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| courtesy: mabuhaycalgary.ca |
these fighters, these promoters, this industry... many years looking cowardly.
de jesus. still waiting. and out.
Mar 27, 2012
THE FIGHT ISN'T IN THE RING
here's a link to my latest article at mabuhay calgary - a column talking about the mega fight that is on, off, and then on, and then off again. the posturing is annoying, but what's more annoying is that instead of covering the event, i'm covering why it might not happen. to read it straight from the website, click here.
Mar 20, 2012
WINDOW TO INFINITY
from concept to production, the development of a commercial project is one of my favorite types of projects i get to work on. i am very lucky to know talented people who sometimes need my help in developing a part of their own creative work by enlisting my photo "expertise". throughout my blog, you have seen examples of various projects other than weddings, and as much as I enjoy working on weddings, these creatives really challenge me to think outside the box and find ways to use the tools at my disposal to make something work that may have not been there at first. today's blog features an exciting and challenging project that took a few weeks to develop: album artwork to match the personality and tastes of a very talented musician.
cam mcburney is an instrumental rock guitarist inspired by the greats like joe satriani and stevie ray vaughan. even without lyrics, his music tells various stories and is in its own way a personal diary of his thoughts, opinions and experiences both good and better. armed with a guitar, a computer and a unique understanding of songwriting assembly, cam has managed to self-produce albums that unfortunately not many people have heard of quite yet, but it is sort of like an undiscovered indy treasure that "people in the know" are very proud to be a part of.
cam approached me a few months ago while he was working on his third album and had a conceptual idea of what he was after for album artwork. the third album, titled "window to infinity" was to feature the human eye in all of its detail. the pupil, the iris, the eyelashes was to figure prominently on the artwork drawing direct parallels to the album's title.
in order to really get that close to the human eye and have access to the kind of detail we were looking for, it was clear that we had to attack this with a macro perspective. so i enlisted the help of a beautiful model (kaila - who has the most intensely hypnotizing blue eyes) to help us out while i hooked up the elinchrom lighting gear and slapped on my nikkor 105mm f/2.8 micro lens to make it happen. and after an hour of shooting and various lighting situations, we managed to get the following straight-out-of-camera images:
what did i tell you about her eyes? amazing eh?
on its own, these images were pretty good and with a little bit of clean up type quick edits (i.e. saturation, exposure and crop) we could have probably thrown in some text and made it work. but i thought it was missing a little something extra, something to really make this image really pop from a delicious steak to a savoury filet mignon.
so i tinkered a bit in photoshop...played with different tools, tried on different filters, changed hues and a combination of each. but anything i was trying wasn't really doing it for me. the sizzle wasn't there. so i left the computer for a while to think about it without staring at it. and then it hit me. it was so obvious, why didn't i see it at first? kaila's eyes, so blue - like giant watery pools of ocean that flowed in some sort of continuous motion without end.....kinda like infinity. WHAT??!?!
so i sat back at the computer and went at it. my mission was to give the iris some detail to transform the image into a flowing pool of water, while still making it look like a photographed eye. and so after several attempts using liquefy and a handful of treatments to choose from, this was the edited image that was selected:
+2.jpg)
and after a final round of touch up edits here is the completed product:
sometimes transforming an image into something completely different than what was straight out of camera (SOOC) is what is needed. i'm not a photoshop expert, but there are times when photoshop achieves exactly what needs to be. you can have all the right gear, the right equipment, the right model...but the process from camera to final product is sometimes where the real creativity takes place.
check out the album cover but more importantly, check out and indulge in some of cam mcburney's music on itunes (here) - featuring his new album, "window to infinity".
it's all in the eyes...the true windows to the soul.
may your lenses feel clean.
de jesus "brown eyes" out.
cam mcburney is an instrumental rock guitarist inspired by the greats like joe satriani and stevie ray vaughan. even without lyrics, his music tells various stories and is in its own way a personal diary of his thoughts, opinions and experiences both good and better. armed with a guitar, a computer and a unique understanding of songwriting assembly, cam has managed to self-produce albums that unfortunately not many people have heard of quite yet, but it is sort of like an undiscovered indy treasure that "people in the know" are very proud to be a part of.
cam approached me a few months ago while he was working on his third album and had a conceptual idea of what he was after for album artwork. the third album, titled "window to infinity" was to feature the human eye in all of its detail. the pupil, the iris, the eyelashes was to figure prominently on the artwork drawing direct parallels to the album's title.
in order to really get that close to the human eye and have access to the kind of detail we were looking for, it was clear that we had to attack this with a macro perspective. so i enlisted the help of a beautiful model (kaila - who has the most intensely hypnotizing blue eyes) to help us out while i hooked up the elinchrom lighting gear and slapped on my nikkor 105mm f/2.8 micro lens to make it happen. and after an hour of shooting and various lighting situations, we managed to get the following straight-out-of-camera images:
what did i tell you about her eyes? amazing eh?
on its own, these images were pretty good and with a little bit of clean up type quick edits (i.e. saturation, exposure and crop) we could have probably thrown in some text and made it work. but i thought it was missing a little something extra, something to really make this image really pop from a delicious steak to a savoury filet mignon.
so i tinkered a bit in photoshop...played with different tools, tried on different filters, changed hues and a combination of each. but anything i was trying wasn't really doing it for me. the sizzle wasn't there. so i left the computer for a while to think about it without staring at it. and then it hit me. it was so obvious, why didn't i see it at first? kaila's eyes, so blue - like giant watery pools of ocean that flowed in some sort of continuous motion without end.....kinda like infinity. WHAT??!?!
so i sat back at the computer and went at it. my mission was to give the iris some detail to transform the image into a flowing pool of water, while still making it look like a photographed eye. and so after several attempts using liquefy and a handful of treatments to choose from, this was the edited image that was selected:
+2.jpg)
and after a final round of touch up edits here is the completed product:
sometimes transforming an image into something completely different than what was straight out of camera (SOOC) is what is needed. i'm not a photoshop expert, but there are times when photoshop achieves exactly what needs to be. you can have all the right gear, the right equipment, the right model...but the process from camera to final product is sometimes where the real creativity takes place.
check out the album cover but more importantly, check out and indulge in some of cam mcburney's music on itunes (here) - featuring his new album, "window to infinity".
it's all in the eyes...the true windows to the soul.
may your lenses feel clean.
de jesus "brown eyes" out.