Shooting Stars

Before I start I would like to say, yes, it is not a real shooting star and yes I realize that the moon should be bigger than the stars. It´s a real moon by the way.
Anyway, I realize that I have been talking about knowing your camera settings and spend less time post processing. Let me tell you the story behind this photo first. Originally this is a photo of the roof of my parents house which we all consider to be the family house where we gather and spend quality time together. I like to believe that my late grand parents whom I love dearly are watching over us and the house. Well, that is what the shooting star represents.
There was no other way than to use photoshop to make this photo as it looks right now. I would have to wait forever for a shooting star to happen right before my eyes. Photoshop is a very powerful tool and what I did with the original photo to look as it is now is the least what photoshop can do. I´m sure everybody these days are familiar with photoshop and I encourage everybody to learn and use it to meet whatever needs you need to perform. However, don´t become lazy and dependent on it for your photography work because that can develop to become a bad habit.
If you are interested in how to make these effects please do not hesitate to contact me and I would be happy to help you out. I´m not a photoshop expert but I love sharing what I know to anyone.

Photography Release Forms

There are too many photographers out there who are being sued by their models and property owners. One of the many reasons is violation of privacy and defamation. As a fellow photographer, I would advice to get a release form signed by your subject or property owners before taking any pictures to avoid future legal actions. Please be a responsible photographer and strongly take this into consideration. To find out more about release forms please visit: http://photography.lovetoknow.com/Photography_Release_Forms It is a very informative website and gives examples like when is a release form needed.

Make Money From Your Photography

I´ve been receiving emails lately with different kind of questions about camera setting tips, doing an online photography workshop session and sometimes people would send their photos for opinion on how they can improve on techniques which I enjoy replying very much. However I have also been receiving emails on how to make money from photos and it seems that a lot of people are trying to find a way to cash in their photos which I think is a very good thing to do.
At this moment I am not selling any photos nor am I trying to sell one just yet because I feel that I am not ready to do so. Guys, I´m sorry if I don´t have an answer for this one for now but I did look it up in the internet and I found a very interesting website on how to monetize your photos. I have been reading back and forth the website and I would not suggest it to anyone if I did not believe in it´s content. So go ahead and visit http://blogs.photopreneur.com and get the most information out of it. You might want to bookmark the website so you can easily find it again. You can also find photopreneur.com in my link list.

Photography Tips - Overexposed Photos

One of my followers in this blog sent me an email asking me about overexposed photos & how to fix them. Unfortunately I had to tell him the truth, 85 percent of overexposed photos are too difficult to fix. Different with underexposed photos, they are easy to fix. In his reply he seemed sad and disappointed because it´s the kind of shots you don't get second chance taking. A couple of days later I offered him to do an online workshop with me through skype & he agreed. During the workshop session I explained to him how to set his camera to avoid overexposing shots and also persuaded him to convert the overexposed photos to black and white using photoshop. A few minutes later he called me back & sounded really happy and positive. He showed me the results and it was stunning. Unfortunately he did not give me the permission to post his photos to compliment this article for some third party reason, I respect that and I totally understand so I posted a couple of my old photos instead that were badly overexposed and edited it so that everyone can see what I mean.



















You might also be interested in the link below for some photography tips I wrote on how to best convert color photo to black and white and avoid bad habits to become a better photographer.

Best way to convert color photo to black and white

Avoid bad habits to become a better photographer

Reminder: Do not delete your old photos as they may come handy one day!

Become A Better Photographer

Photography has evolved rapidly and made easier over the passing years, fortunately also cheaper for both who are taking it as a hobby or a job. Having that said lots of new photographers emerge and consider the advantage of the modern world of photography as a short-cut which only means one thing, creating new bad habits. These new bad habits usually brings frustration and could affect negatively to your creativity and your photos. Avoid these habits and enjoy this hobby that many of us love.

1. Not taking the time to learn how to properly set your camera. Think about on how you want your photo to come out before taking it. Learn as much of your craft as possible and stop over shooting. If you are one of those photographers who thinks it´s ok to shoot lots of photos because in digital photography the frames are free anyway, I suggest to stop thinking that way cause you will only have quantity and not quality photos and you wouldn't know where to start to improve and correcting your errors.

2. Taking photos in RAW format by means to touch up and fixing the exposure with a photo editing program.
Don't use RAW as an excuse to be a sloppy and lazy photographer. Taking pictures with the intentions of fixing it later only makes you a poor photographer and a decent post-processor.

3. Blaming your gear for a bad quality photo you took is so very sad. New photographers assume that spending on expensive cameras, lenses and flashes will better your shots. Sure there are better bodies and lenses to meet certain needs to improve the quality but if you don't know what you are doing, whats the point? You are the photographer who decides to push the shutter release and capture what you saw through your camera lense. A camera is simply a tool, if you don't have the knowledge you will never get the optimal results.

If you feel associated with one or all of these bad habits, stop and start learning. I used to be associated with all of these bad habits but I devoted myself to be a better photographer. If you don't have time to take a course in photography, take advantage of the internet like i did.

"You have to devote yourself totally to be successful at it." -Elliot Erwitt-

Before & After

In this topic I would like to stress out how important it is to see a potentially good looking photo despite all obstacles. For example this old window was taken in Asuncion, Paraguay from my hotel room and there was no way to get around the cables that were hanging in front of the window as a foreground. Originally this photo was worst than it looked now because I did not save it in a different name and it was already edited half way done when I realized it but there are still some cables and details I still have to edit so it´s still a good example to make my point.
In order to edit this photo I used Photoshop CS4.

1. Converting color photo to black and white
There are many ways to convert photos to black & white in photoshop. The easiest way is to directly go to image --> Adjustments --> Black & White or image --> adjustments --> Hue / Saturation (drag behind saturation to -100). I personally would avoid doing those ways because it loses the quality of my photos and if one day someone would buy it or I might need a big resolution to make a poster it requires a high resolution quality. So my suggestion is to use layers and channels which can be found on your left bottom part of your photoshop. In the channel, you will see 4 channels of your photo. The first is RGB (Red Greed Blue)which is your original photo in color, the second is Red, third Green and fourth Blue which are your black and white photos with the effect of what color filters do to your black and white. (Please refer to my older posts about color filters for black and white photography). Choose one out of the 3 black and white photos you prefer and you may also enhance to make it brighter or darker by adjusting the levels tool.



2. Making the cables and shadows disappear.
I used the healing brush tool. Now this is a very simple yet a very powerful tool, you just need to be patient while doing this especially if you are not use to it yet. Basically this tool replaces or dissolves the cables that you want to get rid off bits by bits and you really need to be precise and careful not to make it too obvious. At times you might need to zoom in to see and edit smaller details like edges or corners.
3. Creating Textures.
If you pay attention to the right wall of the original photo, the humid stain is not quite the same as on the left wall. Using the clone stamp tool you can click on a wall with more humid stain and start stamping it on your empty wall. To make it easier, the meaning of the clone stamp tool is exactly what it says. First you need to click on a spot you want to clone and second you stamp what you just cloned to a new place. To not make the clone and stamp obvious you might want to clone on different parts of the wall and stamp it over your previous stamp to make it more look like a realistic humid stain so you have different patterns of stain on your left wall from your right wall.
Please email or leave me a comment if you have any questions and I would be really happy to help and workshop with you. If you have "teamviewer" workshops can be a lot more easier and effective.

Is this cheating? Well, that´s up to you to decide what cheating is.
For me, I like to be creative and I like challenges, editing in Photoshop is a perfect place for both creative and facing challenges. The outcome is knowledge how to edit a photo and an amazing photo that can make you cheerful.

"There is one thing one has to have: either a soul cheerful by nature, or a soul made cheerful by work, love, art and knowledge." -Friedrich Nietzsche-

The Giant Metal Flower, Argentina

The Floris Genérica or also well known as The Giant Metal Flower can be found in Plaza Naciones Unidas (United Nations Plaza) on the Figeroa Alcorta Avenue. It was designed by the architect Eduardo Catalano and was erected in the year 2002. Catalano wanted this flower to symbolize all flowers of the world. The giant flower opens and closes its petals depending the hour of the day, in the morning the petals opens and during the night it closes. The process of opening and closing the petals according to many people mimics the movement of a real flower, it takes about 20 minutes to fully open and close all 6 petals. However, during festive days such as September 21st (Spring Day), May 25th (The Argentine Revolution Day), December 24th (Christmas Eve) and December 31st (New Year´s Eve) the flower is open all day and fireworks lights up the sky with its beautiful colors and glitters above it during Christmas and New Year´s eve.
Travel Tips:
Bring at least a bottle of water during summer if you decide to walk to get there. The temperature can reach up to 40°C / 104°F and you really want to appreciate this flower in a pleasant mood. Most hostels usually have a bicycle rent but it can also easily be reached by public transportation.
Photography Tips:
As beautiful as it looks in real life, the giant metal flower is not as photogenic as it seems at least in my opinion. I have taken this flower many times, lucky for me I live in Buenos Aires so I can always come back to this spot and retake it anytime but for tourists staying for only a couple of days, the results can be disappointing if you do not think it through. Also, when visiting this flower alone, a tripod would come really handy if you want to come out in the photo with the flower. The plaza can be really full of tourists or you can be the only one there. Don´t be shy to ask someone to take you a picture if you see other tourists, it´s worth it.
I took this photo with my Nikon SLR (Single Lense Reflex) D70. It´s a great camera and user friendly. Read the specs and get it if you are thinking about getting an SLR camera. Although other SLR camera these days are also as good.
For this particular photo, I decided to make HDR (High Dynamic Range) out of it and processed it in a software called the Photomatix Pro designed to help you tone mapping the photos. A final touch of brightness and contrast with Photoshop CS3. If you happen to have Photoshop CS2 the HDR function is already introduced in it. Basically HDR is combining several differently exposed images to produce a single HDR image. I self taught myself taking HDR images from youtube but there are tons of tips and techniques in the internet, take advantage of it! Discover the powerful images an HDR can do.

La Boca, Argentina

La Boca is one of the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires´s 48 barrio (neighborhood). It is the home of the great Boca Juniors, one of the world´s best known football clubs. It´s colorful houses and lively pedestrian street "el caminito" has made la boca a popular tourist attraction. Walking along the street your pace is accompanied by the graceful tango music. Now if that´s not enough, dine in any restaurant in la boca and you will be treated a live tango show where you can also take pictures with the friendly dancers. Although, Argentina has the best meat ever, but when dining in La Boca make sure to order the variety of the fish main course.
La Boca is not too far from the Obelisk of Buenos Aires so there is no need to worry about public transportation and accommodations.
An important note to consider, although during the day La Boca is a beautiful tourist attraction, by night, I can´t say the same.
Photography Tips:
This picture was taken with my Nikon N75 camera. I could have taken a picture of the whole street of the "el caminito", but there was too many people and I always like to keep a little touch of art in my photos so I had to find the best angle and this is the outcome. Don´t be afraid to move around and place your self in what you feel is the best angle to take the picture and pay attention to the line details because if it´s angle you are after then line is inevitable.