Emerald Bay Photography News and Updates

If you've seen today's Health & Fitness section in the Bend Bulletin, you couldn't have missed the front page feature on Pilates (sorry, folks - no link to the actual story... uhmmm... it's subscription-only).

Incidentially, the pictures that accompanied the article for once weren't shot by the paper's own PJs - rather, they used the shots I had taken a few weeks back at my friend Diane's Pilates Center of Bend (she was interviewed for the article and tipped the paper off to the images).



So I thought I'd tutor anybody interested in creating similar images on how to achieve these kinds of motion effects. It takes a bit of planning ahead, but it's easy, really.

Step 1: Shoot numerous images while your model is in motion. The important part here is that you either mount your camera on a tripod, or if that isn't possible, you employ a steady handhold while shooting. You want the lines of the body to match up later.

Step 2: Open the desired images in Photoshop. I don't recommend working with more than three images at a time - unless the motion stretches across the entire image, overlaying more images can get visually confusing.



Step 3: Choose your background image (above). Go to your second image, and with the Marquee tool, select the part of the image you want to overlay. Cut and paste that as a new layer onto your background image.

Step 4: Go to Layer > Add Layer Mask and create a mask on your second image. Reduce Opacity on that layer to about 30%. Click on the mask, and with a soft black brush (at 100%) erase everything but the parts you want to showcase the motion with. Your images should now look something like this:



Step 5: Repeat with your third image. Play with the layer opacities to get the desired effect. Done!

Labels: Bend Oregon photographer, editorial photographer Bend Oregon, Editorial Photography, photography, sports fitness photographer Bend Oregon

Last Friday, I witnessed an attempted murder.

The crime scene? Mirror Pond, Drake Park, downtown Bend, Oregon. April 14, 2006 - roughly 2pm.

The crime? The attempted drowning of a male Mallard duck by none other than a gang of fellow male Mallard ducks.







While obviously violence is no stranger to the animal world, we generally don't think of DUCKS as savage or ferocious creatures.

The attempted drowning seemed shockingly pre-meditated and coordinated, and left me frozen in astonishment, barely able to point the camera at the spectacle. I briefly looked around for a rock to throw at the party, hoping to break it up and free the poor under-duck, but no such luck.

And as I stood there, witnessing an agitated cluster of no less than 3 to 4 ducks at any time, grabbing the victims head with their bills and holding it under water, again and again - it occured to me that it's not only a dog-eat-dog world. It's also a duck-eat-duck world.

But before someone at PETA gets their panties in a knot, please note that I said "attempted" drowning.

Yes. The duck got away. Barely, I must say (in a couple of instances I thought he wasn't going to make it for sure), but he did.

Labels: Bend Oregon photographer, oregon stock photography, photography

I had never even considered Google Earth as a tool to help prepare for a photo shoot - but I gotta admit, that's a DAMN GOOD IDEA.

I got tipped off to it in a recent newsletter from the AIAP, an organization I'm member of. Alan Blakely, Director of the AIAP, writes:

"There are literally hundreds of cool things you can do with Google Earth, but let me tell you how I personally use it:

1. Determine compass orientation and sun angle of exteriors.
This is HUGE! I travel extensively, and one of the hardest things to determine when planning a shoot is "best time of day". My experience has been that the people on site are rarely able to tell me accurately which direction the building faces. With Google Earth I simply enter the address of the building and "fly-in" to the location and view its orientation -- amazing! [Note: WOW. That is indeed huge. Knowing the physical orientation of any location is an amazing advantage!)

2. Determine the effect of adjacent buildings, parking lots and potential conflicting businesses on a site.
Have you ever arrived at an out-of-town location with a limited amount of shooting time and discovered that your subject was in the shadow of an adjacent structure? With Google Earth you can predict these potential problems.

3. Find nearby accommodations and services.
Another huge deal for me. I hate booking a hotel in a distant city and discovering that my subject site is on the other side of town. Google Earth allows you to find nearby lodging, restaurants, etc.

4. Find directions to and from a subject site.
I realize that this is old stuff if you use Mapquest, Yahoo Maps or Google Maps. However, seeing directions plotted out on the actual view of the area is vastly superior to any written directions. Google Earth zooms out and draws the way for you.

Now, however cool that tool may be though for larger cities - Google Earth images of Central Oregon are nothing short of SUCKIE. Point in case:



In comparison - the Google Campus rocks regarding detail:



Duely noted too that the City of Bend has a similar web-based application - but after running a few searches and not turning up even obvious stuff like Mirror Pond, Wall Street or Cooley Road, I've come to the conclusion that the thing is utterly useless (never mind that it ONLY runs in MS IE, and not in Mozilla ...).

And admittedly, Google Earth may be more useful for people who travel a lot or specialize in archictural photography, but I thought I'd throw it out there nonetheless. I'm sure creative ways to utilize Google Earth for other kinds of photography can very easily be found.

Post in the comments if you come up with anything brilliant.

Labels: Bend Oregon photographer, photography, photography gear