"The Winds of Summer" featuring Madeline Shayne Photography

Create a Safety Net

Robert Cornelius March 7, 2017

If you're in the gym and trying to lift something heavy, odds are you need a spotter. Even if you fancy yourself to be a big strong macho man (or woman). You may think you can just do it yourself (and maybe you can), but wouldn't it be safer to have an extra set of hands to yank that weight off your chest if you try to bite off more than you can chew? Perhaps you and your silly pride can struggle through it, but odds are you're going to have bad form; the sloppy reps just aren't going to deliver the results you were hoping for. Creating a piece of artwork is no different. Sure, you can do it all by yourself and get something done, but it's always a good idea to find an artwork spotter to have your back.

Using Motion Blur to Create Action

Robert Cornelius February 13, 2017

A super easy way to add motion to an edit is to apply a motion blur filter. I know it's so obvious it seems silly, but there is definitely more to it than just slapping a filter on top of your image. First of all you have to decide what is in motion and what direction it's going in. For "The Retreat" I knew that he (the dragon ... well subsequently Niall too, I guess) would be charging towards the left side of the frame, so the angle of my motion blur was easy enough to figure out. I was attempting to emulate the look you get when you pan the camera following along with a moving subject. For example, if you were to try to take a picture of a passing motorcycle, you could track it in the center of your frame, then when you snap the photo the motorcycle would be more or less crisp and the background would have the motion blur.

"Them" featuring Shelby Robinson and Chris Rivera

Ultimate Guide To Selections: THE MAGIC WAND

Robert Cornelius October 26, 2016

I recently started a series of blog posts in which I gab on about the various selection tools of Photoshop. So far I've only gone over the pen tool, my main squeeze when it comes to most selections. It's definitely my go-to selection tool because it's just so dang precise, but let's be real here ... it is NOT always called for. There are going to be many selections that don't require quite the amount of work and attention that goes into penning a path around something. Oftentimes when I know it's going to work quickly and efficiently, I just look no farther than the Magic Wand Tool ... I mean it's got "magic" in the name so it's got to be good for something, am I right?

"The SpellBinder" Featuring Kara Markley

You Don't Always Need Fancy Lights

Robert Cornelius October 5, 2016

I'm the first person to say that I totally LOVE studio lighting. I crave a few hours spent in a dark studio tinkering around with big-expensive-flash-photography-toys as much as the next guy. Probably more than half of my portfolio was shot in the studio with multiple huge flash banks and other fancy lighting tools and modifiers. I wonder if (slash secretly hope) some photographers out there see this image and think something like, "This is so cool, but I can't afford all of that snazzy flash lighting stuff." Or that some photographer who's stuck in their old ways, thinking you can only get good images with expensive lights, will see the image and say, "See look what a stunning image you can create with some good lighting equipment ..." Well, this image is a testament that with a little creativity, a good group of friends, a bag of candles, and .... some cell phone flashlights ... you can accomplish something truly magical!

Ultimate Guide to Selections: The Pen Tool

Robert Cornelius September 8, 2016

I know there are a lot people out there who want to be better at Photoshop - heck, I've been doing this for almost half of my life and I want to be better! Well, I was really thinking about it and it dawned on me that more often than any other tip, I'm telling people they really should master the pen tool. It is hands down the most advanced and precise selection tool and if you boil Photoshop down to its simplest form, it's a SELECTIVE photo editing software. So I thought to myself, "Hey self, why not really dive deep into selection tools - how to do them, when to use which one, and why they are so dang important?"

"The Captain's Last Stand" featuring Thomas Willeford

Don't Fall Victim to "What Ifs"

Robert Cornelius March 30, 2016

Recently I was wandering around that Facebook thing because it is the ultimate procrastination tool. I can't say I remember what I was putting off, but I'm so glad I was. Through a series of countless random clicks on god knows what links, I wound up on an event page with an open invitation to a steampunk studio photography weekend at Omni Lens Studios. "Hmm this seems interesting, " (Robert thought to himself). "Oh dang, and it's only half an hour from here..." I clicked the "I'm Interested" option which kept me in the loop without actually committing to anything. Then for the next several weeks I would check back in periodically to quietly stalk the various attendees, photographers, makeup artists, and models - you know, typical internet creepin.

Creating The Mistress of Mystery

Robert Cornelius March 18, 2016

Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like you to meet Marisa! (Unless you already know her, in which case ... here she is again!) She is one of my many amazing photography friends. (Humble brag?) Marisa is so talented and just a wonderful person to know and be around. You can see her being super fun and awesome in a gif in this post. I've shot with her many a time before, but by "with" I mean "near/next to." I realized during the meet up I hosted in Watkins Glen that I'd never actually shot an image of Marisa. That just wouldn't do. It was nearing sunset on the first full day of the meet up and a small group of us wandered over to this location and Marisa just so happened to have this dress on hand, so I had her throw it on and we did some shooting!

9 Steps to Create a Magic Portal With Photoshop

Robert Cornelius March 10, 2016

Over the years as my style and visual preferences have evolved, I've noticed that I'm kind of completely and utterly obsessed with any sort of float-y particle/dust/speckle/orb/bokeh/grit. Acceptance is the first step .... to NOT CARING AT ALL! :) I really love the way dust can add so much motion, texture, and interest to the air in my images. Some pictures call for a very clean, sharp, uncluttered feel, but more often than not I get to a stage in my editing process where I want to muck it up a bit with some atmospheric particles. I'm always on the hunt for some great speckled textures to use in my edits.

"Swimming Moonlight" featuring Aleah Michele

7 Reasons to Do a Sunrise Photo Shoot

Robert Cornelius March 2, 2016

Ok, can we just agree that our beds are the most wonderfully magical places that we can call our own? Sleeping in, all snuggled beneath a sea of comforters and pillows, being warm and nestled in your happy place is just perfection. I'm now going to ask you to leave that happy place at the butthole of dawn. EWW WHAT!? Yes my friends, get your comfy little butts out of bed and go out in the cold for the sake of art!! (Unless you live somewhere with a more gentle climate year-round, in which case, get your butt out of bed and go out in the warm...)

"The Spell Book" featuring the incredibly talented Marsha Denlinger

Step Outside Your Comfort Zone

Robert Cornelius February 19, 2016

You know how you can spend years trying to find your photography style? Testing out different techniques and effects hoping that something will eventually evolve into your perfect aesthetic? For a while I was sort of in denial of "my thing." People started taking notice of my studio work and saying things like, "Hey friend, I like your style! You're a great composite photographer." To which my brain went, "No I'm not! Wait what? Am I? ... I have a style?" I was shooting in the studio because it was convenient (I live upstairs ... ), but I hadn't ever really thought of myself as a studio photographer. My photography upbringing had taken place in the woods and on aimless adventures with my mom's camera, so I just assumed my style was going to be found somewhere out in the wilderness. I guess I did take baby step towards "studio work" when I started to steal every light fixture in my parents' house (that wasn't attached to a wall) up to my room to shoot portraits of my friends.

Take the Transform Tools to the Next Level

Robert Cornelius February 10, 2016

So obviously almost every Photoshop novice has "transformed" something in Photoshop. As in, "I just dragged this image onto my canvas and it's way too flippin' huge. Let me make it smaller with the transform function." But how many of you have really taken it much further than that? (Yes, I know there are exceptions; we are all at different levels of expertise.) Transforming seems like a pretty simple/straightforward thing to do in Photoshop - you're just re-sizing something, right? Well with a little creativity, not only can you transform the size of something, you can completely transform a handful of random images of, say, lizards into a freakin baby dragon! WHAT!?!?

"Petals Yet To Fall" featuring Steph Pez

How I Created a Liquid Black Dress

Robert Cornelius January 25, 2016

It doesn't take long to create something spectacular ... well at least it doesn't take too long to shoot it. This image took about 4 minutes to photograph - meanwhile I've been editing it for what feels like forever. It was taken during the Watkins Glen Flickr Gathering on the second day, about an hour before sundown. We had just arrived at Clute Park on Seneca Lake, and I knew I wanted to make use of the lake via a panoramic shot with someone on the rocks in the center of the frame. That's about as much planning as I did. I decided to let this be one of those, "I'll take a few photos and figure it out later," sorta pictures.

8 Reasons to Host A Photographer Meetup

Robert Cornelius December 21, 2015

I swear if I don't go to at least one substantial gathering a year, my portfolio wouldn't be even remotely close to where it is now. I've taken so many of my very favorite (and often most popular) pictures at Flickr gatherings. There is just something about the crazy artistic energy that occurs with all the different photographers in one location. I think the incredibly famous and talented photographer Robert Cornelius said it best in his blog post about a meet up he went to last year, when he said, "Suddenly everyone becomes a big, harmonious, creative machine." Or perhaps when he uttered the perfectly crafted words, "Every moment is crazy, amazing, all over the place, and utterly perfect. This is where art is born."

The Watkins Glen Flickr Gathering

Robert Cornelius December 14, 2015

The. Internet. Is. The. Best .... I can't even begin to figure out how to put into words how I feel about the weekend I spent with a bunch of crazies from the internet. (Ok that's not true; apparently I begin by talking about how I don't know how to begin ... that's how I begin .... ok but seriously let's begin.) Last month I had the absolute pleasure of hosting a photography meet up/gathering/photo-adventure-camp-for-adults with about a zillion unbelievably talented photographers, all of which I met on the internet. (Excluding my brother Daniel who also attended ... I met him in a hospital this one time before the internet was really a big thing.)

5 Steps for Creating Long Shadows

Robert Cornelius September 2, 2015

I had kind of a hard time coming up with an appropriate title for this post ... I'm still not totally sure if it conveys what I'm trying to show you today. As you may hopefully have guessed by looking at my new image, I'm going to be talking about how I made the shadow that the eagle is casting. The problem was I couldn't really call this post, "How to Create Long Shadows Cast By A Subject That Is Suspended In An Epic Beam Of Light." It's just a bit too wordy ... So anyway this is how I did it!

"Entwined" does in fact feature none other than the Boy Wonder himself ... Joel Robison! This is from the Silver Lake Flickr Gathering I went to last year. You can read more about that grand experience here, and see all the images that eve… — "Entwined" does in fact feature none other than the Boy Wonder himself ... Joel Robison! This is from the Silver Lake Flickr Gathering I went to last year. You can read more about that grand experience here, and see *all* the images that everyone created here.

Not Every Photo Can Be a Unicorn

Robert Cornelius July 27, 2015

Ok let's be honest - your work is awesome, right? Right. You want every piece of your new artwork to top the last and be even more beautiful and well renowned, but they can't all be the best. It's just not possible (because ... science). All of your work can definitely be good or even great; you can love each and every one of your art-babies equally, but no matter what you do you're going to create a real winner every now and then. Sometimes you accidentally create a unicorn (ok not an actual unicorn ... well maybe you're making a picture of a unicorn ... but just stay with me.) - an image that just shines a bit brighter and sticks its head a bit higher out of the ever-filling pool of images flooding the internet these days.

The Do's and Don'ts Of Adding Wings

Robert Cornelius February 27, 2015

Ok let's just be honest for a second here, everyone and everything in the world looks marginally cooler with wings. Period. It's just the way it is. In middle school when I was heavily into my "drawing magical fantasy creatures" phase (it never ended by the way just ask my sketchbook), I used to check out this "how to draw animals" book from the library all the time. Really they should have just given it to me I had it checkout out so often. I loved to pick several animals and mix them together. I'd make all kinds of crazy critters like bears with lion tails and pig feet, you know, the usual. One common theme seemed to run through every one of these creations was...wings. I'm pretty sure about 95% of them had wings of some sort, (because as we've already been over, everything is more awesome with wings). Well internet I've decided to put my many years of bestowing flight to good use and share some do's and don'ts of adding wings to your images

Just Shoot It Anyway

Robert Cornelius January 9, 2015

I attended yet another photography meet-up, and as per usual at such an event I felt the need to make some art. For whatever reason though, I was just not feeling super inspired that day. Usually I'm swimming with ideas and can't decide which I want to shoot first, but every concept I was tossing around seemed to fall flat. Yes, I was coming up with ideas here and there but I felt like they were really lacking in story. There I was surrounded by some of my wonderful photography friends and a zillion props and costumes, yet I wasn't creating anything...

Always Be On The Lookout

Robert Cornelius December 23, 2014

I find that I'm never not subconsciously looking for my next photo idea or at least something to be used in editing. Even when I don't think that I'm thinking abut photography, the creative side of my noggin is always waiting right at the edge of my brain to strike when it sees something of interest. One of the things that I'm ALWAYS on the lookout for are great textures. They can definitely be overdone but when used correctly can add a lot of interest to an image. Plus, it's just fun to bring bits and pieces from all of my adventures harmoniously together into one image. For example, in "The Unobtainable Kiss" I used pictures of steam leaking out of a clothing steamer here in the studio, a picture of a baking sheets from my kitchen, a photo of the side of a shelf at an Anthropology store in Baltimore, a pic of a sidewalk in Philadelphia, clouds taken from a plane somewhere over the middle of America, and of course a picture of a frog on a face from Silver Lake New York.

5 Tips For Expanding A Dress

Robert Cornelius December 16, 2014

I don't know if you've noticed yet, but expanding a dress in Photoshop has kind of become a must-have portfolio piece for fine art photographers. Well, not so much a "must-have," but definitely an "everyone seems to have." I'm totally cool with this. Robert Cornelius is the biggest sucker for any gloriously rippling, larger than life gown; he just can't help himself. Come on, who doesn't love a GIANT flowing dress!? When you can take a 4 dollar thrift store find and make it look like a huge, impressive, expensive, high fashion ensemble, why wouldn't you? Not to mention it adds lots of interest and production value for no extra cost...unless you have to buy the dress, but you know what I mean.