Lost Aussie on the loose

Lightbulb Moments ...

I've some 50GB of images that I shot whilst away over the last few weeks.  Landscapy stuff in Germany and then a whole slew of art nudes from the workshop in the UK.

As each day goes by I fall more in love with my camera and find myself more comfortable with fiddling with it's settings, shooting in Manual mode more often than not.

I never really thought I would "get" the shoot in manual bit, but I do now ... finally figuring out how to make the camera take the picture that I WANT and not just leaving it on Auto and pressing the button.

Each one of these adventures leaves me invigorated, thirsty to try more and yes, finding a growing confidence.....

 

High and Low Key

The last few days I have been persuing my (somewhat oddly percieved) passion and have been attending a fine art nude photography workshop in the UK.

Lots of learning to be done as we were working in a professional photography studio with a number of really accomplished models and had a couple of excellent teachers.

Since the blog's more or less PG I'll just share a couple of the less riske images....that hopefully won't be offensive...

Above, a high key version of the fine art nude ......

and below a rendition of a low key version ...

I'd like to thank Simon and Graham for their fabulous instruction and patience throughout the workshop!

Moving Along

This is another "cooked up" piece.  Images from Venice, Charlotte NC, Central Park NY and the Beaches of Long Island.  Made last week when the pressing events of moving were not quite so pushed to the forefront of my mind.

And whilst I might be immersed in stuff to do with the house and moving I am not so oblivious to all that goes on around me on the world wide web and am appalled to note that another teacher of photoshop classes has rather blatently ripped off my syllabus for an online class that I taught a while back .....
right down to the same weekly offerings, of Camera Raw, straighten, crop, portrait retouching, buttons and blog banner stuff.  All with the same order and detail as a class I have posted in the past.

I am all for being entrepreneurial, but PLEASE get your own ideas and think a little further outside the box if you want to represent the same kind of material......

And on that score, I will be teaching more in 2013.  Possibly more "in person" workshops based out of Charlotte, NC.  Photo walks, photo tours and some post processing as well.  I'm going to be based slightly north of Charlotte, right on Lake Norman ....

 

so I am thinking, long explosure and perhaphs some wildlife photography and architecture in the City.... 

What do you think?

Workshop Prep

I've finished up the prep for the Photoshop workshop I will be doing on Saturday with one of my local Meetup Groups.

We will work on 4 projects during the course of the day, a landscape, a portrait, a painterly textured project and one on compositing images.

The projects have all been designed so that we can work through a basic Camera Raw workflow, Non destructive editing using Adjustment Layers and Layer Masks, Selective Sharpening, adding Textures, using Blend Modes, using Gradient Maps and Gradient Masks.....and whatever else pops up along the way.

Since Photoshop is such a big bag of tricks it's always difficult to know where to start and where to stop and how much folk can absorb in one sitting.....

....so we will see.

I've enjoyed putting my thinking (teacher) cap on again, which will no doubt bode well for those who have been waiting for new classes and been frustrated at all my 'moving" procrastination.

Meetup Magic

I've had a lot of fun joining in with photography oriented MeetUp groups over the last six months or so.  As you can imagine, in NYC there are many interesting ones to be found.  Not quite so many on Long Island but there are a few and last week I discovered a new one which I met up with today to spend the afternoon shooting models and generally having some fun.

It's a great way to share time with like minded folk and garner a few snippets of knowlege, not to mention the opportunity to share and use studio space and meet models to work with that you might not otherwise be able to do.

Meetup, by the way, is not just for people interesting in Photography, there are groups for almost anything that you can imagine and they are all over the world..... you might like to take a peek and see what you can find to do or share with others in your area!!

I'm going to be hosting a meetup event later this month as part of one group that I belong to.  A day long Photoshop Workshop and it will be FREE to our group members!! Yay!!

NYC Photo Model Shoot

Today I joined some 190 other camera happy folk to participate in a Photo Model Shoot down at Mercer St, in NYC.

It was a full day of happy snapping (and I use that term rather loosely) with a dozen or so professional models, changing wardrobe about every 20 mins or so, full lighting gear set up and a number of well known professional photographers there to help out with shooting and lighting tips.....

We had both male and female models to work with and a wealth of opportunities to craft some stellar pictures, working with both studio lighting and natural light through massive warehouse windows.....

I shot some 1300 pix,  lots of which will be destined for the trash can, but there were quite a number of good shots that will bear further work and post processing...

Quite a departure from last week's focus on Long Exposure and Buildings and two workshops in the space of a week rather leave my head rattling around at 6's and 7's...

Nonetheless, the model shoot has me jazzed.  I think perhaps the atmosphere and community of working with so many models and in the company of so many other phototgraphers...need I say more ...?

Lindsay Adler was a great speaker and had lots of tips to share, as was Kevin Ames, Mark Reis and Anthony Neste.  All of whom were on the floor and accessible to ask questions and get shooting tips and guides from.

Although this was a big and buzzy affair, I'd highly recommend this opportunity to shoot LOTS of models in a great location with fab studio lighting to anyone!!

You just don't need to be too shy and as one of the few "girls" amongst a hoard of guys.... you do need to be a bit bolshy and step up!!!!....

Grand Central and 6th Avenue

I capped off my 4 day workshop in NYC with a photo shoot at Grand Central Station.  We were fortunate enough to have gained permits which allowed us to use tripods to shoot in the station and enabled some long exposure shots.  Although we had permits, the restrictions that accompany them are quite tight and don't really leave much room to move about so the best shot were in fact to be had via terrace vantage points and from the balcony of the Apple Store (sans tripod).

The image above is a combination of 3 bracketed long exposures....hence the blurry movement bits.

You can, given enough time and the right exposure settings eliminate all the people altogether which I have done in some of the pictures that I shot, but I can't really see the point of an empty station.....

You can see bits of our Photog' group right there on the left to the side of the information booth!

And, I'll close with a few more B&W shots.... taken on the trip back to my hotel, strolling along The Avenue of Americas (6th Ave).

 

... and my thanks to all of you who have posted and emailed comments of late.  I've been rather remiss in my responses, a bit busy and out of touch, but I do appreciate your visits and comments always!!!!!!

Workshop Day #2

We started Day #2 of the workshop that I am doing in NYC with two hours of lectures on various subjects including the making of Cinemagraphs, which was quite fascinating and bears some further looking into....

From the classroom we stepped into a bright sun shinny day, clear cloudless sky, which is totally useless for long exposure stuff and so had to be creative in other respects.

We started off at the Flatiron Building, and again the sun was in quite the wrong spot so I contented myself with some more bracketed shots for processing in HDR.
From there we went to the new Cooper Union Building (see colored image below)...and from there to the IAC Building - which totally floated my boat!! (see image above).

Finally, as the sun was setting we tripped along the High Line and I snapped a shot of the New Jersey skyline.  Not quite as iconic as a New York skyline, but the colors were good nonetheless.

I'm getting the hang of the long exposure "thing".  Helped along by a "proper" set of ND filters which I have now learned how to use! (thanks Hitech)

At barely 11pm I am ready to hit the hay, totally and utterly exhausted...but in a good way.

Tomorrow, since we have two 7:30am starts so that we can go shoot in Grand Central Station I am going to stay overnight in the city.  It will take the pain out of the commute for at least one of the days and cut down on gas/travel as we STILL have petrol rationing going on here on LI..... and what the heck is up with THAT????

Anyway, stay tuned for Day #3......

 

Long Exposure and Fine Art B&W

I'm in and out of NYC for the next 4 days doing a workshop with some uber talented photographers, including Sharon, Joel, Mark and Armand  .  Shooting long exposures and fine art b&W architecture.

Day 1 was spent getting sorted out, some intro stuff and then a hike down to the Brooklyn Bridge Park to shoot across the water and use our ND filters and get some long exposure stuff working, Followed by a walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and then stopping to photograph the Frank Gehry building by Fulton St.

I'm unfurling a few photographic mysteries, learning that my ND filters are not much good and need some new ones!  And generally enjoying the camerarderie of a fab bunch of like minds....!!!

The 6am roll call to circumvent the post hurricane transport nightmares is less than stellar and driving to the City is not really an option as we currently have gas rationing....so LIRR here I come!

Oddly I only shot 126 pix today .... thinking a lot more about compositon and what it is that I want the camera to do.  And since in the afternoon there were few clouds or much reason to shoot long exposures, opted for lots of bracketed shots some of which I've tinkered with using Nik HDR.

So, lots of fun..... and stay tuned for more!

 

Announcing - "Paint, Sketch, Play" - an online class for painting in Photoshop

Are you ready ???????

4 Weeks, 16 projects.  High end fun stuff that will float your Photshop Boat!!

Comic, Sketch, Warhol'ish, Smudge, Paint, Art History, Mixer Brush, Tool Presets, Landscape, Architecture, Portrait, Patterns, Presets, Plug-Ins, Abstract and HDR Toning and if you are good ... a little Illustrator for those who can.

This will be a cracker of a Class.

Are you ready ????????

The full syllabus is available for you to check out HERE.

The class is designed for Photoshop CS5 users but many of the projects will work in Elements.  You can also download a FREE trial of CS5 from the Adobe website to use for the duration of the Class.