OLD SLIK Broke Up. Got This Today Via UPS. Looking Froward To Using It… Thing Is Built Like A Tank!

How to Become a Professional Photographer – Guest Post Mykii Liu, photofocus.com

Guest posts, don’t we all love them? Think of how refreshing it is to hear a new voice from the crowd! This is one of the ways that photographers can give back something inspirational, educational, or otherwise neat or fun. Today, I’ve g…

old photo

Only have the low res version from FB (reclaiming some of my FB shots). A random creepy "sky-before-the-storm" cloud shot-- don't recall if this was Camera or iPhone. I do recall tornadic conditions, so likely springtime or early summer a year or two back.

"SELFIES" I had setup some T5 fluos with a white muslin backdrop, and needed to fire off some test shots for this. [sidenote: tons of issues with the color and light until after editing I realized one bank of the T5's was at a different color temperature than the others--which totally throws the whole thing off as far as color/exposure consistency… be sure to match up your kelvin and kill any stray ambient fluos in the room. For mine, even the gray cards were inconsistent on these tests].

I am loathe for self-portraits. I don't like shooting myself– I have the same insecurities just about everyone else does. I prefer shooting inanimate objects or others who are portrait or model material. But a setup… I can deal with that out of practicality. No one will see that.

My family is pretty much the same. I'll fire off some head shots of my wife or kids when they are around that look AMAZING , and they usually dictate that "these can NOT wind up on the net… or anywhere for that matter!" Funny, because they ARE very photogenic.

So of late, I always see these "self-portrait-a-day" projects, and I think they are utterly amazing. I rarely feel like I have the time for such things, but also  really don't like confronting myself. Even the "filter" of drawing myself offers me more comfort than photographing.

So earlier this year, I settled on the "selfie-a-month-or-so" project instead. Nothing like minimal commitment, huh? Some of the selfies I have taken with the old  iPhone 4. Others with the macintosh's built in  camera. Only time will tell if I have the time or guts to stick with this. These low-res versions of the file (72ppi for net at 5 x5) also seem to lose some punch, although that can't be pinned to the camera or the lights. I'll have to check the resampling setting in Photoshop to see why.

REALLY NEAT VISUAL IDENTITY. see if you can pick up all that it communicates about the brand? visualgraphc:

Hefty’s Burger by Jake MacDougall

Experiment Inexpensive aluminum macro tubes (I bought the PHOTODIOX brand WITHOUT the camera digital contacts). This means NO APERTURE control, and manual focusing only. You can see that you have very low depth of field in the bottom three shots. I read about an aperture trick (you set the aperture, then click on the aperture lock, and unscrew the lens while the camera is live and add the macro tubes). In theory this may attract dust to sensor, so not sure about doing it frequently. Used that on the dime, but it was also on a fairly flat plane.

Tripod is mandatory for these, as you sometimes have to take longer exposures as you get extremely close (could have tried new LED hardware store floods, but instead played around with available window daylight). 

Will have to try future tests with strobes and constants.

old photos the top shot was me experimenting a bit with strobe: softbox/umbrella  mixed. The intent was to do photos ala the "long form" interview head shots. Digital, used the T2i, 55mm. Funny, because the subject is the same person as the bottom shot.

Bottom shot was taken with a medium format twin-lens Rolleicord. I believe 93 or 94? Reflective metered. I developed it in a darkroom (kids--remember to ask your parents about "darkrooms" and "chemical stabilization").  The photo was lost years ago, but not before I scanned it on an old 300ppi desktop scanner. I wish the scan was a bit better.

jjhart93.tumblr.com asked some cheaper alternatives to Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign, I found these, well to be honest, I just went to Wikipedia and check which ones worth the download effort and put a link to them, check them out:

Ability Photopaint

ACD See

PhotoImpression 6.5...

CHEAP MACRO REVISITED

Earlier I posted some experimental shots I did with the PHOTODIOX aluminum MACRO TUBES. They were a cheap, serviceable way to shoot macro, and while it will not be able to come anywhere near the quality of a macro lens, it  offered cheap result– with a  few limitations. You have NO DOF unless you do the "aperture lock" trick (see the web for aperture using macro tubes). Even then, you will get a bit of the image that is vignetted, and you need to have good light and a motionless tripod.

I decided to try out he AGFA macro lens filters on an 18-55 kit lens. For about 15 bucks, you do have slightly more DOF, but (dependent on the filter quality and light conditions) may have blurred vignette edges. It seems to be greater on the +10 filter. I shot mostly yard flowers on this test (more to come perhaps), but fairly happy for the price.

Cinematheque suisse by Kenny Brandenberger

old photo PROM card from about two years ago. [blurred the name of the kids in the shot]