As we unwrapped the new Photofocus.com this week, we saw a lot of great content to get your summer photography going!
We started the week off with Erin Holmstead discussing about how her dream client quickly became a nightmare, while Michele Grenier showed us how to take a beach volleyball portrait to the next level. Julie Powell then discussed photographing neutrals and minimal palettes in still life photography, and Vanelli discussed the benefits for photographers with TSA PreCheck.
Finally, we capped the week off with a piece by Chris Anson showing how to consolidate four external drives into a Drobo 5C, and Bob Coates showing some great firework composite techniques in post-processing. We hope you had a great week!
That time my dream client quickly became my worst nightmare - I used to think that a certain local boutique was my ideal client, so the day they posted on Instagram that they were looking for a local photographer I jumped right on it. I emailed them my resume immediately and within less than four hours I had a test shoot scheduled with them. They came to my studio the following week and brought their go-to model and couple outfits for me to photograph. Everything went perfect! They raved about how much they loved my lighting style and ask me all sorts of questions about my style of photography and gear. Now keep that statement in mind as it plays a big part in this story but for now, I’ll continue. As we left that shoot they asked if I would be willing to sign a contract and work with them monthly. I couldn’t have been more excited! The following week they sent the contract over and asked me to go down to Provo, UT to train with their other photographer, to help get a feel for their style when it came to posing the models and working with their clothing. To be honest I didn’t think much about it. I really hadn’t worked with a boutique before and knew that I could use some fashion help when it came to my photography. The shoot went great. I got to see a little behind the scenes and meet their other photographer. However, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why she kept asking me about my gear and my lighting setup. In fact, at one point, I was so taken back by all her questions I literally said, “shouldn’t I be asking you all the questions?” She just played it off like she was just trying to get to know me. The confusion starts The shoot ended and I drove away feeling a little confused by the whole thing. I didn’t feel like I knew anything more than when I first started. She didn’t want to answer my questions or show me anything, but I was too excited to let those thoughts get in my way. A week later they reached out to me again asking if I could come to shoot two local models at a studio with the other photographer. We were going to tag team the models; I was going to shoot full bodies and she was going to shoot close up of all their accessories. I was going to need to bring all my gear because the other model was using the naturally-lit room. I went fully prepared to blow their socks off! The shoot was perfect. The two models actually ended up being acquaintances of mine so we had a great time. However, the entire time all anyone wanted to talk about was my gear and where I bought it and what size and brand everything was. I tried to play it off like they were just trying to make conversation. I quickly realized two days later, when they didn’t respond back about my invoice, that I had just been played. What I learned The entire time I was working for them all I was doing was training their current photographer on how to use studio lights and giving them the exact list of gear to do so! I was shocked and devastated. I had wanted to work for this company for a while now and my whole dream had been shattered. I never did end up getting paid for the images that they used on their site, nor was I asked to come back. But I did learn two incredibly valuable lessons during that whole process. First, just because you teach someone your lighting set up doesn’t mean they can replicate it or even make it look like your work. Second, just because you put a label on a company as your dream client doesn’t actually mean they are a good fit for you or you’re a good fit for them. I never want to work with these people again. I never want to wear their clothes or support their business because I don’t agree with how they run their business. Our morals don’t align and that’s OK — I don’t need them to. I need my real dream clients too.
Vision vs. reality: Artistic liberties in an action portrait - OK, you know what? I’ve kept this secret for too long. This pic does not entirely reflect the reality of the moment it was made. Here’s why I’ve decided to use some artistic liberties to realize my vision. It all began last year I did a really cool photoshoot last summer with Kévin. Kévin is a beach volleyball athlete who’s currently training for the 2019 World Police & Fire Games that will be held in Chengdu, China. We met for the first time a just couple of months before. Once I discovered his story, I asked him if we could take action shots together when the snow would’ve melted … (remember, I’m from Quebec City up in the great white north). The image in my mind Fast forward to the warm beach volleyball court … I was quite excited to see him block, spike and dig in the golden sand. As a former indoor and outdoor volleyball player myself, I know I was in for a treat with the level of his performance. The scene became even more perfect when the sun came down by the end of the afternoon. Right by the start, I knew I wanted this exact shot (the one you see on the cover). With the guy diggin’ the ball, making the surrounding sand go everywhere while I was lying straight in front of him with my camera. I was really low on the ground. I asked him to do the drill several times — and because he was such an excellent athlete, he did everything perfectly every time. It still took multiple shots before I got this one. It had the perfect movement timing (the sand and the athlete’s body), expression and light combination, which was EXACTLY what I was looking for … but there was something major missing … I was great getting the action but … DAMN IT, THERE WAS NO BALL IN MY SHOT! Ask a football, soccer or a baseball photographer: If you can’t see the ball, that’s not a shot. It was so close but so far at the same time! If I would’ve been a photojournalist, I might have cried. But because I am an artist, I opened Photoshop to add a little touch of magic of my own. I borrowed a “flying ball” from a previous image and I pasted it into this one. Let’s face it, you probably would never have noticed it if I haven’t confessed to taking an artistic liberty. I have the right to do it and so do you. Sometimes we’ve got great pictures but there’s a little something missing that would make it perfect. A little dust, a little clone stamp tool, a little texture, a flying volleyball … as photographers (the non-photojournalist ones ;) ) we have the freedom to play and have fun with our compositions. Our passion is to create the result we want the world to see. Which leads me to the last point … Final step: Editing Pretty much everyone who reads my articles knows by now that I do not only love taking photographs, I equally love editing them. Once all the elements of my image are in place (the big and the tiny ones), I switch into high gear and open my favorite editing software. Although I love to explore different looks, I often tend to stick with the one I like to call my “signature look” — which includes adding structure, desaturation and a slight vignette most of the time. In this case, I wanted to make the sand pop so I’ve added details and structure not only in Aurora but also in Luminar filters. Like a double boost to emphasize the effect. I also brought out the blue in the court leading line: I loved how it caught the eye. Artistic liberty is not photojournalism This photo is my vision. It is in no way a depiction of an actual sporting event. I’m not a photojournalist bound by the requirements of reporting events as they happen. I am an artist. It is my expression of an ideal moment that Kèvin makes on the court. I turned a “not good enough” image into a “very good one” by adding a tiny but crucial element. And I had fun while doing it! I saved my picture just like Kévin saved the ball! The moral of this story: If things don’t turn out exactly as you wish, don’t be afraid to take control of a situation. And don’t trash your good-but-not-great picture because sometimes, all they really need is a little bit of (post-production) love.
Consolidating four external backup hard drives into one Drobo 5C - In this review, I’m going to share with you my experience in taking 4 external backup drives, removing them from their housings and putting them into the Drobo 5c for the purpose of backups. The Drobo 5C is a 5 bay USB 3 Raid from Drobo. I’m using it with an iMac running Mojave. Combing your backup disks into a single unit So why am I putting my separate drives into a Drobo 5C? The first and most important reason for me is to create a backup system that I can have confidence in. By using my 4 separate USB drives combined together with Time Machine did provide me the storage space, but what happens if one drive fails? What happens is that I’ve lost my entire backup! By combining them into the Drobo 5C, I’m getting storage space and if one drive fails, I can replace the bad drive and the 5C will rebuild itself while maintaining my backup. What’s the cost? Storage space. I do lose some storage space due to the added protection that the Drobo system provides. To see how that works you can go here to the Drobo Capacity Calculator and drag and drop the drives you have into the Drobo you have and see how much storage space you’ll have available. It is possible with the Drobo 5C to have it use 2 drives to protect the backup if I want. And another big reason for me is that as my system grows and I need more backup, I can remove a drive and replace it with a larger drive and the Drobo 5C will rebuild the backup for me using the larger drive. So I can expand the system as I need to over time. One note is that the drives need to be 3.5″ SATA and you’ll need two drives to have the safety factor active. Setting it up The Drobo 5c comes nicely packaged and is easy to assemble. The only complaint I have, and this is true of most manufacturers, is that the USB C to USB A cable is too short. I would have liked to have it comes with a longer cable so I have more flexibility in placing the drive relative to the computer. In the initial setup, the 5C wouldn’t power up and I realized that I needed to really seat the power cord into the power brick. Once I did that, everything worked fine. Next, I went to the Drobo website and found the step by step walkthrough. It walked me through the steps to get everything installed and working correctly. You’ll find that here. So here’s a quick overview of the process. Select your language Select your Drobo – 5C Am I migrating – they walk you through this as well Insert all your drives into the 5C – you need to have at least 2 Connect your USB-C cable to the 5C Connect the power cable to the 5C and power it up Download the Drobo Dashboard and install it and run it Register it with Drobo – You can skip this step and do it later Let the Drobo initialize – download the latest firmware, etc. Following the prompts, format the Drobo You’re ready to go! Registration Issues When I first started up the Drobo Dashboard it asked me to Register the drive, but I needed to create an account to do that, so I went to the Drobo website to create one. In the process, they were supposed to send me a verification email, but that never arrived. After checking my Spam folder and not finding it, I went back to the website and used the ‘I forgot the password’ option and they did send me a password reset email, which I was then able to create to access my account. Even after doing that, I wasn’t able to automatically register the drive. I contacted support about the issue. They quickly responded and asked me to send the serial number information and registered it for me. Support was very responsive. Adding and removing drives When you are wanting to add or remove drives from the Drobo, don’t just pop a bunch out, remove them one at a time. I found using the Drobo Dashboard the most straight forward way of doing this. Remove a drive and wait until the Dashboard tells you to add a drive. This way the Drobo will have the time it needs to update and adjust everything. You can also use the lights on the front of the Drobo 5C to do the same thing. I just found the Dashboard more to my liking. How’s it working so far? So I have everything installed and working. I’ve set up the Drobo 5C to send me emails notification if there is a problem and I’m doing my first backup to the Drobo 5C and it is working great. I will continue to use this over the coming months and will report back to you on how it’s working for me. Also, Drobo sent me the Drobo 5C for review. Thanks for reading and I hope you found this article helpful! 
You photographed fireworks – now what? - We all love to get out to try and capture the spectacle of fireworks during the Fourth of July holiday. Sometimes we do better than others. And, sometimes we’ve done better than we thought. Let’s talk about some post-processing ideas. The Chicago skyline you see above was made the same basic time as the fireworks. Unfortunately, the fireworks show was way to the right of the city. I rectified that error and moved the fireworks over the skyline to be more in line with my vision. Initial post-production It’s a great idea to take all your images through a quick run in your software whether it is Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom or other choice. My post-production workflow system uses Adobe Bridge, Adobe Camera RAW (ACR) and Photoshop. Most of these techniques work the same but may have slightly different names or control positions for the functions. Adobe Bridge is used for my first run through images is to cull the mistimed, overexposed or poorly composed photos that I know I never wish to see again. I also use keyboard shortcuts to rate images I absolutely know are winners with a four and those I’m sure will shine with some extra work as a three. Hold down the Cmd (Mac) or Ctrl (PC) key and then the numbers 1-5 to apply the rating. If you have multiple images that will receive the same rating highlight them and that rating will be applied to all selected images. Using Cmd (Mac) or Ctrl (PC) and 0 (zero) will reset the choice of any selected images to no rating. Next I grab the rated images rated three and four and open in ACR. I select all and hit the images with a combination of settings. Start with an adjustment to the overall exposure. Lower highlights (being careful not to totally lose highlights), lower protect shadows, add a little black, a little white and lower the smoke. Add a little Vibrance without overdoing it and work with adding or subtracting some Saturation. Then I take a quick run and tweak individual images for their best, adding contrast or taking away Black or White. Season to taste. To speed up the process if I see a number of images that need the same tweak I’ll select them and make the changes en masse. Once an overall adjustment has been made, make one more quick run-through of individual tweaking. Now what? If you made an image such as this one below you are pretty good to go. Great exposure and color with no blown out areas. This rocks! You can also control the final image by blending together multiple captures into a single image. The best way is to move into Photoshop and use the power of Layers and Blend Modes. Select all the bursts which you would like to work in Bridge and Menu Tools > Photoshop > Load Files into Photoshop Layers. The files will be ready to go without having to open each individually. To go further most fireworks images will be better when you have an interesting foreground rather than just the bursts against a blank sky. Water, a skyline and interesting tree or piece of architecture can add a ton of interest. In my area one of the fireworks displays occurs over an empty parking lot and another over a macadam storage site. This means it is time get creative in post-production. One caveat — I never promote these images as anything other than my imagination at work! Technique Search through your files for images with dark skies above an interesting nighttime subject. See the example above. Add pre-processed files to the dark skies. Maneuver to taste with the Blend Mode set to Screen or Lighten. The black portions of the fireworks images will disappear leaving only the burst of color. Add a mask to remove anything that you would rather not see by painting on the Mask with black. You might want to bookmark this page plus the one on photographing fireworks to have on hand before you go out to photograph next Independence Day celebration. Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
Photographers should get TSA PreCheck - I’m writing this article while waiting at the gate for my delayed flight in Phoenix heading to Orlando. My friend Richie and I just finished photographing a wedding in Oregon, and started our connecting flight journey back to Florida. The security checkpoint line was very long in Orlando but not that bad in Eugene. As I breezed through security with TSA PreCheck, I looked back for my co-worker and realized I made it through the line 15 minutes faster than he did. That got me thinking, why doesn’t he have TSA PreCheck? Once we got to the gate, I sat down and wrote this article on why photographers should have TSA PreCheck. Very reasonable cost The cost of TSA PreCheck is $85 for five years. That breaks down to just $17 per year. So, if you travel four times a year, that’s $4.25 per trip. Traveling more brings the cost per flight down even lower. If you don’t travel at all that year, it’s still worth $17 bucks — a lot less than that gym membership you didn’t use that month (insert smiley face). Are TSA PreCheck benefits worth it? We’ve determined cost isn’t an issue, but are the benefits of TSA PreCheck worth it, especially for photographers? The short answer is yes. The main benefit is traveling stress-free. Imagine lugging around a camera bag filled with heavy expensive gear on your way to shoot an event or attend a photo safari you’ve saved up for all year. PreCheck passengers travel through a fast lane. Laptops, iPads and any other electronics stay in your bag and you keep your shoes on. In most cases, I’ve made it through security and headed to the gate 15 minutes faster than my traveling companions. I felt more relaxed and ready to take on my photography assignment. Take a moment and think about your last airline travel experience. Which part of the trip caused stress? If your first thought was standing in the long security line — especially during holiday travel — then TSA PreCheck is right for you.
Photographing neutrals and minimal palettes in still life photography - This week we are going to look at shooting with minimal color palettes and finding one beautiful “white” (or neutral) thing. Then, we’ll work with shades of white — backdrops, composition, styling and of course adding some lovely light. White is so calming… like a breath of fresh air… it gives me an instant sense of peace. It could be a flower, a vase, a jug or a piece of cloth. Choose your hero Choose one thing — we’re going to keep to shades of white, cream or neutrals. Perhaps it’s a jug or vase, some pretty flowers, fresh or dried or even synthetic. Or, what about eggs in an egg carton? White crockery and linen? The list is endless; this item is going to be our hero subject. Now add some depth to neutrals using layers Try creating a make-shift table from boxes or a chair or even using a table and placing a white sheet, tablecloth or fabric to cover it. Use a white wall as your backdrop, or a sheet of white cardboard or foam, or even another piece of fabric or a white door. You can make some really cool backdrops with white Perspex (Plexiglass) too! Unclutter your background; you want your “one thing” to take the stage and stand out. Now, layer it up with some fabric or linen, even paper or napkins; it doesn’t need to be fancy. Just to add some texture and layers, but still, keep it simple and clean. Try to keep it to three layers. Don’t get caught up in too much busyness, this style is simple and elegant and clean. Try a more modern twist. Tip: Don’t forget to be near a light source, like a window. All set, let’s begin Once you gather your props and drops, find your light (next to a window, but not necessarily in front of it, unless it is indirect sunlight), and set your scene. Add a layer or two and take a photo. How does it look? Try shooting straight on — this might mean you need to crouch down, get down on your knees or use a stool. Shoot from below and shoot from above. How does each look? Shooting tips for light and bright Are your images too dark or are they blown out? You might have to adjust the metering in your camera. Up until now, you have may have been using just whatever your camera is set up to use. If you have a DSLR they generally do a pretty good job on light metering, especially spot metering, which means that the camera checks the light on your focal point. But when you are shooting white on white, on white … this often all falls down. Your camera tries to compensate for the extra light reflected from all the white and make your images darker. So this is where you need to play and experiment. Try putting your camera on Spot Metering (check your manual for your camera for how to do this) and then shoot with 1, 2 or even 3 full stops over what your camera says, without blowing the details out completely. You want to grab just enough details in the highlights and shadows. This is going to come down to trial and error. You need to have nice, even flat light, but not lose the fine details. If you are on your SmartPhone or Point & Shoot, they are generally going to adjust at their own level, but you can tweak them sometimes. Try Googling your phone or camera and adjusting light settings and see what you can find. There is also Lightroom for Mobile which gives you great adjustments as well. Bouncing or reflecting light Sometimes if your natural light is side light you can get intense shadows on your subject. Not that that is bad, it just might not be what you want. Try using a reflector, white card or foam core to bounce the natural light back onto your subject, to lift the light and show the details. Or perhaps you want things dark and moody — try moving your scene further away from your light source, creating deeper shadows. A few tips for working with neutrals If you are struggling with white on white, especially for focusing, try adding subtle color tones. Try to keep things light and airy and neutral in tones, creams, pastels, beige and off-whites work well. Don’t just set the scene and take one photo. Move around and captured different angles, and different details, close up and pull back. On top, front on, slightly below, flat lay … the possibilities are endless. Pick up various accents in the shot for added interest. It does not have to be white — you can apply a minimal palette to any color. To create a cool, soft and summery look, try adjusting your white balance to add a little more blue (blue in white balance always makes look white and crisp). Or if you want a more warm summery feel, add a touch of yellow rather than blue in your white balance. There is no real right or wrong, just go with what YOU feel is aesthetically pleasing.
