The Dark Side

Sometimes when shooting a wedding, there is a little bit of down time during dinner. The hotel interior of the Omni Interlocken Hotel has some cool architecture. Chad and I had a good time taking some fun photos. Chad on the lens, me on the landing.

While taking a food break on my last Boulder mountain bike ride, I noticed the unique wood texture on the trees. The bark is peeling off and looks like puzzle pieces.

OK, I’m long overdue updating this site. I’ve got some new employees that have been keeping me busy doing ‘real’ work. But I’m here in Steamboat taking more mountain biking photos, so I really have to get these old pics off the camera. 2 Sunday’s ago, Ryan and I rode the Ceran St. Vrain trail up to Miller’s rock. On the singletrack on the way out, there is an angled rock that is perfect for launching. Getting the timing right for action shots with the Canon G10 is tough, but sometimes you wind up with an interesting composition. In this case, it’s me with my head cut off.

My buddy Neil Van Niekerk is coming to Denver on August 18th to do a workshop on state-of-the-art flash photography techniques. This is an amazing opportunity and space is limited: head over to Planet Neil for more information about the workshop, dates, and how to sign up.

I did a great shoot this past April in New Jersey with Neil. It was set in the Paterson Historical Museum, and the modeling was done by Priscilla.

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So I was walking down the street a block from my studio, and I stumbled upon a mobile art happening.  There was a crowd of people gathered around a car, and they were all painting it.  This of course, required immediate picture taking.  Upon a little inspection, here is what I found out.

The GIVING GALLERY Presents:

Running On heART: 13 Cities in 7 Days!

A cross country journey raising awareness and funds for struggling open art studios in our communities

In order to raise awareness for Open Art Studios and spread the word about their power to bring community members together we have decided to turn a car into a national community art project.

Cool!

For more information on the project, the journey, and the fun:

Website: http://www.srgivinggallery.com/

Dotate: http://www.giveforward.org/RunningonART

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DofRVAwOs8k

Pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/givinggallery

Blog: http://srgivinggallery.blogspot.com/

I brought the camera along for last week’s Boulder Cruiser Ride.  Our faction began from the Green Guru Headquarters in Northeast Boulder.  Ryan Van Duzer was in prime form for some cruising action!

One of the side benefits of that start location is the proximity to the 303 Vodka distillery.  It is directly next door. I sampled a sample straight out of the beaker.  Local, gluten free, and so smooth!

This was the debut of Ryan’s new Phase One music machine. I’ll take a picture of that after the finishing trim is put on it. We headed south to a brand new acoustically superior location to test it out. It was a gorgeous evening despite reports of inclement weather. We wore wigs to keep our heads warm.

I was sporting a pair of Sergio Valente jeans. Yes, they are originals. Sergio Valente is my porn name.

Did I say it was a beautiful night? Yes, I think I did. I have pictures for proof.

We cruised through campus, circling all three Buffaloes.

As night fell, we descended upon the downtown area via the famous Ho Chi Minh Trail, picking up more cruisers along the way. Zack Giffen was in town and rocking out the swing bike.

I didn’t have a flash, and the pictures became increasingly abstract. Join us next week, we’ll be meeting once again at Green Guru, although that won’t be our permanent starting location. To keep up with our latest start location, visit the “Happy Thursday” group on Facebook!

I shot this pic in the hallway of The Breakers in Palm Beach. I thought the combination of the long hallway and the two boys was just like the twin girls who were in the movie ‘The Shining’!

The international climbing community was rocked this week when it was discovered that Boulder local Jonny Copp was killed in an avalanche while attempting a first ascent in the Himalayas of China. I knew Jonny through some other friends, and am saddened that the mountains have taken another friend of mine in the course of a year. Jonny was a professional climber, adventurer, photographer, and originator of the Adventure Film Festival. As a tribute the Boulder Theater put his name on the marquis on Sunday. You can follow all the updates, and the status of the grim search for his other two trip companions, Wade Johnson and Micah Dash, on the Adventure Films Blog HERE.

The world of digital photography is an interesting blend of art, classical and contemporary photography techniques, and straight up computer nerdiness.  In today’s digital age it is imperative to stay on top of all of the latest software updates to keep one’s photography at the top of the game.  For better or worse, I have the ability to sit in front of the computer for hours and hours, surfing the web for information.  Many times all I wind up doing is procrastinating pressing tasks.  But once in a while, I achieve a major breakthrough.  Last night was one of those nights, as I discovered Adobe’s DNG profiles and DNG profile editor. I’ve been using Adobe Lightroom to process my RAW files (NEF files for Nikon, CR2 files for Canon) for about a year now.  I love the workflow and the RAW editing power that the program offers.  I’ve read complaints from photographers who won’t use it, citing that they don’t like the skin tones that are produced by the Adobe RAW processor.  They say that Nikon’s Capture NX2 provides much better color.  But then I ask if that program is practically usable for volume wedding photography, and the answer is “no”. So at this point I stuck my head in the sand and went on my usual workflow.  I didn’t realize how different the results could be.

Meanwhile, I’ve been struggling with the skin tones that come out of many of my photos.  People appear very orange, very pink, and very saturated as a whole.  I’ve created my own Lightroom preset, called ‘Skin Shift’, which I use to adjust the skin tones on particularly bad examples, usually those people who are very red, and lit under tungsten bulbs.  But using the HSL color controls never really got me to where I wanted to be.  I knew that the Camera Calibration controls were available, but since I was never able to get the settings to a place I liked, I wasn’t sure how I could possibly come up with a profile that was better that what I was already using.  So I continued using the Adobe Standard profile.  It is Adobe’s attempt to make an average profile that works for every single camera out there that shoots in a RAW format.  You can imagine how well THAT works! ;>)

Then I found out about the Adobe DNG Profiles page.  Here there are specific profiles created for every camera out there.  Additionally, there are various modes for each camera, that are like the Picture Styles that you use in the camera if you are shooting JPG.  For the D700 there are:  Camera Neutral, Camera Portrait, Camera Standard, Camera Vivid, Camera Landscape, Camera D2X Mode 1, Camera D2X Mode 2, and Camera D2X Mode 3.  The last 3 Modes are similar to profiles that became available with the Nikon D2x camera body.  Additionally, there is a DNG profile editor where you can make your own profiles.  I haven’t gotten to that point yet.  In this article I’m just going to show you the differences between the Standard Nikon d700 profiles. One can also utilize these profiles using Photoshop CS3/Bridge CS2. I am blown away at the differences in the photos.  With these DNG profiles and/or the DNG editor, the adjustments to the color are much for fine tuned than is possible with the manual controls.  All my problems with Disney Cartoon skin appear to magically have been solved!  So here are some pictures to tell the tale. I picked this recent portrait because it was taken in natural daylight under overcast conditions without any flash. White balance is set to Daylight. Disclaimer: You may or may not be able to see the differences here depending on 1- your color trained eye (or lack of), 2- your color calibrated monitor (or lack of).

.: Nikon D700 NEF file converted using Adobe Standard Profile :.

.: Nikon D700 NEF file converted using Camera Neutral Profile :.

On a calibrated monitor viewed under proper lighting, the difference is huge! In the first photo the general tone of the man’s face is magenta, but that isn’t really the way he looks in real life.  His skin tone is much closer to the second image, a normal orange-brown hue.  I’m now going to include some close up, side-by side images of some of the profiles to give you an idea of the differences. But basically, ANY of them are better than using the Adobe Standard!  Keep in mind, the only setting changed between these images is the Camera Calibration Profile.

.: Nikon D700 NEF file converted using (L-R) Adobe Standard, Camera Neutral, Camera Portrait :.

.: Nikon D700 NEF file converted using (L-R) Camera Standard, Camera D2X Mode 1, Camera D2X Mode 2 :.

As you can see, the differences between the D700 specific Camera Profiles are more subtle, but the difference between the Adobe Standard is huge! In a large printed image, the differences would be easily discernible even by the untrained eye. Camera neutral is a good place to start. The profile itself is a bit flat, but contrast and saturation can easily be added. One of the other settings can also be a good starting point to have an image with more punch, straight out of the editor without any tweaking.

Even with as much improvement these standard camera profiles are, there is still room for improvement. I’ve seen some examples on the DWF where some advanced users show examples of odd discoloration and blotchy-ness in shaded or complex areas of photos using Camera Neutral. So there are still further steps to take to achieve true color mastery. The next step is to be to create a custom profile, using the DNG profile editor, based upon calibrated images taken from my actual cameras. Added to my personal recipe will be a little bit of my personal style and taste, that will make my color profiles truly unique, and unlike any other photographer. I will create one profile that is a ‘do it all’ type file, where I can process an entire wedding with all of its varying light conditions and backgrounds, and come up with natural looking, true color images that have a little extra pop of saturation and contrast.  After that, I plan to create some additional ‘artistic’ profiles, that I can use for particular conditions that I shoot often. These additional steps are icing on the cake for me.  Currently I am super happy to have found an immediate and easy solution to a nagging skin tone problem. All I had to do was download a simple executable file, install, and change one setting in Lightroom. Epic Win!

I posted pictures from my recent destination wedding in Palm Beach on The Light Side yesterday.  Here is one photo that I didn’t post on there!  Sometimes I gotta let the freak flag fly and take some off the wall shots during a wedding day.  Here I used up-lighting to give the couple an erie horror flick type look.  Yes, this is The Dark Side!

It’s become a birthday tradition of mine to ride Betasso and bring a beer to drink on the bench at Betasso. This year we tried to go to Ned, but for the first time ever, we couldn’t get on the bus because there wasn’t enough room left for our bikes. So, on to Betasso we went. I have a photo to prove it.