These days I primarily shoot in a HUGE studio with more amazing flash equipment than I could ever hope to afford myself ... ok, so I could HOPE to afford them, but at this point in my career let's just say I'm a very lucky boy to have all these fun photography toys at my disposal.I was thinking about how I've come so far from those long lost days of household lighting experiments. Every once in a while I like to shake things up and challenge myself, so why not go back to my roots and try to do a self portrait image using nothing but lights from my house!?!?
Read More"The SpellBinder" Featuring Kara Markley
You Don't Always Need Fancy Lights
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!
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"The Secret Doorway" featuring Kara Markley
8 Steps To Creating a Fantasy Lighting Effect
One of my ABSOLUTE favorite things to do in Photoshop is to play with lighting effects. Whether that be to make something glow, create a spotlight sort of effect, or set my hands on fire, I'm always so impressed with the many ways Photoshop allows you to alter lighting. Because of the skills I've gathered for bending light to my will, I no longer look at an image I've taken and think, "Oh man, I wish I would have brought some flash equipment with me so there could be light spilling through the archway from behind her." I now just think, "Wouldn't it be simply fantastic to have some magical light coming from behind her? Yes, yes it would ... I think I'll add some." Don't get me wrong it's always going to look better if there was actually some real light falling on your subject from the get-go, but that's not going to stop me from adding a bit of illustrative oomf to my images whenever I see fit!
Read MoreArtists Around The World Blog Hop
My delightfully hilarious friend from down under, Handy Andy Pandy, has bestowed upon me the honor of being a part of this crazy blog hop thinger. Here's how it's gonna go down - I'm going to gab on for a bit about how truly wonderful Andy is, then I'm going to answer 4 questions about myself, and finally I'm going to force upon you three other glorious artists to check out. THEN, those artists will do this very same thing a week from now, where each of them ask three MORE people to join in, and the ever growing web of creative blog hop posts will branch out on and on until it explodes the internet. Sound good? Ok great, let's get started...
Read More"Raveling" featuring Tony Matula
A Lot From A Little
Whoa dang, look! This guy is covered in barbed wire, crazy right!? It must all be Photoshop magic you're thinking, because by now I know you've all discovered that I'm a big fat photo-manipulating cheater and nothing is real. But shoot, this looks like it's really on that poor guy... Must be some fake barbed wire that isn't sharp, right? Nope. That's as real and sharp as they make it. Also, yes we really did put it all over him. Sorta. ALL of this wasn't on at one time, but we did actually put a fair amount of this gnarly stuff on him. Then I used some sneaky shooting and editing techniques to get lots more wire on while still totally selling it as real...at least I hope I did.
Read More"The Elemental Line"
5 Compositing Tips & Tricks
Take a good look at this picture. (Cool thanks!) Believe it or not, this image began as a picture of a girl (my delightful friend Molly), sitting in the studio against a black background. No lake, no sky, no seaweed, no need for an underwater camera housing and certainly no fish. To some people, including my past self (let's call him Past-Bert just for fun), would look at this picture and think, "How the heck did they do that!? I could never take a picture like this!" Past-Bert saw all kinds of crazy composited images back in the day (somewhere around 2008-ish) that just blew his poor little mind to pieces (small ones). He was thoroughly enjoying photography, but Past-Bert hadn't even dipped his toe into the compositing pool yet. Now I like to think I often scuba dive in the deep end. Allow me to let you in on a few of my dirty little tricks that help bring my composites to life!
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