"Rhapsody In Blue"
©David A. Ziser

Here is another image I post way early on my DPT blog without any of the back-story.  It is still one of my favorites. The setting was so unusual.  I asked the couple to carefully work their way to the middle of the stream which was actually easier than it looks.  It was a "muggy" day and the moisture was just hanging in the air.  I asked my assistant to position himself and my Quantum flash behind the couple about 12 feet. The flash was set to full power and fired by the transmitter attached to my camera. I adjusted the shutter speed to just pick up the surrounds of the setting underexposing it slightly.  The flash fired, it also highlighted some of the mist hanging in the air adding a dramatic touch to the lighting and the image. I love the finished result.  Camera specs; Fuji S-1 fitted with Tamron 24-135mm lens at 39mm, F5.6 @ 1/16 second, ISO 800.  Enjoy!  -David

Good Morning Everybody,

Well, we landed in Atlanta last evening after a magnificent drive through the mountains watching one of the most beautiful sunsets ever.  I think the colors lasted for over an hour.  Those kinds of evenings sure make our road trips worth it.

We stayed with my good buddy, Denis Reggie.  Denis is one of the best and most successful wedding photographers I know and we've known each other over 23 years. Mr. Reggie is the person who coined the term "wedding photojournalism" many years ago and has been a major influence in our profession for the past several years.

Plan to catch Denis' programs at all the major conventions this year. He always fires up the crowds and definitely gets you thinking about how to shoot your images and run your business. In fact he will be at Imaging USA next week.  If you want to delve deeper you might want to invest in a few days with Denis at his in studio programs. You can get more info on Denis' upcoming in studio programs right here.

Hope you enjoy the re-read of yesterday's Top 10 most popular posts.  For me it was fun to look back over the posts too. But now on to the really good stuff.  My Technique Tuesday episodes have been favorite posts for quite a while.

Today,

"Mother and Child"
©David A. Ziser

Here is another portrait I made during a portrait session I had about 10 days ago.  This is actually the third image I’ve posted from the session. I’ve shown a portrait of mom, dad, and baby in the post entitled, "Precious Moments" [link]. Next, I featured dad and baby in my post entitled, Father and Child" [link].  With all three images, I think we’ve got a great series for my clients.  Anyway, the set-up was super simple. Be sure to watch today’s tutorial below for exactly how I did it. What I love about this images is the story being told between the mother and child. The baby, wide-eyed, looks directly at the viewer with it’s ever so soft smile. The hint of a twinkle in the eyes implies, for me, that our next generation is ready to embrace it’s brand new life.  It’s the mom’s gentle yet encouraging gaze in the background that completes the diagonal composition of the image.  Camera specs; Canon 7D fitted with 18-200mm IS lens at 80mm, F8.0 @ 1/80 second, ISO 800. 

Enjoy!  -David

"Mother and Child"
©David A. Ziser

Here is another portrait I made during a portrait session I had about 10 days ago.  This is actually the third image I've posted from the session. I've shown a portrait of mom, dad, and baby in the post entitled, "Precious Moments" [link]. Next, I featured dad and baby in my post entitled, Father and Child" [link].  With all three images, I think we've got a great series for my clients.  Anyway, the set-up was super simple. Be sure to watch today's tutorial below for exactly how I did it. What I love about this images is the story being told between the mother and child. The baby, wide-eyed, looks directly at the viewer with it's ever so soft smile. The hint of a twinkle in the eyes implies, for me, that our next generation is ready to embrace it's brand new life.  It's the mom's gentle yet encouraging gaze in the background that completes the diagonal composition of the image.  Camera specs; Canon 7D fitted with 18-200mm IS lens at 80mm, F8.0 @ 1/80 second, ISO 800. 

Enjoy!  -David

Good Morning Everybody,

Well, the holidays are upon us and I hope y'all ( and us too)don't get buried in the hustle and bustle. The album project I mentioned in last Friday's "Frantic Friday" post [link] is just about complete. We wrapped the edit on Saturday morning.  LaDawn had most of the album design completed on Monday. 

Both of us worked together in putting the final tweaks on the design and  we spent a good bit of yesterday getting it printed and coated.  Today we'll fine tune any pages that need it and reprint them.  The next step is to trim and organize the images in proper sequence. 

Once that step is complete, we can mount the images in the album.  The album, by the way is being shipped later today from Zookbinders.  It should arrive first thing tomorrow at which time we will swing into "high gear" and add the images.  Anyway, looks like we will be delivering it on time Thursday evening for our client. Whew!!!

Hey, time to get on with another Technique Tuesday.  Here we go...

Painting With "God's Light" For Beautiful Portraits

In yesterday's post, "Father And Child" [link], I alluded to my  Photoshop technique I used in creating the finished portrait.  Today, I thought I would

"Father And Child"
©David A. Ziser

Here is another image from my portrait shoot last week. I had posted an image with mom, dad, and baby on Friday [link], but while looking over the shoot found this image I loved too.  Generally when it comes to new born baby shoots, it mostly about the mother and baby. Since mom and dad both came by for the shoot, I wanted to get a few images with dad too.  This tender image is one of my favorites. Although the lighting is quite straight forward - the subject of a post next week - I do most of the "lighting" technique in Photoshop.  I love "painting the light" right where I want it.  Metaphorically, I call this technique "God's Light" because I fell as if He was doing the lighting. I believe God would want the light falling mostly on His new creation.  I thought the slight touch of "noise" on the image worked in this instance giving me a nice stylized result.  Camera specs; Canon 7D fitted with 18-200mm IS lens at 20mm, F8.0 @ 1/80 second, ISO 800.  Enjoy!  -David

Good Afternoon Everybody,

I knew I was getting close but today is the day.  Yep, it’s my 2000th post here at DigitalProTalk.com! That means to date at DigitalProTalk that you can read over 1.4 million words on  Photography, Lighting, Photoshop, Lightroom, Business Building, Sales, and Marketing – and most ALL of it is original content!

You can view over 500 “Image of The Day” posts most with all the EXIF data and back story of each shot.

You can also view over 100 video tutorials on Lighting, Lightroom, Photography, and Photoshop posted over these last 24+ months.

So how many words is that? Well, if you had to read Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” in high school - as I did – and it was a long read totaling over 560,000 words, then DPT to date is well over twice as long.

In those early days, it was tough to get the posts up on a daily basis.  Even today, many times, even when time is short, I always managed to get the posts up many times to the consternation of my blog editor. 

And my blog editor? – Well, a GREAT BIG thanks goes to LaDawn who proofs nearly all the posts, correcting

Good Afternoon Everybody,

Man, it’s a little tougher to get the blog up during Master Class week, but I’m still giving it a try today. 

The dubious weather cooperated yesterday and we had a great day shooting at the park and the Drees Pavilion overlook.  It was a long day with us beginning at 9 a.m. and wrapping about 8 p.m.  The models were troopers, too, and we got some fantastic images.

Looks for lots of material for upcoming blog posts.  Anyway, let me push on with some more observations about the Canon 7D and Lightroom 3 BETA.

More about Canon 7D

That’s for all the comments on yesterday’s post trying to explain the darkness of the Lightroom 3 BETA previews from the Canon 7D.  I think it’s a Lightroom/Raw issue, too.  The previews on the back of the camera are small JPEG previews that don’t carry over to LR3 Beta – all we get to see is the RAW data.  I’ve found that pushing the Brightness to +75 and reducing the Contrast to 0 helps.

It got pretty dark on us last night and I was impressed that the 7D nailed the FOCUS – thumbs up on that one!

I found a much easier and quicker way to shoot video as well.  While looking through the