I know a few of you might have gotten some new toys over Christmas, and inevitably, some of those toys are bound to be DSLR cameras or new Flash guns or perhaps a fancy radio trigger set that you always wanted. Or maybe you got some new strobes with beauty dishes that you’re dying to try out, but not sure how to use them appropriately or what modifiers to get. FRET NO MORE! For starters, I’ll teach you these things: Camera Modes: What are they for, and what do they do? What do those numbers and letters and ISO mean on my LCD screen? What the heck is a histogram?! Secondly, I’ll teach you how to use your flashgun, and if you don’t have one, I’ll tell you WHY getting one is probably the best thing you can do for your photography…. Continue Reading
Author’s note: The young man in the photos (Cristof) did NOT ride with his father Brad on the Harley. He rode in the safety of his own car seat with his mom G in her Mini Cooper S. I do not in any way condone children riding on motorcycles before they are physically ready.) That being said, let’s get on to the fun! Brad and I are good friends, and we share a similar like for a lot of things – Longhorns Football, good beer (none of that silly Miller Lite or Budweiser crap), motorcycles, and both of us live in close proximity in the town of Manor, TX. We’ve been talking (over a few pints of Guiness) about possibly doing this kind of photoshoot for Brad, as I’ve been wanting to test out a different way of lighting high… Continue Reading
As a photographer, I often get the comment “Your photos are so beautiful! You MUST have an amazing camera!” While the camera does play a role, it’s also a myriad of other things that come into play to make an image look great. Photoshop CS5 and Lightroom 3 are two of the biggest software programs I use to edit my images – technology is AMAZING, and we’ve come a long way. To use a cooking/chef analogy, the raw image is the ingredient, and the programs I use are to help to spice up “cook” the final “dish.” Lightroom 3 is simply a raw image editor, which I mainly use to edit the basic things, such as color temperature, contrast, sharpening, maybe a bit of hue/saturation boost. Photoshop CS5, however, is where the majority of my magic happens in post-production! To start… Continue Reading