Editing Overexposed Sky

During Saturday's photo shoot we took some pictures outdoors. I'm still having a hard time metering correctly to get a proper exposure for the sky and my model. I would have tinkered with my camera settings more, but I was freezing my ass off and was ready to go back inside. 

Model Chane't Elder:

I found a sky image online and tried to replace the overexposed sky in the original. I added it in as a new layer and hid it's effects to the parts of the picture I didn't want the sky to cover by making a mask for that layer. I also added a gradient to fade the sky in towards the foreground. There are still a few hot spots next to her right arm and under the tree to her left, but over all I think it looks OK.

Here is another shot of Chane't on the abandoned railroad tracks behind the studio.

Continued

Here are a few more pictures from last Saturday's shoot. 

Look at my sister, the model.

Jere' Hicks

Barbara La Rosa

Model/photographer Jeffery Benett



The gang.

January Mile High DPS Meet Up

Yesterday, myself and other members of the Mile High DPS group got together for a photo shoot. We were fortunate enough to use North Denver Photography Studio all thanks to Tiffany who setup the entire event and graciously shared her studio time with all of us.  I had a ball and again learned so much.  

Strobist info:

Alien Bee 800 shot through 47" Octabox camera right triggered with cyber sync

Alien Bee 400 snooted for hair/feather light 

Additional light to blow out background (can't remember what it was)

Special thanks to Amy and Sean for the light set up. 

Meta Data:

Shutter speed 1/250

f/8.0

ISO 100 

   

I tried to photoshop this picture and something went terribly wrong. Guess I took it too far. What do you think? Here's the result...

LOL. Thanks Sean for being such a good sport. In all seriousness, I didn't do much retouching in the first picture. Just healed a blemish and removed some stray hairs. The second, of Sean, was lit differently so I had to do my best to lighten the right side and the background in PP. Is there anything else I could do to improve these pictures?

Many more pictures to come. 

Denver Museum of Nature and Science

I visited the Denver Museum of Nature and Science today for my daughter's preschool field trip.  

Prehistoric Journey 

Space Odyssey  
I had a great idea to get a picture where it looked like the T-Rex was about to step on Jocelyn. I had to get on the floor and angle the camera up to get the shot. It was hard getting a 4 year old to cooperate but I got the shot I wanted. 
I attempted to do some photoshopping, but was a little unsure what to change in any of the pictures.

Practice Practice Practice

My friend, Tiffany, let me borrow her light stand, umbrella, and trigger so I decided to work on my lighting last night. My sister was gracious enough to pose for me. Here's one of my favorite shots.

Strobist Info:

Canon 580EXII on 1/16 power shot through umbrella positioned directly in front and above model. I also used a homemade snoot (tubular tunnel that fits over the head of your flash to restrict the direction of where the light will go) out of black construction paper and masking tape. Don't know if it was counter productive to shoot a snooted flash into an umbrella because an umbrella's supposed to diffuse the light and the snoot's restricting it. Oh well. I was experimenting.

Metadata: 

f2/8 Shutter speed 1/250 ISO 400  

I took another stab at photoshop and actually think I did pretty good. It took me over an hour and a half just to edit this one picture, but I like the way it came out. I even got my signature in the photo. 

Denver Srobist Meetup

The Denver Stobist group got together today to practice our lighting and setups. We were lucky enough to shoot at Viola Salon. Located in downtown Denver. The expansive building with beautiful architecture gave us unlimited shooting possibilities. Model Mayhem provided the models. 

I could probably say more but I am ready to pass out.  I'll add more once I've had a full nights sleep. 

Denver Zoo Lights

Our Mile High DPS group planned a trip to the Denver Zoo tonight to take pictures of the annual holiday light display. I knew that the kids would like to see the lights as well so instead of hanging with the photog gang, I walked around with the family. I didn't get any shots to write home about. Can't win 'em all. Here are a few I was able to weed out of the group of delete-able pictures.

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This one looks cool but totally unintentional