Cocoa Crusty

I have really been digging the photography stuff. I recently decided to start another Flickr page under the name Fruitful Studios. You can access this page at any time by going to www.fruitfulstudios.com. When I have some time to build my own photography Web site I will do it and it will be accessible via the same link (www.fruitfulstudios.com).

I am really having a good time shooting different things and then processing the images with cool effects in Photoshop CS2 and soon, Photoshop Lightroom.

I have a number of appointments setup over the next few weekends. This weekend, I will be one of two photographers at the CAF Celebrate Freedom airshow in Tulsa, Oklahoma, thanks to a buddy of mine, Scott, who is an extremely good photographer.

The weekend of the 17th and the 24th, I have a number of family photo shoots setup with some co-workers from my day job employer. The shoots will take place around Texarkana, including downtown, Bringle Lake, and Grady T. Wallace park in Liberty Eylau. I will post pictures of these 3 shoots as soon as I have them taken and processed. I’m looking forward to it.

Here are some of my latest photos/processing that are in the Fruitful Studios gallery on Flickr.

As always, click on the images above for a larger view. I hope you enjoy these shots and the ones to come!

Until next time…

Is “Trendy Original Shots” an oxymoron?! I think so…

I posted the other day on my first attempts of post processing images that are taken in RAW format. I took some self portraits in extremely low light that turned out blurry, but I wanted to start messing with this type of processing so I could start doing photos similar to those seen on Flickr, especially the photo groups i use the UNDERGROUND set list and Pink Ink Studio Fans.

The ways you can edit a RAW image is almost endless. I am very impressed with the way you can make colors pop, or have subtle color, black and whites, over exposed effects, etc. It’s hard to explain why these images grab me so much. To me, they look like something you would see in more trendy ads or Web sites. Anyway, I love it and have been trying to get more RAW shots to process and work with.

Below are some photos I took in downtown Texarkana this morning of some of the old buildings and what not. I have more to process later, but I have a Web site to complete for the New Boston Chamber of Commerce right now… Oh, well. You have to pay to play…

Again, it’s hard to explain why I like these effects so much. I think it’s because you can add so much emotion and atmosphere to your photos. You can almost make the viewer feel something while taking a peak at your latest work. Also, it isn’t something that everyone is doing. Most people point, shoot, upload, and they’re finished. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of people use tools from both of the studios and sets I mentioned above, but still, it gives you some sort of uniqueness in the way you post process.

Not every photo will look good with a particular effect. Therefore, your photo has a lot to do with the effects that will work. Again, giving you some uniqueness. Whatever it is, I am stoked about it and want MORE!!!

Take a look at this photo set to keep up with my progress, or just keep checking out my Flickr page to see what has been recently posted, processed or not.

Until next time…

After browsing some photos on Flickr and seeing some of these interesting looking, vintage, trendy effects that people are applying to their photos, I decided to do a little research and determine how these photographers were achieving this look. I wanted it bad!

I quickly found out that these photos were shot in Camera RAW format originally and then processed after the fact. Shooting in Camera RAW basically means you take the image exactly as it was seen by the sensor without and formatting or compression. I decided to do a little messing around with this using my Canon Digital Rebel XTi.

I first had to determine how to get my camera into RAW mode. I quickly learned that you have to be using one of the manual modes, not any of the automatic modes like Full Auto, Sports, Portrait, etc. to change the quality to RAW in the menu system. Once I had this down, I set my camera to Aperture mode, chose RAW + JPG for the quality and storing option, and grabbed the tripod and my RC-1 wireless remote for my camera. It was time to do some shooting.

I stepped outside and as the sun was setting, I struggled to get a decent shot. most were blurry, inculding the one I am about to show you below. There just wasn’t enough light to make things happen. The shutter had to stay open too long and, of course, I moved making the images blurry. Just the slightest amount of movement will send an image in to a blurred frenzy. Oh wel, it at least gave me something to work with.

Once I was done shooting, I imported my photos into iPhoto as usual and then quickly found one I wanted to edit. I quickly fired up Photoshop CS2 (this link points to the latest version of Photoshop, which at the time of this writing is CS3). Once I opened one of the RAW images, I had a ton of settings to play with. You can get some interesting effects and probably even make a lot of corrections to things you didn’t notice during the shoot. Anyway, my first attempt at making a “trendy” photo is below:

Click on the above image for more information and larger versions.

I have a lot to learn and have purchased the UNDERGROUND set list RAW which has a lot of presets for doing really cool processing of RAW images but I haven’t received it yet. Anyway, maybe when I get those presets, I’ll be able to do even more nifty things with my RAW photos…

until next time…