a page in my A350 book. Nah, what this is going to be is my own journey, a creative, and I hope inspiring, walk through the rest of my life with a camera in my hand and a few thoughts in my head. So follow along, if you have a camera, pick it up and shoot something....ANYTHING, and then post a comment on here about it, or just ramble. Or hey, start your own blog with your own set of rules. Either way, let us begin on this journey. So.... take a deep breath....One....Two....Three........................JUMP...