What a mess! One photographer takes pictures right after earthquake in Haiti and uploads them online, another photographer copies them and pretends they are his own. Press agency distributes those photos and sues first photographer.
Read whole story on Techdirt:
AFP Sues Photographer Whose Photographs It Used Without Permission Techdirt
Where do you go as photographer, what do you want to achieve? I still haven’t answered those questions to myself. I know that when I do my work will become much better. I am improving with every photoshoot but it’s not enough. I went onto the path of photographer too late in my life and I simply don’t have time to take regular steps. I dunno what was this all about.
I haven’t had any iPad visitors on my website yet but that time will come and I (along with many other photographers) have to decide what to do with Flash content. Apple is pushing towards usage of HTML5 but IE doesn’t support that yet. I fear there will never be consistency of advanced features of HTML implementation. If you want true cross-browser compatibility you have to stick with just basic features. Flash had solved compatibility issues because run-time was developed by a single company for multiple browsers while HTML implementation is in the hands of many browser makers.
Still playing with 16-35, some shots look quite funny:
Cross-processing is very simple in Capture NX. The general idea is to play with separate RGB color curves to get the look. Press Ctrl+L to open curves dialog and then adjust each color curve. Here is starting point for your experiments:
Nik Color Efex has quite a few presets for different cross-processing looks as well.
Posted under post-processingI stumbled upon these really interesting episodes about production and behind the scenes of the photo shoots for FQ and Sir magazines. The program hosts are Jeanne Beker and Michael King, they take you to many amazing locations, describe and show in details what goes into creation of successful fashion or beauty story. This program should be very interesting for any aspiring fashion photographer.
Posted under beauty photography, fashion photographyWhy in the age of digital super sharp and perfectly color reproduced images we look 30 years back for the look and feel of that era? We create eye popping photo inside the camera, then we blur it, desaturate it, wash out colors and coffee stain it so it looks like it’s been made in 70s with plastic pocket camera. Is it just nostalgia or true artistic expression?
No matter what, I like the look and feel of 60s-80s photographs. So let’s make your average snapshot look like it was taken with Polaroid camera. I will use Nikon Capture NX for this task since Photoshop is covered by too many writers already and I consider NX to be ultimate RAW processor for Nikon cameras. If you shoot RAW, Capture NX will allow you to do a lot of post-production done directly on RAW (.NEF) file. RAW file editing is non destructive so you can go later and modify your editing steps.
There are several elements that are essential for recreating specific photography type. Polaroid has square shape, washed out colors, possibly discoloration spots and quite heavy vignette. That’s quite a few items to take care of but it’s very easy process and you can even automate it.
First, let’s crop photo to square format. Select Crop tool by pressing C, choose Fixed Aspect Ratio and Custom in the tool dropdowns, then enter 1 x 1 in the ratio boxes. Now, drag cropping boundaries over the image and you’ll get perfectly square crop.
Next is vignette. Expand Camera & Lens Corrections panel and drag Vignette Control slider to the left until corners of the photo become darker but not too dark so it doesn’t look artificial but just like bad lens vignette.
Next is toning. I like to have reddish low contrast tint to my photos. Open Curves adjustment panel via Adjust/Light/Levels&Curves or by pressing Ctrl+L. Select Red channel by pressing Ctrl+1, grab bottom of red line and drag it up until photo gets that bleak red tone.
And that’s pretty much all. There is one more optional step. You might want to add some discoloration spot to the image to give it more of that beaten up look. Select Color Control Point tool (Ctrl+Shift+A) 
Now, place the point on your photo where you want discoloration to appear. Top slider controls affected area, the rest control color. Play with them to get the look you want. I find that Hue (H) or Warmth (W) work are usually good for this task.
That’s all folks. Here is small gallery of pseudo Polaroids. One last thing, do not sharpen them as Polaroids should have very soft look.
Model Ariana asked me to shoot some sexy fashion for the portfolio. It didn’t work out as fashion shoot; Ariana is just plain too sexy for fashion (not that I’m complaining 
. Anyway, here are few images from photo shoot. Everything was shot with either bare or 22” BD from Speedotron. I haven’t used Speedos for quite some time and didn’t figure out that power distribution thingy, it’s time to RTFM in case I have to use them again soon.
Androgynous women were always in focus of photographers. These days I see a lot of characters on the street and wonder what gender they actually are. Here I wanted to show the image transformation from genderless to sensual and feminine.
