H/T: The High Definite

If you have kids, or have ever tried taking photos of kids, then you know what unique challenges they present.  My family is no exception to this.  To illustrate this, taken this recent photo of my girls on vacation in Florida:

As you can see, my youngest doesn’t have her happy face on and the wind is doing something crazy with my oldest daughter’s hair.  That and I think the colors are flat and the photo is just not where I want it to be.  My youngest is in this stage where any time the camera comes out, she immediately says “Cheese” and scrunches up her face.  I was shooting as quickly as possible since their attention span is 5 seconds, so I was able to get a better shot.  The only catch, was that my oldest wasn’t in the same position as I had wanted.  I believe she had moved her hands or something along those lines.  To fix this, I took the face from the later frame and placed it on the first, giving me a little better base to work with.  While I was there editing, I also removed the wind-blown hair from oldest and touched their eyes up a tad.

A little better…  Not totally ideal as my youngest isn’t looking at the camera, but we are getting closer.

The next step was to run a quick filter on it to adjust some of the colors a bit.  I used the Sun Kissed Action from CoffeeShop Blog [Download].  This action will add a lens flare type effect to the photo, something I did not particularly want here, more just the color change.  Thankfully, this action leaves the layers in tact so that I was able to quickly go in and remove the layer which contained the lens flare on it.

I had initially stopped here and left the image alone.  But going back and looking at it, the sky felt a little flat.  I also wanted to make it appear a little pastel-like with some touching up of the colors to make it even more “false” in appearance, if that makes sense.  I dropped in a stock photo to the sky (blending mode set to Multiply, opacity set to 35%) and masked out some unwanted details to make it fit into the photo a little better.

I liked how this fit into the image, but also wanted to make sure the rest of the scenery matched up.  So I added 2 color adjustment layers, one for the grass and one for the water.

The last step for me, was to add a texture.  I used a texture from Jessica Drossin (set the blending mode to Hard Light, opacity to about 38%).  I masked out the girls so that the texture would be on everything except them.  Here is the final result:

While browsing Instagram, of all places, I stumbled across a user who had a profile photo that looked familiar.  After doing some digging around, I finally found it on Tumblr.  That photo is the one here:

Turns out the photo was on their Facebook page as well:

In a twist of irony, the Instagram user that was using this as their profile photo, had posted a shirt design they found online and claimed their idea was ripped off.  I realize that they most likely did not know their profile was a “borrowed” photograph, so I started asking about it.  To my astonishment, they began to claim that a friend of theirs worked out with the person in the photo!  After that, they mysteriously deleted their photo from their Instagram account.

To clarify here, the person in those photos above is a trainer at a local CrossFit affiliate.  His name is Dion.  I happen to know all of this because I was the person that took the photo.  I had come in to the gym to take some photos of the trainers working out and wanted to snag some shots of Dion while I was there.  He is a tremendous athlete but also one of the most humble people you will ever have the pleasure of coming across.

During the shot, I had setup a single AB1600 into a 45″ umbrella (Powered with a Vagabond II and triggered with PWII’s) and positioned it to Dion’s left.  I didn’t want it to get hit with the weights but needed the light close enough to him and the rack I was sitting behind.  This was the shot I got.  It wasn’t quite what I wanted.  Had I to do this all over again, I would have moved him to the very center of the gym to remove as much of the background as possible.  But that wasn’t an option this day, so I did what I could.

That is where Photoshop came in, giving me the final product:

Dion really loved the photo and I was pleased with the final result.  I was honored that the photo made it onto the cover of the October 2011 issue of WOD Talk Magazine.

Back to the original point of this post…  Yes, as silly as it may sound to others, it bothered me when I saw that my photo had been swiped, a quote tossed on top of it, and the credit given to someone’s blog.  I realize that the photo was meant to be used for motivational purposes.  I realize that it was not taken and profit gained from it.  I realize that in some ways this is a compliment.

But what I realize, is how I spent my own time hauling my equipment to the gym.  I spent my own time setting it all up and planning out the shot.  I realize the time it took to process the photo.  With all of the effort that went into it, yes, it bothers me that someone saw it online and thought they would slap a quote and their web address on it as if it were their own work.  At the very minimum, this person should have asked.  If you wish to flatter someone, why not take a few seconds and email them and ask for their permission?  That is far more flattering than theft.

More mobile users have access to Instagram now that it has expanded to Android.  For those that might not be aware, a great challenge to your creativity is to participate in the monthly “Photo a Day” which is “put together” by Instagram user FatMumSlim.  The premise is simple: For every day you are given a subject to photograph.  You have all day to take the shot and post it to Instagram with the hash tag for that month (i.e. #PHOTOADAYJUNE for this month).  Here is the list for this month:

1. Morning
2. Empty
3. On your plate
4. Close-up
5. Sign
6. Hat
7. Drink
8. Six O’Clock
9. Your view today
10. Best bit of your weekend
11. Door
12. From a low angle
13. Art
14. Time
15. Yellow
16. Out and about
17. In your bag
18. Something we don’t know about you
19. Imperfect
20. Fave photo you’ve ever taken
21. Where you slept
22. From a high angle
23. Movement
24. On your mind
25. Something cute
26. Where you shop
27. Bathroom
28. On the shelf
29. Soft
30. A friend

I have done this only once in the past and missed a few days.  Overall, I found it to be really fun.  For photographers, it simplifies things a bit and evens the playing field a bit.  It is also interesting to search the hash tags and see what others have come up with.  Not only do you find some fantastic talents, but some worthwhile accounts to follow in the process.

Any takers on joining in this month?

In talking about my breathing some life back into my site, it really got me thinking about how long this site has been around.  I had to do a little digging, but the first real appearance was back in 2001.  11 years ago.  Took a few seconds to process that.  Had it really been that long ago?  Back in the day I had spent a lot of time scrounging around for Photoshop tutorials and stumbled across the treasure trove that was Think Dan (Now On Animation) and Phong.  Through those two sites, I found my way to several message boards which served as another catalyst in driving my interest in digital art and photography.

There have been so many artists to come and go that have provided inspiration to me it would be nearly impossible to name them all.  Some of the largest impacts on me that I can remember included the likes of Dennis Sibeijn, who has always possessed such an amazing and seemingly untouchable talent.  He was always a step ahead of the rest with an incredible creative drive.  I craved for him to release his next new piece. Also along the way, I have found fellow creatives such as Justin Kamerer and Chris Alridge, both of whom have and continue to inspire me to this day.  As I watched, learned, and practiced, I somehow managed to carve out a little niche for myself, being credited with a surge in the “grunge movement”.  This afforded me the opportunity to co-author the New Masters of Photoshop: Volume 2 book.

Throughout the years I have tried to accomplish two things: 1) show my work online and 2) share information on my process and how I create what I do.  This has slowly evolved to more photography than digital art, but there is still a great deal of overlap in what I do.

Several months ago, when my blog was hacked, I had really contemplated taking it down permanently.  I had become too lazy to try and convert all of the posts and save everything and part of me did not want to.   Time passed to where it made more sense to start fresh, so here I am.  11 years later I still find that I enjoy personal work and creating new images.  It was brought home even more when I started looking at older versions of my site and reflecting back on all of the hours spent creating, redesigning, and preparing tutorials and other resources to share.  Too much history to just let it go.

Over the years I slowly traveled down a path of being unhealthy.  I ended up weighing 300 pounds, stroke level blood pressure, gout, and all of the aches and pains that are associated with being overweight.  At the end of December, my wife and I made a choice to change, and that is just what we did.

Making the changes that I have made over the past year have not been easy.  In order to focus on my health, other interests and activities were put on hold.  Photography was one such activity, though my interest never waned.  I still love being behind the camera and still very much love digital art and photo manipulation.  When you get up at 4am to workout, have a day job, and help take care of your 2 young children, staying up late at night to work on photos just couldn’t be done.

Now that I have things on a better track, I want to get back to this.  I miss the personal photography.  It was always therapy for me and something that I always enjoyed.  I am slowly working on getting my site and blog back up to where it was so hang in there.  If there is any old content you are looking for, such as tutorials or resources, let me know and I will work on getting them posted.