I had the pleasure of seeing the final dress rehearsal of the Philadelphia Gay and Lesbian Theatre Festival’s production of Bare : A Pop Opera, a wonderful musical which looks at the life of a group of high school seniors; the story focuses on two homosexual high school students and their struggles at their private, Catholic boarding school.

I would be lying if I said I was not moved by this show.  I fell in love with the music a year or so ago, when I first heard a song called “Are you There” on an online radio station.  It was a real treat to be able to see the show, on stage; live theatre always brings a whole new dimension to the songs you hear on the soundtrack.

The show is well acted, by a fantastic group of actors.  As of this writing, the show is still running; I highly, highly recommend seeing it.  You can get more information at http://www.pgltf.org .  I hope to see it again next week.

This episode of @lightroomtips - the blog version features a video tutorial about how to use the Quick Collection feature in Lightroom.

I was asked on Twitter today about Lightroom, how to get started and how the workflow goes – memory card -> hard drive -> Lightroom Library and Develop -> backup.  I thought I’d make a quick tutorial about one way to accomplish a basic workflow in Lightroom. First, start out with an empty catalog.  Save your [...]

Updated my website today, putting some new photos in the albums, especially in the Headshots albums.

I find that one of the hardest things to do is figuring out which photos will go best in the online portfolio.  I know that I need to do some more sessions, particularly with guys – almost all my headshots are of girls.  And I’m looking forward to my friends engagment shoot in the spring, to put more information there.

This week I plan to send out a facebook message to all my friends who are actors / into theatre to see if they would like to get their headshots updated and let them know about what I’m currently offering.

Also, aside from photography, I was approached to do a freelance web design gig for someone I know, based off my work on my theatre group’s website (http://www.stbernadetteplayers.org).  I don’t typically do web design, but I’m always up for a challenge, and now that I’ve learned so much more about Wordpress I feel confident in using it for some simple designs – which is (hopefully) what this client is looking for.  I should be having a meeting with him in the next week or so.

What do you do to market yourself and your skills?

It was a dark and stormy windy night. Such nights are often met with power outages here in my little corner of Media, and this one was no exception. We held our breath in the afternoon when the power went out for about 30 seconds, disrupting our party preparations temporarily. However, things [...]

I went to Connecticut this weekend for a few Christmas parties.  It was a LOT of fun – I love my friends up there, it’s always good to see them, and it’s especially good now that gas doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. I’m really getting used to using flash inside – I started off [...]

Ok, so one thing I always enjoy seeing is how people bring their photos from SOOC (straight out of camera) to the final product. Typically, the most awesome end photos are awesome already SOOC, but I’ve seen amazing artists do amazing thing with ill-lit or otherwise flawed material.

I haven’t reached the point where I can save a badly lit photo, but I thought I would share with you my current process for editing a photo.

The first photo is “SOOC” – I shoot in RAW so technically this is straight from RAW… but close enough. RAW allows for more flexibility in editing, so I try to always shoot in RAW; however, there is some altering of the photo in the processing to JPG that is inherent in RAW. At least, I think there is.

Top left photo is the SOOC+crop – this step comes first, typically, and then tweaked before export. For headshots, I grab every photo in lightroom and adjust the aspect ratio to 8×10 before I do anything else. Then, I’ll go through and individually edit each photo’s crop and straightning.

Top right photo is SOOC+crop+lightroom adjustments. This varys wildly depending on the photo. I either use my own tweaking or I’ll use a preset and go from there. For this photo I used a preset and tweaked from there.

The bottom two photos are after final photoshop tweaking. Sharpening the eyes, dodge the eye whites, brush out stray hairs, tweak the levels, and then convert to b/w for a b/w version (I use a setting for this, because I am lazy and the person who made the setting is amazingly talented and really, I don’t need to reinvent the wheel).

So, that’s kind of how I go through processing a photo. Not every photo makes it to the photoshop step; not every photo even makes it to the cropping step. But for all my final photos, this is pretty much the process.

Ok, so I got some flickr mail today.   Apparently the guys at http://www.wefeelfine.org/ are creating a book, and want to use a photo of mine in the book.

http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/onblack.php?id=2056810170&size=large

In return, I will get a copy of the book, signed by the authors, and an invitation to the book release (which, I think they’re in California, so unless my picture is like… the cover shot, unlikely I will go).

I shot back with the following questions:
First, how will my photo be used?  Will it be in the book itself?  Color?  Black and white?  Will it be edited / where in the book are you thinking of using it / how do you plan to use it?

Will I be given credit in the book?

This is the second time I have been asked to publish a photo.  The first time is already underway, and it was for a photo I actually like less than this one, and I got paid (albeit only a little bit).  I don’t know how I feel about not getting paid – but at the same time, being published in a book is still pretty novel.

Will update when I have more information.

What would you do?

Today after work I had the privilege of re-shooting headshots for a friend of mine. I took an original set on Friday, but the late afternoon light was not working in my favor – I think it was me working against the light rather than working with it.

Here is an edited version of one of the photos from today. I’m really happy with how the shoot went – this was taken at around 5:30, with some lovely light, under trees. I never considered shooting in the shade before I read about how the light is easier to work with – now I really have to say, it’s the way to go.

One of the hardest things to learn, for me, is how to get people to pose, and relax in front of the camera. I’ve been shooting people I know up to this point, which allows for some fun banter back and forth. When the subject is comfortable in the pose, the expressions are much more natural – a lesson I learned today.

In other news, the Phillies are in the World Series for the first time since I was 9. I was born in December of 1983 – the last time a Philadelphia team won a championship I was not yet born. So, let’s go Phils!