Shoot what you love: Artist talk.

There is an old saying "Do what you love and you will never work a day in your life". It refers to finding your passion and pursuing it, believing that rewards will will follow.  I believe that the same is true for photography. For me, the statement would read "Photograph what you love and the pictures will be amazing!" I submit to you proof of said concept: Gummi!

I was shooting a Sweet 16 party and there was a bowl of gummi bears for the guest. I LOVE GUMMI BEARS so I had to take the shot. I am sure people around me were probably wondering WHY I was taking a picture of gummi bears. But I knew that I would LOVE looking at that big bowl of richly colored treats. I think i was right. What do you think?

Until the next frame...staying in focus.
www.GreeneLightPhoto.com

Artist Talk: Cloud City

 Hey everyone,

Happy New Year! This year we will be much more active on this blog. I have been posting a lot of things on the Facebook page but the blog has been getting neglected.So a lot of the same content will be in both places and I will start sharing my tips and tricks. I hope that I don't sound TOO amateurish!

The first thing that I want to share is the latest installment from the series of photos from the Met Summer outdoor exhibits. Two years ago it was Bambu and last year it was Cloud City.  I find the rooftop displays very image worthy! Cloud City was a series of mirrored, multi-sided orbs in the form of a cloud. The sculpture itself was magnificent and I took the image below and then decided to render it as a quad. It's now hanging in my dining room. The image was run through four different filters in Color EFX Pro 3 and generated these four versions.

 This next image was taken while looking at the city next to one of the mirrors. The view from the roof of the Met is spectacular to begin with but it was amazing to see that scenery reflected in the 'cloud'. The image below extends the skyline and the dramatic sky punches up the picture. I waited for a long while for people to completely clear out of the picture and then i realized that the people actually gave it a sense of scale. So I waited for someone interesting to come by and snapped the pic. What's interesting is that the forward subject is actually NOT looking at the sculpture! It's hard to compete with that view!

This next picture is one of my favorites! I like split images and color separation. Typically what people do is take an image and duplicate it in Photoshop then reverse it. After that they line them up next to each other. As I walked out onto the roof, I immediately saw this image in my head. I crouched way down near the sculpture and got this image that looks like it's Photoshopped. In post I desaturated the bottom half and punched up the vibrance on the top half. I mounted it in a gold frame and it really popped. Love this image!

Hope this gives you a peek into what makes me take certain pictures.
Until the next frame...stay in focus!
Hayden.