Be My Guest Monday 1/31/11: David Page

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It's "Be My Guest Monday," the day of the week that's turned over to a talented guest blogger for a quick tip.

Today's guest: David Page

It is amazing how you can increase the speed of a race car and improve the composition by just tilting the image. The images above are the same except that the top one was tilted before the cropping step. I prefer to to start with a lot of resolution on an image that is "normal" with plenty of room to crop. I then rotate the image in Photoshop several times till I get my favorite angle. Then I go back to the original image and rotate it only once to that best angle again. The reason for the re-do is that every time you rotate an image there is slight small detail loss and to repeat it many times could take the fuzz right off of a peach.

The same result could be accomplished by just rotating the camera on the original shot. But at over 100 miles per hour you only get one attempt at the best angle for the best composition. Be careful in choosing the background as leaning trees etc. can ruin the effect.

• • •

David Page is the co-author, along with Dr. Richard Zakia, of Photographic Composition - A Visual Guide. These two dudes are also two of my favorite people.


Key West Sunset

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Photograph by Rick Sammon
Here's a quick grab shot from tonight's sunset in Key West, Florida.

To create the painterly effect, I used Nik Software's Color Efex Pro/Pastel filter.

For info on Nik and other cool plug ins, click here.

My gear:
and
Explore the light,
Rick

Florida Photo Caravan: South Beach – Final Shoot

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Photograph by Rick Sammon
We just finished the final shoot on my Florida Photo Caravan. We had some fantastic models and talked about controlling the light and making pictures.

For the opening image for this post, we bounced the light from our on-camera flashes (set on TTL) into a Westcott reflector – after setting our cameras to Manual and setting the exposure for the light coming through the window behind our model.

For the two pictures below, we bounced the sunlight, which was coming from above and behind the lifeguard stand on which the model was standing, onto her face and body – again using a Westcott reflector.

Photograph by Rick Sammon

Photograph Rick Sammon

Reflectors rock.


I took all of these pictures with my Canon 5D Mark II and Canon 25-105mm IS lens.

We are setting the dates for our 2012 Florida Photo Caravan  - and Delray Goes Digital project. Interested? Shoot me an email at ricksammon@mac.com.

Explore the light,
Rick

Florida Photo Caravan: South Beach Shoot #2

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Photograph by Rick Sammon
We're in South Beach. Cools colors for sure! 

We're just back from our second shoot - dusk on Ocean Drive.

Here are two shots - both enhanced with Nik Software's Color Efex Pro/Pastel filter.

For info on Color Efex Pro and other plug-ins, click here.

Photograph by Rick Sammon
Explore the light,
Rick

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Florida Photo Caravan: South Beach Shoot #1

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Photograph by Rick Sammon
We're on the last stop of my Florida Photo Caravan: South Beach.

We set out this morning to something a bit different from the past week: simply go out and shoot and have fun. We looked for cool colors, patters, reflection and of course subjects. We found 'em all.

I encouraged the students to work with reflections. Here's one of my favorites – enhanced with Topaz Adjust/Spicify.

Photograph by Rick Sammon
I also encouraged the students to use their cameras like a spaceship – tilting them up and down and left and right. Here's my example. Yes, another Topaz/Spicify effect.

More pix to come from our talented and dedicated team.

Oh yeah, after our fun shoot, we spent an hour on a flash class. More good fun.

For street shots like this, I use my Canon 17-40mm lens on my Canon 5D Mark II.

Camera info:
Canon EOS 5D Mark II 21.1MP Full Frame CMOS Digital SLR Camera (Body Only)
Lens info:
Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM Ultra Wide Angle Zoom Lens for Canon SLR Cameras

Explore the light,
Rick

P.S. For info on Topaz and the other plug-ins I use, click here.



Florida Photo Caravan: Delary Beach – 7th Shoot. HDR Rocks!

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Photograph by  Rick Sammon
Our Florida Photo Caravan workshop arrived at the Colony Hotel in Delary Beach today. We hit the ground running, making HDR images, and  then having a three-hour lighting class . . . before our model shows up tomorrow.

Middle exposure of HDR sequence. Yuch!
I created the opening image for this post in Nik Software's HDR Efex Pro. For a free one-hour webinar on how to use the plug-in, click here.

Tip: Notice how I corrected the perspective distortion in the original image. In Photoshop, I used Edit > Transform > Perspective and pulled out the top handles. 

I took the series of images with my Canon 14mm lens on my Canon 5D Mark II.

Scroll down to see what our group has been doing on my Florida Photo Caravan workshop. Good fun.

In Febuary 2012, we are launching Delray Digital - four weekend-long photo workshops – Friday night to Saturday night. Interested? Shoot me an email at ricksammon@mac.com.

For all my workshops, click here.

My HDR iPad app is in the works. It should be available in late February!

Explore the light,
Rick

P.S. Here is another image from this afternoon's shoot. Some gear, same digital darkroom stuff.

Photograph Rick Sammon. Finished HDR image.

Middle exposure of HDR sequence.


Florida Photo Caravan: Merritt Island – 6th Shoot

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Photograph  by Rick Sammon

Photograph by Rick Sammon
Our photo caravan will be heading out to Delary Beach in an hour or so. More photo fun awaits the workshop students.

Here are two shots from yesterday. For the top photo, I used a shutter speed of 1/800th of a second to free the action. For the bottom photo, I used a shutter speed of 1/40th second to blur the background while panning.

Stay tuned for more pix, from me and from our talented student.

Explore the light,
Rick

P.S. Speaking of staying tuned, in my downtime, I am working on my HDR app with Dr. Dave Wilson. So . . . stay tuned :-)