a sweet photo assignment 12:21 PM

view slide show

A few weeks back I was commissioned to take some photos at La Posta and the Dream Inn for a dessert review. Not a bad photo assignment and both restaurants put forth some wonderful desserts. Here are the photos from the evening. 


La Posta

The Dream Inn

oh baby 11:25 AM

view on flickr

Here are a few shots from my last trip into the studio. I didn't get exactly what I was after but that's the way it goes with photographing babies. Jaden was an excellent subject and thankfully, thanks to his diaper, did not pee on his Dad while over this head. 

Low Key Photography 11:31 AM

view on fickr

I recently did some product photography for Carter/Poulsen guitars and felt like I was neglecting my own guitar. I've owned it for 14 years now. I still remember the day I bought it. I spotted it in an obscure guitar shop. Certain objects just speak to you and the connection was evident as soon as I started playing it. I didn't buy it that day but slept on it, or at least tried. I was back at the guitar shop first thing in the morning and the rest is history.

The brand is a C.G. Conn, they primarily make brass interments. In the late 1960's up until 1980 they made guitars, not being able to compete with the likes of Fender and Gibson they stopped production in 1980 which was the only year they made electric guitars.

The snifter and the amp are just for high class rock and roll effect.

The technical stuff. This was all done in my kitchen, fancy studio be damned. I used speedlights with a combination of an umbrella and others with a snoot as my key light to control the lighting. I also used a fill flash placed behind the camera pointed straight at the ceiling.

Up-Up-Down-Down-Left-Right-Left-Right-B-A-Start 2:33 PM

I dream in Adobe shortcut keys. I sometimes have trouble remembering that most of these shortcuts don't work in other applications or in real life.  

Finding new shortcuts in Adobe programs is much like the secrets codes and shortcuts in video games, like the infinite life code for Contra, new shortcut keys make you feel invincible. So without further ado here are my top five shortcuts for Photoshop and Illustrator.  

Photoshop:

Ctrl + Alt + Shift + N (New Layer No Dialog) — Quickly insert a new empty layer on top of the active layer. Get rid of the Alt key to bring up the new layer dialog for more options.

Ctrl + T (Free Transform) — Brings up the free transform tool for resizing, rotating, and skewing the image using a dragable outline.

Ctrl + I (Invert Selection) — Select the opposite of what is already selected. Also a good tool when working with mask creation.

Crtl + Shift + E (Merge Visible) — Merges all visible layers into one. Not recommended practice in typical photo editing because you’ll lose layer information.

X/D (Switch Colors/Default Colors) — Swap your foreground and background colors. Very handy when working with masks. / Reset your foreground and background colors to black and white, respectively.

Illustrator:

Shift+F7 (Brings up the Pathfinder Window) If you aren't using the pathfinder window you need to. It’s a life saver.

Command + G / Command + Shift + G (Group Selected / Ungroup Selected) Enough said. 

Command + 2 / Command + Option + 2 (Lock selected / Unlock Selected ) Really nice when trying to navigate through groups.

Comand +  ~ (Cycles Through You Open Windows) This also works nearly everywhere else. Note in Photoshop this is Control + Tab.

Command + Option + Shift + S (Save For Web...PNG or GIF) Yes it's still a shortcut key if it's a four key combo. Muck like playing the piano you just have to practice on your Command + Option + Shift chord. This also works in Photoshop.