ITS A-LIVE!!!!!

come on over to the new blog…
“it’s the new style!”

www.iamaposer.com

It’s On

ive been working on a new look for a while now with mike mayberry of kharmik creative. big ups to mike for all the work and dealing with the worlds worst client :).

here you go:

I am a Poser.

change is almost here….

a little foreshadowing

LOVE

“there is no safe investment. to love at all is to be vulnerable. love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. if you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in a casket or coffin of your selfishness. but in that casket – safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change. it will not be broken, it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. the alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. the only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.”

– C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

vulnerable. thats a scary thing to many of us. to be naked, emotionally and spiritually. to just be you, as real as can be, all of your insecurities, all of your bad habits, all of your glory revealed for what it is. imagine yourself COMPLETELY vulnerable with another person, just one. once you get past the horror of it all, dont you find it liberating? can you even imagine anything more appealing?

this was, and is Gods intention for every single one of us. “love your neighbor as yourself”

i come across the word love a lot. i hear it spoken, i read it, i see it. it is said that the world needs more of it. i completely agree. i sometimes wonder, however, how many of us are willing to pay the price necessary to have it.

a moment of introspection

im bathing my 5 year old son river a few nights ago, and in a silent moment he appears to be contemplating something. i dont say anything because i want him to develop his thoughts, and in a moment he looks up at me and says, “Daddy, is God done with us? is He done making us?” i just love him.

anyway, it really made me stop and think about how grateful i am that God is NOT done with me. i try to live my life every day to reflect and reveal God purposes in this world, and though i fall short, and Gods Grace is sufficient, humanness is no excuse and i strive for perfection, as that is what Jesus died for.

the glory of God is a heart fully alive.

cheers!

no reason….

theres no real reason for this post. i just love this image from a recent wedding reception outside the sons of herman hall of a band member of “boys named sue”.

cheers!

the glories of shooting RAW

i have seen this debated countless times, and i certainly am not going to claim that my way is the highway, but i shoot RAW. i am not ashamed.

bad reasons to shoot RAW:

1. so i can fix all of my images later
2. i dont have to worry about exposure

no doubt you want to get it right the first time. and in all honesty, once i began mastering getting the correct exposure in camera, it opened up a whole new world of exploration in the realm of techniques done strictly in the camera. ill tell you, that also saves me a heck of a lot of time on post processing!

here is an example of why i looooove raw. now, mind you, some of this process can be duplicated, with a little more work, with jpeg files, but not with the quality of result, imo….

here is an image straight out of camera:

first, ill tell you that the sun is directly behind me blocked by a large hill, meaning that the subjects are in the shade. now i would love to expose for the people in this image and have a nice blue sky behind them, but seeing as how they are in the shade and the sun is pointing directly into the sky behind them, i cant do that in camera without adding some variation of artificial light. i had none at the present time, as is the case most of the time right after a ceremony, so i digress.
now, helping this a little is that at the time of the image, it is sundown, and there is some blue at the top of the image, due to the sun not being quite as harsh at that time of day. here is where RAW comes in to play…

when you shoot RAW, you do have a large gamut of exposure with which to work with, nondestructively. so i open the image in ACR (adobe camera RAW, for those taking notes 🙂 ) and make my color adjustments there. open that image into PS. then go back to the RAW file and open another copy of it into ACR and underexpose the people and bring all that information that is left in the sky, that appears to be gone (and of course would be if i had shot in jpeg). now ive got two identical images opened as psd files in PS. drag one of the images onto the other and create a layer mask, filled with black on the top layer. then take a soft white brush and begin revealing that top layer in the areas where i want it. so basically i am now painting in the nice blue sky the way it was when i was actually there, not some manufactured sky (which we all have seen) done in PS that looks fairly unbelievable.

and here is the result (along with a contrast bump and a little TCDW, no soft, from the totally rad action mix):

will say that when using this technique, it is better to try to get the subjects completely below the sky line for more accurate masking (avoiding those fairly ugly halos that reveal your secrets of post processing seen here 🙂 )

viola!

changes, they are a-comin’

i know its been a bit since i blogged anything, due mostly to the season, but also due to the fact that i have been shooting bridals, and i cant show those until after the wedding. plus i have been quietly working on some changes around here in the land of paparazzi.

some year in review stuff:

1. God is good!

2. this has been the single greatest year of marriage yet for des and i. we have seen God do some wonderful things in our lives, and in each other, and we are nothing short of stoked to see what He has in store for us in the next one.

3. avery is a year more beautiful, inside and out. this little one never ceases to amaze me with her insight into the things of God as a 9 year old. she is such a caring and considerate person. we learn from her around here very day.

4. river is full swing into basketball. he has always been in love with basketball. his first word was ball, and his next was b-ball, trying to say basketball. thats my boy.

5. roman is a year sillier. for those of you who know roman, you know what i mean. hes been playing soccer, his life-long dream, although he tends to check out about 10 minutes into the game. his main goal seems to be to run real hard for about 10 yards then fall down and look to see if we saw how tough he is.

anyway, hope you all had a wonderful christmas and a safe new year!

AGWPJA award winners!

ok, so i didnt exactly win 1st place in everything, but i did place 4 images in 5 categories. this being my first attempt at entering images into a contest of any kind, i am absolutely thrilled. here are the images:

bridal portrait – 18th place

getting ready – 16th place

ceremony – 17th place

reception – 13th place

i am so pleased! i definitely have images i like better in the portfolio, but this being a contest based on photojournalism, these were moments i didnt script. i tend to like the images i have a part in creating more.

there was also a contest for the wpja, which i entered images in, but did not place. considering the amount of PS i do, i think i will consistently finish higher in the AGwpja, vs the wpja. i almost always envision the final product when shooting an image and that usually includes some PS to some extent.

anyway, YAY GOD! i have been shooting wedding for exactly 1 year and to be considered an “award winning” photojournalist is humbling to say the least! He gets all the glory for any talent i have and i am deeply humbled to give back any part of my gift.

(added a bit later) sorry for those of you who use the rss feed. i need to proof my posts, huh?

my fathers wedding

meet jack. jack is my father. i was the photographer and best man in this one! this was certainly a different experience for me. i love my dad and its not very often a man finds himself able to shoot his fathers wedding. it was a little stressful, i must admit, seeing as how my wife and kids were there…note to self…dont bring two boy under the age of 6 and your daughter, age 9, to work…anyway, it was real cool seeing my dad exchange vows for the first time as a christian. joy, his wife, is a really wonderful person. she is so sweet and a…..joy to be around. the kids really like her and well be seeing them in a couple of weeks for christmas. i mean, my dad does have to see my new iPhone, right? lol..here some of my faves…

jack

joy and her son

my sister and her wonderful voice

theres avery about to pounce.

and that would be my boys running after the garter. not sure how i feel about that.

and away they go

i know God will bless you in your pursuit of Him. it is the design of marriage to reflect and reveal who God is to the world!