Southern Exposure January 2010

SOUTHERN EXPOSURE SOUTHERN EXPOSURE online publication of seppa

JANUARY 2010

Suzette Allen

Creating Gallery Wraps

Rick Gibbons

SEPPA Folks

The Gift

Janel Pahl

cover art “Path Less Traveled” Jonathan Burton

from the editor

HappyNEW New Year HAPPY YEAR It’s difficult to believe that 2010 is here. It seems as though we were just ushering in a new millenium, and now, we are ten years into it.

My parents always warned, time will go faster the older you get.

They were right, I will have to admit.

As you enjoy the January issue of Southern Exposure magazine, you will see some new things.

Our new series, called Folks, from Rick Gibbons, will introduce you to the non-photographic side of different SEPPA members. Janel Pahl, a dear friend, joins Southern Exposure. She shares with you her journey of gracious, spiritual living through a continuing column which features her floral artwork.

She will be the convention opener for 2011.

Another dear friend, Suzette Allen, joins us with an in-depth instruction on gallery wraps.

Put your thinking caps on, there is a lot in this issue.

Some things only get better. The SEPPA commitment to quality education features our monthly columnists providing knowledge, in written form, that I dare say is the best in the nation. While reading, if there is a link mentioned, be sure to click on it. You will be re-directed to various links relating to the topic of discussion.

There is much to read, learn and join in. To each of you, a prosperous and joyful new year.

Doug Peninger

Editor SEPPA 1st Vice-President ncdoug01@triadbiz.rr.com

the Pages SOUTHERN EXPOSURE january 2010

Learn

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Janet Boschker

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Victoria Kelly

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Children: Sitting Up Get ZAPD!!!

Janel Pahl

The Gift: Part One

SUZETTE ALLEN

Latest Rage: Gallery Wraps

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Rick Gibbons

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Mary Fisk-Taylor

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John Woodward

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Folks: Katie Jiminez

Social Media Madness Food, Glorious Food

Cheri MacCallum

Painting a Portrait: Part two

Kevin Newsome

Color Explosion

Attend 2

SEPPA 2011

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East CoAst School

15

PPNC Convention

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PPSC Convention

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Imaging usa

37

Maryland Convention

Shop 1

“Hey Baby, wanna make an orange crush?”

by Kevin Jiminez

Showcase

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White House Custom Color

21

Millers

28

Pro Photo

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academy

40

CCI Lab

eb

bog

Board of Governors

Executive Board

Chairman of the Board Kevin Newsome kevin@newsomesstudio.com

Delaware

*** Peggy Parkinson

President

Mary Alice Ross maryaliceross@gmail.com

District of Columbia

1st Vice-President

Doug Peninger ncdoug01@triadbiz.rr.com

Florida

2nd Vice-President George Singleton george.singleton6@verizon.net

***Cherilyn Nocera Terri Crownover

Georgia

***LaRita Hulsey Sherri Noftsinger

Secretary/Treasurer Anthony Rumley anthony@anthonyrumley.com Print Exhibition Chair Randy McNeilly

randy@mcneillyphotography.com

Executive Director Thomas McCollum seppa@bellsouth.net

Maryland

***John Stein David Corry

Mississippi/Alabama

Southern Exposure

***Gill Brady Mary Lee Blakenship

Southern Exposure magazine is an online publication of SEPPA and is published monthly.

North Carolina

***Rex Truell Janet Boschker

Deadlines

South Carolina

***Wilber Jeffcoat Jimmy Wood

Article & Ad Submission 5th of each month Proofs 20th of each month On-Line Publication 1st of each month

SEPPA 2712 Marcia Drive Lawrenceville, GA 30044 888-272-3711 www.4seppa.com

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Joe Tessmer

Tennessee

***Jan Wilson Barbara White

Virginia

Robert Holman ***state presidents representative

As your state president and SEPPA representative changes, please inform Tom McCollum, so we may update our records.

SEPPA state links

Additional information of state events within the SEPPA District can be found using the state links below. Please view their websites by clicking on the web address and you will be re-directed.

DELAWARE

mississippi/alabama

www.delawarephotographers.com

www.ppma.net

District of Columbia www.ppsgw.org

Florida www.fpponline.org

north carolina www.ppofnc.com

south carolina www.ppofsc.com

georgia

tennessee

www.gppa.com

www.tnppa.com

Maryland

virginia

www.marylandppa.com

www.vppa.org

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Janet Boschker

Working with

Children…

Sitting Up

Okay. In our journey of the first year in a child’s life, we have been talking about how to handle young babies that can’t sit up and really “do” anything. Hopefully you have gotten some ideas on how to expand your repertoire and are having a good time with 0-6 month old children.

The next time I want to see a child in my studio is when they are sitting up.

What does this mean? NOT barely sitting up, I mean, REALLY sitting up unassisted, reaching for things, pulling up, crawling. The reason for this: I want to be able to document the stages of the first year of development with a good variety of “poses”. There must be enough difference from the first session that again, the parents just can’t resist buying A LOT. This is the basis for my baby plan that I have called “A Year in the Life”. Stage one: flirting. Stage two: sitting, reaching, crawling. Stage three: standing, walking, running.

For each session I allow one and a half hours – yes that is a lot of time, but remember: the child is in control, take your time, be aware of their needs, go at their pace, be ready at all times. Another important point – there is no need for a lot of noise in the room. We are not a high volume studio with everyone jumping around behind the camera trying for a big smile. Smiles are important, but just as important is the ability to pull out sweet looks, serious looks, inquisitive looks that parents do not have a clue how to get and are even less aware of where the child should be looking. The baby controls how long you get to work with them, but it is my belief that the photographer must be in control of getting the expression.

I rarely allow the parents to have an active participation in getting expression – they have been trained at the first session and trust that I know how to get what I want .

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By using a cable release I can come away from the camera after I have composed the image and the interaction begins.

I work mainly with the camera on a tripod at this age to give me the freedom to move around and interact with the child.

I will change the camera angle as the child moves around for variety in the final images. Speaking of cameras, I am a Canon shooter and love working with the 70-200 2.8 lens – it focuses fast and accurately and I love the shallow depth of field I get working at 2.8 or 3.5. The camera is far enough away from the child so it’s not scary and the range of the zoom allows for easy tight shots.

At this age I will begin with a classic baby pose seated and try for a variety of expressions. Be aware not to have the child’s feet pointed straight toward the camera or the legs will be foreshortened. This is the first session I will allow clothing and I will let the parents straighten it on occasion, but continual fussing and straightening will lead to a guaranteed meltdown.

If the child is very active and begins to crawl, I simply try to capture that while it is happening. Sometimes over and over until I’m sure I’ve got it. Then I will introduce a small prop that I feel will not be offensive to the image, say, a large marble (too big to be swallowed) or a tiny book (find them at the Hallmark Store). This usually acts as a distraction and the child will stop and look at it, examine it, do all sorts of wonderful things as they discover what it is – you , of course are snapping away, cha-ching, cha-ching! I never ask parents to bring toys their child loves. Why? First because the child is already familiar (”oh, this is good to chew on” or “oh, dad taught me to throw that”) and second, not only is it a bright and garish object, waving it in front of the child is like teasing them when they can have it immediately at home.

If this becomes oh-so-boring to the child, I will simply turn them so they are facing the background which almost always results in an irresistible peek and over-the-shoulder grin.

Another great new thing to introduce is a small chest or stool that is just tall enough for them to stand and hold onto. They are always so proud of their accomplishment!

So, to wrap up 7-9 months, we should have captured classic “baby sitting up,” reaching for a small unoffensive toy that they are not familiar with, over-the-shoulder grin, crawling and pulling up.

contact CONTACT Janet Boschker www.northlightphotography.com jbnlight@aol.com 7

Victoria Kelly

Electrify Your Workflow: The holiday decorations are down, the last notes of Auld Lang Syne are a distant memory and you’ve got a new list of resolutions firmly tacked onto your note board which looks something like this:

My Resolutions for 2010 Retool my digital workflow!

Save time on each order. (See number 1.)

Have a life. (See number 1.)

Every photographer I know is passionate about his workflow...it’s born of trial and error, suggestions from others and, plainly and simply, what works best for each individual studio.

If you’re looking to maximize your workflow in 2010, let me give you a few numbers to ponder while you’re sipping your hot cocoa: If you process 20 orders per week and save 4.5 minutes per order you’ve banked 90 minutes in those 7 days...multiply that by 52 weeks and you’ve saved 78 hours over the course of year. That’s almost 2 weeks!

I want to introduce you to StudioZAP...tools for photographers that will assist you in maximizing your workflow and improving your efficiency. Now, here’s the disclaimer: every single function in the ZAP toolkit can be performed manually in Photoshop. You may be asking yourself why you should invest more money for a Photoshop plugin during the traditionally slow time of January so I’m going to remind you about that 2 weeks I mentioned in the last paragraph.

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get ZAPD!

The StudioZap tools have 4 components: Proofs and Prints, GuideWizard, Eazy Mats, Albums and Collages.

The Guide Wizard is pretty straightforward: it allows you to create new documents with precisely-positioned guides, or add them to an existing document. You can save your favorite settings as presets (such as a 16x20 with guides at 50% both vertically and horizontally) but the coolest thing is the “splits” mode where you can divide up any document (or even a region highlighted by a selection rectangle) into many perfectly-spaced sections. It’s great for creating complex layouts that you can then auto-populate with Proofs and Prints.

Eazy Mats is just, well, easy.

To add a “virtual” mat to an image, run Eazy Mats and choose from lots of mat textures and different core colors and thicknesses to create a custom, one-of-a-kind mat in just a short amount of time. The end result is very realistic, especially when framed.

The final component is Albums and Collages, which aids in creating free-form collages or simple album pages. One of the neatest tools, though, is “insert image”... it can be used to manually put an image in any Proofs and Prints template one at a time, or, if you don’t have a template, you can just drag out a selection with the marquee tool and “insert image” will automatically resize, crop and then insert whatever image is highlighted in Bridge to match the area you selected! (Now, is that a time saver or what???)

The StudioZAP website even has a user’s library that contains templates and setups contributed by photographers that can be downloaded and customized for your needs.

I’m so dedicated to these tools that I have them installed on both of my Macs and I use them every day.

Proofs and Prints gives you the capability of au-

tomatically populating any template that you design right in Photoshop including third-party templates. Templates can be made “orientation aware”, so you can add things like borders that work for both vertical and horizontal images. You can also add image filenames by just creating a text layer named “Filename”! It runs as a batch job against an entire folder or against specific images selected in Bridge. I use a template I designed with my VK logo for wedding proof books, images I put on Facebook and any images I load online for clients to review for purchase.

AND, just to brighten those gray January days, StudioZAP is offering a code to use when making your purchase to save you 20% off the regular price. Just enter “SEPPA2010” into the code field when doing the checkout thing to calculate your discount.

In the end, it’s all about being as efficient as possible. And isn’t that a great way to start a new year?

Visit the StudioZAP website at www.studiozap.com and check out the tools. The time you’ll save will go straight to your bottom line and you just might find yourself skipping all the way to the bank.

contact CONTACT

Victoria Kelly vkelly@victoriakellyphotography.com www.victoriakellyphotography.com

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White House Custom Colour, Your Professional Photographic and Press Printing Partner

Photographic Prints

Gallery Wraps

Color consistency and quality make WHCC the choice for many professional photographers. We offer photographic prints on Kodak Endura professional papers in lustre, glossy, and metallic in a variety of sizes from wallets to 30x40 and larger.

Fine art and photographic Gallery Wraps are available in three different paper options, three protective laminates, two depths and custom sizing. Orders include free UPS ground shipping and typically ship in two days.

Press Printed Cards

Press Printed Cards are available in 4x5.5, 5x5 and 5x7 sizes as folded and flat styles as well as 5x7 Wide Format, 5x5 Trifold and 4x5.5 Accordion. Cards come in quantities as low as 25, include envelopes, and are offered in five papers.

Press Printed Books WHCC Press Printed Books are unmatched in print quality, craftsmanship, and turnaround with most books shipping the next day! Books are available in nine sizes with eight cover options including a custom metallic photographic cover. Inside pages are printed on a magazine style text weight or lay flat hinged paper in standard or pearl.

White House Custom Colour is a full service, professional photographic lab and press printer. In addition to the showcased products, we offer a full line of products and services to make a positive impact on your goals for continued success in building your photographic business. For more information visit our website, www.whcc.com Visit pro.whcc.com/go/Start today to open your WHCC account.

Janel Pahl

This is the first, of a series, from Janel Pahl, as she takes you on her life-long journey.

Janel will be the opening day speaker for the 2011 convention in Athens.

the

GIFT With God’s ultimate wisdom and love, two souls were chosen to be given to each other. The mother, Ruth, was given a girl child, Janel, in 1951. God instilled in Ruth all of the gifts that He wanted shared with Janel and in return, He put into Janel’s heart such love for her mother that these gifts easily penetrated her being. Ruth would teach her child about the earth and all of its beauty. She would gently show her of love, sacrifice and ultimately the greatest gift of all and that was the giving of her gifts to others.

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Receiving the Gift “Your hole needs to be dug just a little bit bigger honey” Ruth explained. With her trowel, she expertly dug a hole just the right size for the bulb. “Now we put the bone meal into the hole so the bulb has food to eat while it waits to grow. It’s like making a little nest for it.” Janel plunged her hand into the white powder and delighted in the contrast of the whiteness against the black dirt. Carefully she placed the bulb into the nest and covered it with dirt. The wait was much too long.

Janel was impatient and wanted the flower to bloom immediately. Ruth gently spoke, “You’re just going to have to wait.

The bulb needs to rest and absorb all of the good things from the earth. That way it will be the most beautiful flower it can possibly be.”

A gift in an artist’s sense, is a thing that we cannot receive or buy on our own. It is bestowed upon us. Inspiration could also be recognized as a gift. As an artist works, an idea pops into her head. Until that point, the artist does not feel exhilarated nor does the work seem authentic. An excitement fills her chest; the inspiration is not words, but a feeling of an image inside of her. At that point this gratuitous element has appeared, so that along with any true creation comes the sense that “I” the artist, did not make this work. “Not I, not I, but the wind that blows through me,” says D.H. Lawrence. The gift to create art through photography can elude many, myself included, and it isn’t until we are ready as individuals, do we receive that inspiring wind that blows through us.

Photography, or vivid impressions, is rarely shared by only one person, unless they are of course only in one’s mind. It is a gift given to the photographer, as well as the image created as a gift for others to enjoy. The journey to becoming a photographer has many ups and downs and only with good and bad, can the artist truly become stylized. In my journey, my first years of photography were only of receiving the gift.

It has only been through much learning, experimenting and perseverance that I have come to know that the greater gift is in the giving.

My first experience with a camera was in my early twenties when my sister gave me a 35-mm Minolta. I remember a day when out in the mountains, with my camera, I came upon a rather dark quiet pond. It was in the fall and a bright yellow aspen leaf had fallen and caught itself on a twig jutting out of the water. Only its tip gently touched the dark water. I snapped the picture, not knowing anything of F-stops and apertures. The print that came back was pure magic to me.

Never had I seen a more beautiful image. I am only sorry that today I do not still have the photograph.

Receiving the Gift continues in February.

contact CONTACT

Janel Pahl janelpahl@aol.com www.janelpahl.com

Suzette Allen The Latest Rage

Gallery Wraps Gallery wraps are the hottest boutique item on our portrait price list and here is how to make one perfectly with an unlikely file! So many times we don’t shoot loose enough for the extra image that wraps around the frame….time for some creative photoshopping and super results!

In this image, the original was a vertical, cropped pretty tight! I also really wanted to show the flowers in the foreground and the light coming through the tree branches in the background. (see Fig 02) The client wanted a 24x24, so I needed to manufacture the extra image area to both sides, just to make a square, plus I needed even more image to wrap. I wanted it to continue the image around the edges even though I didn’t shoot it that loose or as a square. This technique works brilliantly!

Fig 01

Gallery Wraps

Use Part One of this technique to crop and place every gallery wrap perfectly, and then use the Part Two (stretching/history technique) to stre-e-e-tch a bit and wrap that image all the way around without piecing or cloning!

I use Color Inc for my Canvas Gallery Wraps and they are simply FAB! I have been showing, and therefore, selling more of these and they are beautiful!

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Fig 02

Part 1 Part 1

Cropping /Placing the Image and Edges 1) Flatten your file, and double click on the background layer to change to layer 0 so it is not a background (this is vital). (If you might need to move elements around, don’t flatten, but DO change the name of the background. )

2) With the crop tool, set your size with no resolution and drag your crop to show exactly what you want to show on the FACE of the Gallery Wrap. [If it is not big enough, like in this image, let go of the crop at the edge, then click and drag off the corner to make it bigger. Hit CTRL/CMD+0 to show the handles and place where you want.] (see Fig 03) After you draw the crop, but before you hit enter, check the radio button on the option bar to Hide instead of Delete. (see Fig 04) This will only hide the part you crop instead of delete it! (cool, eh?) (this only works if you have no ‘background ‘!)

Fig 03

Fig 04

4) Drag your window corner out to show the grey pasteboard around the doc. Click (ctrl/cmd+R) to show the rulers. Drag a guide to each edge of the image to show where the image will wrap to the sides. (see Fig 05)

Fig 05

4) Now go to Image>Canvas Size and click the Relative button so you have zeros showing—enter 4 inches on each. (see Fig 06) This adds 2 inches to all sides to wrap around the frame. It will expand the canvas to the larger wrappable size and ta-da!! The cropped off parts are still there—ready to wrap around. Wherever they are not, we can do a little stretching to fit. (see Fig 07) 5) If your image fills the space, you are good to go and you can flatten and save and send off to the lab for printing!

When you add your signature, make sure to put it within the guides you drew to make sure it looks good on the face, not bent over an edge.

Fig 06

Part 2

Fig 07

Part 2

Stretching an Image to Fill the Wrap Areas Now that you know how big your image needs to be, you can stretch the image to fill the areas using the Uncropping Technique. http://www.shootsmarter.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=76&acat=15 Simply select an area at least twice the width of the amount to stretch, and transform to fill! But what happens when it is too close to people, body parts and things that cannot be distorted? HA!—this is where the magic of snapshots and history comes in! Let’s go thru this slowly… you will love this!

1) Right now, before you stretch anything, make a snapshot on the history palette and name it “B4 stretch”. Move the history marker to it by clicking in the tiny box to the left. Now you are set up to fix any unwanted stretches. (see Fig 08)

Fig 08 18

2) Use the marquee tool with NO FEATHER, and select the side of the image to stretch, making sure the section selected is all on the image area and at least TWICE the width of the stretch area needed. Don’t worry if you get knees or elbows or hands. (see Fig 09)

Fig 09 3) Transform with CTRL/CMD+T and pull the middle handle toward the blank area (not a corner) and don’t hold shift like you normally would. Stretch out to meet the edge of the doc, but no further. Hit Enter and Ctrl/Cmd D to deselect. (see Fig 10)

Fig 10

4) As you can see in this image, the knee/hand/arm area is distorted. Now you can use your History Brush at 100% opacity, normal mode, and paint back in the knee/hand area. (it is already set up!) Just carefully paint back the distortion. (see Fig 11) Amazing, huh? When you put the body parts back, you may see some holes, (like where his elbow was) and you will most likely see some repeating patterns around that area. (see Fig 12)

Fig 11

Fig 12 19

Use the clone tool to randomize it and make the repeats not show and fill in holes in the image if needed. (see Fig 13) 5) Now go to the other side or sides and do the same. Each time, when you paint with history it will refer back to the snapshot “B4 stretch” and restore the normal look. If your history brush gives you the universal “NO WAY” symbol, it is probably because you forgot to move the history marker to the new snapshot. If it is still on the original snapshot (before cropping), your history will not work.

In the end, you will have a fully extended image, ready to make a gallery wrap and no guessing on what shows and where to put your signature! Use the guides to know what parts wrap and where to place elements! (see Fig 14)

Fig 14 I think that “wraps up” this month’s Smarticle ! Stay tuned for my new Gallery Wrap Templates for image composites!

Very popular and easy as pie! They will be released this summer, just in time for fall family sessions!

Fig 13

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Happy, happy photoshopping!

Suzette

Rick Gibbons

FOLKS folks

Let Them

Eat Cake

Legend holds that Marie Antoinette, wife of Louis XVI of France,

was so removed from the needs of the masses and ignorant of the poverty so widespread before the French revolution that she made a flippant comment when told that her subjects were without even the bare essentials like bread, and so decreed the perfect solution: “Let them eat cake!” No doubt everyday life at Versailles was a little disconnected from the rest of the country. In fact, you might say Marie was so poorly in tune with the common folk of 1793 that she lost her head.

Fast-forward to Martinez, Georgia, a suburb of Augusta, and a metropolitan area of about 300,000. OUR modern day cake queen, Katie Jiminez, happily echos the sentiments of Marie Antoinette when she says: “Let them eat cream cheese pound cake!”, her signature product and most requested flavor. She sometimes mixes it up with a strawberry or chocolate swirl or the occasional red velvet cake, but she usually stays true to what she does best. Just like in the wedding photography world, brides want the spontaneous and trendy while moms want the traditional. And just like the majority of SEPPA portrait and wedding photographers who can spot a Hanson Fong bridal portrait from a mile away, anyone in the Augusta area familiar with wedding cakes, knows a Katie Jiminez cake right away.

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Katie baked her first cakes in high school for friends and family, experimenting with flavors and designs. Not until she met her husband Kevin and he began photographing weddings did it occur to her at one of the first receptions: “I can do that!” The whole thing snowballed with three cakes the first year, nine the next, 15 the next year, then 25, 53, and 75 the following years. Word of mouth advertising was all she relied upon at first, but a few bridal shows and magazine print ads later, she is now turning down commissions for cakes she just doesn’t have time to do. If it’s a style that someone in her area is known for, Katie will refer that client to them, knowing that to be successful and happy, you have to know which business to graciously decline. Kinda’ like the time she was asked to do a female torso for a party. Katie usually sticks to the timeless, traditional, and classic designs. But she also watches the trends and ably duplicates some of her favorite designs seen on TV shows like Food Network’s Ace of Cakes.

The largest cake to date was seven tiers, but the tallest was about 10 feet, requiring her to stand in a chair to assemble the last layers. The most unique might have been the hand-carved ’67 Mustang groom’s cake, but most of the really unusual designs require so much time that the average client shies away from the cost. Cake pricing is based on size and complexity with the range somewhere between $3 to $7 per slice. For cream cheese pound cake art, that’s a bargain at any price. Even Marie would agree.

Katie is pictured here, with her husband Kevin.

This image was created at Imaging USA in Austin, TX, when Kevin was receiving his Photographer of the Year award, silver level.

contact CONTACT

You may contact Katie Jiminez at: ktjiminez@aol.com or call 706-854-8885 to contact Rick Gibbons with a nominee for features in your area rickg@triadbiz.rr.com or call 336-883-7104 23

Mary Fisk-Taylor

Social Media Marketing

MADNESS!!!!

Are you as confused and overwhelmed as I am with Social Media Marketing?

All of the BUZZ words and websites and craziness have made me feel both overwhelmed and ancient! I know how necessary and beneficial these vehicles can be for me and my company but gosh, some days it just seems like one more thing to do on a VERY long list.

So, about a month ago I decided that I would not let facebook, blogs or Twitter beat me. I would prevail, I would be triumphant and I would figure all of this stuff out and make it work. I met with a local business owner that had been using several of these resources quite effectively and asked her to help me understand and walk me through some of the basics. From that day on, little by little I was able to come to not understand these scary viral marketing things but embrace them and finally rely on them for low cost and effective marketing tools. Below is some VERY basic information about Twitter, facebook and blogs and how they have benefited our studios. I hope that this information will benefit you and your business as much as it has helped mine.

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timeline Social Media Timeline

I started tweeting in September of 2009. I wanted to get connected to keep up with the competition and build relationships with current/future customers. I realized very quickly that this was a VERY low cost way to get my studio name out into the community and advertise specials, products and services.

I have used facebook personally for several years but started business facebook pages for both of my studios. This has been a great way to contact potential clients, especially brides and high school seniors. I post Animoto videos, small images with my logo on it, upcoming specials and promotions and videos.

I have literally thousands of followers on both pages and my clients love to follow our studio and share it with their friends and family.

FACEBOOK As I mentioned I do have both a personal profile and a business profile. I make sure to keep these separate. I like to stay consistent and authentic to my business page however keep it exciting and interesting by updating it daily with photos, videos or Animoto slideshows. This keeps my clients interested and many will log in each day to see what is going on at the studio. Quite often we will advertise quick facebook special that is only good for our followers and requires an immediate call to action. This creates a ton of buzz and excitement.

I also like to include recommendations from local vendors and testimonials from our clients. These success stories add another dimension and dynamic to the page that makes it an excellent marketing vehicle. My biggest success with facebook has been high school seniors. We are already advertising for 2011 High School Senior models and have booked many sessions. This is great for us; we normally would not be booking these so early and by securing our models so soon we will have more time for them to market for us.

TWITTER Twitter has been a little tougher for me to love, but I am getting there. Again, I tweet personally separate from my studios, I do not need my clients listening to me complain about my teenagers! When choosing your Twitter handle make sure that it is simple and more importantly relates to your business. I simply use @hayesandfisk or @reallifestudios for my studio handles. I also try to include “RVA” in most of my posts which attaches me to my local groups, business, etc.

Make sure you know your local association handle so that you too can include it when you are tweeting. I try to interact on Twitter as if I were in a physical group verses a viral community. This allows me to form relationships more naturally and as a result my presence has grown organically.

blogging BLOGGING

A blog is an extension of yourself personally and an extension of your business professionally. Use blogs to showcase your products, upcoming events and promotions. Let your blog share the experiences and happenings in your business.

Blogging is a great outlet to connect with your customers and brand yourself as an expert for your niche in your community.

I believe that blogging can both build customer loyalty and increase your client base through interesting posts and stories.

For example, blogging about last week’s wedding will not only to endear your client to you but catch a potential brides’ eye because of the story and images you are sharing. This has been very successful for us and I know that we have booked several weddings from our blog. Blogging is also a great tool when working with mommies and newborns. My clients love for us to share their new baby images and tell their stories.

When they share these entries with friends and family we are twice as likely to create new contacts and potential clients.

impact IMPACT

Social media is an extension of your website and most importantly your brand. Make sure that everything you do represents your business and name brand well. Just because it is “viral” does not mean it can be sloppy, have typos, be inappropriate, etc. Make sure to maintain the consistency and integrity of your business just like you would with printed materials, etc. You can set up auto-publishing between your Blog, facebook and Twitter to save time and promote simplicity. This cross-pollination between platforms will help you grow your voice, business and bottom line. Social media has a very low financial investment but can yield a high return if implemented correctly. I do believe that my endeavor into Social Media Marketing will result in big rewards for my studios and brand. I look forward to the future and all of the possibilities before me.

contact CONTACT Mary Fisk Taylor mary@hayesandfisk.com 1-804-740-9307 Twitter @maryfisktaylor facebook - maryfisktaylor

John Woodward

FOOD

FOOD glorious

FOOD In small product photography,

the main source of light is generally above the product.

I n the case of food photography, the softbox is usually slightly behind the subject as well. The softbox selected (as in this illustration)) should be about twice the length and width of the product being photographed. This will allow the side walls of the soft box to illuminate the sides of the subject. The placement of small reflecting mirrors or cards as well as cards which “gobo� or block the light will complete the illumination process. In a case by case effort, more lights or fewer lights may be necessary for accents or detail lighting. This illustration is representative of the starting point used by most photographers. It is important in product and food photography to remember the size that the finished illustration will be.

If the photo is to be reproduced very small, you should avoid putting too many objects in the photo. As your photo size is reduced, the main subject should remain well-lit and obvious. It is important to light for, and use, the specularity or reflective properties of the food. Gravies and glazes as well as liquids in any form are very effective.

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yummy John Woodward has graciously given permission to the editor of Southern Exposure to publish portions of his Mastering the Light teaching DVD. This and other articles are re-printed with permission from the author.

The image to the left was photographed using a standard telephoto lens in order to render the subject without any wide angle lens distortion and allow for depth to the background.

The images below show the studio setup and the finished result. The basic shot is supposed to be the ‘trinity”…three of each item. Oops…we made a mistake and used one of the red onions in the chili, substituting a red pepper to keep the theme of threes. Fortunately, this was for illustration purposes and not for a client. As it turned out it was also our lunch. When you experiment with food styling it doesn’t hurt to make dishes you like.

Notice the strong light source from behind and right of the food plate. This allowed the modeling of the wine bottle’s label while cross-lighting created the texture in the food. Note the specular reflections on the grapes as well. The photo below was taken with a wide angle lens in order to give the menu dominance. The lighting is focused from above and right of the menu. It is feathered towards the fruit in the background. By placing the light above, I have also cross- lit the burlap material and accented its texture as well as the texture of the silver leaf clip. This was a single light on location during an event.

contact CONTACT You may contact John Woodward at: woodward2@aol.com or become his friend on Facebook 27

Cheri MacCallum

Start to Finish Creating a Painting

Part Two

In last month’s issue we began the portrait painting with image enhancement in Photoshop. In this issue we will be painting this gentleman’s portrait that was a recent commission photographed by professional photographer Kevin Jordan.

Please refer to the December issue of Southern Exposure to see part one.

Every artist has a different approach to painting a portrait and I’m going to share with you a brief step by step how I go through my process of creating an oil portrait. I’ll be working in Painter 10 but this will work the same way from versions 9 to 11.

In Corel Painter I open the image and the very first thing I do is go to file/clone. (images 01 and 02). The reasons are very important. First, I don’t want to paint on the original image so I create a second image, a clone, of the original enhanced image. Second, later in the painting if I have really messed things up, I can clone back to the enhanced image. Since Painter doesn’t have a history like Photoshop does, this kind of serves as our history to go back to. Third, in the first part of the painting, I will be cloning color and density to create our “under painting”. In a traditional painted piece, many artists will start with an under painting where they first only paint blocks of color and density. The details slowly get built up throughout the rest of the process until the desired amount of detail has been reached.

image 01

image 02 30

After I clone the image, I’m going to go to file/save as and re-name it “paint” (images 03 and 04). Just a note…Be sure you save the file in the correct folder.

Painter has sneaky a habit of going to the last folder you saved to, and might not be the one you are in now. I have two images open, the “enhanced” image and the “paint” image.

save to correct file

image 03

image 04

My next step is to hide my enhanced image. With two or more images open, it’s very easy to accidentally start painting on the other image with a wayward brush stroke. To avoid this, I make sure the “paint” image is activated and I click “control M” on the keyboard. This puts a gray shield between the image I’m working on and the enhanced image (image 05). Next I will go to file/clone source (image 06). This will show all the images you have open plus a “current pattern” which is the default. I make sure the check is by the “enhanced” image.

enhanced image image 05

Cheri MacCallum is the owner of Art by Cheri where she specializes in the painting, fine art printing and finishing of commisioned portraits for professional photographers. Cheri is a regular speaker and workshop instructor on “Painting Portraits in a Digital World.” image 06 31

We’re almost ready to paint!! On the color wheel (upper right corner image 07), I make sure that the little rubber stamp on the bottom left corner is clicked. This means I’m cloning FROM whatever our clone source is, which is the “enhanced” image. I find the paintbrush in the top left on the tool palette which looks very similar to the tool palette in Photoshop. Next I go get the brush I want to use first. The brushes are located in the top bar on the far right. The first dropdown is the brush categories such as oils, pastels etc. The second dropdown are the variants of each category. I will be using Den’s Oil Brushes/oil funky chunky first. Note, Den’s oil brushes do not come with Painter, but since this is an actual commission, I will be using it here. You can get it from various Painter forums and in some artists instructional dvds. There are several brushes that are similar that do come in Painter as another option. The rest of the brushes in this article do come with Painter. With varying brush sizes and opacity of around 50, I begin painting, basically wiping out any detail (images 07 and 08). It will look like a total mess at first, but out of this mess will emerge the portrait.

image 07

image 08

total mess image 09

The next step is to start bringing back some details. (image 09 and 10). To do this I will change brush categories to “cloners” (which is a set of brushes that automatically clone in different ways) I choose the variant “soft cloner”. This brush will just clone back the original detail, but not add any artistic stroke. Kind of like using the rubber stamp tool in Photoshop. I have the opacity set low to around 10 to very slowly clone back the detail. I don’t want to bring back all detail, just a little. When I’m happy with the amount of detail I’ve brought back I go back to Den’s oil brushes/ oil funky chunky.

I will start going over some of the detail areas with a smaller brush this time so that I keep the contrast of the detail area. If I use a bigger brush detail in areas like the light stripes in his dark coat (image 11) would be obliterated as would the hair (image 12). I don’t want to see the individual strands in the photographic image, just the “suggestion” of hair strands, and using a smaller brush helps there. I do this for all the “detail areas”.

Next I will use yet another brush to add some linear strokes in the hair (image 13). I go to Den’s oil brushes/oil brush luscious at around 50 opacity and add strokes to the hair in the direction the hair is moving. I move to the eyes with still another brush. I choose oil pastels/chunky oil pastel 10 with opacity around 20 (image 14). I use a very light hand and a small brush painting the eyes, brushing over the whites, lids, irises and lashes.

image 10

image 11 32

Color Accents At this point we are ready to add color accents. We will be using the color wheel with the rubber stamp clicked off. You will know when this happens because the color wheel becomes vibrant. We will be picking colors from the wheel to add our accents. Here’s how the color wheel works: The outside ring is the hue or color. The triangle is value and saturation of that color. Up and down inside the triangle is the value of that color. Up being lighter, down being darker. From side to side in the triangle is saturation of the color, left being less saturated and right being more, I want to add a little more warmth in the darker skin tones, I go back to Den’s oil brushes/oil funky chunky. While I have my brush, I hold down the alt key on the keyboard and my brush becomes a color picker just like in Photoshop. In the color wheel you see what you sampled (image 15). It’s red in the ring and in the middle of the triangle. I don’t want to change the color of the skin tone or make it darker or lighter, but I do want to saturate it. So I move the little dot in the triangle to the right just a little and add my strokes. I will do the same to the darker skin tones in his hands as well (image 16). I will take a separate sample for each area that I want to add an accent to. Even though different areas will look the same color and tone, chances are, they’re not. To follow through the warm feeling of the image I will add warm tones in the coat . When I take my color sample, the color is in the blues in the ring and close to the bottom of the triangle and far left in the triangle. Meaning it’s dark and desaturated. This time, I move the dot in the ring to the reds and move the dot in the triangle up and right just a little to lighten and saturate it more to add my accents (image 17). I follow the same steps to add warm tones in the background as well (image 18).

image 15 image 12

image 16

image 13

image 17

image 18

image 08 14 33

highlights

Now, to add some highlight accents in the hair (image 19), I go back to Den’s oil brushes/ oil brush luscious. I take a sample and leave the color alone (outside ring) and move the dot in the triangle straight up, to lighten it only. I will add a few accent strokes to a few of the highlights in the hair. I follow the same steps with the color picker and lighten the colors to add pop and sparkle to the highlights in the skin tones (image 20) with the Den’s oil brushes/oil funky chunky brush.

image 19

BLEND image 20

blend brush strokes

The next step is to do some blending of our brush strokes. I close out my “enhanced” image. All I have open now is the “painted” image. I clone that one and save it as Paint 02. I go back to file/clone source and make sure the check is by the “paint” image this time.

The brush I will use for my blending here is in the oil category. I go to oils/thick wet camel 10 (image 21). I set the opacity at around 25-30. This is a smooth bristly type brush and it’s great for smoothing down rough areas. Since I like the brushy, textured look of the Den’s brushes I don’t want to blend it all away. I lightly go over some of the areas till I have the look I want. How much blending you do depends a lot on personal preference and knowing that there’s a fine line between well blended and mush.

We finally have a finished oil portrait which we will print on giclee canvas and stretch for photographer Kevin Jordan and his client (image 22). A big thank you to Kevin Jordan for allowing me to use his image for these articles.

contact CONTACT Cheri MacCallum cheri@artbycheri.net 404-316-2622 www.artbycheri.net image 21 34

image 22 35

Kevin Newsome

a

Few Moments with…

Major news networks and magazines all have editorial features. CBS has Andy Rooney. Sure, he has his opinions, just like any of us. SEPPA is lucky to have our very own Kevin Newsome. Kevin is featured each month as he gives us his latest rant. Some things may hit home, some may be surprisingly poignant. When it’s all said and done, it’s just Kevin’s opinion and he thought he should share it. We, at Southern Exposure, hope you will enjoy this month’’s installment of “A Few Moments With...”. This month, Explosion of Color.

(Click on the title, Explosion of Color, and you will be linked to the video.)

Explosion ofof Color Explosion Color

Cover

Artist

Jonathan Burton began his photographic career in 1992, on a part-time basis, shortly after having his first child. The studio began simply as an outlet for his artistic aspirations.

Jonathan has been carrying a camera from the age of ten, and is mostly self-taught. The first successful step in his business was to join the Professional Photographers of North Carolina where he discovered a love for photographing people and portraiture as an art form. After attending PPNC’s East Coast School and several seminars, it was clear that this was the path he would choose for his life’s work. After three years operating part-time, Jonathan quit his full-time job as a carpenter and as a leap of faith, went full time.

Jonathan has been photographing scenic imagery, children, families, and weddings for 18 years. He has been honored with numerous Kodak Gallery Awards and Fuji Masterpiece Awards for his creative talent and exceptional photographic quality. He recently received a 2009 Gold Level Photographer of the Year Award from Professional Photographers of America. In 2009 he also achieved First Place in the Wedding Album Competition for Southeastern Professional Photographers Association. He has been awarded top honors in the Millers National Baby and Child Portrait Contest with an image titled, “Revenge of the Babysitter”. The portrait placed first in the humorous category out of over 10,000 entries coming from professional photographers located throughout the United States.

The studio has a broad client base covering the East Coast and is located in the western North Carolina Mountains in the quaint town of Boone. Jonathan is blessed with two wonderful children who continue to inspire him daily; Audrey, 18 and Patrick, 13.

“Path Less Traveled”

Note: Images chosen for the cover of Southern Exposure are first place or distinguished award winners from the annual affiliated judging.

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