Capturing Texture Creatively

We are surrounded by all kinds of texture, but often don't think about capturing those textures with our cameras.  

With my camera and camcorder in hand, I visited two of our Phoenix city parks.  My goal was to 1) show you how to photograph various textures and 2) put those textures to use in Photoshop. 

You can see the video here:

http://youtu.be/HtvPoyAdGwY

Want a free copy of the sample textures that we captured during the tutorial video?  Click here.

Starting with one of the landscape photographs I took during that session, you can see that I created several very different looks.  All of these digital enhancements were done with textures I captured during the tutorial. 


First enhancement: the landscape photo is simply turned slightly, given a white border and a drop shadow, and set on top of one of the rocks photographed during the tutorial.

The next treatment started with one of the pictures of gravel. I put a tan layer behind the gravel and changed the blend mode to "luminosity", then changed the opacity down to 20%. Next step was to place the landscape photo on top of the gravel. Final step was to add a layer mask to the landscape and use a brush created from one of the tree shots to mask out the edge of the top layer photo. 

The third way that I decided to digitally enhance the landscape photo was to create a brush from the mesquite pods. Then I painted over the landscape photo using the art history brush, varying the size of the brush and the opacity of the ink flowing.  Final step was to give the painting the illusion of floating by adding a drop shadow.

Here's a grunge treatment. I used gravel, one of the green sharp pointy shrubs, and the quartz to build the overlay.

I hope that I've helped inspire you to grab your camera and not be afraid to play. Experiment with photographing textures so you have a library of assets that can be used to create overlays, backdrops, brushes, and special shapes. 

Time Lapse Photography: Getting Started

I spent an evening last week out a Saguaro Lake just East of Phoenix Arizona. We had a full moon rising during sunset. This seemed like the perfect time to capture a time lapse photography session, so I planned my trip using The Photographer's Ephemeris (TPE), loaded up the camera and tripod, and headed out.

Initial Planning
There's no better way to know exactly where the sun and moon will be in relation to a specific location at a given date and time than by using The Photographer's Ephemeris (http://photoephemeris.com/)  A friend and fellow photographer turned me onto this a couple years ago.  He uses the tool mostly for landscape photography.  I generally find it useful to plan outdoor portrait sessions near sunset if I'm going to a location that I'm not familiar with.

Last week I leaned on TPE to plan my trip to the lake.  Based on the day and time that I knew I'd be there, I pin-pointed a location in the parking lot that would give me a good view of the moon rising across the lake.  I was also then armed with the exact compass bearing that the moon would rise at, taking the guess work out of setting up the camera on a tripod and waiting for the moon to "pop up."

The final prep was to know when to start recording and for how long.  I also needed to determine how many seconds should lapse between capturing each image.  The goal was to build a 30 frame-per-second slideshow "video" from those images.  

I created a spreadsheet to help me with the math.  I've made a copy of it available for free. Get your copy here.

• 90 minutes of real time sunset and moon rise
• compressed into a 36 second video 
• at 30 FPS 
• meant that I needed to capture an image once every 5 seconds

One more sanity check: 12 images per minute for 90 minutes ... 1080 images will be captured. Will my memory card hold that many RAW images?  The answer is YES if I have a large enough memory card and I choose to capture smaller RAW image than my camera's normal 21 megapixels. The final HD video clip will be 1920x1080, so the smaller RAW is fine.

At The Lake
The next step in my adventure was to simply get to the lake and begin capturing individual images with my DSLR camera, not video.  

Knowing your camera and being comfortable in manual mode is important, but not difficult.  Here's the breakdown:

• I set the white balance to "daylight" rather than AWB.  I didn't want the camera to change white balance settings throughout the sequence as it wrongfully attempted to chase the ever-changing colors during sunset.
• I set the ISO to 200 rather than automatic.  
• Manual exposure mode, I closed down the aperture to f-11, knowing that I was currently looking at a mountain that was brightly lit by the sun setting behind me.  As the sunset progressed, I knew that I'd want to open up the aperture a bit.
• With the ISO and aperture set, the camera's exposure meter was dead center when I moved the shutter speed to 1/100th of a second.  I was happy with that because I knew that I could also drop the shutter speed to let more light in as the sunset progressed.
• I relied initially on auto focus, pointing the camera at the mountain across the lake and using the center focal point only. Once the camera was good with the focus, I switched to manual focus so the lens wouldn't change focus throughout the sequence.  
• verified that I had my capture set to RAW2 for smaller images.
• Set the timer for 1 image every 5 seconds.

The only step left was to wait for 6:30 PM to come around so I could start the timer.  I planned on running until 8:00 PM, giving me a 90-minute event compressed into a 36 second video.

The Final Result

Here's a link to the tutorial I created while setting up the camera. The final result is at the end of this video tutorial. 

Enjoy.

Family Photography Session - Scouting Downtown Phoenix AZ

As a family portrait photographer, I am constantly on the watch for great locations.

In particular, I enjoy the challenge of finding locations that will give my clients a unique experience, locations that fit their family's interests and personality.

Within the next couple of weeks, I have a client that wants to have their family photography session downtown for the holidays.

So I grabbed my camera and went on a scouting trip downtown.

The first general concept that I have in mind for the location is to follow a strict adherence to the Rule of Thirds.  Whatever I end up shooting, I want some nice balance in the scene. 

I was hoping to find some interesting architectural features.

Lots of stone and granite will have a warmer, hand-crafted feel.  Seems to me that glass and steel structures will feel too sterile, not so good for a warm family portrait session.  

A small oasis of plants and a water feature in the middle of the downtown desert cityscape was a nice surprise too. 

Some of the character of downtown Phoenix is the light rail system, so I added a couple images for my idea board featuring the light rail stations.

As I captured each of these images, I was visualizing how this family of four, two adults and two teenagers, will fit into the scene:

- how tall are they?
- how they will be framed?
- how much space four people take up width-wise as they stand shoulder-to-shoulder?
- how will I pose them?
- will I do special groupings, perhaps of the parents without the kids, the kids together, each family member individually, etc?

Even though Phoenix is a relatively new city in the scope of things, there is some older (1950's?) architecture. Not sure if this family will appreciate the Art Nuevo look, but added a picture or two of some old buildings and their entrance ways.

One of the finished art pieces that I like to offer my clients is a hand painted canvas wrap, depicting one of the best images from their session. 

Since I don't have a lot of client sessions downtown, I wanted to gain a deeper understanding, a stronger sense of painting downtown.  I needed to immerse myself into one of these scouting images.

For this assignment, I chose the first picture that I captured during the scouting trip ... in front of the Orpheum Theater.  Something about this scene conveys a sense of being downtown, yet still has a small town feel, as so many people describe Phoenix even though we're the fifth largest metro area in the United States.

Here's the finished piece. What do you think? How'd it turn out?  Compare this painting to the picture of the Orpheum Theater.  You'll see where the inspiration came from.  Can you imagine a family walking hand-in-hand towards the viewer? That's exactly what I hope to capture with my downtown family client session.

Allen Session, Dreamy Draw Park

I love surprises.  Especially when it's a chance to catch up with an old friend and past coworker.  And Monday's phone call was the best unexpected surprise I've had in a long time. 

Deirdre and I have stayed in contact on a professional level through LinkedIn, but haven't physically seen each other for about 10 years. We've only exchanged a few emails in the past year, mostly because our careers took different directions and Deirdre is now out of state. On top of that, she has been a part of my computer programming, technically inclined network.  All of my current marketing efforts have been directed towards sales professionals in Phoenix.  She was not someone I would have expected to reach out to me for a family photo session. 

So, I was blessed to be a part of this couple's family portrait session during a business trip that brought Deirdre back to Phoenix this week. Nice surprise.

I will let the pictures speak for themselves.  All I can say is that this couple is in LOVE. I think we captured some very tender, romantic moments. 

Time for me to be quiet and let the movie begin: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_6ROMIBsjE

Based on what I knew about Deirdre's expectations of the session, I prepared a few pieces of wall art before we sat down to review. My favorites are the hand painted portrait on canvas and the horizontal tri folio, the first two images below.  Deirdre and Elton agreed.