I was bored this mooring and a quick draw in illustrator with the devices specs got me a printable model I could take up and fold into a paper replica. So be it the internet there is for sharing, I giveth thee a useless paper mock up.
Well it isn't completely useless ok, my kids had fun making these and playing with them so perhaps it can be a useful toy. When printing uncheck the fit page to printer margins or it may say print at 100% so its exactly to the size. Also you can cut off the inserts and just tape or use the inserts by cutting slits on the oposite side. Either way it works fine.
Have fun! Oh and use thick paper stock for better results, letter size print out. Score the folds with a metal or ball point pen for easy folding.
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This was my first experience at a South Asian wedding and it was incredible, I felt right at home and completely in my environment. I love photography. Rachel took the most amazing photos of Neilav + Priya she posted in her blog and her work has now been featured twice in the South Asian wedding blog, part 1 and part 2.
This was a once in a lifetime opportunity to meet an amazing person who would in turn have introduced me to a magnificent culture, full of color and rich in tradition.
Here are some of my favorite shoots from the event.
See this and upcoming weddings here
]]>In addition to causing skin cancer and overall inferno like conditions in the summer the sun is also one of the leading causes of bad photography. Generally speaking you don’t want to conduct a portrait session of just about anyone in direct open sunlight. Now there are always exceptions to the rule but I will not go in detail over the few instances where you would actually use the sun to your advantage. Mostly it all depends on the look you want to achieve and since most of the time you want to flatter the people and not make them look like harsh zombies with skin problems we’ll just stick with soft beautiful light.
And beautiful soft gorgeous light it is. So how do we get that kind of light??? As the word implies we make it softer. When you look at shadows and its edges are hard, you have hard light, but if you have soft edges, you have soft or diffused light. You always want to either place your subject or create an environment where you have soft light.
Cloudy days are amazing for soft light, all the clouds in the sky soften the light coming from the sun and create a perfect gigantic softbox. What if its not overcast? The next best thing is to shoot in early morning or late evening when the sun isn’t directly above. What if you must shoot in mid day? Here’s a couple of life saver tips.
First off, find a shadow, either from a large tree or a structure casting shade. Those are the perfect spots. What if you can’t find shade or the perfect spot is in full sun?? In that case you bring the shade to you. There are a number of professional tools to help do just that.
Last year while shooting an assignment Quinceañera for Tamayo Studio of Dalton GA, we came across this marvelous man made mini cascade but it was full sun and we couldn’t come back to shoot later. A quick shoot reveals the hideous problems. The image has entirely way to much contrast and is ruined by the harsh light.
Thankfully I had brought along with me my Photoflex LitePanel Kit. This is an amazing tool and quickly folds up and stores for transport. Unfortunately its very very pricey. If you don’t have the money or don’t need a big expense you can DYI. Build one yourself out of PVC pipe.
After a quick set up and I re-composed the shoot and took several images. All of them amazingly beautiful, you can see the huge difference a shadow can make.
Another approach is using diffusion disks, or 5 in one reflectors, these can be skinned down and the interior has a soft translucent fabric, much like the LitePanels. For one of my school assignments I used the larger disk to soften the light from the direct sun and the smaller silver disk to create a nice highlight on the side of his face.
The resulting image was one of the best grades I received all quarter.
]]>So I alway employ KISS, keep it simple stupid, and I don’t really over do my photos to much lately. I have a 3 (maybe 4 sometimes) step process to just enhance what the camera captured.
First I take a look at the image and see if it has any white balance issues. Is it to yellow to blue? Then correct appropriately.
Then I do a technique that I learned very recently called “Frequency Layer Separator” It separates the texture from the color so you can edit independently (remember pores? yea they are on a separate layer so no harm to the pores) here I take care of major problems we all get a nasty pimple or flake every now and then so here I remove those. Once finished I flatten and take it into Nick Color Efex pro where I have tons of recipes built for different scenarios. Sometimes the skin needs further clean up and Nick has a great dynamic skin softener that can do wonders and leave alone our beloved pores <3.
Once this is complete the final and last step (prior to sharpening you always want to do a bit of sharpening at the end) is to do some good old dodging and burning I basically make the areas of the photo that are dark a bit darker and what is bright a bit brighter using some curves layers.
I didn’t go into great detail because you can easily google these terms and find tons of tutorials you tube and I don’t want to be redundant. So that is it 3 stages of the photo. :-)
A special thank you to the amazing Migneris Montalvo, whom I've had the pleasure of collaborating and working together, plus she gracefully helped me in school projects when I desperately needed a model to complete assignments. Thank you Migneris you are amazing ^_^
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