Gimme Some Water

Photographer Jaroslav Wieczorkiewicz made these shots by throwing buckets of water in a controlled manner and using very minimal photoshop too. Good story at Strobist HERE of how he shot it.

Stop Action Test

Here is a test I did the other day of a boot and water splashing on it. I used a black boot on a black background and two lights positioned on each side and to the back of the boot. My flash duration was set to burn at 1/8000 of a second.

Ryan Enn Hughes_Photographer

Photographer Ryan Enn Hughes 360 degree project took 48 interconnected DSLR cameras to produce. Check his videos he produced using this technique and the behind the scenes video showing how he accomplished this task. See full story at PDN HERE. Ryan's web site HERE.

KRUMP 360 (The 360 Project) from Ryan Enn Hughes on Vimeo.

BALLET 360 (The 360 Project) from Ryan Enn Hughes on Vimeo.

The 360 Project - Behind the Scenes from Ryan Enn Hughes on Vimeo.

Photographer_Patrick Hall on Wakeboarding in Studio

Great idea, wonderful execution and results. And this guy is a wedding photographer! Watch the video. From Fstoppers HERE. Patrick Hall photography HERE.

Fstoppers Original: The Wakeboard Studio Shoot from FStoppers on Vimeo.

Photographer_Don McCullin

"I was sleeping next to bodies and things (in Hue)... and then you say, 'What the hell's this got to do with photography?' 'Who am I?' 'Where the hell have I just been?' 'What's happened to me?'"

110 STORIES_Interesting app for IPhone

Orient your phone towards where the Twin Towers once stood and this free app will draw in the Towers exactly where they would be. Submit the photo and a story about why you felt compelled to take the photo and your submission is published on the 110 Stories web site and added to a global repository of memories and stories. 110 Stories web site HERE.

Photographer_Jake Chessum

Photographer Jake Chessum (his site here) has celebrity photos posted at Life.com (HERE) along with personal stories about the photo shoots which I found interesting. I like his story about shooting Alec Baldwin not to mention the great photos he got:

ome quick thinking -- and a fortuitous playdate Chessum had set up for his daughter near the Hamptons location -- helped save a shoot with Alec Baldwin when the actor arrived late, then refused to go sailing as planned: "It's 105 degrees outside. [Baldwin] calls me over: 'Sit down, sit down. Umm,' he said, 'I'm not going out on the boat. It's too hot. It's 20 f---ing minutes to get out, and you have to go 2 f---ing miles an hour. . . . I'm not doing it.' It's like, What do you mean? But you can't argue with him -- he's not going to change his mind. So I'm thinking on my feet and I say, 'Okay, what about we go to my friend's pool?' He looked me up and down -- I'm pretty scruffy -- and he said, 'Your friend doesn't have a f---ing pool.' And I'm like, 'Trust me, my friend has got a pool, and it's about half a mile away from here.' So he kind of looks at me and goes, 'Yeah, all right.'""So I texted my friend, Lisa, and I asked, 'Can I bring Alec Baldwin to your house?' And she texted back: 'The answer would be yes.' We turned up and they had their whole family there because it was their hangout; it was like grandstands on the deck. Alec grabbed my daughter's friend Georgia, stood on a surfboard, and promptly fell in fully clothed in some Ralph Lauren suit. He did sharks and threw them in the air. He did 20-25 minutes, and then he got out, dried off, got in his car, and drove away. "

Scott Witter_Photographer

I came across this Los Angeles photographer and really enjoyed some of his work. I have been shooting dogs at the local animal shelter for our company and the previous post here is also dog themed so this photographers work about people and their dogs seems perfectly timed. But there is something else here that I like about Scotts Dog People project, he put a lot of effort into the project before he even started shooting, and it shows. The people, locations, lighting, clothing, all well thought out before-hand. "The next two months consisted of passing out flyers, casting, scouting, scheduling, concepting, and most importantly, shooting (my favorite part). Every dog had its own unique personality as well as a special bond with their human companion. Eighteen photo sessions, numerous lighting set-ups, four 10oz bags of dog treats, many long hours behind the computer later… "

Check out his great project and photography here at Scott Witter website

Read more about the Dog People project at Scott's blog here

The Psych of Great Photography

Great photography can sell anything. Its so powerful really great photography is like a legal scam prompting you to buy something wether you need it or not. This video from Sunday Morning show demonstrates the influence good images can have on people, wether its dogs or cloths the psych is the same.

A Canon announcement Coming Soon_

Hmmm, I think this will be BIG...not little! Check out more here @ PetaPixel.

Chicago_Tilt, Shift, Time-Lapse

AIRVENTURE_THE GREATEST SHOW ON (AND OFF) EARTH

I will be updating my portfolio soon with new images included from AirVenture, Oshkosh, Wi. Here are a few.

CHRIS BUCK: "ISN'T"

Photographer_Chris Buck

A great portrait photographer who recently shot the Michelle Bachman Newsweek cover photo. I'm not sure how the actual shoot went, or who the art director was, and I'm also not saying it is a great cover, but Chris Buck is a great photographer. See his website HERE.

The Real Deal

Images of me assisting Photographer Al Lada (Flickr page HERE) in Chicago during the early 80's. FILM! You had to get it right the first time by knowing your craft and having the confidence in your professional abilities. A huge learning curve for a young aspiring photographer. After shooting all day on location you would see your finished photos a day or more later, no checking the back of the camera for an acceptable image. No photoshop. Time management, even then some shots required more time than others, but it was never a cookie cutter situation putting out mediocre photography (or what I call...Making Sausage), every shot counted. We were selling merchandise, big time. The image sells it. The books prove it. Today, most of your internet photography and a hell of a lot of your catalog photography is people making cheap, quick images, 20 maybe 30 or even more a day. And well, it looks like it. That will change. Thats why I love the current tough economy. "Making sausage" in your photo studio is not going to endure. The consumer demands a better product and will pay for it, if it is value oriented. The advertising needs to be professional and creative enough to spur that decision. Great photography is the single best investment a company can make to break through the clutter and sell merchandise. Glad I was able to work and learn from some of the best in a professional atmosphere when the value of commercial photography was taken much more serious. Thanks Al.

Photographer_ John C. H. Grabill

This is interesting, very little is known about John C. H. Grabill but his photographs exhibit a level of mastery of technique equal to the greatest of the frontier photographers. What is known is that he opened a studio in Sturgis, Dakota Territory in 1886 and had studios in Hot Springs, Lead, and Deadwood, Dakota Territory through 1891. He then moved to Chicago and operated a studio until 1894, at which point no other information about Grabill is available. Most of what is known about Grabill's career as a photographer comes from a group of 188 photographs he sent to the Library of Congress for copyright protection. These photographs document early frontier life including western town landscapes, Native Americans, mining, and exclusive photos in the aftermath of the Wounded Knee Massacre on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Check out an excellent collection HERE @ the denverpost.com. Check out the full collection HERE @ the Library of Congress.

Tim Hetherington_Photographer

Award - winning war photographer Tim Hetherington was killed on April 20, 2011 while covering the conflict in Libya. In 2007 Hetherington began a year long assignment following American troops in Afgahanistan's Korengal Valley, this assignment turned into a documentary called "Restrepo" that was nominated for a 2010 Oscar. See a collection of Tim's photos for Vanity Fair HERE. See Restrepo Trailer HERE. New York Times HERE.

Wall Street Journal ad, Photographer_ John Pluska

Tooting my horn folks, this ad is currently running in the Wall Street Journal. Again my thanks to my stylist Linda Candella, and my AD Joy pontrello.

The New York Times Magazine Ad_Photographer John Pluska

I have been fortunate enough to have my images reproduced in the New York Times Magazine. This was not an easy task. I photographed many images over the course of two weeks to produce this final image that appeared the last couple of weeks in the New York Times Magazine. I am told that it is a huge hit, doing what it is supposed to do, sell merchandise. We have also been contacted by a professor from a university to use this ad in his teachings of successful advertising. A huge thank you goes out to my stylist, Linda Candella, and art director Joy Pontrello, and my assistant, of which I have had a few over the course of this assignment, you know who you are!

Portraits of a Protest_Photographer Kevin Miyazaki

Milwaukee photographer Kevin Miyazaki perched himself on the sidewalk outside the Wisconsin state capital building in Madison with a black background to photograph protesters of Wisconsin governor Walker's collective bargaining law. Check out Kevin's site HERE, and while your their make sure you take a look at "Camp Home" in his personal work. It is a documentation of a reuse of buildings from the Tule Lake internment camp where his father's family was incarcerated during World War II.

Portrait Of A Protest: Madison, Wisconsin from Kevin J. Miyazaki on Vimeo.

Time Lapse Photography_A Bridge Delivered

I first heard of photographer Steven Mallon after seeing photo's he shot of the "Salvage of Flight 1549" (see HERE). In this time lapse video Mallon shows us the delivery and installation of the new Willis Avenue bridge linking Manhattan and the Bronx. Mallon directed 9 camera operators working from various angles and locations capturing over 30,000 still images to produce this video.

A Bridge Delivered from stephen mallon on Vimeo.

TED Initiatives_Ads Worth Spreading

TED.com, Ads Worth Spreading is a competition seeking to reverse the trend of online ads being forced on users and instead produce ads so good that you will want to choose to watch them. These ads are longer than your normal 30 second commercial so there is time to make an interaction with the viewer, tell a story, make an authentic human connection. Here is an ad done by Target, it is a live fashion show promoting their brand while engaging viewers in a tangible experience. For more ads and to see all the winners of this competition see TED.com HERE.

Real HDR_Before and After

My son received a new camera for Christmas and we are in the process of learning its various functions and operations. Our first images were taken the other day and it was a miserable day for photography. The day was windy and very foggy, foggy to the point where we probably should have stayed home. But we came up with a plan and stuck with it. Because of the fog we already knew our pictures were going to turn out pretty bland, we would have no highlights and no darks, no contrast... just a lot of gray. So we came up with a plan to try some true HDR imaging to build contrast back into our images. We shot 5 images of each of the three shots and used photoshop's HDR pro to combine them. I was very impressed with the results and the easy use of photoshops HDR pro. The images look great and using up to five different exposures cut through the fog nicely. We shot both jpg and raw images, the jpg images did produce some color artifacting, the raw image did not, it was clean and sharp. I would only shoot raw images for HDR. After selecting images from photoshop's bridge, you go to tools > photoshop > merge to HDR, make your adjustments, (the "DETAIL", and the "EDGE GLOW" which includes Radius and strength are you most important adjustments) and then open in photoshop, at this point you have an HDR image, you now can treat that image like any other, opening this image in raw and making additional adjustments to fine tune your image before you output to a tiff. Our plan of learning the functions of a new camera actually turned into a lesson of thinking about your situational awareness and responding in an appropriate way to produce the best possible image. As you can see from these before and after examples it was a combination of camera technique and photoshop manipulation that that lead to a successful result.