This week, because i scrolled through a photography website referred to as PetaPizel I came across this very bizarre and extremely creative set of images collaborated by way of a photo retoucher Cristian Girotto and photographer Quentin Curtat.

Photographer Quentin and photoshop wizz Cristian both are in Paris.

Cristian specialises in retouching photographs and in this case he has put his talents towards to become a wonderful list of images that explore adults inner children.

It feels like Cristian has found the antidote for turning back the clock in photoshop towards the extreme, making a humorous, cartoon like influence on the subjects being photographed.

I assume we are all aware of the lengths some photographers head to in order to create the perfect body and facial expression of many celebrities which include on the front of magazines etc. Eventhough it is a comical, yet creepy attribution for the tools Photoshop provides, it’s still a good example of which editing is possible these days.

These photographs truly capture the cuteness of toddlers plus they incorporate telling signs and symptoms of adulthood, for example greying hair and full grown beards.

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Oahu is the rosy cheeks, freckled faces and wide eyes that make these photographs interesting. The facial expressions from the subjects likewise helps create childlike innocence, obedience and wonder that you just often find plastered across children’s faces over a day to day basis.

Cristian has accentuated the expressions and enlarged their heads which nearly creates these doll like figures. In certain images she has edited their teeth for them to look more like milk teeth.

Credit also need to be given to photographer Quentin. I enjoy the way she has framed the photographs; with a big space between your edge of the look and the start of head. This simple compositional decision subtly places the thought of infancy produce because it immediately signifies if you ask me that the subject usually are not very tall.

As creepy as this photo series is, I couldn’t help but share these creations as they show admirable photoshop and portraiture skills.

Hello readers! For today, we’re cross posting with the weekly column over on Studios Central. I’ll be going into detail on the processing on this shot that I posted there today:

At Studios Central, I discussed how sometimes locating a fresh new perspective can breathe new life into something shoot regularly, much like the Tower of Terror. So, for this shot, I composed over through the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular, right with the perfect time, sunset. I’d my longest lens, canon’s 135mm attached, which offered me a shot i had never taken before in the ToT.

To the processing, I opened up the photo in Camera Raw. The sunlight was very good, so I really didn’t do a lot of there, in addition to open up the shadows slightly with some fill light, and that i adjusted the White Great make the colors slightly warmer. However went into Color Efex Pro in Photoshop, and ran the default settings on both Pro Contrast and Tonal Contrast. I then sharpened the look using Unsharp Mask, then went back into Color Efex Pro, this time around using the Glamour Glow. I made use of a little less glow compared to the default setting, then entered that layer and lowered the opacity to around 40%. That way the glow didn’t overtake the look, just gave it some a dreamy look. Then to cap it off, I used the Darken/Lighten Center filter to bring out the tower itself somewhat, and that is it!

I hope you guys liked this insight into my photo of the Tower of Terror. Ensure that you check out Studios Central in my article and all sorts of other great content Matt has up there! Thanks for reading, see ya real soon!!

9 weeks ago we welcomed our first baby, Max, into this big world! We’re so incredibly happy to be parents, and also have taken about a billion photos of the little guy so far.

And in between the time spent staring at him, photographing him, having fun with him, and taking care of him, I’ve actually a couple moments to consider!

See, one card we received was the subsequent quote:

“Do not hurry your way at all” – Constantine Cavafy

Knowning that got my mind going. Today, with our little guy, I end up watching myself considering how I can’t delay until he can walk, talk, we are able to take photos together, and so on. And then that quote pops into my head, and that i remind myself to really enjoy this stage. All of the things will come in time, but it’s vital that you focus on the thing that makes him so wonderful right now.

It’s not hard to view how this concept applies to photography too. Regardless of where you are in your photography journey, don’t hurry. There are many wonderful aspects of each stage, it’s imperative that you take the time to recognize and appreciate them.

So a bit reminder right now to enjoy where you’re at. Now I’m keep your distance to snuggle my little man.

P.S. If you’re into poetry, the poem the quote originated from is quite wonderful. Read it on Constantine Cavafy’s Wikipedia page.”

Wedding photography is an incredible profession. It’s how you began as photographers, and as a result we learned a huge number in a short timeframe, and met tons of fantastic people. While it’s its not all sunshine and unicorns, there are lots of truly awesome aspects of being a wedding photographer. Here’s our Best best things! 1. A wonderful Photographic Event Straight up, weddings are perfect events to get at shoot. You’ll never get bored, since there is always something happening, and each one is different! Not only do they take place in beautiful locations, but they are also filled with genuine emotion. You can spend your mood capturing happiness, laughter, joy, anticipation, excitement, and maybe even some sadness. It’s so jam packed with photographic opportunities your brain will spin. 2. Create a Wide Range Of Photographic Skills As being a wedding photographer you’ll get shooting in an array of styles. There’s a whole lot time put in the photojournalistic mindset, then you definitely switch to as being a portrait photographer, directing and posing. You will shoot plenty of details, sporting your still life/commercial cap. You may do some shots from the location or venues, working with landscape and architectural skills. Light-wise you’ll should find out to shoot in sunlight, shade, rain, snow (if you’re lucky!!!), artificial light, and practically no light. You wind up becoming a very well-rounded shooter, in a position to adapt to ever-changing scenarios and lighting situations! 3. Figure out how to Work Under time limits When you take photos, actually need a lot of decisions. When you take photos after a wedding day, actually need those decisions very quickly, and with sustained attention. What happens if you have to be 100% focused for 14 hours straight. If you haven’t had to do that before, it appears impossible. But because experienced wedding shooters can let you know, you’ll get used to it. Soon, you’ll become quite capable working being forced. Quick selection will become routine, and you’ll figure out how to work, and shoot, with a lot more confidence. 4. Tell A narrative With a wedding you practically have a very story built in to your images. There are characters, scenes, action, emotion, and in many cases themes in case you look with enough contentration. Having a story in your images helps you to tie them together, and create interest throughout the set. It assists to when you go to design albums! 5. Meet Amazing People Wedding photography is a people profession, and also you get to meet some pretty incredible ones. There are, of course, your clients, who often can be more friends than clients (or flients, while i like to contact them). Not only do you reach meet them, but you also get time and energy to establish really solid relationships using them, which makes it much more enjoyable to perform your job. And then there are tons more and more people you’ll get to meet. There’s the wedding party, who you spend a reasonable amount of time with, and guests at the wedding. You’ll create relationships to vendors you work with, like florists, planners, decorators, etc. And you’ll get to connect with other local wedding photographers when doing your networking. They could be an amazing supply of support, advice, and friendship! 6. Financial Self-employment is no simple task, but it’s really enjoyable. You are making the decisions. You determine your hours. You opt whether pyjama day needs to be Mondays or Fridays (or both!). And if you work hard, and succeed, you receive all the rewards. Extra bonus: it is possible to work from home! Before long you’ll completely forget what “rush hour traffic” is, and obtain super confused if however you venture out around 5PM. 7. Be Creative Wedding photography rewards creativity. Doing something totally different will get your hard work noticed among the many other shooters doing the same kind of, same old. And since you’re in charge, that you can do whatever inspires you. That sort of freedom is just what many creatives must really allow them to explore and build something original. 8. Travel The entire world Weddings happen all around the world, and brides are getting to be more and more ready to hire someone on vacation if they really interact with their work. Being a wedding photographer implies that you could be trotting the earth while shooting amazing events! It certainly takes a lot of attempt to get your name out there enough to get hired for international gigs, but it’s completely possible, and lots of top shooters are most often in a different country every weekend. 9. Photograph People On his or her Most Beautiful Day People spend a lot of time preparing and preparing for their wedding ceremony, and a lot of that effort switches into ensuring that they’re going to look their absolute best. That makes it pretty darn fun to photograph them! They’re wearing fantastic outfits, their accessories are carefully chosen, their hair is perfect, and their makeup enhances their features. It’s as if they are models for the day, however, you still get each of the fantastic real emotions. Win-win! 10. Create Valuable Work Very few shooters can almost guarantee that the work they produce will likely be looked at in Half a century. Wedding photographers can. The albums that you produce to your clients become treasured family heirlooms that are passed down from one generation to another. Grandchildren wish to look (and perhaps giggle) inside their grandparents of their wedding photos. Which means that you get to impact people for the very long time. This value has become more and more recognized, as photography is evolving to focus more on capturing the sense of a big day, and the real personality from the couple. Consequently, many brides now suggest that the photographer is the most important purchase. That’s pretty rad, isn’t it? So those are our Best best reasons for having being a photographer. But to make sure we’re giving a well-balanced look, up next we’ll reveal our 10 Hardest things About As being a Wedding Photographer. Gasp! Stay tuned… Did we miss among the best things about as being a wedding photographer? What’s your favourite thing? Share with us from the comments now!

“To be a great photographer, hobbyist or pro, takes courage. You have to constantly be pushing yourself to go outside of your comfort zone, and do new things.

Try a different style of shooting. Set up a type of session you’ve never done before. Start a new business. Introduce yourself to complete strangers. Learn a brand new skill. Basically, you have to take on a non-stop series of challenges. Forever.

Now, we all probably know that to improve our photography we have to do these things. But more often than not, we don’t. Why is that?

I’d venture that most of the time what holds us back is fear. Nothing more, nothing less.

Now, I’m sure you can point to half-a-dozen circumstances that are preventing you from taking that next big step out of your comfort zone. A full-time job. A mortgage. Inexperience. Not having any connections. Not having enough money. Not having enough time.

But I’m going to be that really annoying person here, and say that 99% of the time those circumstances that you think are holding you back, aren’t actually holding you back. Nope. It’s fear.

I mean, you can always work on your photography in the evenings and on weekends. You can start with basic gear, or rent before you invest the big bucks. Seriously, if blind people can take photos, surely other circumstances like time and money can be overcome. It’s not the situation that holds us back. It’s the fear.

The problem is that these fears are not productive, helpful ones, like the fear of poisonous snakes. No, these are learned fears that prevent us from doing seriously awesome things, for no good reason. Honest. Let’s take a look at some of the big fears photographers face, and why they are downright silly.

(As an added bonus, I’ll be giving you a Real Life example of ours for each of these, just so you know that we’ve actually lived through all these fears. Which, coincidentally, is the best way to overcome a fear!)

Fear of Failure

That’s a good one, hey? Who here hasn’t been afraid that they would fail, big time. This is especially potent if you decide to start a business. It can be so completely paralyzing that you never actually try. You come up with excuses. You figure it never would have worked anyway.

But the problem is that there is actually nothing wrong with failing. In fact, if you’re really pushing yourself to do fantastic new things, there’s a really good chance you’ll fail. No. Big. Deal. It happens to everyone. As long as you pick yourself up, learn from the failure, and keep going, you may as well look at that failure as a positive! You now know what doesn’t work, and are closer to figuring out what does.

Most great people have attained their greatest success just one step beyond their greatest failure. – Napoleon Hill

Real Life Fail: We once started a photography/graphic design business with the idea that we would do headshots and business card designs for real estate agents. We had a name, a logo, a website, lots of shiny brochures, and thought we were onto a big idea. Well, we didn’t have things quite right, because it failed, big time. We booked maybe two jobs. Ever. Looking back, I’m really proud that we tried. Plus we learned a lot. Double plus, it’s totally a great dinner party story.

Fear Of Embarassment

Then there’s the fear of embarassment and looking dumb. Man, that’s a powerful one. I don’t know about you, but this is a biggie for me. I am always worried what people will think. And this one can hold you back from trying new things, and really getting outside the box. Basically, it can prevent you from becoming the best photographer you can be!

Here’s a big secret. It’s probably not at all what you expected to hear. But this is it: no one really cares. Honestly. People are concerned about their own stuff. Does it matter to them at all what you do? Hardly. Sure they might leave a negative comment, or talk about you for a bit. So what? The people who really matter in your life will still love you. You’ll still be alive. Looking silly does not matter. The sooner you can get over that fear, the more fun you’ll have. Promise.

Real Life Embarassment: As you may know, I published some of my crappiest photos on this site, for the whole world to see. I’m a professional photographer, and there’s a good chance my clients will see those (or already did). Yep, that makes me look pretty dumb. But you know what, I survived. Yes, I was scared, but I did it anyway. And I’m so glad I did, because that one small act made a whole ton of photographers feel a lot better about themselves. Totally worth looking silly!

Fear Of Rejection

A big one for photographers has to be the fear of rejection. Maybe you’re looking to network with other shooters, or asking someone to let you photograph them. Perhaps you’re showing off your portfolio to potential clients, or looking for businesses to help promote your work. If any of those situations strike fear into your heart (as they do mine), then the fear of rejection is what’s holding you back.

Now, stop and think for a second. What’s the worst thing that could happen? They could say no. Seriously, that’s it. That’s the worst. Why does that scare us so much? I think this is related to the fear of embarassment. We’re afraid that they’ll judge us when they reject us. And again, it doesn’t matter. The sooner you learn to get over the fear of rejection, the more you’ll be able to pursue opportunities, and open amazing doors for yourself.

Real Life Rejection: We once went around the city trying to connect with baby stores to promote our portrait business. We were offering them a few gift certificates they could give out to their best customers. Confession: this totally terrified us. We couldn’t just hide behind our computers, but had to get out there and actually meet people face-to-face. Double scary. And we did get rejected. A couple stores were totally not into it, and seemed pretty annoyed with us. Yes, that wasn’t awesome. Yes, the whole idea still makes us scared. But we did manage to connect with some really fantastic people, and met amazing clients as a result of it. Those clients have even opened up new opportunities for us that we would have never dreamed of. Take that, rejection!

Fear Of Change

The last type of fear that can be the cause of inaction is the fear of change. We all like comfort, don’t we? It’s hard to argue that constantly worrying if you’ll ever make enough money is better than a paycheck delivered to your desk every month. Or that leaving something you know well, to do something you know nothing about, is a smart move.

But here’s the thing. The only constant in life is change. Whether you like it or not, you have to get used to it. Wouldn’t you rather be the one deciding what changes will happen to you? Sure, some changes will occur that you didn’t choose, but getting used to change when it’s in your own control helps you learn to go with the flow of life!

Real Life Change: We began our careers as wedding photographers, and in a short amount of time managed to create a successful and profitable business, build a good name for ourselves in our market, and make tons of great connections. We were set. Then we decided we didn’t want to shoot weddings anymore. We wanted to explore what else photography had to offer. We pretty much stopped just as we were getting successful and comfortable, to pursue things we knew almost nothing about. Yes, it was scary. Very scary. But the change has been fantastic, we’re happier than ever, and we will probably change what we do about 100 times more in our life. Embrace the change. It’s a whole lot more fun when you do.

Overcoming Fear

So these fears are big ones, and I know how much they can hold you back. They hold me back all the time. But we have to realize that they aren’t doing us any good at all. They’re preventing us from having a whole lot more fun with life! So here are a few steps to overcoming fear, and doing awesome stuff.

Step 1: Identify

First, identify the fear. Realize what is really stopping you from acting. This will help you understand what you have to overcome to move foreward.

Step 2: Figure Out Worst-Case Scenarios and Contingencies

As counter-intuitive as it may sound, figuring out the worst-case scenario can help dimish your fears. This is especially true for fear of embarassment and rejection. Remember, it doesn’t really matter if they say no. Seriously. So stop and think, what’s the worst that can happen?

Now, if the worst is a scary situation for you, then come up with some contingency plans. These always help to feel like you can handle the failure if it comes your way. If you’re worried that your business won’t be successful, for example, your contingency could be to find another job after you’ve tried for X number of months. Sure, that’s not ideal, but in the big scheme of things, is finding a new job that really that scary? I mean, there aren’t even any poisonous snakes involved.

Step 3: Act

This is the most important step of all. Acting is the surest way to overcome fear.

Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain. – Mark Twain

Simple.

Now think about where you’d like to go with your photography. Your big, huge, amazing dreams. What’s holding you back from working towards that right now? What are you so afraid of?

Feel free to share in the comments what you’re afraid of when it comes to your photography. And bonus points if you can explain why it might not actually be so scary after all!”

“**THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED. CONGRATS TO OUR WINNER, ERIN! THANKS TO EVERYONE FOR PARTICIPATING!**

Hello New York! We’ve been here for the past few days, taking in all the sights, and shooting away. Everyone always told us we had to visit, so we figured we should see what all the fuss was about.

Well, of course they were right, this place is incredible! In just a few days we’ve already seen more than we could have imagined, and taken countless photos. It’s really a photographer’s playground!

So, to open up the fun to everyone, we’re going to have a little giveaway! We recently watched an amazing documentary, and want to share it with you. This one is called Bill Cunningham: New York. It’s about an 80 year old photographer who is a living legend here in New York. He shoots for the Style section of the New York Times, and, as Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of Vogue says, “We all get dressed for Bill”. An amazing look at a photographer who seems to have an unlimited amount of energy for his art!

One lucky reader is going to get a copy of Bill Cunningham: New York, for their own photography documentary library!

To enter to win, simply leave a comment below answering the following question:

What’s your favourite thing to photograph in New York? (Or, if you haven’t been before, then what would you like to photograph in New York?)

Details:

One entry per person please!
The contest runs for one week, and closes on Friday, June 29 at midnight Pacific Time.
Make sure to leave a valid email address so we can contact you if you win!
Winner will be chosen at random
Good luck everyone!

Rob + Lauren ”

One of the most useful times for photography for me personally is during our remain at a Disney Resort. It’s an incredible chance to get shots without needing to worry about managing the family at one of several parks. The Contemporary Resort is one of my favorite places to shoot.

Imagineering the Shot

The Fantasia Gift Shop is on the 4th floor in the Contemporary. I chose the Nikkor 10.5mm Fisheye f/2.8 lens on my own D90 to get as much inside the frame while i could. Despite having a DX camera, I was able to get Fantasia (and then some) in the shot.

Here is the original shot direct from the camera
Magical Post Processing

I’ve been trying for a long period to get a certain feel to my processed shots. I believe I found it, or otherwise I’m getting close. For non-bracketed shots like this, the first thing I did was to create multiple exposures through the original in Lightroom. I really made a +3 through -3 (7 exposures like the original) and changed to HDR in Photoshop. Cell phone the magic – I downloaded and am with all the trial sort of Nik Software Color Efex Pro and my favorite filter definitely is the Duplex filter. This filter takes off the “edge” of your HDR image and gets me better the feel I’m searching for. Although the original is really a fisheye shot, I wanted to give a sense of motion and increased the lens distortion in Lightroom. I’d several choices on the to keep and just what to crop and ended up with 2 final products.

It is deemed an alternate version that I processed. I needed cropped out the benches on this one.
Conclusion

All the elements I imagined while i took this picture gathered in the processing stage. From a single shot, to multiple exposure HDR to filtering and lens correction, I’m very happy with the results.

Toyo Ito recently been announced the winner in the 2013 Pritzker Prize. To commemorate this master architect, we’ve reached out to Iwan Baan, architecture’s premier photographer, and assembled a retrospective of some of Ito’s greatest works (all photographed, needless to say, by Baan) – including the Za Koenji Public Theatre, Toyo Ito’s Museum of Architecture, Silver Hut – TIMA, Ken Iwata Mother and Child Museum, Yaoko Kawagoe Museum, Suites Avenue Hotel, Huge Wineglass Project, Mikimoto 2, Tama Art University Library & White O.