Monthly Archives: January 2012

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Backroom Magic!

11 Wednesday Jan 2012

Posted by in Action Sport Portraits, Backroom Magic!

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Clients also love their images in a variety of color treatments.  From the final image I utilized Lightroom (my own special formula to create the Sepia Tone) Nik’s Color Efex and Silver Efex Pro to create the Black and White image.

Which image do you prefer?

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Backroom Magic!

11 Wednesday Jan 2012

Posted by in Action Sport Portraits, Backroom Magic!

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Yesterday’s Portrait Project 365 image of Lauren listening to her coach is a beautiful portrait of this athlete.   But there is a lot more than just shooting a well exposed, realistic image to getting a great portrait that clients can’t wait to display in their home.

I shot several images of Lauren (mostly hoping that she would look over towards me) but she is an intense athlete that can not be distracted from listening to her coach.  Take a look at the top image.  It is a “raw*” image unprocessed directly out of the camera.  Sort of flat but an ok image.  The image below is the final processed image with a little extra work done in Lightroom and Photoshop to remove the distracting athlete behind her.  Nik software ColorEfex was used to soften the tonal quality of her face.  I like using it on portraits to create a glistening dew like complexion.

The Technical stuff made easy to understand:

*  Many cameras (available on consumer/pro cameras) allow you to choose the format that the image saved as.  Although many people use JPGs I choose to mainly shoot raw.  JPGS is a convention of saving certain data (throwing away the data that is not in it’s logarithms) to create a pleasing image from averages (average exposure, white balance etc.)  Shooting “raw” allows the camera to save all the data collected by the sensor.  The image is not viewable/printable without being “processed.”  There are many applications to process raw data images.  I discovered Adobe’s Lightroom several years ago.  It is an affordable application (approx. $200).  It is really easy to learn to use and there are lots of online free tutorials available.  The glory is that although you should strive to nail the exposure and control the white balance (enabling control of reliable color representation) you can adjust the exposure by several exposures up or down and adjust the white balance.

Did you realize there was so much work to prepare the images?

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Backroom Magic!

10 Tuesday Jan 2012

Posted by in Action Sport Portraits, Backroom Magic!, Portrait Project 365

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High School Varsity Water Polo Player Lauren M intently listens to coaches instructions.  Portrait Project 365

Check out more images on Facebook!  “Like” me to receive coupons and specials!

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Robin-A-Driscoll-Photography-Action-Sports-Senior-Portrait-Photography/258411135430

(Source: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Robin-A-Driscoll-Photography-Action-Sports-Senior-Portrait-Photography/258411135430)

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Imagine!

09 Monday Jan 2012

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How is a Passion Born?

Somewhere, somehow a thought that everyone has, diverts off into something that is your own. It’s like a mutation of an idea.  But somehow the passion was born…you stopped looking and treating the idea/action the same as the rest of the world.  You can’t stop thinking about it, developing and pursuing it.  With each self-interaction, the act of doing becomes a part of you but yet stands on its own. Your process of doing becomes the motivation to continue developing the skills, the technique or action.  The process of “doing” becomes the passion.

At age  of 9 or 10, I shot this image of the flying angel while my family was living in Northern Italy.  My father was a photography enthusiast and all four of us kids had cameras.  He would informally teach us about composition and exposure by having us all line up and shoot the same image.  While visiting Castello San Angelo in Rome we lined up for our shot.  My brother and sister took their shot and took off with my dad.  I had the idea that if I moved the camera while I hit the shutter I could get the angel to look like it was flying!  My brother came up to me and said he was going to tell Dad that I was wasting film (the threat that my Dad used to make sure that we didn’t waste film and took our time to get good images).  I didn’t care because I knew that in my photo the angel was going to fly!  In retrospect that was the day the passion was born.

Do you know someone who seems consumed by a passion?

(Source: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Robin-A-Driscoll-Photography-Action-Sports-Senior-Portrait-Photography/258411135430?sk=wall)

Posted by | Filed under Imagine! Nurturing your Passion!

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Portrait Project 365

06 Friday Jan 2012

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On January 1, 2012,  I started the Portrait Project 365! I am committed to shooting a great portrait everyday! I’ll be around town, visiting the park, walking the trail etc with my camera in hand! To thank my participants I am offering a free Facebook download of the portrait Project 365 image to my subject! My camera and I hope to see you around town! I’ll bring the camera…you just bring your smiling eyes!

(Source: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Robin-A-Driscoll-Photography-Action-Sports-Senior-Portrait-Photography/258411135430)

Posted by | Filed under Adult Portaits, Kids, Portrait Project 365

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