January 30, 2012 – A year of portraits – Henderson Pep Club

01.30.12 Henderson Pep Club

I just had to shoot this group portrait of the pep club at Henderson High School for my portrait of the day. I love the many different costumes, expressions and interactions going on in this picture. Of course anytime teens see someone taking their picture, they have to ham it up a bit, which usually makes for a better picture.

Image was processed with Photoshop CS5 with levels adjusted to lighten up the midtones and then I applied the Topaz Adjust Photo Pop filter to sharpen up the final image.

Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 31mm
Exposure: Matrix Metering, 1/40, f/3.2 with an ISO of 800
File Type: Nikon RAW

Shots fired!

Hopkins County Sheriff deputy LyDon Logan radios in an all clear from a 911 call of shots fired from a resident on Willow Drive in Nortonville. Deputies and Kentucky State Police troopers laugh at the scene after investigation found the shot sounds were from eggs cooking on a stove top, according Deputy Logan. (Jim Pearson/The Messenger)

I went out to Nortonville, Ky with a reporter today about a shots fired call from a resident who armed themselves with a shotgun after they heard three shots. Kentucky State Police and Hopkins County Sheriff’s Deputies responded to the scene and it was pretty serious stuff, until further investigation revealed that the shots came from eggs that were left too long on the stove.

January 29, 2012 – A year of portraits – Don McLaughlin

01.29.12 Don McLaughlin

Today’s environmental portrait is of pastor Don McLaughlin during communion today at First Christian Church in Madisonville, Ky. Don is a loving and caring pastor that makes all who come through the doors of our church feel welcome. He is an outstanding role model and we’re honored that he is the leader of our congregation.

The processing for this photo was done in Photoshop CS5 where the photo was cropped, levels adjusted, white balance tweaked for the stain glass windows and a little dodging and burning was done. I then sent the photo to my iPhone and used the Photoshop Express app to add the border before uploading the resulting image here.

Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8 @ 200mm
Exposure: Center weighted metering, 1/200, f/4.5 with an ISO of 4,000
File Type: Nikon RAW

 

January 28, 2012 – A year of portraits – Lana Kunz

01.28.12 Lana Kunz

Don’t Take My Picture! – Actually, I asked before shooting a picture of my co-worker Lana Kunz this evening and she was gracious enough to say yes.

After about the 8th picture she started doing the don’t take my picture thing, which helped make for this interesting portrait. The whole picture reminds me of a paparazzi type photo.

Lana is The Messenger Newpaper’s crime beat reporter and she says that the reason she is a reporter is because she doesn’t like being in front of the camera, so by reporting on the news and shooting pictures occasionally for the paper she does a pretty good job of keeping behind the scenes.

Everything about this photo was done on the iPhone. The slight blurring was due to the slower shutter speed the camera used to capture the photo and I like the way it adds to the picture. I did a auto levels adjustment in the app called Snapseed and also did just a little sharpening as well. Afterward I opened the app called Photogene to add the old style Polaroid look to the picture.

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

January 27, 2012 – A year of portraits – North Pep Club Group Portrait

01.27.12 North Pep Club Group Portrait

Saleste Springfield, center, along with a host of other Madisonville-North Hopkins students cheer on the Maroons to a 82-49 victory over their cross town rival Hopkins County Central Friday night at Madisonville. They are members of the peo club and had these large cutout portraits of coaching and school staff members along with players of the team they were using during the game and I couldn’t resist shooting a group portrait for my year long challenge.

Sometimes you don’t really know what to expect that helps make a picture, for this one it was Saleste. She was standing at the right side of the picture when I stepped over to them to shoot this group portrait. She wasn’t really looking at what was going on at first, as she was talking to a friend. When she looked up and saw I was taking their picture she jumped into the middle and made the picture.

The photo was edited using Photoshop CS5 using levels, standard sharping and the burning tool to darken the edges of the photo to draw the viewers eye into the center of the photo. Most folks don’t realize it, but typically your eye will go to the brightest area of a photograph first and then work its way around from there. So, keep this in mind when shooting your pictures and try not to include bright objects that might detract from your photos subjects.

Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 26mm
Exposure: Matrix Metering, 1/320, f/2.8 with an ISO of 4,000
File Type: Nikon RAW

 

January 26, 2012 – A year of portraits – David Jackson

01.26.12 David Jackson

David Jackson is the Mayor of Madisonville, Ky and recently celebrated his first year in office as mayor.

He is a graduate from the University of Kentucky and is both a certified public accountant and a certified management accountant. David is also pastors Living Waters Church of God on Dulin Street.

I shot this informal portrait as he was preparing to address an area group known as the ‘Concerned Citizens Society’ and deliver a ‘Minority Report’ at the Larry Carney Neighborhood Center in Madisonville.

The photograph was processed using Photoshop CS5 where some slight cropping was done, burning down of the mid-tones around him a little and some standard sharping of the image was done also. I also used an f/stop of 2.8, for shallow depth-of-field, as I wanted to throw the background out of focus and keep the attention on him.

Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 56mm
Exposure: Matrix Metering, 1/125sec, f/2.8 with an ISO of 4,000
File Type: Nikon RAW

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

A foggy morning swim


I love shooting in the fog and here’s on of my favorite images that I did earlier this week at of these early morning swimmers at Lake Peewee in Madisonville, Ky. This is one of my new images that is available for purchase as a signed/numbered limited edition 12×18 or 16×24 print in my sales store. Click on the photo to purchase a copy or visit my sales store using the link on the menu bar above for other prints and size options.

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.