Photoshop

New Tutorial Series!

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I am happy to announce the launch of the first video in the beginning of a series on composite photography! I am starting with the basic tools that you will need in Photoshop and in the studio, and then taking you all the way through an actual shoot that we'll turn into a composite. They'll be in bite size pieces that you can use independently, but you will also be able to watch them in order to learn each step of the process. 

Without further delay here is the first video on the pen tool and creating paths in Photoshop!

If you have any questions just shoot them over in the comment section, either here or on YouTube and I will do my best to get to them! These will be launching over the next couple of months, and our next video will talk about selections and refining masks. Stay tuned go be awesome!

Dragon Alliance

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Hello Everyone! I apologize for the gap in bloggin, it's been a crazy couple of months. In fact I am taking a break from retouching over 800 images just to write this :)

Recently my images for the Dragon Alliance Floatable sunglasses came out, and I wanted to give you a little behind the scenes look at how those were created. When the client came to me they wanted something that was epic and showed off the glasses, while implying that they floated (which they do and it's awesome!). We ended up shooting the glasses out of water so we could control the lighting and perspective more readily, and then shooting the water and glasses in the water separately to pull from for the final composite. All said and done this composite is well over 100 layers and was shot in the studio in pieces to create the exact shape and look that the client wanted.

Couple cool tricks for shooting this type of image in case you want to try something similar!

1. You can pick up a large fish tank at most pet stores for relatively cheap, no more than $50, so getting all the splashes and water images doesn't have to break the bank.

2. When you are making the splashes have your assistant use a squeegee on the inside of the tank, as they pull it across you get some great waves and the glass stays clean!

3. Make sure you light your background and the background is white! For these images we had a white seamless lit from behind to reduce any kind of lens flare.

4. Use Hi-speed flash or hi-speed sync. To really freeze water you need to have hi-speed flash (meaning the flash duration is short). You can look at the Elinchrom ELB 400 with HS heads or Action heads. The HS heads are hi-speed sync and the Action heads have a very short flash duration. I know there are other brands out there that can do this as well so start your research!

5. Plan! I've said it before and I'll say it again, Plan! Make sure you have a shot list for a project like this. You want to know what you are going to need in post production so you don't have to go back to the studio and do this huge set up more than once! Make sure you shoot WAY MORE than you think you'll need, I mean we're not shooting on film anymore :)

Alright, enough typing, let's look at the final images. Below is a simplified animation of how the file was made and the final images with the graphics from Dragon. You can also head over to their web page: www.dragonalliance.com to see it in real life :)

Until Next time...be awesome!

Dragon Alliance Final
Dragon Alliance Roadblock

Personal Project - The Dolls

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A while ago I did a personal project called "The Dolls Have Eyes". I had originally shown these on my old blog but that has been taken down so I wanted to put them up on the new page for you guys to see!

The idea was relatively simple, take pictures of dolls and morph them together with human features. What I wanted to see was if people could tell, if they knew they were looking at a doll with some real feature. It's my exploration of how a lot of what we see in media today isn't real at all, and if it seems to good to be perfect to be true it probably is! 

Hope you enjoy it, or you think it's creepy...either one :) Until next time, be awesome!

Re-Banding: Hydrogen Skyline

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You've heard of re-branding before...well this is kind of like that. A little white ago I sat down with the band Hydrogen Skyline (www.hydrogenskyline.com) and talked to them about creating a new image for their band. I wanted to share in this blog what came from that collaboration and a little behind the scenes at some of the composite work I did.

Before I get to the images I wanted to take a second to talk about collaboration and a couple of things to help you get started!

1. Bring something to the table - We literally sat around a table at a coffee shop when talking about this project and everyone brought their ideas to share. Don't be the person in a collaboration to show up to the table empty handed, bring ideas, bring good juju, bring something!

2. Be Flexible - Don't bring ideas that are not flexible to the table and be willing to have ideas shot down, especially to meet the needs of the client. We all think our ideas are the best ideas, it is an unfortunate truth that a lot of times they aren't...but that's why you collaborate, so if your ideas suck someone can help make them un-suck.

3. Do your homework - The other day I sat down to have a meeting with a potential client and they hadn't even looked at my website, they had just heard I was good. Not only was it insulting to me, but it was a waste of time because they didn't know what I specialized in. Before I met with the band I had looked at other band album covers, seen what was popular in their genre, and come up with ideas that would work for both of us...they had done the same. Don't be too cool for research and homework, you're clients will appreciate it!

Alright, enough tips...let's look at some pictures! Hang on for the last one it will show an animation of the composite.

Aaron_Anderson_Photo_Hydrogen_Skyline_Animation

Until next time, go collaborate with someone and BE AWESOME!