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

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

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

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

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

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

 

January 20, 2012 – A year of portraits – Tina Dillingham and Jax Kinney

01.20.12 Tina Dillingham & Jax Kinney

This is co-worker and friend, Tina Dillingham and her 7-week-old nephew Jax Kinney during a visit he and his mom paid to Tina at the office Friday afternoon. Tina works in our advertising department at The Messenger and Jax, well, he does what most kids his age do, sleep alot. Just liked the nice moment between aunt and her nephew.

This portrait was created pretty much on the iPhone 4. I shot the picture with the default camera and brought it into the app called PerfectlyClr which is a nice app for sharping up your iPhone images. I then opened the photo up in Photogene and added the border to the print. The photo was then opened in Photoshop CS5 and I used the burn feature to darken around the two of them to help draw the eye to them.

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

January 19, 2012 – A year of portraits – Donovan Gary

01.19.12 Donovan Gary

Donovan Gary is a Air Force Junior ROTC Cadet 2nd Lt. at Hopkins County Central High School in Mortons Gap, Kentucky. He’s a junior this year at the school and is also into music and singing. Tonight he was leading the honor guard during the presentation of the colors at the Lady Storm’s basketball game. This informal portrait I captured of him in the wings waiting with the rest of the honor guard to take the floor.

Informal, environmental portraits are all around us in our daily lives. All you have to do is be aware of those fleeting moments that add a touch of personality to your images and to include enough of the environment that helps to say something about them.

Technical Details:
Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: Sigma 24-70 f/2.8 – shot at 46mm
Exposure: Matrix Metering, 1/500 sec, f/2.8 with an ISO of 3,200
File Type: Nikon RAW

January 18, 2012 – A year of portraits – Chuck Hinrichs

01.18.12 Chuck HInrichs

I spent most of the afternoon visiting with good friend Chuck Hinrichs and wanted to capture an environmental portrait of him that illustrated just a little of his personality and interests. I think this portrait does both in my book. Chuck is an avid railfan and an outstanding photographer in his own right. I thought about including a camera, but felt that the portrait was stronger with out it. When shooting environmental portraits it’s always good to include something in the picture that shows something about your subjects likes, but at the same time don’t overdo it by including too many elements.

This final photo was cropped slightly to get rid of a bright lamp that was to the left and also toned down using the burn tool in Photoshop CS5. I purposely framed Chuck in the lower right area of the frame as I wanted him to be in one of the prime areas for composition (rule of thirds), and still include some of his memorabilia behind him. I also used the Topaz Adjust Exposure correction filter and photo pop filters to round out this final photo.

Technical Details:
Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: Sigma 24-70 f/2.8 – shot at 46mm
Exposure: Matrix Metering, 1/60th sec, f/2.8 with an ISO of 4,000
File Type: Nikon RAW

January 17, 2012 – A year of portraits – Jackson Lin

01.17.12 Jackson Lin

Jackson Lin is one of the Hibachi Chefs at the Mount Fuji restaurant here in Madisonville, Ky and today I captured this portrait as he prepared lunch for members of The West Kentucky Photography Club. The food was and always has been outstanding and the show he puts on is great. The light on his face and the hat really go a long way in making this picture sing for me.

Post processing was done in Photoshop CS5, with mild cropping and slight darkening (burning in) around him on the background to help tone it down and draw more attention to him. I also applied several filters in Topaz Adjust which included, Mild Contrast Pop, Mild Color Pop and Photo Pop to help bring out what I envisioned was I was shooting the portrait.

Technical Details:
Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: Sigma 24-70 f/2.8 – shot at 70mm
Exposure: Matrix Metering, 1/125th sec, f/2.8 with an ISO of 4,000
File Type: Nikon RAW

January 16, 2012 – A year of portraits – Trey Miller

01.16.12 Trey Miller

Today’s portrait screamed at me from across the gym tonight at the Dawson Spring High School’s girls basketball game. Meet Trey Miller a senior at the school who plays for the boys basketball team and was at the school tonight to support the girls team.

When I spotted the hat I knew I had to capture a picture of who ever was underneath it.

The picture here is full frame from the camera with no cropping afterwards.

I processed the portrait using Photoshop CS5 and darkened down the area surrounding him to focus the photo more on his hat and green eyes. The final look was achieved using the Topaz Adjust Clarity filter.

Technical Details:
Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: Nikon 50mm f/1.4
Exposure: Matrix Metering, 1/500th sec, f/2.8 with an ISO of 4,000

January 15, 2012 – A year of portraits – April Galloway

01.15.12 April Galloway

Today’s portrait is of my sister April Galloway. This was shot as she read her bible on the Kindle as she waited for today’s church services to start today. She’s my big sister and is very tech savvy when it comes to the web and all other things along these lines. She also finished up her journalism degree last year and the two of us plan to start doing freelance packages together. It’s great to have a sister that shares like interests. Oh, and she doesn’t like having her picture taken!

With that being said, today’s photo was made with my iPhone using the ProHDR app. This camera takes two photos, one after the other, one for the highlights and one for the midtones and then merges them together to produce the high dynamic range photo. It does a good job and I use it a lot, but you do have to be careful that there’s not any movement between the two photos, which is harder to do with hand holding the iPhone during exposure. I find in low light like this it’s best to brace yourself up against something, take a deep breath, let it out halfway and take the picture holding still while the app does it’s thing and hopefully your subject won’t move during the exposure either. Of course for best results put the iPhone on a tripod, but I didn’t have one  so I braced myself against the wall.

Photo was edited using levels in Photoshop CS5 and cropped. I then sent the photo back to my iPhone via email and opened it in Photogene app and applied the border to the image.

Technical Details:
Camera: iPhone 4
Lens: Built-In Camera lens
Exposure: HDR and the iPhone doesn’t record shutter speed or aperture information

January 14, 2012 – A year of portraits – Self Portrait

01.14.12 Jim Pearson Self-Portrait

STOP! You’re not allowed to take pictures here without written permission from the mall management! Now, after photographing at the local mall for over 15 years this is the first time I’ve been told by security that I’m not allowed to shoot pictures there. I’ve had other friends tell me they’ve been told the same thing, but first time I’ve been told this, even after I identified myself as a working member of the press and was only taking a picture of myself in one of the mirrors in the mall. The mall security guard was very professional and courteous about it, but made sure that I didn’t shoot any more pictures. I will stop by the mall office on Monday to discuss this.

Photo was processed in Photoshop CS5 with some cropping applied as I wanted a tighter look for this self-portrait, but only got off three frames before I was told to stop taking pictures. I also applied the Topaz Adjust Portrait Drama filter with some minor adjustments.

Technical Details:
Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: Nikon 50mm f/1.4
Exposure: Matrix Metering, 1/40th sec, f/3.2 with an ISO of 2,000

January 13, 2012 – A year of portraits – Retha Tarter

01.13.12 Retha Tarter

Retha Tarter is in charge of Ticket Services and the Volunteer Coordinator for the Glema Mahr Center for the Arts here in Madisonville, Ky. A wonderful lady and it seems like she knows everybody in town. I love her smile and personality.

I had finished covering an assignment for the paper where I photographed one of the artists that has a show opening in the Anne P. Baker gallery there this weekend. I had planned to use a photo I shot of the artist, Melanie Orten Hofmann, but I stopped by the box office to chat with Retha and snapped this photo as we were talking and I liked it best between the two.

The photo was cropped slightly, but not much. I always try to shoot in the camera the way I think I want to final picture to look, but this time I wanted it a little tighter than what I had shot. It’s way better to crop in the camera when you shoot any type of picture as it’ll give you the most pixels and quality to work with.

The picture was edited with Photoshop CS5 and I used the Topaz Adjust Filter “Photo Pop” to sharpen up the picture.

Technical Details:
Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: Sigma 24-70 f/2.8 at 62mm
Exposure: Matrix Metering, 1/100th sec, f/5 with an ISO of 4,000

January 12, 2012 – A year of portraits – Marlene Moreland

01.12.12 Marlene Moreland

Meet, if you haven’t already, Marlene Moreland, she’s responsible for the snow that appeared in our area today. Marlene works at our front desk of The Messenger and anyone that knows her is aware of the “Snow Dance” she does every year that brings the snow to town, or at least that’s the story our recently retired editor Tom Clinton started telling everyone over 15 years ago. It’s been said that you can catch her sometime on our loading dock doing her dance and I can attest to that fact. So, you can see why she had to be my portrait of the day, since this is the first real snowfall we’ve had this year. Plus she’s got a great smile and always gives it away to our customers and staff alike.

Camera was the Nikon D700, Lens, Sigma 24-70 f/2.8 at 46mm, Exposure was 1/250sec at f/2.8, with a ISO of 4,000 with matrix metering. Post processing was done in Photoshop CS5 with a mild color correction and the Topaz Adjust filter called ‘Photo Pop” applied to sharpen up the image.

January 11, 2012 – A year of portraits – Hayden Terry

01.11.12 Hayden Terry

Tonight while waiting to cover Congressman Ed Whitfield speaking at Madisonville City Hall I spotted Hayden Terry trying on Mayor David Jackson’s chair for size and captured this image as my portrait of the day. Hayden’s grandfather, Phil Terry was once Mayor of Madisonville and when I asked Hayden if he had the same plans for his future, he informed me that wanted to be a veterinarian. His dad, P. T. Terry said he just wants him to go to college and be happy.

Camera was my Nikon D700, 1/160th at F.6.3 with my 18mm lens. I probably would have picked a different lens, but it was on the camera for the congressman’s picture and I wanted to make sure I didn’t miss the photo. The ISO was 4,000.

Post processing today was done in Photoshop CS5 and I also applied the Clarity filter in Topaz Adjust for the final look of this portrait.

Photo by Gina Munger

Good friend Gina Munger captured me at work photographing Hayden Terry and shared her picture with me. Photographers can’t complain much when they get their picture made since we’re always photographing everyone else. Thanks Gina…

January 10, 2012 – A year of portraits – Erica and Will

01.10.12 Erica and Will

Sometimes photos just show up at my desk. Erica and her brother Will were making the rounds of the Newsroom taking orders for Girl Scout Cookies and took time to pose for this three minute portrait. I call it that because it took me about a minute to shoot 4 pictures with my iPhone, and the other two to pick the best one, open it in SnapSeed, edit it and apply the border to it, all while the kids watched the process. They liked the results, as did their mom.

Camera was the built in iPhone 4 camera with the editing done in Snapseed with adjustments to the shadows and highlights, the drama filter and then a frame applied to produce this final photo, all in three minutes.

January 9, 2012 – A year of portraits – Greg Collins

01.09.12 Greg Collins

Today I decided I wanted to capture an environmental portrait of Greg Collins, the Director and Head Coach of Big Dogs Gym and Fitness in Providence, Ky. I was there today to capture a picture of his Gymnastics Team, that has been doing very well in competition, for Tuesday’s The Messenger Sports front, the newspaper I work for.

Wikipedia describes a environmental portrait is a portrait executed in the subject’s usual  environment, such as in their home or workplace, and typically illuminates the subject’s life and surroundings. The term is most frequently used of a genre of photography.

Where it is common in studio portraiture and even in location candid photography to shoot using a shallow depth of field, thereby throwing the background out of focus, the background in environmental portraiture is an integral part of the image. Indeed, small apertures and great depth of field are commonly used in this type of photography.

I used my Nikon D700 for this shot and the exposure information is: 1/320 sec at f/2.8 with an ISO of 4,000. The lens was an 80-200 mm f/2.8 Nikor at 112mm and of course it was by available light.

Post processing work was done in Photoshop CS5 where I did some dodging and burning along with cropping before applying a Topaz B&W Adjust warm tone filter with a little tweaking on the adjustments. I like the look and feel of this photo better in the warm B&W tones.

 

January 8, 2012 – A year of portraits – Rita McWilliams

01.08.12 Rita McWilliams

When I arrived at church today I spotted a friend Rita McWilliams sitting in the pews basking in the sunlight from the stained glass windows,  like a movie starlet hiding behind her sunglasses, and wearing this beret. It brought back fond memories from my time spent in Paris France and a scene that I saw there more than once during my visits. Rita is an avid, or perhaps I should say, master gardener, and was gracious enough to allow me to capture her likeness with my iPhone.

I shot this photo with the built in iPhone camera and already had in mind that I wanted to give a “Retro” look to the final photo, as if it could be a photograph from my past in France.

Processing was done on my Windows 7 computer using Photoshop CS5. Some dodging and burning along with a little bit of levels thrown in was about all I did to this image before applying the Topaz Adjust filter called “Retro Style I” with just a touch of tweaking from the default settings. I like the old, yellowed, vintage look and feel of the photo.

January 7, 2012 – A year of portraits – Chris and Xavier

01.07.12 Christopher and Xaiver

Today’s portrait is of Chris Brantley and his son Xaiver. They are my great, and great-great nephews that live here in Madisonville, Ky. Chris is a hard working young man that loves his son and I’m very proud of him.

This photo illustrates that you don’t necessary need a fancy studio or lights to get good portraits on location. This was shot on the floor of one of the rooms at his house where there was a window available to provide some soft light. I then took a quilt and laid it on the floor with the non-design side out so I had a simple background, rather than the hardwood floor. I then stood over them and shot a series of photos for about 5 minutes from which I like this one the best.

Camera was again the Nikon D700 with my Sigma 24-70mm lens. Exposure was 1/30sec at f/5.6 with a focal length of 26mm and an ISO of 2000. I love the D700 because it gives me the ability to shoot in low light with high ISO settings with out a lot of noise.

Post processing was done in Photoshop CS5 with some dodging, burning and some sharping by using the Topaz Adjust filters.

Now, for the border effect I emailed the web version of this photo to myself where I could receive it on my iPhone. I then saved the picture to my camera roll and opened it up in a app called Photogene, (available on iTunes) where I applied the border that you see here. Then I emailed the resulting image back to myself for this post. I could also have just downloaded it to my computer by tethering it with the USB cord, but for just one photo it was easier to email it. This is the first time I’ve tried doing something along these lines and I’m happy on how well it worked.

 

January 6, 2012 – A year of portraits – Bill McReynolds

01.06.12 Bill McReynolds and Daisy

Today’s portrait is of Bill McReynolds and his dog Daisy.

I’ve known Bill for several years now and stopped by his home this afternoon to get his help in identifying a flower that I was running in today’s paper. The weather has been so unseasonably nice for this time of the year that some are starting to bloom already. Bill served in the United States Air Force during the mid-50’s in the medical field and after leaving the service worked in the forestry field for a good part of his life and is always in the know about plants and so forth, so he was my go to guy today. I also wanted to look at some of the flowers that were in bloom around his house to see if there was anything better than what I got of a Phlox in bloom.

As I was leaving Bill and I were talking about this and that and I noticed his flag in the background and captured this shot of him and Daisy as we talked.

Photo was shot with my Nikon D700, on Matrix Metering at 1/250 sec at f/4 with an ISO of 640 using my Sigma 24-70mm lens (at 36mm). Post processing was done in Photoshop CS5 with some slight levels adjusted and the Topaz Adjust filter Clarity was applied to sharpen up the photo.

January 5, 2012 – A year of portraits – Tabatha

01.05.12 Tabatha

Well, after a hectic day of shooting and my primary 16gig Compact Flash Card dieing on me after my last photo shoot I kinda scrambled around for my portrait last night as the one I had planned on was of the boys basketball coach at Madisonville-North Hopkins. But alas, it was on the card, so that picture will come down the road.

I had another picture that I shot of Mike Stunson, one of our sports reporters, that I had planned to use since the other one wasn’t to be, and no this isn’t a picture of him… sorry Mike, but Tabatha won the contest last night. I figured I could easily get a good portrait of Mike, but as we all know cats aren’t always so cooperative.

I captured this with a new iPhone app that I’ve been playing around with and starting to love. It’s called NightCap and the nice thing about the camera is that it will take photos with shutter speeds down to 1sec on the iPhone (shoots in color). A really great feature for those of us that really don’t like the look that flash photography gives us, especially with a smart or dumb phone. It’s available in the iTunes store for 99cents if I remember correctly.

Post processing work was done with SnapSeed, where I converted it to black and white and did some sharping with the details filter before bringing the photo into ShakeitPhoto to apply the final Polaroid look.