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!?!?

"The Secret Doorway" featuring Kara Markley

8 Steps To Creating a Fantasy Lighting Effect

Robert Cornelius February 1, 2016

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!

"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.)

Why You Should Always Reach Out to People

Robert Cornelius December 4, 2015

Sometime I find myself floating randomly about the great vastness of the interwebs, creeping in all the artsy inspirational corners with no end in sight. Nobody really knows how one of these aimless info-gathering binges begins; they just happen (usually when I need to be getting something done). A few months ago, during one of these time-sucking-internet-benders, I stumbled across a digital artist/finisher/retoucher named Mykie Rogers (Mykier) who left me thinking, "Whoa dang, this guy is awesome." I was just going to breeze by and continue on my digital journey to see what rabbit hole I'd click down next, but then I thought, "You know what, self? This guy seems like a pretty righteous dude. Why not just leave a nice comment saying how I think he's fantastic?"

"Create Your Own luck" is an older piece from way back when Past-Bert didn't have a blog....

How to Be a Success

Robert Cornelius October 30, 2015

Success.... What is success anyway? How do we get it? If we do, how do we know that we've achieved it? Well I'm convinced we are all as successful as we decide to be, but also we will never really "make it" either ... kinda ... Wait what? Yes. What I mean to say is that if you ever get to a point where you think, "There, I've done it, I've succeeded! I'm a success. I'm great." Then you fail. No matter how amazing you get (or already are) at something, there is always more you can accomplish. There's never NOT going to be room to grow, learn, refine, reflect, and change for the better.

5 Ways to Inspire Yourself

Robert Cornelius October 16, 2015

Inspiration is such a strange and sometimes elusive creature, but only if you let it be ... Well that's not exactly true. Getting inspired is always going to be strange - having thoughts materialize into your head out of nowhere is just magical, but it doesn't always have to be elusive. Sure, sometimes we all seem to hit a slump and fall deep into an inspiration dark age. It can be so infuriating when you have the desire to create but no idea what the crap to make or where to start. Luckily for you I have a few handy tips on how to jump start a bit of creative thinking that might just lead to your new favorite work of art!

The Making of The Mistress of Mischief

Robert Cornelius September 30, 2015

I'm seriously struggling here, people. Usually while I'm dreaming up/shooting/editing a concept, my head is swimming with ideas for what to write about on the blog. This one has me stumped. It's quite rare that I'm creatively stranded when it comes to making images, but apparently blog posts are a different creative animal. I have so many ideas for shoots ready and waiting to be brought to life, plus I'm pretty good at coming up with something on the spot (or just shooting something and figuring it out later). However, here I sit in my editing cave and I still have no clue what this blog post is about...

How to Make Your Subject Stand Out

Robert Cornelius September 18, 2015

Odds are if you shoot a subject for an image (as in not just a landscape or abstract or something), you want them to stand out. I know I do. As is with all of my work, I try to tell the story of whatever character I've dreamt up. So obviously I want them to be the main focus, the thing you notice first. JUST LOOK AT THEM, WOULD YOU!

Storytelling Through Images

Robert Cornelius September 10, 2015

One of my biggest goals when creating artwork is to tell a story. I strive to activate imaginations and spark creative thinking. I want my viewers (that's you) to see my images and begin to ponder what is going on. What happened before this, what's happening now, and what will happen next? All of these questions and desires are precisely why I create, and why I was so excited when the Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet came to the studio to create some promotional art for their upcoming ballet, Coppélia.

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!

I call this beauty "Theia." Theia is the name of a Greek titan/deity/goddess of the moon! I thought it would be cool to create another character from Greek mythology to go along with this image.

5 Reasons You Should Shoot With A Cosplayer

Robert Cornelius August 24, 2015

If you follow my work at all, you've probably realized by now that I did a shoot with Lopti of "Some Like it Blue." For those of you who don't already know, she is a cosplay artist/model/awesome person. What is cosplay you ask? (Well ... you ask if you don't know yet.) It's a word that's firmly in my vocabulary, but I say it to some people and they look at me like I have tentacles coming out of my head ...... which ironically is just the sort of thing a cosplayer might do, but anyway ...

"The Fall and the Flames"This is actually a fancifully edited outtake from this shoot that I did with Nathan Worden. — "The Fall and the Flames"
This is actually a fancifully edited outtake from this shoot that I did with Nathan Worden.

Just Because Everyone Else Is Doing It ...

Robert Cornelius August 7, 2015

Have you ever noticed a pattern in photography? ... And by a pattern of course I mean the same technique done by tons of photographers? Maybe I'm just living in a bubble, and I only really see images that are in my "niche" (if I have such a thing), but very often I see the same thing done over and over and over again. Just because everyone else is doing something, doesn't mean you have to do it too ... BUT it certainly does not mean that you can't or shouldn't do 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.

How to Create a Magical Forest Scene

Robert Cornelius July 8, 2015

Obviously one of the most important pieces you'll need when creating your own gorgeous woodsy wonderland is a top-notch image of a forest (or other natural setting of your choosing). Unfortunately, I have been crazy busy with life, work, vacations, and side projects, so I didn't have the time to shoot my own background image. I thought I would turn to one of my photography friends to see if someone would be willing to donate an image to my cause.

I call this masterpiece "Happy Sparkle Glitter Glitz."

One Year Blogiversary

Robert Cornelius June 16, 2015

That's right people, today marks an entire year of weekly (well weekly-ish ... ) blog posts from this guy. *double thumb points to self* It's crazy to me that I've been doing this for that long. It seem like just yesterday I began to pour my thought, tips, tricks, and gifs out into the vastness of the internet, but alas it's been 365 days of hard work. Many a late night, countless hours of editing, gif making, file sizing, speed edit exporting, writing, re-writing, and re-re-writing all to meet deadlines that ... I make for myself. I love it all.