image23

Photoshop: before and after, which do you prefer?

2012-01-24T11:42:00.000Z

After posting my behind the scenes video illustrating how I lit a recent nude shoot with Ayla Sky, a number of people where interested in seeing the shots before I'd done any photoshop editing to them. So I thought I'd follow up with some before and after shots.

The following 8 shots from the shoot are the ones with the most post production applied and I'd be really interested in hearing peoples views. The 'before' shot in each case has had very minimal/basic colour & contrast adjustments made in lightroom. The 'after' shots in most cases have had a few texture layers applied and in some a bit of selective blurring.

I've numbered all the shots for easy reference, so that just leaves the question, which do you prefer? let me know in the comments...

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Lighting #5 ~ Ayla Sky nude shoot BTS video

2012-01-19T17:14:00.000Z

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Just before xmas I had a fantastic shoot with an amazing modelcalled Ayla Sky, we shot two quite different sets over about 4-5hours in the studio and had loads of fun while we were doing it. Iput together this fairly lo-fi video {shot on my mobile phone!} toillustrate how I lit the two different sets.

One of the things I hope you will get from this is that you reallydon't have to have masses of super expensive equipment to creategreat images. In fact I have always found that a little bit ofrestriction actually leads to more creative solutions, and alot less faffing around! Indeed, when it comes to lighting, the oldadage 'less is more' so often rings true.

Don't get me wrong, having great equipment at your disposal is nota bad thing at all, especially when you're doing professionalcommissions and need consistent reliability. But its not the be alland end all and it definitely does not guarantee that your imageswill be great.

You can see more of the finished images on my website ~ www.image23.co.uk

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image23: lighting set up for a nude shoot with Ayla Sky from image23 on Vimeo.

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See these shots before and after photoshop

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Interview: Midnight Digital

2011-12-13T13:43:00.000Z

Christophe Dessaigne is a French artist who lives in the south of France, in a small town called Perpignan, near Spain on the Mediterranean coast. His creations are open doors to fantastic and dreamy horizons where digital photography serves the fanciful imagery of surrealist photomontages. His universes are desolate, vast and insubstantial. Gigantic scaled structures rule the landscapes, dwarfing human beings to the size of ants. His post-apocalyptic kingdoms, equally poetic and terrifying, are visions of the end of the world. His work has appeared in cover art book and CD covers in Europe, and has recently been featured in Advanced Creations and PSD Phoshop Magazine. His photographic visions are invitations to remote and chimeric territories. A travel into a mysterious journey.

www.midnight-artwork.com

Who or what influenced you to become a photographer

I've always been attracted by images. When I worked as a journalist for a local newspaper I used to work with photographers. It's probably my first contact with this media. I think I'm doing photography because I like to create stories and atmosphere.

I love the awesome sense of desolation and loneliness in your images, was there anything you can think of that inspired this or where you just naturally drawn to this type of image.
I remember when I was kid I watched Planet of The Apes, the first movie. At the end of the film there's this cult scene : Charlton Heston is riding a horse on the vast deserted beach, the camera's slowly moving backward revealing the Statue of Liberty ~ wrecked and emerging from the sand. That specific scene was a blast for me and it's still probably my main influence (with movies like Blade Runner). It is one of the most creative and impressive post-apocalyptic sights ever.

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How to use flickr effectively

2011-12-05T15:06:00.001Z

Flickr can be an awesome site for photographers, but to really get the most out of it you've got to get your head around how the site works and crucially how to help other people find you. This post is my rough guide to getting the best out of Flickr including how to find endless cool stuff, effective networking and boosting traffic to your own photo's.

Getting around

The thing I've grown to really love about flickr is how you can end up on these endless journeys of inspiration, there is just a massive abundance of amazing imagery and exceptional talent, it a bit like being given free reign of the world biggest photo library ~ very exciting and VERY daunting! Of course what you really need to get to grips with strait away is how to navigate such an endless sea of imagery...

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Photoshop Techniques #1 ~ Textured backgrounds and fake flowers

2011-11-29T12:53:00.001Z

An exploration of how I created this image in photoshop.

This image was built up very gradually with lots of layers, I will attempt to describe each one from top to bottom...

Review ~ Canon 320EX Flash

2011-11-25T12:13:00.001Z

This is not a full scientific review, but mearly my own opinions based on using this flash gun for about a month, mainly for events photography.

In general I'm really pleased with the 320ex, there are some nice little features on it, however there are also some draw backs, as you'd expect from a bit of kit that trys to do so much for such a low price.

Things I like about it...

I really like the fact that it has a LED light for video on it, this is really quite a useful feature and was one of the main things that drew me to the 320ex. The light works well on subjects that are fairly close to the camera, ie a person within 5-10 feet. Obviously its not going to light a whole room, but thats not really what its meant for either.

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Playing with light - Long exposures

2011-09-23T22:12:00.001+01:00

Been doing some experiments with my new toy, the {fairly} new Canon 320ex flash gun. I'll be doing a full review once I've used it a bit more, so far I've been mightily impressed. Its a very nice tool indeed.

The following are a load of long exposure pictures {30 secs} mainly taken out in the peaks. I used the LED light on the 320 to do the light painting and the trigger function to set the camera off.

ISO800 24mm f/4 30sec

Curious Oyster & The Tribe of Xanadu

2011-08-17T21:04:00.001+01:00

Storming the Fields ~ Y NOT 2011

Last weekend I was asked to do some promo pictures at a festival, not my usual type of work for sure, but the guys organising the gig have been doing some very interesting things lately and I was keen to get involved, plus I quite liked the idea of getting back to my roots of documentary style photography.

Curious Oyster is a collective of incredibly capable and driven individuals that are currently bursting up all over the place to put on some truly amazing shows.

Between them they bring together a whole host of other talented people & resources for each event ~ aiming always to work with the best, these are then known as the Tribe of Xanadu.

Its an incredibly simple yet flexible model that seems to work very well indeed.

Between them there is such a wide range of skills and resources ~ from sound engineers and sound systems to bookers and promoters, woodcutters and caterers to DJs's and decor makers.

For the Y-NOT Festival they'd been asked to put on a marque with DJ's and Bands with only a weeks notice and the most ridiculously small budget.

When I arrived and saw what they had achieved I was seriously impressed.

It's not even a case of them managing to pull off the challenge. What they created was a truly amazing experience.

They had a Beautifully cosy tent with awesome decor that managed to be a chilled out cafe in the day with acoustic acts and such, and then transform into a throbbing dance floor with the most amazing atmosphere come nightfall.

I had a fantastic time and met some great people. For all those wanting copies of the pictures feel free to rip them straight off this post or simply hit the tweet & like buttons bellow for the page to appear in your stream.

... keep your eyes on these guys ~ they got stuff goin on... Curious Oyster facebook page

Reviews of the festival...
Derbyshire Times
Burton Mail

Click through to see the pictures...

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Making a short film using a Canon 500D

2011-08-01T14:12:00.000+01:00

So I've just finished my first short film and I thought I'd share some of the tech specs and considerations on here.

It is written from image23 on Vimeo.

Click through for more details...

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Lighting Set-up #4 ~ Muscle Definition

2011-08-01T14:07:00.000+01:00

Just recently I was asked to photograph a body builder for a competition to appear on the cover of Mens Health magazine. Having never lit for muscle I found this a nice little challenge and I thought I'd share my approach here.

So the brief was ~ B&W images on a flat white background with as much muscle definition as possible. Surprisingly this was remarkably easy to achieve.

After researching past covers of mens health It became clear that they tend to use a simple cross light set~up on the model, which makes sense as shape is defined by shadow, so if you start adding too many lights you're in danger of loosing the shadows and that all important muscle definition along with it.

What you really need is to have a main light with plenty of power to give you lots of contrast & shot bare bulb to give you a good hard light. That, as far as I'm concerned is the most important thing to achieve.

I used my elinchrom D~lite it2 head with a reflector and placed it approx 45 degree's camera right, about 2 foot above the models head and approx 4~5 foot away from him. I then used an Sb24 camera left behind the model as an edge light.

For the background I used two Sb28's . One was placed near the Sb24 but pointed at the curve in the backdrop and the other was hung from the ceiling and pointed at the upper part of the backdrop.

Lighting Set-up #3 Catwoman location shoot.

2010-11-30T23:21:00.000Z

This shoot was great fun and a bit of a lighting challenge. We shot in the stair well in the back of a nightclub and then on the roof of a multi story car park just after sun down. Click through for a run down on how I lit the shots including lighting diagrams and what kit I used...

The Challenge with this shot was to get the balance of light right between the skyline and the foreground where the model was. Added to that, it was freezing cold and quite exposed on that roof top so we had to work quick and bag the shot early.

On the roof.

My approach was to expose for the skyline, whack a couple of strobes up on a medium setting (1/8th power) and then adjust these to taste until I had the look that I wanted. I then used the shutter speed to fine tune this balance as we where shooting, that ambient light was fading fast!

By taking the shutter speed down from 160th I could let in more ambient light whilst keeping the foreground flash exposure constant. Quick, easy and the best part is you don't have to leave the camera and start faffing with lights mid shoot.

I find this way of working very quick and intuitive as appose to juggling ratios and numbers on a light meter. As the great David Hobby points out on his lighting blog, it doesn't take long for you to develop what often feels like a sixth sense for what power your flash needs to be in a given situation.

I do use a flash meter occasionally, but usually just to get a base exposure as a starting point...

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Lighting Set-up #2 - Simple beauty lighting

2010-11-15T20:48:00.000Z

This is a very simple yet effective set up that requires only 2 lights and a reflector. It works great for a nice evenly lit head shot with a soft gradient background. You can also easily add drama to the shot by simply moving the key light to the left, right or even over head.

I used an Elinchrom D lite it2 with a white shoot through umbrella as the key light. This was on a stand about 5-6 feet high and pointing down with the tip of the umbrella aimed at the models nose. It was placed in front of the model ever so slightly off axis to camera right and at a distance of about 3-4 foot.

5 great websites for learning about photography

2010-09-13T13:57:00.001+01:00

1. Strobist blogspot.

This blog is often credited with sparking the massive trend in off camera flash that we have seen over the last few years.It is an amazing resource of idea's, tips, techniques, reviews and industry news. The focus is primarily off camera flash and lighting techniques but also covers a plethora of other interesting and relevant topics.

2. Fstoppers

A fairly new blog covering a wide range of behind the scenes video's from a vast array of photographers around the globe.

3. Adobe TV

Loads of 'how to' video's covering all the adobe software packages.

4. Luminous landscape

In-depth articles and tutorials on pretty much all aspects of photography. I particularly enjoyed the 'understanding series' which covers everything from exposure to raw files with such depth and clarity that even if you feel like you know about a certain subject, you are likely to understand it a great deal better after reading.

5. Photography on the net - canon digital photography forum

This is a great forum covering so many aspects of photography many of which are not actually Canon specific.

Enjoy ;)

Lighting set-up #1 Cross lighting

2010-09-12T18:25:00.000+01:00

This is one of my favorite lighting setups and it's really pretty easy to do.As you can see from the diagram bellow, its a three light setup. My key light was a 250w hot light through a white umbrella, placed with the light just above head height and aimed down slightly so that the central pole pointed to the models nose. This gives a nice soft wrap of light with those great catch lights in the eyes.

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250w hot light v's 200w/s D lite it 2 studio strobe

2010-09-02T00:00:00.000+01:00

I've been using 250w photoflex hotlights for the last few years for my studio fashion and portraiture work. Just recently I decided to upgrade my lighting and plunge into the world of studio strobes, my weapon of choice? - the 200w/s D lite it 2 from Elinchrom.

In this article I 'm going to explore the differences between the two and answer some of the questions I had when looking to buy studio lights.

Adventures in Scotland

2010-08-28T19:14:00.001+01:00

I went on an amazing road trip up the west coast of Scotland recently. The scenery up there is breath taking, when you're surrounded by 1000m mountains you know about it! I decided to go ninja on this trip and took minimalist kit... 500D, 50mm 1.4 lens, a spare battery and 16g of memory.
The editing on these shots was also incredibly simple, most images just having a purple, green & orange gradient map layer added at opacity 28%.

Shoot Idea's #1 - The junk shop challenge

2010-03-08T21:36:00.000Z

So here's the challenge...

-Create an outfit for a high fashion studio shoot on a budget of £20 using clothes from second hand shops
-The model would also be allowed to use 2-3 accessories of their own.
-Shoot in two parts, part one being a documentary style montage of the outfit being put together,
part two would be the finished outfit shot in the studio with full make-up etc.

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