How I got this shot! La Sportiva Miura VS's

Head on over to my new blog to see how I got this shot 

of La Sportiva's Miura VS's!

Blog has moved...!!!

I have changed the location and services of my 

blog over to Tumblr. 

All future posts will be on tumblr, but this blog 

will remain online for archival purposes. 

If you follow this blog or link to it, please change 

to the updated blog address at tumblr.

Anti-Inflammatories and Rock Climbing

As a person who has had a few injuries

involving my spine, nerves and muscles I am 

curious what happens to climbers / athletes in the 

long run when their bodies tell them to rest but instead

they take 800mg or more of anti-inflammatories and push on.  

One thing I've learned as an aging climber is when 

to listen to my body and take those much needed rest days.

To reference: One Move Too Many...

"You don't get stronger on your training days. You get 

stronger on your rest days."

"Rest: Pain is an alarm. It is a warning that something

 in the body has been damaged, and you should not 

ignore it. After any injury you should listen to the pain 

and immediately rest."

I shot this on a climbing / bouldering trip of 

a climber who is pushing through 

with the use of anti-inflammatories.

I would like to know other peoples thoughts...

DANLUBBERS.COM has been redesigned and is now LIVE

Thanks to my good friend Jeff Louden,

danlubbers.com has been completely redesigned.

This design is optimized for extremely fast loading

content and easy user interface and 

showcases the images in a beautiful layout. 

(If you like my work, please share 

with your friends and get the word out)

A little about Louden:

For the past year he has been working tirelessly

as Lead Developer of BarackObama.com

He spent his days and nights buried in politics and 

staring at screens full of HTML, CSS and Javascript.

Check out his website here: JEFFLOUDEN.com

Examples on Interior Architecture

Test:

Shoot an interior shot to show the different 

variations in styles of shooting. 

Canon 5D | 16-35mm 2.8 | 580EX II's | Pocketwizards II's

Manfrotto Tripod & Light-stands | Canon TC-80N3 Trigger

As shot, no lights or perspective control.

HDR blended with 5 exposures and no lights.

Exposure Fusion with 5 exposures and no lights

 Final Image: One exposure with 2 light setup.

By far this is the best technique!

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.

UrbanClimber Article on Little Rock City (LRC) aka. Stonefort, TN

Check out this months issue of Urban Climber Magazine for an article 

I wrote on Little Rock City (LRC) with a photo I shot of Jason Kehl on the infamous "The Shield."

With Local tips from Jimmy Webb

Hawaii Post: Run and Gun from the iPhone (Part 1)

Back in August my dad and I went to the Big Island of Hawai'i.

Sometimes it's just best to use a PnS when you

don't have the time to setup a DSLR, tripod and gear.

The iPhone 4 has been an amazing little run and gun camera for me,

especially when I want to remember a scene for reference to

later revisit and get "the shot!"

(some of the images were filtered using instagram: @danlubbers)

Packed and ready to go.

Boarding the flight of the Pacific.

Sunset over the Pacific.

Not much to look at after the sun goes down

As soon as we arrived in Hilo it was pouring rain.

Not the Hawai'i rain I was used too, but a drenching downpour.

Apparently it was going to last for the next 2 days straight from a

tropical storm that broke up before it hit the island.

I awoke early the next day and this flower was outside of our hotel.

By the time I went back with my DSLR to capture this shot,

the water droplet on the stigma had fallen.

Glad I captured it with my PnS.

I love the root system of the Banyan trees.

A local friend of mine "Joe Arce" showed us around the island to

some hot spots the first day we were in Hilo.

Mainly waterfalls and local surf areas.

It's always nice to have a local around especially when

all Caucasians are considered Haole's.

We didn't get your normal view of Akaka Falls due to the pouring

rain and thick mist creating a very ominous atmosphere.

Pu Nalu' U Beach

(Panorama using Autostitch app)

Abandoned Wind Turbine Farm at South Point

The Southern most tip of the United States.

(It's actually not Key West like most people think)

Our 6mi round trip hike to get to Green Sand Beach...

Very gusty winds at South Point

Green Sand Beach

(Pano using Autostitch App)

I've never seen a Mongoose, but I found a dead one...

I lOVE IPA's!!!

I love the philosophy behind this sign seen

at Volcano's National Park.

My dad and I after our helicopter ride over the Kilauea Crater.

One of the few active volcano's where you can still see lava flowing.

The Pu' U Oo' vent flowed out just two weeks before we got here.

The Lava Fields

Lava Field formations

One of the patterns I really dug while we were hiking

out in the lava fields.

Walking into the old Magma Tube where it flowed out to sea.

Some vegetation I found while in the tube.

Check out my DSLR photos on my website: www.danlubbers.com

under the Scenic gallery.

Part II coming soon...