No beetles where harmed in the making of this image…..:) I started out years ago desiring to capture vivid and stunning images of animals in a studio setting. That desire is alive and strong to this day and when I find a specimen with so much to offer I can’t help myself!
Very colorful hunting species of ground beetle, Calosoma scrutator
I find that most of my best shots are usually my best shots. Simple effective shots are more to the point, and are overall more appealing to most. I am all about some over the top shots and processing from time to time, however I also am a fan of K.I.S.S. (Keep It Super Simple).
Take Care and God Bless!
Building up a photography cook book. I am getting opinions on cover shots.
Head on over to Kitchen to Kitchen and look for the folder to “like” and comment on your favorite! This page shares recipes that are easy to make and gentle on the pocketbook. Go take a look, give them a “like” and vote on your favorite cover shot.
I am a huge sweet tea fan. Had to give Red Diamonds new tea bags a try, I love it! I decided to give my studio ice and a new set up a round of trials last night. Here is one of the more editorial/commercial shots. The program I used to add the border and such compressed the file a bit too much and made some distortion but here it is none the less.
If you love pumpkin, pecans and cake….. this is for you! Great thing about preparing and shooting real food, you get to eat it! Behind the scenes/tutorial coming soon!
I am all about some DIY goodies!
Doing more and more product/stock photography it is only a matter of time before you find yourself shooting a beverage. Then comes the problem of keeping the ice fresh and such. So you find yourself looking into buying fake ice cubes. They are awesome! However not cheap! I quickly found a tutorial on making your own 
Now…mine do not look as good as some of the store bought ones but they are pretty dang real looking!
Find the DIY tutorial here: DIY Fake Ice Cubes by Kyle May
Most photogs as some time or another do a great deal of DIY for gear. It saves money and often you can make something to suit your needs better then buying a pre-made item. Sometimes you just need an item before you have one ordered, so you make it.
I made some home made gels for my flashes this past week. Here are a couple of shots using them to test them out.
I am pretty impressed with my on the cheap gels. They are not quite as dark as the store bought for photography gels but work well. I will see about putting together a tutorial on how I made these if there is interest.
Take Care and God Bless!
Greetings all!
Every tog has their own flavor of photography, that’s what makes each togs images unique in their own right. I have noticed a lot of togs lately doing HDR looks in the post processing. Heck even I will do it on occasion! My tip today is this:
If you are going to do this type of post HDR then pay attention to the halo effect that happens. Back your settings down a tad to remove the halos. Now….granted this is my opinion so take it for what you feel its worth, however I have seen some really great shots ruined by this halo effect.
Take Care and God Bless!
The weather around here has been less then favorable for shooting outdoors. We have some bi-polar weather here in Oklahoma and this month has been no different. 70-80 degrees one day, 30-40 degrees the next day…really.
So with shoots kinda on hold (as I am wanting to do some outdoors stuff) till we get some better weather in here I have been doing more product photography. Some for fun, some for companies. I decided to build a new product shooting space here and have been testing some images back and forth with different set ups and such. So far I am happy with the set up and the quality of images I am getting from it. They are not 100% there however the base is there to build on.
Here are a few of the test shots I have been getting with the new set up. If your on my Facebook you have likely seen most already. With more tweaking I should get the images where I want them.
Take Care and God Bless!
Around my area the trees are blooming out for spring. This event does not last long and I wanted to get a model over here and get some shots with these before they were gone for the year. I contacted Traci last yesterday and said “we have to shoot tonight”, I then explained about the blooms. She arrived and already the blooms were going away, however we still got some shots in!
Set up was kept simple…I chose a spot with good flowering on the tree and good back ground area. I shot with a Canon 1D MKII with a 17-40mmL and a speed light high on a stand with at Stofen and bell reflector. To make the shots stand out more I brought some props so the images have a story. Post work was completed in LR4 with the use of some presets and adjustments.
Take Care and God Bless!