Tag Archives: illustration

Top 5 Inspirational Photographers and artists

30 Sunday Jun 2013

Posted by in Business, Photography

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

As a photographer and digital artist I am always using the web to seek out other photographers and artists, sometimes to network, others just to look at amazing work and sometimes purely for inspiration.

We all need people and things to inspire us in our daily lives, it is how we grow as people and it is how we grow as professionals, without inspiration there is only stagnation and with stagnation there is self doubt.

As my photography and digital artistry has progressed my list of inspirational photographers & artists has grown and I’d like to share with you my top five inspirational photographers & artists (in no particular order)

1) Damien Lovegrove

Damien learned his trade as a cameraman and lighting director during 14 years at the BBC, working on programmes such as the Clothes Show, Top of the Pops and Casualty. Days off from filming were often spent taking photographs for a variety of top name clients including Peugeot, Motorola, and Adidas.

Anyone who has met Damien can’t fail to be inspired and motivated by his enthusiasm for his second career. So much so that once you get him started on a subject it’s hard to shut him up…

Fifteen years on, Damien has become one of the foremost photographers and trainers in the industry. A published writer and regular columnist, Damien has travelled the globe shooting and sharing his knowledge and expertise.

Lovegrove Consulting

Lovegrove Photography

2) Glyn Dewis

Glyn Dewis is a Photographer, Retoucher, Trainer and Photoshop World Instructor currently based just outside of Oxford in the UK.

Working both Nationally and Internationally his main area of work sees him shooting Promotional and Commercial material for Industry Professionals, Physique Athletes, Musicians, Bands and Up and Coming Actors.

An Adobe Community Professional, he teaches Workshops and 1-1 Coaching specifically covering all aspects of Adobe® Photoshop® from the Basics through to Advanced Retouching Techniques, and is also available for National and International Speaking/Talks, Seminars and Workshops on both Photography & Photoshop.

Glyn Dewis

3) Dave Kai Piper

Dave is a photographer specialising in Couture Fashion, Lingerie, Evening-wear, Bespoke Bridal & Millinery Fashions. Dave is based in London & Bristol and he also writes an entertaining and informative Blog

DKP Photography

4) Julia Boggio

The award-winning and internationally renowned photographer Julia Boggio established her studio in London in 2005. Her aim then – as it still is today – was to create a unique photography studio that would enable everyone to enjoy the sort of high-end fashion shoot experience normally associated with style magazines such as Vogue and Vanity Fair.

From the moment you arrive at her studio you’ll feel like you’re at one of the top fashion studios in Paris or Milan, and about to be photographed for one of the world’s top glossy magazines. Her work – especially her now famous Vintage Boudoir photoshoots – has established Julia as one of the country’s leading portrait photographers, and her photographs are used in exhibitions and magazines worldwide. She is also a popular columnist for Photo Pro magazine and is regularly interviewed for other photography and lifestyle magazines.

Julia Boggio Studios

5) Neil Van Niekerk

Neil is a Photographer, trainer and author based in New Jersey in the USA. Best known perhaps for his amazing “Tangents” blog where he not only showcases his amazing work, but also provides useful insight into why and how he took them.

Tangents

 

Best – Colin

Creating Composite Images – Part 2

21 Monday Jan 2013

Posted by in Photoshop

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

Afternoon

Following on from my last post about compositing images, here, I’d like to show you how I created my “Snow Queen” image – quite apt considering the current British weather.

I had been looking at shooting a particular image to go with the composite I had in mind, however circumstances always conspired against either the shoot or the look I had in mind. I was doing some housekeeping in my shoot library and I came across an image that was marked as “throw away”. The image was part of a beach bridal shoot back in December and it didn’t quite cut the mustard.

However, the pose and hand placement were exactly what I was looking for for my snow queen idea.

This is the finished “Snow Queen” fantasy image with the lovely Miss Laura Mai

snow queen finished

This particular creation was (relatively) simple as I was using only a single background image. The following show the three main articles that went into making this composite.

snow queen composite

 

I explained in my previous post that the secret to successful compositing is getting the right perspective (with focal length of lenses) and lighting that matches foreground and background.

The other ingredient for successful images is matching colour between foreground and background images. Now while there are a number of ways to achieve this, this is the method I use. In Photoshop duplicate your background layer and move it to the top of the layer stack. With the duplicate layer still selected, go to the menu bar and select Filter>Blur>Average. Set the blend mode to “Colour” and then lower the opacity to around 20-25% – you may want to ad a layer mask to mask of the background – but that’s it, a simple trick that will match the colour of your foreground image to your background.

This image in total took around two hours to complete – there are only 17 layers in this image and the file size (unflattened) is 130MB.

The sparkles, wings, snow and staff were all added to the image for added realism and finally a small amount of mist was added to the lower part of the image to soften it up.

in my next post on Compositing images I’ll show you how I created a more complex fantasy image

Best – Colin