Quick and Dirty Location Ticks

You may be asked to shoot  headshots for clients for their websites and promo materials.  Often if they want to use a photo of themselves on their website, it may often be part of the banner of the site. This means that you will have to "knock out" the background.

In the studio, if you know in advance that you need a white background, you can set up your shot easily. But you never know what client's will want to do with that photo in the future, and if they want a transparent background after the shoot it's really hard to get rid of a white backround.  The solution is that we will shoot on a special green or blue background which is relatively easy to get rid of on Photoshop. The reason is that green and blue aren't found in human skin tones so the various selections methods in post production will be easier and more accurate selecting JUST the green. (Make sure your client isn`t wearing green or blue!) It's called chromakey, it's how all the cool SGI stuff is made in movies - actors are on harnesses flying through the air like Superman, on a green background which is later replaced with a digital sky or space or whatever.

But what happens if you are on a location shoot outdoors with no green studio background available?  And you just know the client will sooner or later ask for a cut out or knocked out background? I'm going to share with you my best secret for doing exactly this and you don't need any new equipment!

I'm going to use an example from a recent shoot I did with my friend Chris, who owns the most excellent FUDE Restaurant, and is also a great marketing consultant.  He needed a new headshot for his new marketing website.

New Blog Coming Soon

Just as camera technology move in quantuum leaps, so does blogging technology it seems.  I've been using this platform for only 2 years but the ubiquitous WordPress platform has just released version 3.0 and it's far superior to this system.  So after experimenting with all its bells and whistles over the last week or so, I've decided to make the move to WordPress.

Look for a shiny new blog here in the next few weeks with more and bigger images, better usability, prettier interface and more cool stuff to help you make better photographs!

The Not So Elusive Perfect Day

I was off to see a client in the wonderful little city of Morden, Manitoba bright and early this morning.  First, tho I awoke in the darkness and perfect silence of 5 a.m, no birds singing yet, no crikets chirping, the coyotes WERE waking up with that eerie, throaty yipping. It's a very spooky sound to  hear a pack of them, just as skin tingling as wolves for sure! That was the first thing.

The second was the spectacular sun rise.  Seen here from my yard as I was piling all my gear into the car.

The third was the rainbow about 20 minutes later, after a pre-dawn shower. Can you imagine - a rainbow before the sun has cleared the horizon!?

The fourth, a great visit with wonderful clients - hugs all around!!! (sorry no photo)

The fifth, three, count 'em - three, pileated woodpeckers in a tree.  Now this is a crap*y photo for sure, but I have never seen this before and it amazed me.

Pretty good day so far, eh?

Wait there's more...

Temperature reached 30 degrees celcius - I LOVE it. After 3 years of miserable summer weather, this little heatwave is a gift.

11:00 pm -  dark again, nice and warm outside still, and it's the Perseid meteor shower - sometime this week, not sure when the peak is, but the late night dog walk was a chance to see a handfull of falling stars. awesome in the true sense of the word.

And now it's past midnight so the day is officially over and nothing happened or didn't happen to change this perfect day.

Have a perfect weekend.

Christmas in September

Photokina is the huge photography and imaging tradeshow help every 2 years - it's coming up in September in Cologne Germany.

It's where camera manufacturers often announce new models, new technology and new lenses. What will Nikon announce this year? Will it be a new D400? A new D800? I'm hoping for a new full-frame with HD video!

It shouldn't cost more than $3K, and it should be a full frame sensor to make me happy! Don't get me wrong - I love my D300 (both of them) but I'm looking forward to higher ISOs. I probably should have bought a D700 but it IS a first generation camera and I wasn't quite ready at the time.

So what are my reasons for wanting a full frame sensor? Mostly a higher ISO with less noise; the insanely shallow DOF you can get; and (hopefully) HD video.

So what do you think Nikon will announce next month? And what are you hoping for?