January 25, 2012 – A year of portraits – Chrystal Brantley

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01.25.12 Chrystal Brantley

Today’s portrait is of my niece Chrystal Brantley. She’s an avid Science Fiction reader and a librarian at our local library in Madisonville.

She’s also a very proud mom of two fine young men and a loving grandmother several times over.

She has always been patient with me and my cameras, ever since she was a small child.

The photo was shot with the standard iPhone camera and then opened in the app Shakeitphoto and processed using only the app to produce this retro looking photo.

 

Technical Details:
Camera: iPhone 4
Lens: Built-In Camera lens
Exposure: The iPhone doesn’t record shutter speed or aperture information
Apps Used: Shakeitphoto

January 24, 2012 – A year of portraits – The Dawson Springs Panther

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01.24.12 Dawson Springs Panther

Tonight I thought about asking the Dawson Springs Panther’s mascot to remove his head so I could get a portrait of the real person behind the mask, but decided against it. Too many kids around and I’d hate to ruin the mascot mystique, if you know what I mean. Seems like most all schools have a mascot of some sort, but to my knowledge only a few high schools in our area actually have a costumed mascot that is at games.

The photo was processed using Photoshop CS5 and cropped slightly from my original photo. I really prefer to shoot in camera the way I want the final photo to look, but changed my mind to crop out a distracting light colored painted strip above his head. After adjusting levels and doing a little burning in on the edges I used the Topaz Adjust filter called “vibrance” before emailing the photo by to my iPhone so I could add the Polaroid style border to it using the app Photogene.

Technical Details:
Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8
Exposure: Matrix Metering, 1/400sec, f/2.8 with an ISO of 4,000
File Type: Nikon RAW

January 23, 2012 – A year of portraits – Brenda Huddleston

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01.23.12-Brenda-Huddleston

Some environmental portraits are hard to shoot emotionally such as this one of Brenda Huddleston today leaning against the refrigerator in her Madisonville, Ky home as she talks about her son, Jeremy Goodwin, who has been missing since June 20.

Madisonville police announced today that the human remains a hunter found Friday off off Kentucky 2171 were positively identified as those of her son.

Photo was processed in Photoshop CS5, cropped slightly, sharpened and levels were adjusted.

Technical Details:
Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: Nikon 18mm f/2.8
Exposure: Matrix Metering, 1/125 sec, f/5 with an ISO of 4,000
File Type: Nikon RAW

January 22, 2012 – A year of portraits – Mary and Brayden

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01.22.12 Mary and Brayden

I spotted Brayden and his grandmother Mary sitting together today before church having a little quality time together as Brayden enjoyed a chocolate brownie. I asked Brayden if it was good and if I should get one and he of course said yes. Mary remarked, can’t have a day without chocolate!

I shot this with my iPhone 4 using the standard camera and after looking at it and the noise (grain) I realized that I should have used my NightCap app instead so I would have had a bit less noise in the photo. However, we work with what we have and I wanted to catch this moment and it was fairly fleeting as I only got off about 4 photos.

I processed the photo using Photoshop CS5 with a slight bit of cropping as I was back a little further than I should have been for this final look. I adjusted the photo using the levels command and then did a little bit of dodging and burning on the photo to tone down the whites and the area surrounding them to draw the viewers eye to them. I then emailed the photo back to my iPhone and used the Photogene app to apply the Polaroid style border to the photo.

Technical Details:
Camera: iPhone 4
Lens: Built-In Camera lens
Exposure: The iPhone doesn’t record shutter speed or aperture information
Apps Used: Photogene and Photoshop CS5

January 21, 2012 – A year of portraits – Triston Cottrell

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01.21.12 Triston Cottrell

This is Cadet Corporal Triston Cottrell with the Muhlenberg County High School JROTC program. He’s a freshman at the high school and was part of the drill team that competed today at Hopkins County Central High School’s “Storm Surge Drill Meet” in Mortons Gap, Ky. Teams from 10 different high schools converged on the school to compete against each other and while there were a wealth of portraits to shoot, I found this young man in front of my camera eager to have his portrait taken.

I processed this portrait using Photoshop CS5 by darkening down the areas around him to draw focus to the main subject of the picture. I then applied a custom variation of the Topaz Adjust Photo Pop filter as the basic one was a little more overpowering than what I wanted.

Technical Details:
Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: Sigma 24-70 f/2.8 – shot at 26mm
Exposure: Matrix Metering, 1/500 sec, f/2.8 with an ISO of 4,000
File Type: Nikon RAW