Shooting Hairstyles With Shep and Tanya

Shepherd, a good friend and excellent photographer, came up with the idea to build a creative team. A core group of photogs, makeup artists, hair stylists, and wardrobe stylists that are committed to each others growth. How cool is that? It's fun to do a shoot. It's way more fun to do a shoot with people that are fired-up and bouncing ideas around.

The creative team has it's own website:   5280Fashion.com

We've been talking about getting the team going for a few months, had a couple of false starts and finally kicked off a shoot. The driver behind this shoot was Tanya O. of Hot Mess Salon. She's now part of the creative team and wanted to submit some work to hair publications. I'm excited to see how her submissions fair.

Below are some (unprocessed) sneak peaks from the shoot. I'll link to Shep's images when there's he's got a URL available.

Kirtsten HDRs

Finally, months later - got to The Grudge Training Center - where some of the best fighters in the world like Nate Marquardt, Keith Jardine, Shane Carwin and Brendan Shaub train - and shot some HDR backgrounds for the boxing shots we did of Kirsten way back in October. Here's some of the results:

Here's how it was built:

One of the 7 images used to build the HDR background.

Finished HDR image.

Added light rays and background fog to help with depth and atmosphere.

Finally add in Kirsten and some shadows to visually sell the idea she's really on the mat.

The following couple of images were built in almost exactly the same way.

Kirsten

I had a great time shooting with Kirsten (MM#2709811), Lindsey (MUA, MM#2760059), Shep  (assistant & collaborator, Lifescape Portraits) over the weekend. I'm excited by the results. All of the shots are meant to be composites so they won't be fully baked until I shoot the appropriate backgrounds.​ However, I'm impatient, so here's some early versions (see below).

It looks promising that I'll be shooting an MMA cage at one of Denver's nationally recognized MMA gyms. Since the trainers frequently travel to support their fighters, getting the shoot scheduled is tough but in sentiment they've given me the green light.

Also thanks to Daniel for loaning us his killer snow bike with the monstrous tires. I've got a bit of a crush on this bike, it's very cool.​

My First Published Photography Article

Some time ago, I was asked if a few of my images could be used in a magazine. "Sure!" I said. Then the editor asked me to write an article about the images.

Intrigued about doing something I know nothing about, writing an article, I went and bought "Complete Idiot's Guide to Publishing Magazine Articles" and then spent the next week writing an article you can read in 5 minutes. ;-) See page 18 of the magazine using the link below.

Open publication - Free publishing - More canon

The Photographer's Eye

If you've looked for photography books you know that there are eleven thousand books whose first chapters cover f-stops, shutter speed, ISO and a quick blurb on the rule of thirds. This book goes WAY beyond that. The author assumes you know how to shoot in manual mode and focuses all of his attention on a treasure trove of visual design concepts and examples.

I'd never before heard of the "Gestalt Laws or Perceptual Organization" or come across the masterful concept of "Delay."​​

The Photographer's Eye: Composition and Design for Better Digital Photos

By Michael Freeman

​​The author presents the idea of "repertoire" - building up your tool box or visual ideas - and then going "hunting." Freeman describes this topic with such clarity that I'm left with no doubt: I am a white belt​, Freeman is a blackbelt, and his book is a secret ninja scroll to improving technique.

If you're a serious student of photography - or visual arts in general - ​this is a must read book.

Favorite Photo Websites

Photo.net

Photo.net has over a decade of great photos on it (one or two are mine: http://photo.net/photos/chuston). It's been an incredible resource for inspiration and learning. Often, I look at the "Top Photos" section and get some perspective on how much I still have to learn.

Additionally, the forums there have an answer for almost everything - pro or amateur.

1x.com

A curated photography site full very pretty pictures.?

Flickr

Cuz it's easy and social. The top photos there (see the Explore section) usually don't compete well with the top photos at 1x.com or photo.net but if you want to share pictures with a bunch of shutter bugs and maybe get some ego-feeding comments - it's a good place.? (http://flickr.com/chuston)

Creative Live

Creative Live is an absurdly useful resource for amateur and pro photographers alike.​

​Check them out: http://www.creativelive.com