My friend Booker (www.gourdsbybooker.com) is an avid car photographer.  He has a cool “blackout” technique in which he selects the car and either lowers the luminosity of the background or drops out certain parts of the car, for example, leaving just the chrome.  Hard to imagine, but really cool.

Well, inspired by Booker’s technique, I played around a bit with a couple images from the past few weeks…

1927 Ford Roadster:

Here’s the original, taken at the Laguna Beach Classic Car show:

Another great car…not a classic…yet:  the Lamborghini Superleggera:

Original was a shot of it parked in a friend’s driveway… cool car, but kinda boring environment.

Thanks for looking!

J

My friend, Booker, arranged for us to meet with Jon, a local classic car collector, this weekend.  I’ve photographed  classic cars at public events and typically there are all kinds of things that get in the way of making good photographs…power lines, trash bins, other cars, other people.  It was so cool to able to shoot in this private venue:  nothing but amazing cars in a beautiful setting!

I shot everything with high dynamic range (HDR) imaging in mind, though I found in post processing that not all of the images benefited from that process.  For those images in which there are cars in sunlight and shade in the same shot (like the first couple images below), HDR really shines…revealing detail in shadow and highlight areas.   I’d have had to sacrifice one or the other in a single-frame exposure.  However, HDR tends to enhance detail.  For some subjects, that’s great. For others, the extra detail actually detracts from the image.  So, as I was processing in Photomatix Pro and Adobe Lightroom, if I found that the HDR process didn’t give me the “look” I was after, I selected a single image from the bracketed sequence and worked with that one in Lightroom.

All images were shot with the Nikon D2x and Nikkor 24-70 f/2.8 lens, available light, and post processed in Photomatix Pro and Adobe Lightroom.

Anyway, here are a few of my favorites…

1956 BMW Isetta (the Steve Urkel-mobile)

Other images from the session are on my gallery at:  www.pbase.com/haverstick/classiccars

Thanks again to Booker for arranging the shoot, and to Jon for letting us take up an hour or so of his Saturday morning!

Thanks for looking!

While I had the acrylic tabletop setup set up, I was looking for things to photograph.  Pulled my old Nikon F2AS Photomic out of its display cabinet.  Still as handsome as it ever was.  I shot with this camera for 25+ years before moving to digital. I haven’t put a roll of film through it in more than 5 years, but it feels really good in the hand.  Nikon always knew how to build cameras…

Thanks for looking!

We’ve all seen it… Apple wasn’t the first to do it, but they sure made it popular.  I’m talking about that subtle reflection below the object in a product photo.

I’ve been doing reflections by shooting on black acrylic. I love the look of black acrylic: very reflective. A few examples:

Even white acrylic gives a nice, albeit very subtle, natural reflection.

But I’ve found a new technique that allows me to add reflection while shooting a subject on something other than black or white acrylic…basically, any color substrate I want. By placing a thin sheet of clear acrylic (or plexiglass) over the base material (in this case, red paper from my local craft store), I was able to keep the seamless sweep backdrop, but add natural reflection without the aid of Photoshop in post processing.

Here’s the setup… I’ve outlined the acrylic so you can see how it’s placed over the seamless.

I found that thinner acrylic works best, since it presents the smallest gap between the subject and the substrate.  I did have to do a little touch up to remove the visible edge of the acrylic at the back of the set, but it took all of 30 seconds to do in Photoshoop with the healing brush tool.

Anyway, I think it’s a technique I’ll be using frequently as it gives me more options for backgrounds.

Thanks for dropping by!

I returned to the pharmacy collection last weekend with the express intent to photograph some particular medical devices: scarificators–used in the “art” of bloodletting, and other purposes prior to the advent of the hypodermic needle.  These images represent only a sampling of the variety of the scarificators in the collection.  I think what intrigues me most is the “mechanical-ness” of these devices, and craftsmanship with which they were made.

Of course, what bloodletting collection would be complete without the leech carriers?

Though I had set out to photograph a variety of scarificators, I also found this magneto-electric therapy device to be particularly interesting: the “Improved and Compound Magneto-Electric Machine for Medical Purposes, Ashael Davis.” Per the collection’s proprietor, this particular device is unusual in that it includes an apparatus for applying current to the eye  via the glass tube / eyecup in front of the box in the photograph below.  The “patient” was instructed to hold the metal conductors while the “practitioner” would turn the crank.  Depending on the rate of crank turnage, the patient would receive a therapeutic current: ranging from a gentle tingle to a significant shock.  Guaranteed to cure just about everything….

Thanks for looking!

Many of you know that in addition to photography, I teach Adobe Photoshop in our local community college. I had a friend inquire about restoring / preserving a deteriorating document that probably dates from the later part of the 19th century (post Civil War, but pre-1900).

As you can see from the image below, the original document is faded and heavily stained.  The edges of the paper are tattered, though fortunately the damage did not extend into the body of the document with resulting loss of actual text.

The task at hand was to attempt to minimize the staining, and restore the readability of the document.

I photographed the original using a pair of SB-800 speedlights and shoot thru umbrellas at about 45-degrees to the document. I bracketed exposures to give myself some options in post processing — evaluating for contrast, staining, etc.

Here’s the original, un-retouched image:

I made some initial adjustments to the image in Adobe Lightroom, using Adobe Camera Raw controls to adjust contrast, blacks and clarity, and then opened it into Photoshop for additional work.

In Photoshop, I inserted a white layer below the image layer, and used the “Blend If…” function to reduce most of the staining, being careful not to go too far and reduce the visibility of the text.  For the remaining stains that “blend if…” didn’t resolve, I flattened the image and then used a combination of the patch tool and a soft edged brush with the background color for touch up.

After I had most of the stains and spots removed, I brought in a stock image of antique paper (part of my collection of backgrounds and textures) as a new layer under the cleaned text layer, and changed the layer blend mode to “multiply”.

And here’s a sampling of the result…enlarged to show the detail:

Saved as a PSD in case I need to tweak the color before printing.  I’ll have it printed at Costco (inexpensive lab printing up to 20 x 30).

Stopped by the Centennial skateboard park this afternoon on my way to a shoot and grabbed a few quick stills with the D2x / Nikkor 12-24mm combo.  I’d love to go back and do it right sometime, but this sated my need to shoot something today…

Thanks for looking!

Had an idea for a portrait.  Sweaty high school football star, backlit, with the goalpost in the background.  Looked around for a suitable field.  The one close to me didn’t have the kind of goalpost I was looking for.  Eventually found the field, and Henry, a terrific young guy from my church who happens to be on his high school football team was willing to help me out. So I met Henry and his mom this evening after practice, and came away with a couple cool portraits.

All images made with Nikon D2x, 24-70 f/2.8.  Lighting involved two SB-800 speedlights behind and to the right and left of Henry, just a little above shoulder height (plus a really big hydrogen/helium fusion reactor directly behind and about 93 million miles away).  The keylight was a third SB-800 speedlight directly above and in front of Henry.  We cycled through modifiers ranging from beauty dish to bare flash, to Honl speed grid and ultimately shoot-thru umbrella.  Honestly, tried ‘em all!

When working in a strong backlit situation like this, I meter first for the background as an “available light” photo, and then underexposed by about a stop.  I then used the speedlights to light Henry…dialing the output up or down from the camera via the Nikon CLS (creative lighting system) SU-800 commander to get the balance just right.

Thanks, Henry and Kimber for taking time out of your day to help me out!  Special thanks too to my friend Booker, whom I invited to see how the location portrait process works, and who ended up working as my VAL (voice-activated-lightstand).

If you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time, you know that I’ve been privileged to be able to photograph the dress rehearsals for Masquer Ministries: a phenomenal drama troupe that calls my church home base.  Well, they’re preparing for their Season’s Prelude fund raiser and needed headshots, so I had a chance  today to bone up on my portrait technique with willing subjects other than my own kids!

The cast needed black and whites for their purposes, so I thought a nice high-key look would serve well.  Typically, I’d use the SB-800 Speedlights for this type of thing given their portability, but since I had the room and didn’t want to worry about recycle times, I went with the studio monoblock lights instead.  A few of the images from the session follow…

Key light is a 5′ octabox high and to camera left.  White fabric background is backlit with a second monoblock: barebulb-style (i.e., no modifiers).

Always shoot in color, and convert to black and white in post processing…

Though the cast needed black and whites, I couldn’t resist applying my “traditional” post processing to a few of the images.  Not what you’d use for acting “headshots,” but I kinda liked them for general portraiture:

The Season’s Prelude is a one-night only event on Saturday, September 26.  Doors open at 6:30 PM.  You’ll be treated to a 3-course gourmet meal while you enjoy an evening of music, drama and dance as Masquer Ministries presents scenes from their upcoming 09/10 seasons. As always their venue will be the lovely Candlewood Theater. Tickets for this limited seating, advanced purchase only event are on sale now for $25 each. To purchase, contact Clayton Prescott at 714-732-8208.

Thanks for looking!

Was experimenting with a different lighting setup today using black acrylic.  When I’ve done this in the past, I’ve done it in a light tent, and lit from the sides.  Thought I’d try using the 5′ octabox as both a background and key light source for these.  The only other modifier was a piece of white foamcore at the camera position to bounce a little light back on the front of the subject.

I thought it worked reasonably well:

1917 Colt .25 Calibre, “Vest Pocket Gun”:

Ruger .357 Magnum:

Hi-Standard .22 9-shot revolver:

Smith & Wesson .38 Special (blued finish):

Glock 17 (9mm):

Thanks for looking!