Photowalk 19 of 52 (Vancouver)

While I still have lots of photos to edit from this trip (over 300 from Minter Gardens alone) I have a few that are done that I want to share. Some are some photos taken from my wife’s aunt’s house in Abbotsford area.

The next few are a couple of samples from the Minter Garden’s trip.

Hope you enjoyed these. More editing being done all the time. I took a photowalk tonight, so I’ll try and get those ones done soon. I also have the interim photowalks I’ve been promising.

In other news I got a fancy new reflector today – it arrived in the mail. It’s a 42 inch reflector, so it’s actually kind of gigantic. I have some new business cards coming as well – can’t wait to see them!

Photowalk 19-ish of 52 (Vancouver.)

We went to visit my brother in Abbotsford last weekend, and also took the time to honour my Grandmother’s life with a family reunion of sorts at Minter Gardens. I got some great photographs there, as I knew she would appreciate them. It was a great family time.

The next day we took the children to the Greater Vancouver Zoo and we had a blast. I really enjoyed myself and got another whole photowalks worth of photos there.

In between I took this picture of a mountain during sunset and gave it a bit of an edit. I post it now to hopefully make up for so many missed photowalks. As soon as I have edits of the two walks I did last week I will put them up as 18 and 19.

Here – Have a picture of Mt. Baker:

Photowalk 20 of 52 (Photographing People Workshop)

Last night I went to a workshop run by Northern Persona Photography, called Photographing People. It was excellent! 6 hours of learning, combined with some fun exercised to break up the pure lecturing time and a photoshoot at the end.

Samantha came to be my model and we had an hour at an awesome property. Her outfit was stellar and worked with so many backgrounds there. My favourites were the old wood buildings though, by far. Here are a couple of the images we took as my 20th photowalk.

By the way, I realize I’m out of order – but I wanted to get back on track. I have a more photowalks done that need to be posted so expect some catchup in the upcoming days.

I loved the wall texture and colour in this one.

Black and White crop and edit of the previous. I wanted to pull in tighter and focus on her eyes.

Her favourite of the shoot. I love the composition and mood of this photo.

My favourite of the shoot. I like her body shape and pose, and the mood evoked here as well.

I hope you enjoy!

I need your help! (Reposted from jclossphoto.com)

I need your help. See – I’m really indecisive – I guess it’s part of being a Libra.

I’m entering the Photolife Emerging Photographer of the Year contest – open to Canadian photographers only. I’m going to need to submit 3 of my photographs for judging – they of course, should be my “best of the best”.

I’m thinking of using my photograph “Trust – Split Toned” as one of my submissions. “Frostflowers” has gotten good reviews as well, it’s my photograph that has been published in Snapixel Magazine.

I’m torn for what my 3rd choice should be. Any suggestions?

While you’re at it, feel free to suggest any of my other photographs for my first two submissions as well – these are not set in stone yet.

~Cheers!

Jeff

I’m behind, and here’s why…

Wow. I’m really behind.

I’m two photowalks behind – I have one of them shot and unedited, and one is not even shot yet.

I did a photoshoot for a client last weekend that I still have to edit. I also did a marathon shoot with Tineke from Northern Persona Photography last Sunday. We did 14 photoshoots in one day. 12 of them were 1/2 hour shoots and 2 were hour long ones. Lots of great people, lots of great kids!

I had a great time, and got a bit of a sunburn. It was kind of nice for me that the light wasn’t perfect – it was super sunny and nice! Not only did I get to hang out on a gorgeous day pursuing my passion, I got paid for it! Yep – I’m subcontracting my services as a photographers assistant to Tineke this year. I’m gaining some valuable insight on shooting people, and lots of other great little tips and tricks to pick up.

As for the light being not perfect – because it wasn’t I had to work a lot harder than I might have otherwise have had to – but the bonus is that we got to do some cool stuff. I’ll be investing in some different shaped and sized reflectors after that marathon shoot – the one I packed around for Tineke was awesome. I used it to shade her when she was shooting into the sun – acting as a gigantic mobile smart lens hood. (well, sort of smart).

I used it to reflect cool coloured light onto our subjects – usually lighting up a face to remove contrasting shadows. This is done with the silver side of the reflector.

I used it to bounce cool coloured light up onto people’s hair from behind when shooting into a building, creating a rimlight or hairlight and creating separation and definition of the subject from the dark shadowy background.

I used it to climb up high, balance on a fence or to contort myself into other interesting positions to put the reflector between the sun and the subject, creating shade.

It was a good time. However, it made me late for my 52 week project. Ah well, some things can’t be helped.

I’ve also been putting a fair amount of time into my new website for my business – you can find it at jclossphoto.com – it also has a blog and it WordPress powered, Photocrati themed, hosted by Defiance Art & Designs.

Oh yeah – to top it all off I contracted a sinus infection midweek last. So I’ve been battling that as well – it’s not been an easy bit of time lately, but it has been rewarding.

I’ll get my next photoshoot done asap, and get my previous one edited. I’ll also share a couple of the images from the real-estate shoot when I’m done editing them – possibly showing what makes them different from quick point & shoot pictures taken by an average real estate agent.

Until then….

New Website

My new website is up. I now own jclossphoto.com, jeffclossphotography.com and jclossphotography.com

I’m using wordpress hosted on my own domain with the Photocrati theme. It’s pretty awesome, and gives me alot of customization options. I like that I’m familiar enough with the backend that I can make the blog software behave like a content management system.

I’d love for any of you to go to my site and take a look around. Keep in mind that although things are a bit rough right now, I’m working on them. My slideshow is up on my front page with three images as a test, more will be added shortly. My galleries are not up yet, but should be within a day or two. I’m thinking of running a contest/poll to choose which images make the cut – let me know what you think.

I’m off to bed with sinus medication – see you soon!

Split Tone Tutorial Attempts

I found a split-toning tutorial tonight on one of my favourite websites, Digital Photography School. I quickly knocked out 3 images that I had from our recent schoolyard picnic – as this technique works best with silhouettes. Here are my attempts, you can scroll down to my last photowalk to see and compare the originals.

Halo – Split Toned. Split tone takes the highlights and makes them one colour, and the shadows and makes them a different colour. Black still renders as black, so silhouettes are best suited to this technique.

Trust – Split Toned

Overall, I had fun. I got some photos out of this that I think look fantastic, and I added a new skill to my repertoire. This isn’t something I’d use all the time, but it is a neat trick to know how to pull out every once in a while.

Query. Which one do you prefer out of the three? Or do you like the originals better? My favourite is “Trust” – the super bright colours draw me in. I like the blues as well, and the first one, but the super saturated colours are really where it’s at for me. I’d like your insights as well though.

Photowalk 15 of 52 (Schoolyard Picnic)

Up to date as of this post! This one was shot last night – Sam and I went and picked up a pizza and took the girls to a local schoolyard for a picnic. We had lots of fun, the girls are fearless now that they’ve both done a few seasons of gymnastics. (1 season = 3 months or so)

We did lots of playing on the tire swings, then I got some neat silhouettes of my girls playing against the setting sun, and a couple abstract shots of a cool rocket shaped monkey bar contraption.

Afterwords we showed the girls the tunnel under the highway, and the setting sun lighting it up was too good of light to pass up, I had to get a family shot. Minus me of course, no tripod or remote for me to be in the pic too – still, I’m happy with the outcome.

As always, let me know what you think – I love comments!

First shot of the girls swinging on the tire swing. I burned a lot of exposures trying to get a couple of good ones here, accounting for all the motion and the contrast of the bright setting sun and the shady area they kept swinging into.

I can see your feet from here. I may have been laying in pea gravel for this shot. And from the smell of the schoolyard, I think I know why they call it pee gravel. *grin*

My beautiful wife, sitting on the tire swing.

Abstract rocket silhouette, with sun starburst. Thanks Tineke for teaching me that technique!

Playing in the sunset.

Trust.

Family shot – the light in this tunnel was fantastic. The reflections in Ivy’s glasses are awesome!

Thanks for reading. I’ll try not to get too far behind again in the future. I hope you all enjoyed the mass of posts tonight!

Photowalk 14 of 52 (Easter Sunday)

Time for a bit of catchup.

For my photowalk 14 I shot our families Easter festivities. Here are my keepers from the morning, hunting for eggs and treats the Easter Bunny hid throughout the house and front yard.

Nephews clue, left by the Easter Bunny – it eventually led to a sugary prize!

Did the bunny hide eggs in this fancy house?

Lets go! Maybe they’re down here!

I think she’s found an egg!

Hmm…Bunnies like brush and bushes – maybe he put one over here. One of my three nephews who were staying with us, searching.

Here, you can have this one.

Little Edit

I found a tutorial to colorizing using a gradient in Photoshop. In fact, if you want to do it, you can find the tutorial right here: http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-effects/gradient-map/

I followed the instructions, and decided to apply the effect with a Purple to Orange to Green gradient. Sounds a bit like vomit, but I have to say, the final effect turned out nice. It ended up being a bit of a sepia-tone effect. I had chosen a still life shot I made in Barkerville, British Columbia last summer. The school bell is surrounded by some slate tablets and aprons. I stacked the tablets pretty after the kids were finished with them and snapped off some quick shots. I’m most impressed with how the monochrome effect really made the texture stand out.

Here is what I ended up with. Hope you enjoy.