Semi-Menacing please!

Frankie is a good friend and fellow music producer/engineer. He owns his own studio and keeps pretty busy with it now a days. He called me up wanting a new portrait. A semi-menacing look with out being too over the top. I saw a sample of the general idea and we were off. I often take an assistant to a photo-shoot and this case was no exemption. Instead of just a helper I was lucky enough to have the company of a good friend and photographer Jerry Gomez. I knew that in order to achieve the larger than live semi-menacing look, I had to use a wide angle lens and shoot from a low vantage point. That is exactly what we did. We found a few spots with in walking distance from Frankie's recording studio. I avoided the typical railroad track photo, but was not against using parts of the actual train that sat behind the studio. We also used two small metal pillars from what looked to be the remains of a building. The sky was overcast, which helped us in avoiding harsh sun shadows. We filled in with a hand held flash (sb800) thru a diffuser and violå! Jerry and I took a few turns shooting some images and we were happy with the results. I think we were able to not only capture what Frankie wanted, but go beyond that and make it better by adding our own twist.

Mood + The Blue Hour

There is not much intended in this picture, but mood. Shot with almost no light left. Long exposure on a tripod f11. You can see the effects of the long exposure on the water closest to the the lens (the misty/flow effect), but not so much on the one further down. Click on the image to view in more detail.

Extra tip: Talking about late long exposures. Aside from what many photographers call "the golden hour" for taking photos. There is a lesser explored "hour" referred often as "The Blue Hour". This happens some time between the golden hour and total darkness. It usually renders very deep blue skies, but it could sometimes be hard to see (very obviously anyway). Cameras can sometimes catch light that our eyes have trouble adjusting too. Mostly due to the ability to have longer exposures. A city scape is a good example of where a blue hour photo will be well suited. You get the lights from the buildings and a rich deep blue sky. Does not hurt to try. And if you are wondering how do I know when the blue hour is? (which is not a whole hour by the way, more like 15-20 minutes). You can go to a very handy website www.bluhour.com that tells you exactly when it starts and ends depending on your location. The website also offers samples.

One last shot

This is at the end of what I called a "mini-corporate" session. This shot was not in the plans, we just did it at the very end of the shoot. The sky was a bit cloudy and it happen to be right before sunset. We had great natural light for like 15 minutes. This was a moment of we have great light lets shoot. It was all very quick, but I opted for the magazine cologne add type of look. Think of an Italian business man. Hence the car and the Italian writing of the restaurant in the back-ground. We took this one shot and ended the photo-shoot. My favorite part..... the shoes. Handheld 1/25th @ f2

Extracting JPEGs from RAW files

(click to enlarge)

Here is an easy way to get JPEGs out of your RAW files. I know most DSLR cameras give you the option to shoot both RAW and JPEGs at the same time. Good idea, but it takes more space on your memory card. One of the more interesting options for me was some of these higher up DSLR cameras with two card-slots that let you write RAW files on one and JPEGs on the other.

The people at www.rawworkflow.com have come up with a very good alternative.

See camera manufacturers have a JPEG image embedded to all the RAW images you shoot. That's what you see on you LCD screen on the back of your camera. Not the RAW image. That is also why sometimes your images look a little different from your LCD screen to the actual raw image on your computer monitor (see image above). JPEG images have in-camera processing, to make them look more "finished". It is typical for a out-of-camera JPEG image to have some color enhancement, added contrast and sharpening among other things.

The folks at raw workflow created a tool to extract this file.

They call it IJFR (Instant JPEG From RAW) and it is a free utility. It extracts the already embedded JPEG file from your RAW images. The best part is that it does it quick. It is not even a program you have to run. It is more of a simple action your computer can do. All you have to do is a quick download it and set up and your good to go. You can do one file or a whole folder. You also have a size option, which lets you decide how small you want the files to be (this is great for quick e-mail sizes).

The image above shows you the visual difference between a RAW file and the embedded JPEG (notice I said "visual" difference). It is an untouched (other than beeing sized) image split in half. One side is the RAW file the other is the JPEG extracted by IJFR. You can see the effect some of the in-camera-processing has on the JPEG image. Feel free to click on the image to a full size to see an easier comparison.

What you see....

What do you see here? (50mm f2.0)

For frustrated artist

This is more of a piece rather than just a photo. It is my interpretation on the inevitable frustration that all artist go thru. Art is a cycle, it will never cease. (Those are not my hands, but the real hands of a canvas artist)

Delylah comes from a law enforcement family

This is baby Delylah at only a few weeks old. The original shoot was for some Fall baby family postcards which we did shoot. BUT being in a law enforcement house I didn't pass on the opportunity to use some of the the attire as props (I should also mentioned that the deputy used to be my roommate while we both went to school in AZ, so I felt pretty conformable trying out any new ideas) . The hat is from the "Class A" outfit which is typically used for special occasions. Think of it as the nicer suit or tuxedo equivalent.

As far as the photo goes. It was shot at F1.8 to get an incrementing dreamy soft blur effect on everything but Delylah's face. That is also why the badge is out of focus. I did that on purpose. I realized I liked the badge were it was, but its golden color and its shimmer could be distracting and robing Delylah some attention.