Tom and I are holding five workshops at the Nature Vision Photo Conference

Tom and I will be in Manassas,Virginia this upcoming weekend for the annual Nature Vision Photo Conference.  We have two workshops on Saturday on flower photography and three worekshops on Sunday (two are sold out) with our frogs. Sign up here http://naturevisions.org/

There is so much to see and do, so even if you are not taking one of our five workshops please say hello anyway.

Saturday, November 19, 2016, 2 Sessions available - see Schedule
Occoquan Hall - Frog/Flower Workshop Room
Audience: Beginner, Intermediate, AdvancedLisa and Tom will work with participants, exploring background choice, obtaining optimal exposure, adding impact, composition, creating high key images using a lightbox, and capturing flowers in water drops using RainX.

Sunday, November 20, 2016, 3 Sessions available - see Schedule, 2 are sold out
Occoquan Hall - Frog/Flower Workshop Room
Audience: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced
Lisa and Tom will work with participants for the duration of the macro workshop photographing frogs and flowers, exploring exposure, depth of field, tripod use, lens choice, lighting, and other tips.

Lisa's "Frog on Calla Lily" photograph was awarded the Kodak Gallery Award!

How exciting!
I just got an email that my "Frog on Calla Lily" photograph was awarded the Kodak Gallery Award!
It will be eligible for the Kodak Elite award at the annual PPA Imaging convention in January

Presenting the Annual KODAK Gallery

The KODAK Gallery Awards were introduced in 1985 as a way to honor

and promote the importance and value of excellence in professional photography.

KODAK Professional products and services have always represented imaging excellence for professional photographers. We will continue to work to elevate the importance of professional quality imaging within the industry. It’s a connection we’re pleased to make. Therefore, we are delighted once again to salute and support outstanding professional photography and photographers by presenting our annual Gallery. 

The Gallery Awards are judged on a state or regional basis, with winners going on to compete at the national level for the Gallery Elite Award. Gallery Awards will be presented, throughout the year, at the annual Professional Photographers of America (PPA) district and state conventions — in addition to those events’ customary awards. The annual Gallery Elite Award will be judged prior to the national PPA conference and trade show and those winners will receive a KODAK Gallery Elite Award representing the “best of the best.”

A district and/or state organization may award one (1) trophy. Each entry must have achieved the minimum 80-point criteria to be considered for a KODAK Gallery Award. The primary purpose of the awards is to recognize and further the use of professionally-printed photography, especially if it utilizes KODAK PROFESSIONAL Media. Therefore, Gallery and Gallery Elite trophies are intended to be awarded for prints and printed albums. Digital-only images and video albums (e.g., CD, DVD), are not within the scope of these awards.

fun with patterns and textures

At the recent third annual Mike Moats Macro Tom went down to get the luggage cart and was inspired by the patterns and textures of the matching rug and luggage cart.

“One doesn’t stop seeing. One doesn’t stop framing. It doesn’t turn off and turn on. It’s on all the time.” — Annie Leibovitz

Sooo...when you are waiting at the elevator what do 'you' do? Well, early Sunday morning at the Mike Moats conference I was waiting at the elevator with the luggage cart.  I noticed the flat bed of the cart happened to be carpeted with the same carpet design as the floor.  

Cool...and started to maneuver the cart so it would line up with the carpet.   Took me a few minutes...when an employee saw me and assumed I was struggling with it and offered advice, but I told I was ok and just composing a picture. She roared with laughter!  I'm sure she thought me a fool, but I bet I made her day.  
I didn't have a 'real' camera so I used my cell phone.  
Enjoy!  Tom

Gaussian Blur followed by Textures

We showed this technique at the Mike Moats Third Annual Macro conference during our "Rust" program....

Our approach to photography is to always take the best possible photograph that we can (there is no "unsuck filter" in Photoshop). More than 50% of our photographs are processed in ACR and then sharpened, so basically SOOC (straight out of camera), but we love the tools that Photoshop and Layers and Masks and Blend Modes and Plugins and Textures provide us as well so the remaining images are processed in Photoshop and we like to pre-visualize what we will end up with as our final artwork.

Sometimes you can change your camera angle and/or aperture to get a pleasing background. But sometimes the subject is not movable is close to the background. For those instances you can apply a Gaussian Blur and a Texture and create your won Artistic interpretation of the scene. Below are two examples of the SOOC and the post-processed versions.

     

1. Duplicate layer
2. Filter --> Blur --> Gaussian Blur
3. Blur to taste to get rid of the background
4. Add a mask
5. Paint with black over the subject, zoom in (100-500%) to go close around the edges, switch to white to unmask background. 
6. Add a Texture (or two)
7. Change the blend mode of the texture (often to multiply for these types of images)
8. Alternatively, use Topaz Texture Effects. Enter the discount use code breaphotos for 15% off Topaz products http://tinyurl.com/topaz-cuchara 

Download 10 Free Grunge Paper Backgrounds 10 free abstract photos or backgrounds with grunge paper theme. Can be used for both personal and commercial purposes, for yourself or on behalf of a client, on their own, or as part of new work. Download here

Kaleidoscope Creativity

Fun with Kaleidoscopes...

Topaz Texture Effects 2.

Topaz Texture Effects 2. Topaz Texture Effects 2 will be on sale from September 27th through October 30th and retails for $69.99. However, it can be purchased for only $59.99 ($10 off) until October 30th by using this coupon code: TFX2.

Textures can be used to deal with bald sky days, and to make your artistic spirit shine through. 

This was the three image HDR version below, textures above and below allowed me to be more creative in my expression of this great unique truck. 

Topaz Texture Effects 2