ASSIGNMENT: CREATIVE BOOK SHOT

RULED OVER

This shot was taken for an assignment for a photography hangout I take part in on Google+. The idea was to shoot a creative book shot. I had some ideas in my head and immediately knew I wanted to shoot my leather bound edition of ‘The Lord of the Rings’ and ‘The Hobbit’.

IDEA AND COMPOSITION

When trying to realize the shot in my head I first off knew which books I wanted to shoot. The leather bound edition has some great texture and the writing on the binding and details on the covers is some sort of metal foil which really adds to the shot.

I also wanted to somehow incorporate some rings into the shot since that is a major character in the books. To make things interesting I decided to make the rings appear as if they were floating above the books.

To capture this shot I used 3 studio strobes and my Nikon SB-800 flash. I have a little DIY shooting table that I had made out of a piece of plywood and screwed that to an old tripod I had. Then I laid a piece of glass that I had spray painted black on one side to place the books on.

For the rings, I used a boom above and out of frame and hung them from that using fishing line.

For the lights, I started with the SB-800 on the ground behind the little table and put a blue gel over it and aimed at a piece of white foam core that was about foot behind the subject. Next, I had 2 studio strobes that were place right and left in front and level with the subject with DIY strip boxes. The 3rd studio strobe was hung above the subject by about 2 feet from another boom with a soft box on it.

Initially when I took the shot the blue color was totally washed out with barely a hint of color. That was due to the strip boxes that had over spilled the subject and blasted the white background. To remedy that I flagged each side of the table with a piece of white foam core and also used a little strip of it across the top.

FINAL SHOT

To get the final shot I made one exposure. I did a little color correction in Lightroom for white balance and then brought the image into Photoshop and spend about 1.5 hours cleaning the image. I removed a few spots that I had on my sensor, some random dust I has missed while cleaning the area for the shot and also removed the fishing line. Oh, and of course I added a few sparkles to top it off with.

All comments are much appreciated. If you like what you see, please consider following my blog and passing it on to others who may be interested in learning how to do these types of shots. I do hope you found this post to be helpful for you in your own photographic endeavors.

Please also find below this final image a few bts(behind the scenes) shots I took.

If your interested in following me on Twitter you can either click on the link below or go to twitter and click on follow. I’m now also on Google Plus which is a great new platform. Are you on Facebook? If so please ‘like’ the Maugiart Photography Page.

Here are some BTS (Behind the scenes) shots of my setup. This first shot below shows the strip boxes from front and either side of the subject and the softbox above. You can also see the white foam core flags I used. That little black area to the bottom back of the tripod is the SB-800 with blue gel aiming up.

Here is another angle showing more of the same, but gets you a better idea on the overall setup.

This shot shows a closer view of the little DIY table I made. It’s just a a small piece of plywood I cut and drilled a hole in middle where I put a 1/4″ blind nut to be able to screw to the table.

This final shot shows a closer side view to better see the position of the back ground.

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ASSIGNMENT: AD STYLE COCKTAIL SHOT

SMOKY COCKTAIL

This shot was taken for an assignment for a photography hangout I take part in on Google+. The idea was to shoot a creative advertisement style cocktail shot that somehow captured emotion.

IDEA AND COMPOSITION

After the assignment was given I quickly went to our liqueur cabinet where we also happen to store glasses and my eye was drawn right away to the margarita glasses we had. I think they’re hand made as they’re not all exact a not perfectly straight. I also wanted a little umbrella, this is a cocktail shot! The final touch was the smoke to add some sort of mood to the image.

FINAL SHOT

To get the final shot I made about 9 exposures which I masked together in Photoshop. I first took a shot of the glass by itself. Another shot with the added umbrella and then several with the smoke since it kept changing and I wanted to blend a few of the different smoke movements into the single image.

The smoke was made with dry ice. I had a huge chunk and had to break it into little pieces to drop into the liquid which was water with some blue food coloring. This shot was done with 3 studio strobes.

I had one light below and behind aiming at the background with a red gel. The glass was sitting on a DIY shooting table with piece of glass painted white on one side. The purple color on the table was achieved from the red reflecting off the background.

The main light was in front and below with a DIY strip box aiming up and reflected off a piece of foam core hung above the subject. The 3rd, and last, light was behind and to the right with a DIY snoot to aim directly at the glass to brighten it up from behind.

Please also find below this final image a few bts(behind the scenes) shots I took.

If your interested in following me on Twitter you can either click on the link below or go to twitter and click on follow. I’m now also on Google Plus which is a great new platform. Are you on Facebook? If so please ‘like’ the Maugiart Photography Page.

Here are some BTS (Behind the scenes) shots of my setup. This first shot shows the strobe below and behind with the red gel. I also placed a piece of thin nylon fabric to diffuse the light by about 2 stops.The background is the the left in this image. That reflector was placed on the right of the subject to help reflect more light but also to keep it somewhat diffused. For the table I just set my glass on 2 overturned children chairs which the correct height I was after.

This shot shows a better over all view. The main light in front was attached to a boom to hold it low to the ground.

This final shot is just another angle of the overall shot.

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USING A TABLET IN YOUR WORKFLOW

WACOM TABLET

Do you use a Wacom tablet? Last year in September I picked up one of the Intuos small tablets based on suggestions from many digital artists, photographers & retouchers like Genia Larionova. I was a little unsure of its usefulness as I had never used one and had always used a mouse for all of my edits.

ORDERED IT

When I finally decided to take the plunge, I ordered it online. After placing my order I eagerly waited the several days for it’s arrival. I was excited to try it out and hopefully boost my editing technique with it. As with any other gadget that I’ve ordered, when it arrived, I quickly opened up the box, installed all the hardware and software and started to play with it.

FIRST REACTION

Well, let me first be honest about my initial reaction to using it. *This sucks!!!* and is so hard to use. I fiddled with the settings as best I could for sensitivity and what the buttons all do. Still, it was really hard to use. After using a mouse for almost 20 years the pen, which to paper is so natural now, was a pain the butt.

PERSISTENCE

So I dabbled with it here and there for the first week not working on anything super important as I didn’t have the feel for it just yet. After about a week or so, I decided that, after reading a lot of opinions on it use, that I’d put the mouse away for a week and struggle only using the tablet; *For everything!*

I used it from photo editing, browsing the web and checking email and even work and excel documents. The first couple days was a nightmare. Now, if you own or have checked out the Intuos, it comes with several different pen tips, or nibs, as they call them. I found one that seemed a bit easier to use and felt more natural.

Just a couple days before the week was up I started to get the hang of it and could see why so many professionals use and rely upon it.

7 MONTHS LATER

Well 7 months into using it I can safely say it’s so awesome! The ability to adjust pressure on the fly when using a brush in Photoshop is so fantastic.This past week I was working on a photo to prep it for working in Photoshop and I didn’t have the tablet with me at the time. I got to the point of using Photoshop and was stopped in my tracks. I’ve now myself become reliant on the use of the tablet. The mouse is not natural anymore for using the tools in my work. The pressure sensitivity and other great features of the tablet have proven to be such useful tools. I use the pressure all the time to do different amounts of opacity when brushing with a clone stamp tool or standard brush. You *can’t* do that with a mouse.

IN CONCLUSION

So, to finish up with my experience with the tablet so far I can’t stress how much this has helped in editing photos. Are you on the fence about whether to pick one up? Do you have one that either you bought for yourself or someone gave you? Is it still sitting in it’s box waiting for you to have the *time* to set it up and learn it?

Well, let me tell you go for it! If you have one already and haven’t used it yet then your kicking yourself in the heels. If you haven’t purchased on and have thought of it then it’s a must.

No joke, there is a bit a of a learning curve, but if you give it a little persistence then I promise you’ll be amazed at how much better your editing will become. I still use a mouse for most things not related to editing photos like email, text document and browsing the web, but for photo editing or digital painting, there is no other way to go. I just can’t believe it’s taken me so long to get to this point.

Don’t wait as long as I did!

If your interested in following me on Twitter you can either click on the link below or go to twitter and click on follow. I’m now also on Google Plus which is a great new platform. Are you on Facebook? If so please ‘like’ the Maugiart Photography Page.

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ASSIGNMENT: AD STYLE BEER SHOT

SATISFY THE GERMAN IN YOU

This shot was taken for an assignment for a photography hangout I take part in on Google+. The idea was to shoot an advertisement style beer shot. I happened to have several bottles of Paulaner beer and the proper glasses they’re served in so I figured this would be the best choice of subject for my shot.

IDEA AND COMPOSITION

For the composition I wanted to some how show the bottles and glass in various states of falling down. You’ll notice the glass starting to tip over, and the bottles either on their way down or horizontal already. I also wanted to show the typical ‘sweating’ look that you see in a lot of beer advertisements in magazines and on television.

For this shot I used 3 strobes, some white foam core boards for bouncing, a piece of translum plastic sheet (I found that on B&H – great stuff) to make a shooting table, poster putty, glycerin and water.

After setting up my shooting table, I posed all the bottles and the glass. I used a little poster putty (the stuff you can use to hang posters on the wall with) to prop the glass to show it leaning over. I wanted to get all the lighting set before filling the glass with beer and also giving the bottles and glass the ‘sweaty’ look.

I place a strobe fitted with my DIY strip box off to the right and shot through a diffusion panel. I had a second strobe on a boom up above the subject aiming back to to light the background. Just above the subject I had a small piece of foam core to remove the light spill from the second strobe from blowing out the whites on the bottle caps. I then had a third strobe just left of the camera fitted with a DIY snoot (I used a paper towel roll center and gaffer tape to attach to strobe) aimed at the labels to get those to expose correctly.

Once I had the shot the way I was hoping for, lighting wise, I spritzed the bottles and glass with a mixture of glycerin and water. I just made a 1:1 ratio mixture. This gets the water a bit thicker to help having staying power on the surfaces so they don’t just drip away. Last but not least, I filled the glass with beer. I wanted to have a proper head on top and though this is a hefeweizen beer, I didn’t want the yeast to cloud the glass so I had to pour carefully.

FINAL SHOT

To get the final shot I made one exposure. I didn’t a little color correction in Lightroom and then brought the image into Photoshop and spend a few hours cleaning the image. I made sure the background was white. I also had a few shadows I wasn’t happy with so I removed those as well.

All comments are much appreciated. If you like what you see, please consider following my blog and passing it on to others who may be interested in learning how to do these types of shots. I do hope you found this post to be helpful for you in your own photographic endeavors.

Please also find below this final image a few outtake shots and bts(behind the scenes) shots I took with my phone.

If your interested in following me on Twitter you can either click on the link below or go to twitter and click on follow. I’m now also on Google Plus which is a great new platform. Are you on Facebook? If so please ‘like’ the Maugiart Photography Page.

Here are some BTS (Behind the scenes) shots of my setup. This first shot below shows the strip box above on the boom and the strip box to the right through the diffusion panel. You can also see the foam core I used to reduce light spill. I also had a diffusion panel to soften the light on the back side of the subject.

Here is another angle showing more of the same, but gets you a better idea on the setup.

This final shot shows the strobe with the DIY snoot to focus light onto the labels of the bottles. It also shows my camera position.

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EMOTIONALLY CHARGED SPLASH

FRESH KILL

This shot was taken for an assignment from a photography hangout I take part in on Google+. The idea was to shoot an ‘emotionally charged splash.” I tried my luck at splashes which are quite difficult. I figured I’d go with liquid dripping which is a bit more controlled.

IDEA AND COMPOSITION

While coming up with the idea I happened to be in the kitchen cooking and had the idea to use the butcher knife I was using. I also thought that if I used a red liquid to simulate blood that it would create a strong emotion.

For this shot I used 3 strobes, some white foam core boards for bouncing the light around, liquid dish soap with red food coloring and to hang the knife I used a wire coat hanger using a hot glue gun to attach it to the handle.

The shot was quite fun to make. I first hung the knife and set up a strobe with a red gel behind and below the knife aiming at the backdrop. Then after I had that effect, I then started to place the other 2 strobes into the shot. I have one strobe with a DIY grid behind and camera left which is what gives the rim lighting on the top edge of the handle.

I placed another strobe, with DIY grid, in front of and to camera left as well, shooting through a diffuser, to create the lighting on the tip of the blade, just where the blade and handle meet and the lighting on the bottom and back end of the handle. The handle lighting I was able to achieve by using white foam core to bounce and soften the light on the handle.

I made the blood with liquid dish soap and several drops of red food coloring. After I had the shot all set up and lighting the way I liked it, I used a spoon to pour the ‘blood’ down the edge of the knife. I built up the flow so that it would start dripping. I fired off shots while looking through the view finder and timing when the drips would occur.

FINAL SHOT

To get the final shot you see below here, I used 2 images I had shot and brought them into Photoshop. I really like the overall shot of one image, and I liked a particular drip in the other so I masked the 2 together. After that I spent time to remove all the dust and specs from the image which took quite some time. I also adjusted the background slightly to get the mood I was after.

All comments are much appreciated. If you like what you see, please consider following my blog. I do hope you found this post to be helpful for you in your own photographic endeavors.

Please also find below this final image a few outtake shots and bts(behind the scenes) shots I took with my phone.

If your interested in following me on Twitter you can either click on the link below or go to twitter and click on follow. I’m now also on Google Plus which is a great new platform. Are you on Facebook? If so please ‘like’ the Maugiart Photography Page.

Here are some BTS (Behind the scenes) shots of my setup. As you can see from the 2 photos below, I have the 2 strobes on the left. The one on the ground is what lit the face of the blade and also bounced the light from it to the handle with the foam core boards on right.

In this shot you can see the setup after the ‘blood’ was poured on the blade.

Here are a couple outtakes from the shoot. As you can see from these photos the wire coat hanger that is holding the knife. Of course I removed that in post production.

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STUDIO PHOTOGRAPHY INSIGHT HANGOUT

JOIN THE HANGOUT TONIGHT AT 8pm MST.

Tonight please join us in a Google Hangout where we go over last weeks assignment to shoot an ad style watch shot.  Alex Koloskov & Dave Nitsche have been hosting a weekly google hangout. This will be the 8th one I think. It starts at 8pm MST.

SKAGEN TITANIUM WATCH

Well, it took me some time, and bit of cursing, but I think I got the shot I was after. After about 50 shots, I was able to get the shot I was looking for. I wanted rim lighting from the sides but the hard part was to get the face to be lit the way I envisioned it. I kept getting crazy reflections and what I wanted was a nice gradient of light across it. I ended up using a piece of white foam core board placed in front of the watch to reflect light from the side of the strip box back onto the face. I tell you, I tried all sorts of ways to get what I wanted, and then once I had tried holding a piece of board where I did in the end I knew I had the shot! Not sure what the time was to be set for or if there was a standard, but now after I’ve finished I started to look in magazines, and online and noticed that 10:10 seems to be the ideal time. It may be, but I do quite like the way the hands look here as well.

Do you know why 10:10 is ideal? If so, please leave some comments below so myself and others can benefit from insight on the standards that I’m not aware of.

If your interested in following me on Twitter you can either click on the link below or go to twitter and click on follow. I’m now also on Google Plus which is a great new platform. Are you on Facebook? If so please ‘like’ the Maugiart Photography Page.

Here are some BTS (Behind the scenes) shots of my setup. The watch is hard to see here but you can see my DIY strip box with the white board I used to reflect the gradient of light. Bottom left shows the other strip box through a diffuser.

Here you can see how I suspended the watch with fishing line on a home made metal contraption with self tapped holes to position in various ways on a spare tripod.

Here is a closer shot of the watch setup with strip box to the right through translucent fabric diffuser.

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GETTING ART CRITIQUED

GREAT HANGOUT LAST NIGHT ON GOOGLE PLUS

Great Hangout last night with +Alex Koloskov, +Dave Nitsche, +ron gibbs, +Mike Broderick, +Jerry Nielsen, +Steve Savoie, +Paul Helfinstein  & +Anthony Moringello. (hope I didn’t miss anyone and if so I appologize)

Was really great to get critiques from +Alex Koloskov  on technical aspects of our shots and from +Dave Nitsche for the over all look. Was also helpful for us to be able to add our own opinions because critiquing other peoples work, which can be hard, allows us to have a new eye for what to look for in our photos.

It can be difficult to receive criticism from others but it can help to improve our art if we are open to listen to others. Especially is it done in a constructive way. Telling someone that *you don’t like something* is better than telling someone that *that what they did is crap*.

Now, it can still be a difficult thing to hear but if we can allow ourselves to get past our egos about our work, we can then be open to hear others ideas to potentially make it better.

Why are we doing this?

Ask yourself this question: Do you want to improve?

I’m not saying that your work may be bad, but if we’re willing to show others, especially display it all over the web, or possibly try to sell it, wouldn’t it be nice to have lots of other people help us hone our art? It’s still yours,and it’s still your style, but other people may be able to point things out that you may not have seen.

Last nights critiques

During last nights critiquing we discussed the lighting setups, the overall look and how to possibly improve things. Several time +Alex Koloskov would mention that maybe a highlight was missing, or that part of the image was a bit messy and would be nice to remove those bits; like little unneeded labels etc. +Dave Nitsche a couple times had mentioned how great it would be if +Genia Larionova  would join us. In going over the images and how to improve them what better way to improve the cleanup portion then by having +Genia Larionova, who is a fantastic #Photoshop retoucher give us her opinion on what she may do in post processing.

Well, I’ve rambled on long enough. I’ve been busy all day and finally had a chance to post a great thank you to all who attended and that I hope we can keep this up. Per +Dave Nitsche’s assignment we are to now use a bottle in a shot, not necessarily a red wine bottle, and do something sexy with it. I’ve got some ideas and now have to put them to action to see if they’re worth posting.

Please share this out for others to read and also to learn about the Studio Photography Insights hangout on Google Plus.

Cheers!

If your interested in following me on Twitter you can either click on the link below or go to twitter and click on follow. I’m now also on Google Plus which is a great new platform. Are you on Facebook? If so please ‘like’ the Maugiart Photography Page.

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STUDIO PHOTOGRAPHY INSIGHTS

GOOGLE PLUS HANGOUT TONIGHT @ 10pm EST

Alex Koloskov & Dave Nitsche have been hosting a weekly google hangout. This will be the 6th one. It starts at 10pm EST. Tonight we’re going to discuss an assignment we were given to photograph a red wine bottle. That was the main subject and the rest was up to our imagination. There are some great photos so far and it will interesting to hear about the shots and how they were made.

THE STAINLESS STAGE

Have you ever been to Chicago? Or maybe you’ve seen a ton of photos of the ‘Bean’ that is heavily photographed here. I have to admit I’ve taken my share of photos of the Bean as well.

Just a stone throw away, or possibly a lob away, is this stage. They play live music here and from what I know it’s free. You can just bring a picnic, and hang out with friends and listen to great music.

The area is called Millennium Park which is home to not only this stage and the Bean, but a botanical garden and a couple giant square columns that have screens that display peoples faces. During the summer they spray water from those columns typically from the mouths of the people on the screen.

Do you have any interesting photos of Chicago you’d like to share? Make sure to leave links in your comments for us all to check them out.

If your interested in following me on Twitter you can either click on the link below or go to twitter and click on follow. I’m now also on Google Plus which is a great new platform. Are you on Facebook? If so please ‘like’ the Maugiart Photography Page.

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GOOGLE HANGOUT TOMORROW

JOIN THE HANGOUT WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 22nd

Tomorrow night please join the hang studio hang out where we go over last weeks assignment to shoot a red wine bottle. Alex Koloskov & Dave Nitsche have been hosting a weekly google hangout. This will be the 6th one. It starts at 10pm EST.

LIGHT PAINT RED WINE

Here is my take on the assignment from last weeks hangout. After 2.5 hours I finally got the shot I was hoping for. I thought I’d give light painting a try as I hadn’t tried this type of photography before. This shot was done in complete darkness and lit only with a maglite and I used my iphone LED to light the background. Each shot was a 30 second exposure. I also had my long exposure noise reduction turned on in my camera which meant for each 30 second exposure I had another 30 seconds of processing in the camera before it transferred to my computer. I took about 20 shots before I got one that I was happy enough with. With an additional 20 minutes in Photoshop to clean it up I think I finally was happy.

If your interested in following me on Twitter you can either click on the link below or go to twitter and click on follow. I’m now also on Google Plus which is a great new platform. Are you on Facebook? If so please ‘like’ the Maugiart Photography Page.

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A DAY IN LONDON TOWN

After spending a few days out in Wales we planned to have one day in London before hopping on another plane to Germany. The day was gorgeous and pretty warm. We left early morning to drive back to the Heathrow airport to drop our car off and check into our hotel to drop our multitude of baggage off. Next we hopped on the Tube downtown and got off at the Tower Station. Did a bit of walking around and checking out the sites before hopping on a Thames ferry to the London Eye for a scenic ride.

TODAY’S PHOTO – I SPY THE LONDON EYE

This thing is cool! Well, it was pretty warm inside I have to admit, but the views are breathtaking and awesome. You can literally see for miles and can many landmarks are within view. Just below right you can see the Houses of Parliament and behind that in the distance is the Battersea Power Station. This is not your ordinary Ferris wheel. It’s huge and high, and the ride around once takes about 30 minutes. Well worth the time if you have it. I do suggest prebooking a ‘flight’, as they call it, to save from standing in line for several hours.

Enjoy!

If your interested in following me on Twitter you can either click on the link below or go to twitter and click on follow. I’m now also on Google Plus which is a great new platform. Are you on Facebook? If so please ‘like’ the Maugiart Photography Page.

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