This was a gift to my husband. He’d surprised me by dressing up all fancy-like and grabbing his sword (nice way to introduce the idea of an impromptu date), and I got a few pictures. A few days later I put this together, using some pictures I’d shot earlier of a hawk he spotted and some woodsy pictures. All the images are mine and this was completed in Photoshop CS6 and Lightroom 4.0. 🙂
Filed under Personal Work, Photo Illustration
This was a photoshoot I did with Christina. The idea was to have a fantasy warrior/mage character, and we went over to Culp Park when the weather turned unexpectedly nice. I was looking to get “video game action poses,” and it turned out to be really fun. I came back with over a thousand pictures to sort through. Got it down to 100 images, then finally twenty favorites. These are the resulting images. 🙂
Flickr Slideshow:Â http://www.flickr.com/photos/sbibb/sets/72157629206245630/show/
Filed under Photo Illustration
Sometime a light doesn’t work. Or it comes with a missing screw when you go to attach it to the backstand. Or the chord’s too short, and you switch that chord out for the one in the bag with the non-working light. Either way, backups are useful, and when you don’t have two lights, it gets time to be creative with one light.
During class we worked in groups to take pictures of each other for a couple hours. We were supposed to use a hair light, but seeing as we didn’t have the second light, we tried positioning each other on ambient light and against windows and reflections.
I had a large part of my fun in the editing process– playing with harsh light versus soft light can have very different results.
Flickr Slideshow: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sbibb/sets/72157626415138428/show/
Filed under Advanced Color Portrait 2011
Last weekend I asked Joe and Cherise if they were interested in being the couple for my assignment. Luckily it turned out that we had great weather on Saturday, and the lighting was perfect for what I wanted (long shadows, warm lights). We went out to the park on Holden and Lion’s Lake, starting around 4:30pm. I was particularly interested in the light I expected to come at around 5:10 pm, and it came as hoped.
I also brought along Isaac, my fiance, as photo-assistant, as well as a Canon 580ex Flash. (Which I had read the manual just before the shoot). I built a softbox out of white posterboard and wax paper (Isaac’s idea for the wax paper diffuser) and put that on the flash. While the flash worked, it was nice lighting. Unfortuanetly something caused the LCD to start flickering and it stopped firing, so I had to put it away after the first few poses. It was nice while it lasted. Over Spring Break I plan to learn more about how to use it.
Anyways, these are the resulting pictures, using Photoshop CS4 and Lightroom 2.
Flickr Slideshow: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sbibb/sets/72157626280849202/show/
Filed under Advanced Color Portrait 2011
After much trouble trying to get a texture accepted onto Texturevault, and nearly giving up on it, I finally went into their forums to ask why my photos weren’t being accepted. I had sent in roughly ten photos over the past couple months, with everything being rejected based on too much noise or not being sharp enough. When I looked at my photos, I found that all of them seemed to have the same amount of noise, same slight blur, and I couldn’t figure out how to get it any sharper. The support on Texturevault forum suggested I try an ISO of 100, and I decided to finally look up how to test for lens sharpness (which I had been meaning to do for the past month).
I found this review (http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/lens-sharpness.htm), which seemed rather harsh to me, but I came out of it with one very particularly piece of information in mind- that lenses have a sweet spot where they will be at thier sharpest, not necessarily at the wide open apertures (which I typically like to shoot), and other apertures won’t be as sharp. Pushing a lens to its extreme will result in photos that “test the limits” and aren’t as sharp.
Keeping that in mind, I went out into the afternoon light and took a few pictures- all at ISO 100, but at 1.8, 10, and 22 apertures. Immeadietly afterwards I loaded the pictures onto my computer and looked at them at 100%. The results were surprising- I finally saw what my teachers and books have meant by Chromatic aberrations (1.8), my pictures seemed to be hopelessly blurred at 1.8 and 22, but at 10- they sharp. Not extraordinarily sharp, but definatly sharper. And there was no noise.
Woot!
I chose the two pictures that were the best and submitted them to TextureVault. This time they were accepted. I am happy to say I now have a way to test for lens sharpness, and in the meantime, I’ve just got to take more texture photos and figure out how to make sales.
View My TextureVault Portfolio Here: http://www.texturevault.net/view_photog.php?photogid=1067
Filed under Personal Work
One of the last assignments in my Origins of Photography class was to emulate a photographer. We were told to choose three photos that we were interested in trying to emulate, and the teacher signed off on one or two of the photos. Once we knew which photo we were doing, it was our job to make a photograph as similar as possible to the original one.
One of the requirements was that we had to show a before and after- or if using a lot of Photoshop, we needed to show the unmanipulated photo. I chose a photo by Colin Anderson (http://colinanderson1.wordpress.com/), because I like his style and the science-fiction/adventure illustrations he has created appeals to the type of work I would like to be able to do.
His Original:
My Emulation:
All of The Photos Used:
The point of the assignment was to be able to carefully scrutinize a photograph to study lighting, poses, placement, color, and any number of things. In general, it was not expected that we would be able to perfectly replicate the photograph. And in any case, it is not meant to be an infringement on copyright, only a learning tool. The things that I learned in this process were how to previsualise, along with gaining a better understanding of digital painting in combination with photography.
First of all, I looked at each part of the image and decided how I would get the picture, or where. All of the images needed to be our own work. For the car, there is a hill overlooking a parking lot, which I wandered by several times until I found a car that looked close enough for my purposes. I took a few different shots of it from different angles to achieve the needed angle. For the model, I started her off in the basic pose, then slowly worked up to the actual photo in the picture. This turned out to be a really good exercise in direction, a skill I’m weak at. It also turned out to be a learning point in Photoshop CS5, when I discovered that the puppet tool allows you to move the subject matter in a realistic fashion to obtain the final pose you need. I never did get the back leg quite right, however. One of my favorite things to play with was the fire- which was done using digital painting techniques and a Wacom tablet. Her armor is also made using digital painting, and the overall image underwent a number of layers with blending modes to try to achieve the finished image.
There are still a number of issues that I can see with the final image I created that keeps it from being at the level of Colin Anderson’s work. A lot of that comes from a need to practice more with Photoshop, and to learn more techniques that will finalize the image. Overall, though, I really enjoyed this assignment, as it forced me to test the boundaries of what I can do in an image while learning new Photoshop skills.
Photos posted with Colin Anderson’s permission.
Filed under Origins of Photography 2010
I’ve finally started using DeviantArt again to promote my work. Though I figure it will take a while to actually acrue any sort of large following to successfully sell prints, I think it could prove useful for gaining comments on photos I have taken as well as my manipulations, along with serving as fresh inspirations for new photos. Below is a link to my account, along with a screengrab.
Filed under Personal Work
These are some of the photos that I used in Mid Program for my portfolio. I focused on digital imaging. Also, I presented mock book covers (though Distant Horizon is a mock book cover for a story I am currently working on with my fiance) and movie posters as ideas for potential clients.
Flickr Slideshow: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sbibb/sets/72157625181255815/show/
Filed under Personal Work
Earlier I looked up sites with good senior photos for ideas for the photoshoot I would soon be doing. I now have the product of that photoshoot. It was two days of shooting, multiple outfits and multiple locations. I did various photoediting, and let Eleni and her mom decide which photos they wanted me to edit. It was a sort of special deal since Eleni is my fiance’s sister. I used both H&H Colorlab and Blackriver Imaging to print the photos, along with printing a few photos myself in the school’s lab. As a side note, new customers on Blackriver Imaging do get some nice introductory offers, so it is well worth checking out if you are considering printing soon. I’m not sure if H&H has any introductory offers, as I was going through the school to order the photos.
Flickr Slideshow: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sbibb/sets/72157625275296592/show/
Filed under Client Work
Stephanie Flint - Author and Artist 