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