And of course, consider dav.d photography for you photography needs. This is all about advertising after all.

I will be selecting more of my favorite photographs from the party and adding them to this blog post.

Mitchell and Diane strike a pose that works for Mad Men and the 1950s

I’m also toying around with some new layouts for displaying my photographs. Usually I just post a huge photograph – in this case I am changing things up by creating a “collage” of images that hope to tell a unified story.

I photographed the Bush family's children in the Provo Orchard. Film was processed by Richard's Photo Lab.

I’ll have a more complete blog post in a few days when all the creative editing is done. I have some favorites and some that will make my portfolio for sure.

The first technique was all about removing dust and scratches when I scan film. This is going to save me a ton of time.

The second technique was color correcting – there are so many ways to try and correct color – and they all help to make my subjects look their best.

Why am I showing flowing water? It is a metephor that learning is like drinking water from the fountain of knowledge. I am just kidding. This is one of the photographs where I was able to practice the process. Practice makes perfect.

Shooting on film might mean less experimentation - but it is providing me more chances to learn and develop.

This is Joel, my brother, and Carissa his amazing new bride. I had the pleasure to photograph their wedding back in January. The orchard blossom was photographed in late April. I am using the same background for both photographs. The people were photographed in the foyer of a church. I set up my portable studio right before their wedding reception.

Thanks to the power of Photoshop CS5 and the masking technology I am able to remove the background and still keep a lot of the wedding veil. It isn’t perfect. I think photographing her on a black background would be ideal. In this case the background was a white bedsheet – so separating white on white is a bit more of a challenge. This is why I practice this stuff. So I can learn and grow and no one gets hurt.

Photoshop Composite 118/300 Bride + Orchard + Photoshop = Awesome Sauce

Not a lot of issues with masking of Joel. His glasses were the only thing that would have been an issue. Photoshop CS5 took care of that as well. I think I am ready to composite some of the family portraits from the wedding – and make them look believable. That is the first rule of Fight Club Photoshop – make it believable. And if you can’t make it believable then just add a texture and some color wash.

Photoshop Composite 119/300 Groom + Orchard + Photoshop = Awesome

On Saturday a number of photographers obtained permission to tour and photograph the new mall. This was my first time at the mall and I will confess – it is a very nice mall. I went on the photo walk with the idea of getting some background elements for my Photoshop compositing project. I have created 2 composites already. I photographed Julio a few months ago and because of the wardrobe he had I thought it was appropriate to feature in in the City Creek mall. I think this is the one way that photographers can in fact use City Creek as a location without bothering the general populace.

No one wants to trip over a tripod – so we went at 7am. Downtown Salt Lake City at 7am is very peaceful. We had some overcast clouds – but we did get some very beautiful light.

Photoshop Composite 116/300 Using Photoshop I added Julio into the new City Creek Mall in Downtown Salt Lake City

So if you really want your subject standing in a mall – just bring a small camera – get some candid photographs and then break out you Photoshop skills. Just be friendly if the mall cops ask you want you are doing. Just don’t point your small camera at someone as if you are doing a portrait session. I think the mall cops can tell the difference between a photographer and people who are shopping. This might be a good case for smaller cameras such as the Fuji X100, Fuji X Pro1 or other cameras that are not big and bulky. My Fuji X10 seems to do that, although I think I would like a few more megapixels on it.

Photoshop Composite 117/300 Downtown's newest mall is perfect for Photoshopped portraits

Ok, maybe everything gets a bit of Photoshop treatment. The real lesson could be to look for a different photograph each time I click the shutter. We don’t want to have the same photograph over and over again. Much like every flower species is unique and different – each photograph should be unique and different. I know I have been guilty of photographing someone with 300 photos and only 20 would have been necessary.

I'm using a diffusion panel to create some beautiful lighting on daffodils at Red Butte Gardens

Not sure where I am going with this blog post. Sometimes my mind just spews thoughts to the keyboard and I type. And I don’t know what I could really add about flowers in general. By nature they are beautiful. It is probably really difficult to screw up the photographs of flowers. Bad lighting would be one way. In this case I changed the lighting with my diffuser. I like the results of said diffuser. Maybe I should use this with people more often.

Photographing flowers is like shooting fish in a barrel -easy. Creating awesome photos is a bit more challenging.

As with film, it is teaching me that photography shouldn’t be like using a machine gun. Too often photographers are coming home with 300 portraits from an hour of a portrait session, or 5000 photographs from a wedding. Occasionally I have done that myself. The more I photograph the more judicial I am with my shutter clicks. I am hoping I click less and click when things are amazing. For this flower shoot I would find a cool spot and try to capture that batch of flowers in one shot. I wanted to limit myself to 2 rolls of film – or 72 exposures. Suddenly with that limit in place I start to behave different.

Not sure what these flowers are but when I saw them I knew I was going to create something I loved.

My next film project will be to create a person’s portrait session on one roll of film. In the case of 35mm film that would be 36 photographs. In the case of medium format (120 film) I would get 10 to 12 shots. That would definitely challenge me to think more about the click of a shutter.

These white daffodils were probably past their prime. Especially with film I am in there with Photoshop making these perfect.

Maybe afterwards I can do a whole shoot on Polaroid – that would be 8 shots. With instant feedback!

It is nice to have a library of models and backgrounds to choose from. In this case I am pulling a stock photograph that I found on ShutterStock and am using it here. Originally I was planning on using a bride and groom. I might still do this – that is the nice thing about Photoshop. With enough time you can do almost anything. I just have to remind myself to charge for the work.

Photoshop Composite 115/300 Jacob and the Temple of Doom

There are a number of techniques I use to make these composited portraits to work and look real. In this case I am using Jacob’s own shadows rather than recreate them in Photoshop. I am also working on color correction and color matching. I have noticed that some of the stock photographs come in too saturated. I don’t want to just desaturate everything and hope for the best. In fact I am realizing my style is anything but desaturated. I love color – often my photography is hypersaturated with color. (Unless I am creating black and white).

So to be true to myself I might have to work on creating more of the background elements myself. However, since I am thinking about my art in the long term I see this happening over years as I grow and develop my skills and grow my library of photography.

But it is nice to have the world at my finger tips with the help of stock photography. I have been reading some Advanced Photography magazines and they have a ton of digital artwork created entirely from stock photography and the artists drawing skills. I won’t ever boast about my drawing skills unfortunately, but I think it holds a hope for some cool new art techniques I can try in my own photography. Fun stuff.

Where does the working backwards come from? I am having to relearn or at least practice some older color correction techniques in Photoshop. With digital cameras – all my color processing is done in camera and in Adobe Lightroom. However, I find that I get to break out the curves and color balance tools in Photoshop CS5. Why is this even important? There are some jobs that I work on that will require precision color correction. The more I practice the better I get.

Flower photography I created with my film camera, macro lens and some Photoshop

Why do I like this photograph? I have been putting subjects in the center of my photographs more and more lately. They say that “center is dead.” I like the center because you know exactly what the subject of the photograph is. The color orange also stands out against the green and purple. And the shallow depth of field makes the photograph seem more like an abstract painting that anything else.

And why is flower photography cliche? Probably because it is hard to take a bad photograph of a beautiful subject. Much like photographing an attractive model or a cool sports car – the subject itself is just amazing enough that even if you screw things up the images is probably still decent.

And flower photography won’t sell a portfolio to a client. Rarely are people who want portraits or commercial photography looking at flower photography to find their photographers.

So, I photograph flowers for my own enjoyment.

I photographed this Hasselblad with my tiny Canon Elan 7 film camera - Fuji 160s Pro

As usually I am a fan of the shallow depth of field and I focused on the front of the Hasselblad lens. The camera was set to a timer so I could hold a diffusion panel next to the subject – there was some harsh sunlight and strong shadow patterns on the camera. It wouldn’t be as attractive, hence I use the diffuser.

I keep these diffusers in my car’s trunk all the time. You never know when there might be need for an emergency photo shoot. And reflectors and diffusers are easy ways to carry an inexpensive lighting setup in the car. All I need are some assistants to hold them. And the nice thing is reflectors work with any camera system out there – even camera phones would benefit.

This photograph was created with Fuji 160s Pro film. I scanned it myself and did the color correction and removing of dust and scratches. I am waiting for a roll of film to get back from a photo lab. That might help decide if I keep scanning film myself. It takes a bit of time to scan film and edit the colors. I’ll admit – it can be a bit frustrating. Certainly makes me appreciate digital photography more.

My only chances to photograph food are at events and parties. Over the weekend we celebrated my sister’s birthday and the family brought mini chocolate cupcakes. They look amazing and I created this photograph. I know it is a good photograph cause it is making me hungry right now. That is the point of food photography.

My chance to practice food photography is usually at events and parties - since I don't often cook.

To create this photograph I am using my point-n-shoot camera, the Fuji X10. I am using an on camera flash that is bounced off of some windows and glass doors. Side and back light are the best for food I think.

Maybe I will buy some pastries and photograph the hell out of them this weekend. And then I will eat said pastries while I edit photos. Sounds like a fun time to me!