Portrait shoot of Artist/Oil Painter Sunny Ra w/diagram

Finally got to shoot a few beautiful portraits of Sunny.

It's been awhile since I've listed the BTS's diagram of 

a setup on how I get a shot.

We were shooting in a living room of a house 

and even though the wallpaper color was nice, 

I did not want the pattern at all as the background. 

I used a diffuser to only get the color that I wanted 

to achieve without the pattern. A Canon 580 EX II 

Speedlite was between the diffuser and the wall 

to control the intensity of the background.

My main light source was a White Lightning X1600 

gelled with a CTO shooting through an umbrella. 

Due to height issues I wasn't actually able to 

get the light source as high or infront of the model 

as I would have liked, so I had to add another Canon 

580 EX II for fill. The fill light was also gelled 

with a CTO and softened with a Lumiquest 

softbox III. 

Imported into Adobe Lightroom 4 where a few adjustments 

were made then exported to CS6 for a few touch ups

to get the final image you see above. 

Diagram of setup:

Sunny Ra is an exceptional oil painter. 

Most of her paintings are big, 

like in the 4ft x 8ft range.

Click to to go to her website!

iPhoneography

"The best camera is the one that's with you..." ~ Chase Jarvis

That being said, sometimes it's not your DSLR, sometimes it's a P&S or a camera phone. 
With the quality of camera phones being so damn near exceptional these days for most
casual applications and the one that's always in a persons pocket or purse, I've added 
a new gallery to my website titled , "iPhoneography." It's not always about the best gear, but how you convey a message with what you have...

From Camera to Post-Processing the Final Image

There is quite a bit that may or may not go into a photo 

once it's been uploaded to a computer. 

I have often heard gawkers looking at images saying 

the phrase, "Oh, that's Photoshopped!" 

Usually in a negative connotation. 

There is a big difference between Photoshopped and over-processed!

News Flash: Every photo that is digitally taken these 

days is "photoshopped" regardless of what software 

one may use. Ex. Lightroom, Aperture, iPhoto, etc...

This is no different from the days I was shooting 

film in high school/college and processed the film canisters 

of chemicals, took it into the "dark room" to an enlarger, 

where I "dodged and burned." Layered negatives for a composite 

and then dropped the paper in more chemicals to get my result. 

Granted we have much more flexibility with 

what we can manipulate through the means of 

computers than we had through a dark room, 

but that shouldn't necessarily mean that 

everything is over-processed to the point of 

where it doesn't look natural with the human eye. 

The first image is straight from the camera.

I've laid out the actions I took to take this from what 

I would call a "Point and Shoot" image to the final 

image below it that makes it really pop and look the way 

it did our natural human eye would see the scene.

Final Image

A little Post-Processing goes a long way...

The skies have been amazing in Kentucky lately. 

They could go one of two ways: 

A beautiful gradient with little to no clouds 

or a fierce contrasty sky full of clouds. 

I decided to head down to the Louisville Extreme Skatepark 

& Waterfront Park one evening and

see how the sky was going to perform during sunset.

I started out shooting the Louisville Extreme Skatepark 

and once I was satisfied with the light decided to head over 

towards the old train bridge which is suppose to be converted to 

a walk/bike path between Kentucky and Indiana over the Ohio River.

The Train bridge image will you show how much difference 

a little post-processing can do to the overall quality of an image.

The top left version is a bit washed out.
Only some slight adjustments were made to boost up the tone,
clarity and contrast to make this image really pop.

(Final image in lower right of screen shot) 

Raising money for the Red River Gorge Climbers Coalition through my photography

Back in Feb, I held an art show at Highland Coffee Co, 

a local coffee shop in hopes of raising money for the 

RRGCC (Red River Gorge Climbers Coalition)

through a raffle, donations and 10% of print sales. 

$95 was raised through the raffle for a print.

Travis Peak was the winner of the raffle.

$40.90 was raised through the percentage of sales and donations.

FOR a Grand total of $135.90

Here's a few images from the show:

The donation box 

A few of the prints on one wall.

Chatting

All the raffle names

Will Oldham (aka. Bonnie Prince Billy) stopped by

Check the link to read about the RRGCC write up about the event 

and it's never to late to donate!

Now contributing to Aurora Photos!

I'm proud to announce that I am now contributing to an 

exceptional stock agency, Aurora Photos.

Here is a quick screenshot of a few images I currently 

have on Aurora's site. Many more to follow...

A shoot at an overlook in the Red River Gorge with diagram of setup.

After editing this image and recollecting the setup,

I thought this image would perfect to explain
how I got this shot with a diagram.

Keep up with more of my images on the Dan Lubbers Photographs Facebook Page

Novus Select Commercial Shoot for Edible Arrangements

My first Novus Select Commercial shoot was for Edible Arrangements 

back in Jan. 2012 and the images of Ben and Amanda Hiner 

can be seen on EA's website.

Hawaii Post: Run and Gun from the iPhone (Part 2)

It took me longer than I thought to post the rest of my iPhone images from my trip to Hawaii. I've been extremely busy the last two months, but I finally got a chance to sit down today and post them.

Hope you enjoi!

Beware of Invisible Cows 

I never saw any, but I felt their presence...

 Hapuna Beach Prince Hotel

I'm not a prince, but they let me stay here anyway!

 Ancient Petroglyphs on the Pu'u Loa Trail

 A boy runs to skim board

Farmers Market

 Kona Blue Sky Coffee Estate

Kona Blue Sky Coffee

Best damn coffee I've ever had!

View from my resort room. 

 I love how everything is open!

Little beach crab

One of the observatories atop Mauna Kea 13,796ft

 Coral is sometimes left by locals as an offering.

 The observatories in the background.

Observatory

NASA Infrared Telescope Facility

 Volcano cones on Mauna Kea

 Setup waiting for the sunset...

 Hapuna Beach 

Where I did the little snorkeling I was able to do.

 Back in Hilo

 Figured I'd chill here for my last hour before my flight

 Gotta have a local beer before I board the plane. 

Helps to deal with screaming kids on the flight back to the mainland.

Check out the scenic gallery on www.danlubbers.com for non-iPhone images.

Images are available for print purchasing.