Field of Dreams (Dream Version), originally uploaded by Miracle Man.

We’ve all seen them. A model wrapped in caution tape hiding the naughty bits, a person on rail road tracks. They are the “Cliche” shots. They are the shots that are so over done but yet your compelled to shoot them anyway.

Cliche shots include sunsets, sunrises, fireworks, macro’s of flowers or bugs on flowers but we all continue to shoot them So obviously there are still reasons to shoot them. (Reader Note: Yes, you will find these in my photos as well…..)

Well there is a cliche shot I’ve been wanting to shoot for a very long time. That is the sun-dress clad woman walking aimlessly through a field of wild flowers or over grown grass.

This shot is usually shot at a low depth of field to help blur the foreground and background having the model and the plan she walks in being in focus.

Well I finally got my chance. Having done some indoor shots with the incredible model Evan Stacy we moved outdoors. Now in the cliche version of this, she should be wearing a light color sun-dress. But we had been shooting a rocker girl look all day so we ended up with black pin-stripe pants and a black sheer top with a touch of pink trim.

After shooting several poses against an abandoned gate and with some flowering bushes, we moved to an open area in the field.

This was going to be tough. I only had about 50 feet of “ridge” to work with that gave the background a distant look. One angle produced a green on green look due to the angle of the sun. Another angle, I got a more amber grass and nice rim lighting on the model and a green tree line. Somewhere in between was a huge monstrosity of humanity, the large power main, the kind with the huge “Transformer” Robot looking towers with multiple overhead power lines.

Only having two angles, I decided to shoot both. I just had Even walk naturally from one place to another and then back. She of course was watching for snake holes, fire ants (and thats a story in itself!), and gopher holes. She was clearly a bit uncomfortable in this setting, but being a professional she managed to still provide great looks.

From the dozen or so frames shot in the two walks, I pulled two that I liked. One seen here:

was the angle where I was green on green. This seemed like a very natural opportunity to go Black and White. I generally have a philosophy that if color doesn’t add meaning to the photo, then it should be B&W. (Editors Note: Then why I don’t I do more B&W?).

A touch of sepia later and I have a photograph that I’m happy with. Still not quite what I had hoped for, but it would work for certain fashion conscious upscale clothing chains, like American Eagle or Abercrombie and Fitch. (Not that I will be marketing these any time soon).

But still, it wasn’t quite what I wanted. So I turned to another photo — terribly over exposed. I was on spot meter and Aperture Exposure at F4/ ISO 100. The meter was on the model’s black outfit. Spot meter on black, you get an over exposed photo, spot on white, get an under exposed photo. You would think 25+ years I’d get it.

I preach it. I know it like the back of my hand. All I could do was curse at myself for blowing it with the camera settings. I was too caught up with the shoot to pay attention to the shoot.

But thankfully I was shooting RAW. In the photo in question (the one above), it was about 1 stop over exposed. Adobe Photoshop’s raw converter has a “Recovery” slider to help recover blown highlights. A slight exposure adjustment and a big increase in contrast and I now had a photo that looked pretty good.

Satisfied with what I had done, the web friendly size got emailed to the model, makeup artist and hair stylist, who happened to be out to dinner together.

SIDEBAR: They get to go out and eat and drink while I have to slave over a computer? What an injustice!

The next morning, I get two vibrates and a tweedelbeep later, the makeup artist, Lollycat text messages me “Hey can you make that one dreamy?”

Sure, pop open Photoshop, my tool of choice and I start hacking away. In doing so, I could have just thrown a quick filter to blur things a bit and been done. But that wouldn’t suffice. I wanted to match my dreams. If I’m going to us Photoshop, a master once told me, “Use it”.

The steps involved are documented on the top photo if you click through and read the caption on Flickr. But I went from a horribly executed (but decently composed with a great look fro the model) in camera experience to a decent post production piece.

I have to put out my photojournalist’s disclaimer. I would not publish in a news paper or news magazine this image as real. Its a photo illustration. Its art!. End of disclaimer!

What do you think?

Okay, so I hate myself for not taking my camera. But you know, I can do some cool things with Photoshop. But first let me say…..

As a professional photojournalist, what I did above is very unethical. This is not a photo, but a photo illustration. I would never attempt to pass this off as real. Disclaimed. I can now live with myself.

The photo scene is a mash up of three photos. The foreground photo, with the fountain, the statues playing in the water, fence was shot the night after the fireworks at Broadway at the Beach in Myrtle Beach, SC

The two fireworks shots are older shots which can be found in my Flickr photostream. Here are the two photos.

The two fireworks source photos.

The photos were added as separate layers on top of the original and placed to where they looked natural. Then using the eraser tool, I erased the edges so they blended in and opened holes to let the fountain and such so through.

So, its kinda what I saw, just a day later!!!

The point of this exercise through isn’t the act of making something in photoshop or making up for my forgetting the camera.  I did this to illustrate my previous comments about fireworks being boring unless they are anchored somewhere.

Looking at the two source photos, they are themselves okay as far as fireworks photos go, but they are nothing to write home about, but looking at the mashup with a foreground subject the photo is much more attractive

Let me count the ways….

Okay, I’m thinking Hate isn’t the right word. Perhaps Loath is a better choice.

Way #1

You see, I’ve been traveling a lot for business. That means most of my shooting time is at night and night photography benefits significantly from a tripod. My big aluminum Bogen with a nice ball head is a pain to travel with when I fly. So I’ve gotten pretty good with makeshift bean-bags. But here is my driving trip to Myrtle Beach and what did I do? I left the the tripod at home….. Doh!

Way #2

Murphy’s Law is in effect. Every time I don’t take my camera on a trip, I regret not having it with the exception of my last trip to Buffalo which I didn’t miss my camera. (Sorry friends in Buffalo, if you get my drift). So I have my camera on this trip and I’m looking forward to getting some good shots. In fact tonight at dinner, I saw some really good “Night Photography” opportunities.

So as I’m walking trough “Broadway at the Beach”, the huge monolithic tourist trap complete with a Hard Rock Cafe, and a KISS themed coffee shot, I’m saying to myself . . . “Man, I should have brought the camera. But don’t worry, I’ll come back, the lights are not going away.” It was at this time I realized that I forgot the tripod!!!!

I had a fantastic dinner at the Key West Grill. A reasonably Conch Republic themed restaurant that isn’t part of a chain. As I was paying my bill and getting ready to leave, some rather odd lights caught my eye.

Across the street (and coincidently two buildings down from my hotel) is a minor league baseball field and they happened to have a home game tonight.

It was Fireworks night.

Photographically, fireworks are fun to photograph, but there are a million photos of red and green bursts, some quite nice. But like Sunsets, the fireworks themselves doesn’t make for a strong photograph. You need something to give them a frame of reference. In the case of sunsets, there should be something, a tree, person, building that is silhouetted by the setting sun making them the subject and the sunset the setting. Fireworks are the same. Bursts of colorized burning pyrotechnics against a black sky is well boring, cliche and over done. But put something in the foreground, a statue, a building, a person and your off to creating a wonderful piece of art.

Well as I started walking back to the car there it was. A well lit, attractive foreground with the fireworks providing a beautiful background. The photo would have been perfect. It would have spiraled to #1 on Flickr Explore. It would have sold multiple times to various stock houses. I would have made enough to get my Nikon D3.

Would have.

No camera. No Tripod. And the event will not repeat while I’m here.

Oh How I Hate Me!

Note: Yep, there is no photo with this post because I forgot my camera!!!!!

Doh!

Camaro, originally uploaded by Miracle Man.

Travel doesn’t always mean going on the road. Sometimes a quick jaunt to an empty parking deck can let you travel through time.

Sort of.

Our local group of photographers who share Flickr as our communications recently got together to photograph a vintage Chevy Camaro. We also had a modern Ford Mustang and a couple of cool motorcycles.

A date was set. We would use the top of a local public parking deck. Of course, several of us photographers have a habit of wanting to photograph models (of the Human) variety alot. So the question was posed . . . “Can we bring models?” The answer was yes.

What could be better than Muscle cars? Muscle cars with bikini wearing models.

We had a good showing of photographers along with two models, Becca and Laruen and a local makeup artist, Joanne Crowder.

The shoot started at 4pm but the models were not scheduled in for another hour, so we took our shots, but you could tell, everyone was really waiting on the models.

Becca was the first to arrive and within a few minutes, the Mustang never looked better. By the time we finished up with the Mustang and started moving Becca to the Harley Davidson softtail, Lauren showed up and was getting her makeup done.

Both models made it to the Harley. Then it was the Camaro’s turn. Eventually Becca had to go and we were left with Lauren to finish out the shoot with the sun setting in the background.

When I was looking at the photo above, it looked pretty good right out of the camera. Nice well balanced colors, good saturation, etc. In fact I felt it looked too good. Our modern Digital SLR cameras are tuned to give us sharp, bright, colorful photos. But sometimes its best to have a photo that doesn’t look all new and shiney.

So I decided to take this 40 year old car back to the late 60’s via a little Photoshop wizardry. First, I desaturated the colors about 25% to make it look like a faded photo.

Color prints from the late 60’s were printed on a paper that tends to redshift over time. So using the Level’s tool, while only working on the Red channel, I shifted the mid tones to give it a reddish look. Not satisfied, I visited the green and blue channels making minor tweeks until I was satisfied with the look.

So lets take a trip to 1968…….