Re-Banding: Hydrogen Skyline

You've heard of re-branding before...well this is kind of like that. A little white ago I sat down with the band Hydrogen Skyline (www.hydrogenskyline.com) and talked to them about creating a new image for their band. I wanted to share in this blog what came from that collaboration and a little behind the scenes at some of the composite work I did.

Before I get to the images I wanted to take a second to talk about collaboration and a couple of things to help you get started!

1. Bring something to the table - We literally sat around a table at a coffee shop when talking about this project and everyone brought their ideas to share. Don't be the person in a collaboration to show up to the table empty handed, bring ideas, bring good juju, bring something!

2. Be Flexible - Don't bring ideas that are not flexible to the table and be willing to have ideas shot down, especially to meet the needs of the client. We all think our ideas are the best ideas, it is an unfortunate truth that a lot of times they aren't...but that's why you collaborate, so if your ideas suck someone can help make them un-suck.

3. Do your homework - The other day I sat down to have a meeting with a potential client and they hadn't even looked at my website, they had just heard I was good. Not only was it insulting to me, but it was a waste of time because they didn't know what I specialized in. Before I met with the band I had looked at other band album covers, seen what was popular in their genre, and come up with ideas that would work for both of us...they had done the same. Don't be too cool for research and homework, you're clients will appreciate it!

Alright, enough tips...let's look at some pictures! Hang on for the last one it will show an animation of the composite.

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Until next time, go collaborate with someone and BE AWESOME!

3 Things

When I first started photography I wasn't good...and I think that's the case with a lot of people.  However, there were a few things that really launched me in a different direction and I wanted to share those with you.

1. Shoot in RAW

If you're just getting started in photography you probably don't even know what I'm talking about, and no, it's not a vegan diet. RAW is a file format that your camera puts out instead of a JPEG. You can usually do both, but I would recommend getting used to just shooting RAW. If you aren't shooting in RAW now I would encourage you to learn not only what it is, but also how to work with them. In a nutshell RAW images contain a MASSIVE amount of information that JPEGS throw away, and it enables you to make larger changes later on.

I remember when my good friend Zak took me out to shoot about 7 years ago and he asked me if I shot in RAW, I looked at him like he was speaking a different language. It was on that day that I switched over and then learned what the heck he was talking about, it was the beginning of the journey for me.

2. Start Learning Lighting

It all started with a reflector. I think it was about 6 years or so ago that I bought my first reflector, and I was blown away! I thought most certainly that my images would be on the cover of Vogue any day (not even close!). Once I started getting more serious I bought an off-camera flash and have now used most lights on the market, from Profoto to Elinchrom and Broncolor to Alien Bees. I think lighting and use of lighting is one of the main things that separates the pro's from the amateurs. So start with a reflector, learn how to use it, and then the skies the limit!

3. Learn How to Edit Your Images

I use Photoshop, a lot. In fact I have even retouched for massive companies like Ariat, Tazo, Coca-Cola and more because I like it so much. Obviously you don't need to become a retoucher to edit your own photos, but I think a lot of people skip this step because cameras are digital now. If you are thinking about becoming a professional photographer you need to at least know the basics of editing photos, just like you would need to have known the basics of how to use a dark room back in the day.

If you're looking at all these things and feeling a little overwhelmed, there are lots of great resources to get you started. Places like Lynda.com, Phlearn.com, and Kelbyone.com are just a few that I've seen that offer great tutorials on everything from using your camera, lighting and handling files. I learned most of the foundations from Lynda.com, then I mixed that with school, a lot of terrible photos, books, and internships, that is how I became what I am today.

Finally I wanted to say this; when you're new it's ok to suck, but in order to grow past that you'll need to invest time to keep growing...then one day it will all click, and you'll get it! So check out this video for inspiration and then go be awesome!

I think it was in the time of spring 2012, when I came across David Shiyang Liu's lovely piece of work about Ira Glass. It was the most inspiring and motivating video I had ever seen in my life. I watched it over and over again, listened to Ira Glass' voice, and told myself, that I am not the only person who is constantly disappointed about the gap between one's taste and one's skills. Later in 2012, I decided to do my own filmed version of Ira's interview - using my own language to tell his message. It took me about a year from concept to upload. I made it for myself and for anybody who is in doubt about his/her creative career. I also think that Ira Glass' message isn't only limited to the creative industry. It can be applied to everyone who starts out in a new environment and is willing to improve. THANK YOU Ira Glass, whom I've never met in real life, but who had such a big influence on my development. Thank you for telling beginners what nobody else does. David Shiyang Liu for the video that inspired me to start the project. You all should watch his awesome kineticTypo-version here: http://vimeo.com/24715531 The people from current.tv who originally recorded the interview with Ira Glass. See the relevant part here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BI23U7U2aUY The people from Magic Lantern who gave DSLR videography a new dimension (I chose this project to be a test run with the RAW plugin)! Steven Sasseville for painting the "taste" painting for me. Pedro Sousa for his advice and working his ass off at the "creative work" chalkboard. Wolfgang Kraus for letting me borrow his sound equipment. Kai Löhnert for working out on his birthday in the "fight" take. Wolfgang Hendrik Schnabel for giving me the museum-like atmosphere and his silhouette in the painting takes. Hermiyas Ötztürk for his hairy "good enough" hand. Orange Hive Studio for light equipment and location. Mima and Heinz Sax-Schmitz for the location of the "ambitions" take and finding me the "finish 1 story" typewriter. Joyce Chen (https://vimeo.com/clownmori), Soufiane Mabrouki (http://vimeo.com/user21466567), Damien Tsenkoff (https://www.behance.net/damtsnkff), Nikita Samutin (www.baselinedesign.ru) and Andrej Mikula (http://amara.org/en/profiles/profile/65015/) for taking the time and patience to create Chinese, Arabic, French, Russian and Slovak subtitles and dissolving language barriers to make even more people understand Ira's words. A SPECIAL THANK YOU Solveig Gold for being the most patient and supporting person in my life. She appears in a lot of scenes in this video. Jutta and Uwe Sax for several pieces of equipment and their support.

Why Landscapes are important.

I wanted to take a moment to talk about Landscape photography, which you will notice is not in my portfolio...sort of. I think one of the things you need in photography is an outlet, something you like to do that you may not end up making money off of, something that has no clients and no rules, that you do just for you. In my case that's Landscape Photography. When I go out to shoot landscapes I get to do whatever I want, and I don't have to think about what other people will want out of the photo I am taking. Sometimes people like them, and that's great, but that's not the point.

There is one more benefit to Landscape Photography that I wanted to mention for all of you photographers out there who want to do composite imagery...having landscapes in your library is VERY helpful! A lot of the time I don't actually need to go anywhere to shoot a background for an image, I already have it sitting on my computer.

Below are some examples of my landscapes...I highly recommend finding something you love to do that doesn't have anything to do with clients or work and implement it into your work flow. Until next time, be awesome!

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BTS Video

I was recently on set with the gentlemen, a very loose usage of the term :), from Sean Hagwell Studios and Contrast Creative, I thought you all might enjoy a behind the scenes look at what we do!

I shot this whole video on a D7000 and edited it in Premier...just in case you were wondering :) Also, the music is by one of my favorite artists, Odesza, You can find more of their music at www.odesza.com

Inked

One of the things I love about composite photography is that you have to shoot a lot of different things to get one picture, and in this case one of the pieces was ink. My client needed this for a specific composite and rather than buy it from someone else we just did it ourselves!

I was using higher speed flash (top light with a bounce umbrella and side light with a shoot through super umbrella)  to freeze the motion, and we were dropping the ink into an aquarium. We used a black felt background to kill all the light....and this is the result.

That's all for now, sometimes I just like to show people pretty stuff! Stay tuned for more from this shoot in the future and until next time...be awesome!

Quick Tip: Goldie Locks for your clone stamp

I use the clone stamp and the healing brush A LOT, and one thing I wish someone would have told me is to vary how hard your brush is. Most people leave the clone stamp and the healing brush super soft, maybe thinking that it will blend better, and sometimes that is very true...but a lot of times you'll need to change it to get the best results. There are a couple of ways to change the hardness and I will tell you those here.

I think the easiest way is to right click on the image you're working on with either the clone stamp or healing brush selected. That will open up a dialogue box and one of the options is "hardness". I would love to tell you what to select, but that really depends on what you're doing, so experiment!

You can also click on the brush panel and change the hardness, this will be in different locations depending on how you have your screen set up. If you look all over and don't find it make sure it's visible by clicking Window > Brush (the shortcut is F5).

You really need to play with these settings to get an idea of how they change your clone stamp and healing brush, but you'll get used to it!

Until next time...be Awesome!

Pathing and Quick Select Part 2 - Edges

So this is where the rubber meets the road, literally. If you spend all the time in the world pathing and using quick select tools but the edges aren't right your picture will look weird. Sometimes people won't even be able to tell you what's wrong, it will just "feel" wrong. Here's a couple cool tricks to get those edges looking snazzy!

First you need to turn your path into a mask which you can do a couple of ways. If your path is currently active you can just hit Cmnd or Ctrl Enter to turn it into a selection. If your path is not active then you can just hold down Cmnd or Ctrl on your keyboard and click the path with your mouse, either way works, but now your path is a selection. With your new selection active hit Shift + F6 and feather your edge by .5 pixels (you can also find it in the dropdown menu Select > Modify > Feather). Once you've feathered your selection click the create new layer mask icon and you will have your initial mask.

I am going to pause really quick and tell you that I came up with .5 pixels for my initial mask based on personal experience, no feather at all looks too hard and 1 pixel can make some edges too soft depending on the subject...play around and find the perfect setting for you!

Wouldn't it be nice it that's all you needed to do after an hour of pathing? I do to, but it's not! This is where a lot of people go wrong, they just leave the person/object with hard edges and continue on. Sometimes this will work, but I have found that those occasions are rare. Granted, you will leave some of the edges hard, but you'll want to make visual decisions for the rest.

Look at your subject and see if it feels correct. I always have another person look at it as well, sometimes I am just too married to the picture to be objective. Now, if you have some edges that look hard here's what you do:

1. Click on your mask so that it's selected

2. Use the lasso tool to circle the edge that you think is too hard

3. Feather your selection by 25 pixels (again you will want to play with this). This step is to make sure your new edge will blend into the old edge.

4. Click Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur

This is a really cool way for you to see what you're doing to the mask, believe it or not the feather and Gaussian blur use the same technique but the Gaussian Blur allows you to see what you're doing! TIP: If you don't see what you're doing make sure the "Preview" box is checked.  Here is a before and after on a mask so you can see what it should look like!

BEFORE

AFTER

You can see the blur just below the neck, it is subtle, and it should be! It is the subtle touches that mean the most! I am working on some video tutorials for the future so stay tuned and I'll be releasing new images, series and behind the scenes soon! Until next time...be awesome!

Quick Tip: Loosen up!

I am sitting here retouching a big project for Ariat International, as I will be for the next couple of weeks, and I had something pop into my head that I wanted to share with you guys.

First of all, I use a Wacom tablet for all of my retouching, and if you're interested in retouching you should invest in one sooner rather then later. What the tablet does is allow you to use a pen instead of a mouse, which makes you quicker and more accurate. All that aside, here is my quick tip: LOOSEN YOUR GRIP!

A lot of people think that if you grip your pen tighter you will have a smoother and straighter line, the opposite is actually true. If you learn to have a looser grip on your pen you will have less hand problems and your lines will be smoother. This is actually something I learned when I was studying calligraphy, and now it has come full circle to my retouching.

So there you have it, loosen up and be awesome!