One of our more popular events is the Multiplicity  shoot. This is a fun selfie portrait  event where we set up our cameras, take multiple photos of ourselves and combine them into a single frame so it looks like we're interacting with our twins. At right is an example of one my grandson and I did together a few years ago. While it may seem complicated, the editing part is quite simple. I'll walk you through the steps to accomplish this effect.

Sue Fenton heads up Shutter-Buds on Meetup.com , a local photography group, and she has a knack for putting together some great meetups. If you are a local hobbyist photographer and don't know Sue or her group I strongly suggest checking her out. This past Saturday she, and a small crew of volunteers, put together a fantastic event featuring the very talented and inspirational, New York based fashion photographer,  Lindsay Adler . Miss Adler is a Canon Explorer of Light  photographer, educator and just an all around really great person. She is open and sharing and can probably inspire a dead person to get up and start dancing. She is that good. The event took place at one of the most unique venues I have been to in a long time. The place is called Trinity on Main , located in New Britain, CT, and is a church that has been converted to a multi use event space. While still operating as a church for the United Methodist Church, they expanded to serve as a cultural center t...

I'm a firm believer that extra images (seconds) from a photo shoot should be saved. For a while at least or until you know you will never need them. The reason I stand on this is that seconds have proven to be invaluable on many circumstances in my past. Often it's a client preferring one of my seconds rather than the image I picked. The other common circumstance is the need to use some element from one of my seconds to fix an issue with the principal shot. Just recently I found myself in a situation where I couldn't decide which of two images was the keeper and which was the second. In the end I decided they would both be my seconds. Here's what I mean.

I don't know why we do this to ourselves. Every year at this time we lie to ourselves by establishing goals and making promises that, deep down, we know we'll never keep. Every year the ever traditional New Year's resolution is declared for one reason or another. For me it's something to shoot for, a to do list  of sorts. It always start out the same way too, nice and strong with high expectations and loads of enthusiasm that quickly dwindles down to a fond shimmer of a distant memory halfway through the year.

I have a love/hate relationship with watermarks on photos but I know there is a place for everything. While my opinions are my own I also realize that not everyone has the artistic skill to create anything beyond a simple text watermark. Adobe's Lightroom program has a very flexible watermarking utility that allows the creation of simple text based watermarks. For anything fancier Lightroom requires a pre-designed PNG file with a transparent alpha channel. If you are not familiar with alpha channels, they are see-through layers that allow a background to come through the non-logo areas when overlaid on a photo. While making these is relatively easy for a knowledgeable designer they can be tricky for the novice. Fortunately there is a great online tool that can make that whole process as simple as one, two, three.

My background in illustration and graphic design has offered me a unique view in analyzing lighting, composition and overall layout. Photography and illustration share many of the same visual guidelines so I tend to use my training in illustration when post editing my images. Specifically when working to establish the point of interest (the main theme or main subject). When a photographer creates a photo there is an unwritten dialog between the author and the viewer. A topic is presented that will hopefully engages the viewer in a dialog. The dialog comes through the interplay of the viewer's eyes over the content of the image and is controlled by the photographer through the use of certain techniques (rule of thirds, leading lines, depth of field, contrast, and so on). One technique I rely on to direct the viewer's eyes to my subject is through the manipulation of light. After all, we are using light to capture our scene, establish mood and shape our subject. This ligh...

As a photography instructor I find myself paying very close attention to my choice of vocabulary. Words that otherwise are interchangeable by the novice have to be carefully separated in order to avoid confusing students during a lesson. Take the following words for example; picture, photo, image, exposure. Out of context they can all refer to the same thing but in context they can be confusing, specially if the context adds to confusion. Look at this sentence, for example. "If you want to get a good exposure you need to set your exposure properly."