The Making of: TKO Punch with Go Shrimpin'

This was a shot that wasn’t planned at all but I love how it turned out. When I was at Joe’s Crab Shack, I went there purposely to create the Shark Bite shot. After I finished with that one, however, I decided to order another drink and some food. I picked the drink for two reasons, because it looked cool, and because it sounded good.

Once the order was placed in front of me though, I knew I had to take some photos of it. I arranged the food, the drink, and the silverware bucket so it would fit in a vertical frame. The exposure was already correct from the last drink shot but I still bracketed just in case.

Creating the shot was easy. The more involved part was the editing. I cropped it a little, took out something in the background that was distracting, brightened the drink’s colors, and removed a distracting reflection.

Looking back at it now that it’s finished, I realize that, yes, I could have done it better but I like how it turned out. I could have turned the camera to shoot it horizontally to get more of the food and drink but by doing it vertical, I took away any blank space there may have been. Also, I could have lit the drink with a flashlight like when I did the Shark Bite photo. It would have been an easier post processing job but it still turned out nice. The last change I could have made is to just photograph the drink without the food but I think by adding the food and the silverware to the photo, it brought more feeling and meaning to the photo. The drink is still the star as it’s so bright but there’s atmosphere as well.

The Making of: Candlelit Bottles

For this shot, I knew I wanted most of the light to come from the candles. My goal was to make a very moody shot. In order to achieve this look, I used continuous lights and bounced them off white foam boards. I had to place the lights pretty far away so as to not ruin the look I was going for.

For the set-up, the first thing I had to figure out was the positioning of the objects. I didn’t want to make it look too crowded but I also didn’t want it to look empty. Before I even set the lights up, I positioned them many different ways before I came up with the final one. The next step was to figure out the lighting. As I said above, I bounced the light off some boards and scooted them about 20 feet away from the subjects. I took some exposure test shots before I lit the candles. Then I had to take more exposure test shots because the light had changed slightly.

I bracketed my exposures as I took the photos and as I was doing that, the air conditioning unit decided to blow right onto the candles. I thought they were going to blow out but instead, the air was pushing smoke into the jugs. This both helped and hindered me. At first I didn’t want any smoke in them, but as it dissipated, I liked the effect. Therefore, I decided to not worry about it and picked the best photo from the brackets based on the overall look, not the smoke.

I like how the shot turned out. The only thing I would’ve done differently is brought the table forward a lot more so the background wouldn’t be lit up at all. Then it would have looked more moody and dark. 

The Making of: Bubbles

I have a friend with a cat named Bubbles. This cat was very shy the day I took this photo, making it a fun challenge. Without a pet’s trust, it’s real hard to capture its personality well. When I first walked into the house, the cat ran. I decided to sit on the couch and ignore him until he came out from behind the furniture. While I was waiting, I talked with the owner about random things and how he normally gets him out to come out. He said he hadn’t really socialized him and that’s why he was unsure of new people. So I continued to wait until I saw him poke his head out.

I had the camera in my hands and ready for him. I tried to get a few shots of him sticking his ears above the couch but he didn’t stay there long enough for the photos to be in focus. Because he saw me there, he went to hide in a different spot that time. He ran under an end table and glared at me. I did take photos of him like this but I didn’t keep them because they didn’t describe him.

Finally, he decided to go to a more comfortable spot on a shelf underneath a table. I found out his plan was to sunbathe on top of the table at some point and that was as close as he would get for a long time. I tried giving him treats, let him smell me, and eventually he let me pet him a little. He wouldn’t touch the treats but his face and body tension was easing away until he started purring. That’s when I got this photo. I love the way he positioned himself so the sun is lighting his face.  

The Making of: Takashi

Remember the photo of Mizuki the cat I talked about earlier? Takashi is her “brother”. Compared to his “sister”, Takashi is very hyper. Because of this, it was real hard to get him in focus in a lot of the shots I took of him. The owner said although he’s only a year old, he is usually more calm than when I was there. Maybe he was excited to meet me. Anyway, after taking many, many shots of the cats, Takashi finally calmed down to get this photo and a few others completely in focus. Most of the photos before this one were just too blurry and didn’t look good at all. I love how this photo says, “Can I go play now? Are you done taking pictures?”

To achieve this look, the background was a tannish wall with a tungsten lamp next to the wall for added light. The only other light was from outside. It was about 9am when I took it so the light from outside was strong and bright. I like using natural light on pets because it looks best with the colors and I don’t have to worry about a flash causing harsh-looking shadows or eye glow.

I didn’t do much to the photo in post but I did work on the eyes a little. As the cat wasn’t facing the light directly head-on, one of the eyes looked too dark so I lightened it by selecting it in Adobe Camera RAW. Since I changed that eye, I decided to brighten the blue on both of them as well. The only other thing I did was change the color balance a bit. The original photo was a little too red. I added some yellow, making the colors look more natural. I think my color balance on the camera was set on custom.

The Making of: Attention!

I love shooting all animals but one of my favorites has to be birds. Not only can they be real colorful and beautiful but they are also difficult to get great shots of. Usually when people take pictures of birds, the personality isn’t captured. Birds are very expressive but many people fail to realize just how much.

                  

On one of my days off from everything, I went to the Flamingo Hotel and Casino to photograph all the animals in the habitat. In the middle of it, there are large Macaw parrots. People are able to hold the birds and get their photo taken with them. Afterwards, they are able to buy the photos. When they weren’t busy, I hung around the birds and took a lot of photographs of them. Because it was so windy that day, the bird’s feathers were almost constantly fluffed up. This called for a higher shutter speed so the feathers wouldn’t lose their detail when they blurred out. It also made the birds look snuggly and cute, resulting in amazing photographs.

This shot of Tico was my favorite of maybe thirty shots I managed to get that turned out well. It really shows his personality off because he loves to scream and is a trouble maker, which makes him feisty. He’s always picking on the other birds and getting into things he shouldn’t. I think a person that doesn’t know him could tell these things by this photograph.

                  

I was there shooting for about two hours, waiting patiently for the birds to pose for me or do something cute and this shot made the wait worth it. When I shoot pets, there is no such thing as wasted time.

                  

When I edited the shot in post, I brightened the colors up just a bit by bringing the whites up and added contrast by bring the blacks up just a little. I didn’t need to play with the saturation at all because it was already so colorful.

The Making of: The Shark Bite

I wanted to do a location shot of a drink that I’ve had in the past. I was thinking of what types of drinks I could shoot and thought of the Shark Bite from Joe’s Crab Shack because it was so memorable. I still remember the first time I tried it. The waitress came out with a glass of blue liquid, then she yelled out something along the lines of “Everybody look out! There’s blood in the water!” She poured a shark-decorated vial of grenadine in all the while, making it look like there really is blood in the drink. Not only did it taste good, it was a fun drink to be served with.

                When I first got seated at the restaurant, I told the hostess that I was going to order something but I was mainly there for a photo shoot. She told the waitress, who readily agreed to help. While I was setting up, I asked the waitress if she had a flashlight I could borrow. She brought it to me before bringing the drink over, which helped me calculate the exposures a bit better. I also told her which drink I wanted and requested that she hold off on the grenadine pouring until I was ready. I took some test shots of the lighting with the flashlight behind and to the side of the drink, then added the shark vial to the shot and positioned it and the glass. After a few different angles of shots, I asked the waitress to very slowly pour the vial. She went a bit too fast at first but once she slowed down, the liquid was falling at a good flow. I took shots at different points.

                I ended up with three shots I liked and they turned out to be at all different times and colors. Because of this, I chose to make the shots into a fun triptych with labels.

The Making of: Mizuki B&W

This photo was taken during my second pet shoot in my portfolio building project. My client has two cats, Mizuki and Takashi. Mizuki is a beautiful long hair calico that loves posing for the camera. I already had a lot of great shots of her but I still had more time to fill. I asked the owner to go about her routines with her cats and to do stuff with them and pretend I wasn't there. At one point, she decided to trim the cat's nails. Takashi hates it so I didn't get any good photos of him but Mizuki just gave me the calmest face and sat there and acted like nothing was happening. I decided to take photos at different angles and the front one turned out the best. Her expression doesn't give any indication what's happening to her.

To edit the photo, I opened it in Adobe Camera RAW and barely changed the highlights, shadows, blacks, whites, and clarity. Then I opened it in Photoshop to convert it to black and white. I made a mask so the cat wasn't affected during the process. I used the pen tool then made a selection with a feather of two pixels. Then I selected the eyes to brighten them and make them pop a bit. The last thing I did was remove the bell from the cat's collar because it was a little distracting. I used a combination of the clone stamp and healing brush tools.

The Making of: The Macaw Experience

In my job as a Bird Handler and Photographer with Digiphoto, I get to play with birds all day. So I had the idea to make an ad for the Macaw Experience. The whole process essentially took three steps. I took photos of the birds, edited and arranged the photos in Photoshop, and then went back to take some photos of the various surroundings of one of the bird locations.

                On my day off, I went to take photos of my coworkers (i.e. the birds). I took photos each bird in different areas but decided to put them on a nearby bench one at a time. This gave me the best shots. It also helped afterward during editing since I would have had to cut out the perch from their feet or other various body parts. I used the same exposure for each bird so the photos would all match. I took mostly body shots in a side profile and decided to use those for the final pics.

                After I had all my photos picked out, I cut out the birds from their backgrounds. Then I moved them around the border of a black background in different ways to figure out which way looked the best. I had started out with a vertical layout but it wasn’t working so I chose the horizontal. Next, I added the words and logo to the middle and added drop shadows to the birds to make them pop. The black background wasn’t working so I went back to work and shot various scenes from the area and tried them all out on it. I chose the waterfall because we do shoots there and the colors really made the birds stand out. In total, I think the whole project took about hours to complete.

The Making of: Car Before and After

Car shoots are difficult and sunrise car shoots are even harder. For my car shot, I decided to try both. I have a coworker who wants to be a model so I asked her to be mine. She owns a nice looking car so I asked her to dress up like she’s a business woman going to work. She wore a black blazer with slacks, heels, a blouse, and a vest. She also did her makeup professional.

                  We arrived at the parking deck about twenty minutes before sunrise. While we waited for it to rise, I had her do a couple different poses and I did some test shots of the car and model positioning. I had the subjects placed in a specific spot so that many lines will come together and connect the piece. While it was rising, I realized I missed something when I did my location scouting. There was a huge building blocking the sun, therefore I couldn’t get the exact shot I wanted. Regardless, I kept shooting every few minutes just to see which light the shot looked best in post.

                 

                  When I viewed the photos to pick which one was the best overall, I ended up choosing two. One where the sky was too light and another where the sky was just the right tone of blue. In addition to adding a new sky to the first photo, I took away an ugly top of a building, cleaned up the ground a bit, removed a car, lightened the model a hint and fixed the windshield so the sun reflection wasn’t so distracting. I really like the results.

The Making of: Gummy Bear Cocktail

I got the idea for this shot while I was working on the Las Vegas strip. I had seen a few people walking around carrying drinks that had gummy bears in them. I love gummy candies so I made it my mission to seek out where they could be bought, buy one, and shoot it as a location shot. My plans failed, however as I couldn’t find the place. Because I wanted to shoot a drink, I decided to shoot my own creation in the studio.

I went to the grocery store to pick up the needed items and ingredients including the gummies, cherries, a lemon, sugar, toothpicks, and a glass. After I had all of that, I checked out my strobes, grabbed my camera, and headed to the studio. After we set the lights up, my assistant and I assembled the drink. He cut the lemon in half, then cut off a slice for the drink. Another piece was cut to a quarter and the juice was wiped around the edge of the glass. The sugar was poured in a ring and the juiced glass was dipped in the sugar. The gummies were thrown in the glass in a somewhat scattered order and water was added. I didn’t use vodka because both the alcohol and water are clear so they would be indistinguishable from each other in a photo.

Before the garnish was added, I set the glass on the table so I could find the right camera angle, exposure, and light positioning. Afterwards, I threw extra bears around the drink and only moved one of them later. Lastly, the garnish was set. I had to work quickly after that because the juice from the cherries was dripping down the glass and I didn’t want that in the photo.