Clay Blackmore "How To Photograph Everyone" Tour

Hello all.   I just recently found out about Clay Blackmore.  He is a very talented photographer and teacher.
Check out his site and see the quality for yourself.  Lots of good images there!!

Here is some information about the "How To Photograph Everyone" Tour:

Clay Blackmore’s 30-city “How To Photograph Everyone” Tour kicked off last Monday evening, in San Diego and runs through June 11, visiting cities throughout the US.

Don’t settle for snapshots and flash-on-camera images - you need to know the techniques to set yourself apart from the crowd. HTPE brings portrait photography back to where it started, with all the tools you need to make timeless photographs that sell.

Clay will teach the following principles during the seminar:

Posing, Lighting, Lifting, and Refining - A live demonstration will take place with all participants looking through Clay’s lens as he creates elegant portraits on the stage.

Clay’s Flow Posing - Clay will demonstrate live how to create 10 portraits of a couple in five minutes.

“How to Photograph Everyone” - A descriptive analysis of how to make portraits of children, mother and child, maternity, men, women, high school seniors, business portraits, and small-to-medium groups.

The Perfect Portfolio - How to create an awe-inspiring portfolio that is sure to entice potential customers.

Weddings: Catering to the Modern Bride - Learn how to take photos that sell, and get your client to fall in love with the pictures before they even leave the wedding.

Big Portraits with Small Lights - Take cover! We’ll focus on working with scrims, reflectors, and window light to produce photographs that rival studio portraiture.

Post Production – Clay will show you several of his secret weapons for portrait retouching and enhancement.

DSLR Filmmaking Opportunities - Learn how Clay is bundling his photography with this new technology to increase his bottom line.

Don’t Just Survive—Learn to Thrive - Learn how to control the sale and increase profits.

Register using our Discount and Save!
Registration is $69, but you can save $10 and pre-register for only $59 with promo code CLUB10. Click here to register for a program near you!.

Clay Blackmore, one of the most passionate professional photographers working today, is a true innovator in the world of portraiture and wedding photography.  One of only a few Canon Explorers of Light, Blackmore’s style blends the beauty and timelessness of classical portraiture with the spontaneity and appeal of photojournalism. His credentials were developed during his 25-year association with the legendary Monte Zucker as assistant, business partner, and co-educator. A celebrity and society favorite, Clay’s clients have included such luminaries as Larry King, Forrest Whitaker, Jenna Elfman, and Maria Sharapova. Renowned for his ability to photograph groups and cover events, Clay is consistently hired by corporate entities as diverse as the PGA and USGA and is a popular request for political inaugural balls.  In Clay’s groundbreaking work on Extraordinary Women:  Fantasies Revealed Clay photographically chronicles the dreams of 58 elite women, capturing intimate and energetic portraits of Madeline Albright, Dena Merrill, Joan Rivers, Cokie Roberts, and Dominique Dawes among others.  Blackmore is an active and contributing member of the elite Cameracraftsmen of America.

For more details about the upcoming How to Photograph Everyone Tour, visit: http://www.photographeveryone.com/

My On Site Tethering/Printing Solution

I was digging through some of my old electronics the other day and came across an old Acer Aspire One netbook that I bought for my daughter a few years ago.

I remember looking around for a tethered shooting option, but all my camera gear and Lightroom are in my home office tower.  The Aspire One is a nice, ultra thin netbook, but it cannot run Lightroom.

Then I stumbled across the DIYPHOTOBITS website and realized that this might be the solution for me.

The Aspire One has 150GB HDD, which is plenty of room for the files I would need to transfer.

The DIYPHOTOBITS software is very low footprint, so getting it up and running was a fairly easy thing.  I just followed the instructions on the website and had my Nikon D50 tethered and running within minutes.

The software can even fire the shutter and change aperture, ISO and exposure compensation(only to the positive side on the D50).  The shutter speed value does not seem to work remotely.

It also has functions for time lapse shooting as well as bracketing.

I set the D50 USB mode to PTP, fire up the software, connect the camera, have the software detect the camera, start tethering and that is that.

You can get a used Aspire One netbook for around a $100, and the software is free - so this setup is worth it if nothing more than to experiment.  I plan on using it for doing on site printing of 4x6 images on a dye sub printer(Canon Selphy 800).

I did a test shoot the other day and ended up putting an Ugli fruit into the light box and shooting tethered.  I also ended up shooting some impromptu self portraits with the help of my daughter.
Here are the examples:

Tech Info on the Ugli fruit:
Inside light tent, gridded SB-26 above and camera right at about 1/32 power.  ISO 200, 1/250th @ f/7.1 - triggered with Radio Poppers.   Nikon D50, Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8

Tech Info on the portrait:
In my kitchen, gridded SB-26 to camera right at 1/32 power, second light(bare SB-28 on the floor pointing up) in the room behind me shooting through the glass in the door at 1/64th power.  Triggered with Radio Poppers.  ISO 200, 1/500th, f/4.5.   Nikon D50, Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8
I really like Zack Arias' work and I did this in honor of the work he does and his ability to teach.

How I Got The Shot #4 - FIREWORKS!

Everyone loves fireworks, right?  Sometimes fireworks shots can be tricky to get if you don't have a good starting point.  I'll outline my approach to getting fireworks here.

Check out the details after the break...

How I Got The Shot #28 - Concept For A CD Cover

Happy March all!!

Welcome to another installment.
As some of you know, I am participating in Don Giannatti's fantastic Project52.  I contribute to the site writing articles and I also do the assignments along with the others.  For week 9, the assignment was to create a front and back CD Cover image for a new artist that is doing a cover of the Joni Mitchell song, "Amelia"(Lyrics).

Anyone that knows me is aware that this is not my kind of music.  However, listening to the song a bit, doing some research and reading the lyrics - got me to a place where I had some ideas on what we can do with this.

First thing I had to do was come up with some ideas.  I looked into the lyrics and found some inspiration from the passages that reference the jet vapor trails and looking at the geometric shapes one can see when looking out of a plane window.
With that done, I needed to look through the archives of what I had available.  Sometimes, when you are out - you'll get a feeling in your gut to take some images.  You might not know why, but just take them anyway.  The reason you are doing it is for assignments like this.

The cover image, seen below was originally from a trip I took to Disney in Florida a few years ago.

It obviously did not have a set of vapor trails like you see here.  I used some photoshop skills to get to that end.

This is how I did it.  I went out to Google and did some research into Joni Mitchell.  Specifically to see what kind of guitar she used.  I found out that she uses quite a number, but one was the 1966 Martin Acoustic D-28.   I then searched the internet to find an image of the guitar.  Found it and used the Pen Tool in Photoshop to create an outline of the guitar and any other distinguishing parts that would help.

The Pen Tool creates a "path" and this path can be manipulated.  In the Pen Tool menu is an option to "stroke path..."  I chose that option and selected the brush.

Before doing that though, make sure to setup the brush characteristics.  I went into the brush menu and selected the "rough round brush" at about 100px, changed the spacing to 70%.

Now, go back and do the "stroke path..." function and you'll get the rough brush outlined around the path you created.  Doesn't look right yet, but you've got a little more work to do.

Select the smudge tool and use that to blend the brush tips together.  Now it starts looking more like a jet vapor or wispy cloud.

I did the same for the guitar strings, just created a path of a straight line.

For the back cover  -  there was an image I captured on my way into the Salt Lake City airport.  I was lucky enough to have gotten a window seat by the wing.  I got this capture.  I know it seems a little cliche'd perhaps, but I think it fits the mood of the lyrics.

So - moral of the story?

Build up a good archive of images - even if you cannot think of a good reason at the time you are taking it - you'll have a good jump start on an assignment or some stock images.