Posts in Category: Photoshop

Jeremy Cowart Photography

I realized recently that this blog has been all about me so far, which isn’t really what I intended when I started it.  So for the next couple posts I plan on introducing you to other photographers or “artists” that have inspired me, awesome pictures, or stories that have caught my attention.

This first post is about Jeremy Cowart.  Although Jeremy only started doing photography as a profession in 2005, he has quickly ascended the ranks to become one of the most respected photographers in the industry.  His client list is quite extensive, and if you check out his work you can see why.  Go to his website and you’ll probably recognize some of his images.  Also, the fact that he took the time to produce a 4+ hour instructional DVD with 7 narrated photo shoots just blows my mind.

But what introduced me to Jeremy’s work and caught my attention was a link shared just before Easter by a good friend of mine, Robb Davidson (another photographer and fellow Cubs fan).  It was a link to the below video.  Not only do I like this video because of its content, but it inspires me to become more creative.  I know it’s 6 and a half minutes long, but I think it’s worth it.  Let me know what you think.

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/22716246 w=566&h=424]

A Portrait of Christ from Jeremy Cowart on Vimeo.

New Software!

Thanks to a new friend from church, I just got Lightroom 3!  I had been using Adobe Lightroom 2 to produce most of the fine images you’ve seen on this blog over the last couple months, but I’m excited to have version 3.  There are several updates that you can see here and if you’re completely unfamiliar with the capabilities of Lightroom in general, check out this link – Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3.

Some of you may be shocked.  “What?! He doesn’t use Photoshop?”

Well… If you clicked on the links above, you’ll realize that Lightroom and Photoshop are two very different programs for editing digital photographs.  Lightroom is designed to handle large batches of photographs, which it organizes into “catalogs.”  Multiple photos can be imported and then edited quickly, due to the photo strip interface along the bottom of the program, and the same effects easily applied to multiple images (which you can do in Photoshop as well, but not as quickly/painlessly).  This is great when you’re trying to organize/edit/produce approximately 1500 photos from a wedding.

One of my favorite features of Lightroom are the presets – some of which come preloaded; others can be found online for free downloading.  I’ll post some before and after pictures at some point.  If you have specific pictures that you’d like to see the before and after, please LET ME KNOW!  Just to let YOU know, I still use Photoshop.  But mainly for additional touch-ups once I’ve done editing in Lightroom or for other things like adding text or crazy effects.  I’m by NO means a Photoshop expert, but I get by.

“Oh man, should I try using Lightroom?”  Definitely try it out – especially if you take a lot of photos and want software to simply keep the photos organized.  Adobe offers a free trial on their website (see above links).

Paul & Anne Scharnett [8.7.10]

I posted a preview of these pictures back in September, but since it was my first wedding as the official photographer, I thought a full post of my favorite shots (Flickr set) was necessary.  As I said in my last post, it was a great blessing to be able to capture these memories for Paul and Anne.  I hope you all enjoy these pictures as much as I enjoyed taking them.  If you do, share this on Twitter or Facebook (there’s a “Share Bar” at the bottom of the post) and let more celebrate with the Scharnetts!  Congratulations, Paul and Anne Scharnett! (With regards to lenses, I used mainly a Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 (standard) and a Nikon 12-24mm f/4 (wide angle). I also rented a Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 (zoom) from Calumet Photo for the weekend and had a 35mm f/1.8 (prime). Those covered all the bases. Also, i shot with my Nikon D300 and my D50 bodies, in case you were wondering.)