Finding my Inner Light

Recently, thanks to my good friend Brad Hermes - who is a former University of Texas football player - I had the pleasure of going to one of the Longhorn football games! UT vs. University of Central Florida, and it was a fun game to be at!

Weather was pristine, beautiful, and a calm 75 degrees - perfect FOOTBALL weather! My brother in law, Jason Clark, joined me to watch the Longhorns lay waste to UCF.

Here are a few photos of our adventure - nothing terribly exciting, but I just wanted to capture some images that I shot that day.










Will post my panorama later on!

Recently, I've become a little enamored with doing panoramic images - back in the film days, we used to use panoramic and swing lens cameras to do that kind of job - if you still want to use film, you can check out cameras like Hasselblad Superwide or Fuji X-Pan for film panoramic options.

While I think film produces subjectively better results, there's no reason why you can't use your digital camera to capture a fantastic panorama. Basic requirements are these:

Digital DSLR - 10MP or better
16-35MM lens - you don't want to use a telephoto for this kind of shot
Ability to shoot in RAW format
RAW Editing Software - Lightroom or ACR or something similar. Your pick.
Photoshop CS3 or greater - there are other programs, but I'm going to cover CS3
Tripod is nice to have, but NOT required.


OK, so you have all of those things, now what?

Go out and shoot some pics of something to merge into a panorama and here are a few guidelines.

1. take a look at your overall scene that you want to photograph, and visualize your panorama. Find the brightest part of the image (not the sky, your subject matter) and set your camera to properly expose that part of the image.

2. Use a Tripod if you have one - it's not necessary, but it does help. I can do panoramas handheld, but tripods help in keeping things stabilized, and it helps if you have a panoramic head on your tripod.

3. Shoot 10-15 images of your panorama - and OVERLAP each image. I cannot stress this enough. First image you shoot, move your camera halfway to overlap the next frame, and shoot again, and do the same thing over and over again, till you get to the end of your panorama.

4. Once you're done, go to your favorite RAW editing program, and BATCH edit the entire set - all of them must have uniform color temperature and right amount of contrast - fix exposure problems here if you need to as well. Export ALL images to their own folder with these settings - 8 Bit Jpeg, Adobe RGB 1998, 100 Quality (if you're using Lightroom).

5. Open photoshop, and open all the images that you will be using in your panorama.:




Now, the fun part starts!!!!

Open all your images in photoshop and set them like this in order:



Next, go to File > Automate > Panorama like in this screenshot:



You'll see a dialog box pop up, and it will ask you which images you want to photomerge, and it will give you options as to which way you want to merge all your images - Auto is a pretty safe way to go, but sometimes I like to use Perspective setting. Click on the button that says "Add Open Images" to load the images for your panorama. Screenie!



Once you've selected which images you are using, click OK. Then it will do all the steps required to do your photomerging - be patient, this step takes time, and also depends on your computer's number crunching power. Go watch a tv show, get dinner, have a romantic moment with your loved one, whatever :D.



Once you're done, you're likely to end up with something similar to this:



Next step to do in this process is to crop and then Flatten your image - remember, this is a big panoramic sized image, so you might end up with huge file sizes like 130MB or even 250MB per panorama. It's all dependent on how many images you've choose for your project.















You can do your final edits to fit your tastes after the panorama is done! Here is mine:

I think one of the things my wife loves the most about me is the fact I'm a professional photographer, and that I'll be shooting all the photos of the kiddo as she grows up! But since I can't photograph the baby just yet, I'll be photographing the wife for her maternity photos!


All of these were done with a simple 580 EX II Flash fired through a Westcott Umbrella Softbox, and the background is some silk sheets I bought from hobby lobby and cut up for the ribbons to give it a more organic feel.

The Photos!















The blueish one is really meant to create a mood, and I hope it accomplished its goal!



Secondly, a recent wedding I shot a while back, I'm not sure if I uploaded the photos there just yet, but never to late to post them now! :D These are of Kara and Terrell Hamman, taken in a church in Pflugerville, TX!












Enjoy!

Joylisa, a new edit!

This past week I've spent the bulk.. actually, ALL of my time at Texas School for the Deaf. Why, you ask? A special project that Paul Rutowski, fellow photographer and good friend, had embarked on and he tapped me to help him out with the photography aspects for this project. The subject? 2009 DEAFLYMPIC TRACK TEAM PHOTOS! I was more than excited to be out there with Paul shooting these images, and what you see here is a culmination of our work and there will be LOTS more to come, especially given the raw materials we have to work with.

First, I'd like to direct you to the official Deaflympic Track Team page which can be found here: http://usadtf.blogspot.com/ maintained by the Head Honcho of the team himself, Thomas Winthrow Jr.! Please visit the site if you can, and take a look around, and if you can, make a donation for the team - they're running completely on charity funds from all over the USA, and every bit helps our Deaf athletes achieve their dreams in Taipei!

Now, onwards to the images!!

































Good luck to the team in Taipei! Bring home the Gold!!!!

And ONE more, just for good measure! A composite done for Darius Flowers, triple jump king!

Erin Majek, Senior at Austin High School, came with me to shoot some senior photos!~ She's a bubbly ball of electricity and was an absolute trooper bearing with me in the hot Texas heat! We have another shoot hopefully scheduled for next week, but right now, I want to show you her images! :D



















This is all the updates for now! I'll be posting some more later - of the Talbert Family photos!

I just had a whirlwind weekend, and quite possibly something that ultimately lit a fire within me - I just competed in a professional photographer's competition against photographers from all over Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, New Mexico, and I think Arizona - and came out far better than I thought I would ever do.

Before I start, I would like to thank my wife, Tamara Copeland-Samaripa, without her support, I would not be the photographer I am today. It's her constant encouragement, cajoling, and belief in my abilities that enabled me to accomplish what I did at this competition. She is my rock, and the glue that keeps this family together. Thank you for all that you do, babe, and for being my wife! I love you!

Now, onto the images!

The award winning wedding photo is of Danielle and Aston Teague, both of Austin, TX! I shot this particular image at Laguna Gloria Museum where they held their ceremony, and they had an amazing old school style Caddy for their limo to the reception, and I JUST had to use it for a prop. Danielle and Aston were both sold on the idea, and thus, this image came about. This one is titled - "Timeless Love."





Another image that did quite well, and it's a bit different than my usual fare of people and portraits - this one is a commercial themed image. I took a purse and photographed it in an ad like fashion. This one is titled - "Hugs and Kisses."





This image is of Hannah Baker, a senior portrait I did for her about a year ago. She's a lovely young lady, and this photo definitely shows that. The judges scored this one a 78, and it could have gone higher if I had taken care of a couple of other elements and shot from a higher angle. Titled - "Daydreamer"





Last image is of a retouch effort I did for a model named Kimberly - I wish I knew her last name, but it doesn't make her any less stunning! The before was a pretty good photo, the after is my retouch effort to make her look amazing. I changed the hair, replaced the white shirt with a velvet red one, did the eyes and super skin smoothing, and a myriad of other things. This is simply titled - "Kimberly." 78 score, by the way!




A fun time was had by all, and I know going to this seminar was a life changing experience for me. To see my peers give me feed back on my work, to see my fellow friends get accolades for their fantastic images, to see everyone enjoying themselves and sharing tricks of the trade was definitely rewarding. In particular, I wish to give thanks to Jenny Hollis and Richard Sturdevant, fellow photographers and artists who took the time to chat with me about the profession and what they do. Jenny's work can be seen at: jennyhollisphotography.com and Richard's can be seen at: http://www.sturdevantstudio.com/. My work, of course, is showcased on this blog, as well as my own site, www.innerlightcreations.com.

Good morning, all!

Updating again, Jennifer and Casey Cooper are a beautiful couple - originally from Austin, Tx, now residing in Seattle! Jennifer is definitely a one of a kind bride - she's got that "something" that just draws you in, and she looked absolutely gorgeous on her wedding day. I thought her dress looked somewhat familiar - it's actually a version of what my wife wore on HER wedding day! Maggie Sottero dresses rock, and they look great, as evidenced by the photos!


This wedding was at the Zilker Part Botanical Gardens in Austin, TX - very photogenic location and very much an iconic location! They choose to have a "spice" wedding - spices like Cardomam, Basil, Pepper, Cumin (I think) among others to represent different facets of their relationship and their marriage, and blended it all into one heaping bowl to represent THEM. Definitely different, and definitely unique!



Without further blather from yours truly - the PHOTOS!


















Congratulations, Jennifer and Casey!

Hello, everyone! I apologize for the lack of updates as of late, tons of things have preoccupied my attention, most notably the Austin Community College's Print show, and the upcoming TPPA Photography competition in Kerrville, TX. I'm really looking forward to competing against photographers from all over Texas, and to represent our school as best as I can.

First, a few highlights! I recently received honorable mention for the ACC print show, in the Retouch category. I've become a lot more skilled at retouching people, and making them look better than ever.

Here is the retouching effort!

Before:



and AFTER!




Additionally, I also submitted this image for retouching category - and while it didn't exactly win, it wasn't a slouch either. This one is of my parents wedding, and I did the colorization and restoration of this particular image. TONS of work. Over 40 layers in Photoshop, let me tell you.



Before:


After!






OK, now that we got the ACC fun stuff out of the way, onto the REAL images of the day!

Laura and Greg, a couple whose wedding I will be photographing this August! I'm looking forward to capturing their special day :D.














And the recent stuff I promised, weddings galore! :D


Donna and Karlin Hummel













Larry and Erica Cooper/McKinney







I'd love to continue posting, but I'd like to share some news of my own. My wife Tamara Copeland-Samaripa, is 5 months pregnant with our first child, and as such, I did the maternity shot. Simple, and effective black and white. :)





And some of Reilly, a senior at Pflugerville High School!













Thanks for visiting!!

Elisha's headshot - BW




I wanted to see if I could use my newly acquired post production skills to retouch one of Danielle's photos a bit further, and came out with this:





and the last one of my friend Anthony - BW conversion and my new logo put to use!

Poll #1332239 Logos!
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 3

Which logo should I pick???

I recently had a logo designed by a graphic designer by the name of Watari (great guy, good work!) and I'm having trouble deciding which one I like best! I'm kind of partial to number 5, but I'll listen to my adoring public. :)


Please help me decide! Click on the image for a bigger version!

These are recent edits I did for some of my images! Click on each image to see a larger version of the shot, if you so wish. :)






















































This one is of my wife Tamara, this photo was shot by Svetlana Frolova, a fellow photographer and a good friend! I did my own personal edit (with Svetlana's approval) to the image, the result is below.

Welcome back! I'm going to post a few of my portrait retouching techniques - nothing terribly difficult, and easily done with Photoshop CS2/3/4 if you have that program.

While not a required piece of hardware, I'd strongly suggest getting a pen tablet like the Wacom Bamboo Fun http://www.wacom.com/bambootablet/bamboofun.php to help with the control of the hard to reach areas and allow you better "pen" pressure to control your mouse. It'll definitely help with your skin and eye retouching! I personally have one, and I LOVE the thing!

Now, I'm going to show you a few step by step to retouching. Generally speaking, this can be applied to just about any kind of portrait shot, but I prefer to use these techniques to "highlight" and bring out the beauty in people. A little Botox never hurt, eh?


Here's my photo that I plan on "glamorizing" using my technique:



As you can see, she has reasonably clear skin, and she's certainly a pretty model, but we can help "enhance" some things.


Now, here's what we need to do. With a healing brush, we need to remove the blemishes that are present the model - as I've pointed out in red:




First thing you need to do is duplicate your original "background" layer - the first layer on your photoshop palette. Shortcut for this is "CNTRL J" if you're on a PC, and "APPLE J" if you're on a mac. The reason for this is that you NEVER work on the original layer if you can help it, especially if you're working with JPEGS. That way, if you mess up, you can delete the layer you were working on and start again.

Now, find your healing brush on your photoshop tool palette on the left, it looks like a little "Band Aid." On the duplicated layer, find your offending blemishes and select a sample from an area near the blemish of the SAME tonality, by holding down ALT plus clicking with the mouse. Now you're ready to heal - click on the blemish and clean it up using a quick click and stroke. Repeat this for other blemishes, and bear in mind, that you must pick a sample from the same area as the blemish, otherwise it will look funny.


After you've cleaned up the blemishes and are happy with the results, flatten your layers to make one whole image - you can do this from the menu by selecting the layer menu, then flatten.

Now, we're going to enhance her eyes a little bit. She has some lovely green eyes, and we can make them pop by using a simple trick.

Here are the before for the eyes:




As you can see, we can make the eye whites a bit more "brighter" and maybe add in a bit more highlights to her pupils and iris. Create an empty layer directly above your background layer - can do this from the layer menu - and change that layer mode to "soft light." Select brush, and zoom in to 100% (CNTRL + for PC) to see the eyes better - and change your brush opacity to about 15%. You can change the brush opacity (NOT the layer opacity) on the bar right below the menus bar in photoshop.

Now, with a white brush (make sure you have white selected - check your color palette on the left menu bar), add in a bit more white to the white areas of the eyes and add in a bit more highlights to the catchlights in the eyes and iris' as well. This will help bring out the colors of the eyes more. Now, with a black brush (check your color palette and select black), paint in a bit of black on the outer edge of the iris an paint in the pupils a bit. After you've done that to your satisfaction, with a smaller sized black brush, paint in more black on the eye lashes to help bring them out more. This is where you'll really appreciate having a wacom tablet!

Here is my result:




Additionally, you can use the same soft light blend mode using a white brush to paint in some highlights into her hair, that's really up to you and your personal taste. :) Once you're done, flatten your layer again!


Now, we're moving on to skin smoothing. There are a lot of techniques on the web, but my favorite is the high pass technique. It retains skin texture authenticity and doesn't do the plastic looking skin retouching like others do.

Again, duplicate your layer, and then go to filters > Others > High pass. The amount you want to use is enough to get an embossed look like this:




After you've done that, you need to invert your layer. Go to Layer > Invert to get a look like this:




After that, change that high pass layer's blend mode to one of the two - Soft Light or Overlay. You'll get a pretty pleasing effect, but as with all things, you need to control where the effect takes place! To do this, you need to apply a layer mask - Go to Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal All. You'll see a white thing appear next to your layer's icon on the layer palette. Now, you need to invert that mask, by doing CNTRL I on a PC to invert. This will "hide" all your skin edits for now. Stay on that layer, and select a white brush with 50% opacity, and paint on the model's face where you want the effect to take place, avoid the eyes, eyebrows, and lips and nostrils, while getting other areas. You'll see on the layer where you've painted. If you've made a mistake, don't panic - switch to black and paint over the mistake to hide. Pretty nifty, huh?


Here's my skin retouching :) along with all of my other edits.

I've got a few requests from family and friends to help them better understand their photography, and to explain a few basic concepts, which is what I will attempt to do here.

Essentially, without going into anything terribly fancy like studio strobes, or flash or off camera lighting, I'll boil down the basics of photography to three important factors: Shutter Speed, Aperture (also known as F-stop) and ISO (also known as ASA). I'll attempt to use some of my own photographs to explain these basic concepts.

Let's start with shutter speed. Essentially, the shutter is like the "eyelid" of an human eye, except it spends the majority of its time "shut." When the shutter opens, it lets in light, and exposes your image on your sensor (or film), and stops the exposure when it closes. However, you can control how fast or how slow your shutter opens and closes, thereby determining how much light is impacting your image.

For example, let's use your own eye as a model. Close your eye for a second, and then blink normally and close it again - what did you see? You probably only saw enough for one quick look at something, and have an image in your brain and froze whatever action was occuring at that moment you blinked. Now, let's try this a little bit differently. Close your eyes again, and blink once more - however - keep your eyes open for about 2 seconds rather than a quick blink. What did you see? I suspect you saw a lot more going on during that two seconds and a lot more light to see whatever it was you saw.

Here are a few illustrative examples:

Shot at 1/125th of a second - about the same time as an eyeblink:





See how the battery is frozen while it was rolling down the tray? It doesn't look like it's rolling, because I used a "fast" shutter speed to freeze that movement.

Now, the next image should prove something interesting - Shot at a full second - not very long by our standards, but literally an eternity in photographic terms considering how fast light moves.





As you can see, the battery itself is blurred out, because it was moving during that 1 second time exposure and as such, was blurred. One second doesn't seem like a very long time, but for something that's moving fairly quickly, it's actually very long. Additionally, see how the edges of the frame are blurred also? I'm holding the camera, and therefore I shake a little bit in that one second - that causes blurriness too!


Moving onto the next concept - Aperture, also called F-stop. While shutter speed is the time that you leave your shutter open, Aperture is the "hole" that allows light to pass through to expose the image. Think of aperture as your pupils of your eyes - when it's bright outside, your eyes automatically reduce the size of your pupils to better manage the light outside. When it's dark, like in a movie theater, your eyes make your pupils open up more to let more light in so you can see better. This is a very important concept to understand, because you're not going to be able to shoot at the same aperture every single time - depending on how bright/dark it is, you might have to make your aperture smaller/bigger.

Now, I should probably explain aperture numbers - you'll see numbers like F22, F11, F8, F5.6, and you probably don't really understand what they mean. Here's the rule of the thumb - the bigger the number, the smaller the hole. In other words, Numbers like F32 implies a very tiny aperture, and as such, probably won't let in that much light. Numbers like F2.8 implies a BIG aperture, and as such, will let in a lot of light.

Now, when do you determine when to use such apertures? When you have a lot of light to work with, generally smaller apertures are ok. If you're in a dark area, and not very much light is available to use, a bigger aperture (like F2.8) is the way to go. Additionally, smaller apertures do not allow you to keep everything in focus - a small aperture will generally keep one thing in focus while throwing out the rest into a blur. Great for portraits. However, you'll most likely need to increase your ISO depending on how much light you have to work with. Large apertures will show a lot of detail, and keep a lot of things in focus - great for landscapes. However, you'll most likely need to use a tripod, because the smaller apertures don't let in as much light as a larger one, and as such, will require more shutter speed time to expose properly.

Now, onto the LAST concept, which is ISO. ISO is essentially the sensitivity of the sensor to light - the higher the number, the MORE sensitive it is to light, and vice versa. In other words, a lower ISO will probably require MORE light to expose properly as opposed to using an higher ISO, which requires LESS light to expose properly.

Most entry level DSLRs have ISO ranges from ISO 100 to 1600, and the more fancy pro level cameras can go up to as high as 24,600 ISO, some even more. You might be asking yourself - why not just shoot at the highest ISO possible, to get the best amount of sensitivity? Noise. The higher you go up, the more noise or "grain" you will introduce into your image, and thus degrade the quality of the image.


Now, you're probably getting how all of this works - now how does all of this come together? One thing these three concepts have in common is that they ALL control light in some fashion. Shutter speed controls light via time, Aperture controls light via openings, and ISO controls light via sensitivity. To gain in one area, you need to "trade off" in another. For example, to get a faster shutter speed in a lower light situation, I need to increase my ISO so I can increase my shutter speed - the trade off is the image quality of using a higher ISO. Learning how to balance all three is the key to exposing an image properly, and as such you need to ask yourself these questions and evaluate your situation:

Shutter speed: Is my subject moving? Do I need to stop the action, or create a blur? If these are critical components, then shutter speed is important to you.

Aperture - is my background distracting? Do I need separation between my subject and the background? Am I shooting a landscape where I need a lot of detail? If this is the case, you need to decide if a small/large aperture is what you need.

ISO - the last factor - how much quality do you want? Can you live with a little bit of noise, or do you prefer to have none? 100 ISO is no noise, 1600 is going to be very grainy.



This concludes my basic tutorial.

This is going to be a somewhat long post, especially by my standards. I just recently got married to my longtime girlfriend, Tamara Copeland, whom you might be familiar with if you've been an avid reader of this blog.

It's really amazing what true friends will do for you, especially when it's the most significant event of your life, and how they're indeed one of the most valuable gifts you'll ever receive. Real, true, and honest friends are hard to come by, and Tamara and I have been blessed with knowing so many people that we're proud to call our friends.

First, let me start with Christopher and Aimee Robinson. I met both of them when I came to Boston for the first time to meet Tamara (at Anna and Daniel Davis' wedding, no less!), and they both made me feel like a part of the family, and were warm and inviting from the start.

Chris has a way of being the life of every party, and has a very positive outlook on life, as evidenced by his constant smile, and the "Life is Good" sticker on his laptop. He's always looking for the good in things, even during bleak moments. Both he and Aimee came over the week before my wedding to help Tamara and I finish the final preparations, and he lent his interpreter talents for our wedding day. Chris also absorbed any small errands and took a load off of our shoulders, and helped make our day special. I'm grateful I'm one of Chris' friends, and definitely thankful that he was there.

Aimee is very similar to Chris in a lot of ways, as she also has an omnipresent smile and cheer, and it's amazing the amount of energy she has. She helped Tamara a ton during the week of our wedding, and also lent her considerable interpreting talents for the two of us. She was absolutely instrumental in helping us get everything done, and both Tamara and I were thankful that she was there to help us make our wedding day go by smoother. Aimee's enthusiasm is infectious, it's hard not to get excited and thrilled about something when she's around!

A BIG thank you goes out to both of them - without them, Tamara and I would have undoubtedly ended up pulling our collective hair out! :P


Second thank you goes out to Anna and Daniel Davis, both of whom flew in from Boston (like Chris and Aimee) to be at our wedding. Anna made things fun, and she too, like Chris and Aimee, has a way of looking at the positive side of things. Anna did everything she could to help us make our day special, from putting together flowers, to interpreting for our deaf audience at our wedding, to helping me hash our the final details with our wedding officiant. I also had fun dancing with her too! If more people were like Anna, the world would be a much better place.

Daniel was also most helpful too. My mother was impressed with Daniel, and gushed at me after the wedding, "Daniel was SO nice! He was always there, asking if I needed help with anything or if he could take something for me or run an errand, anything! You have some great friends from all over!" Daniel is one of those rare friends that take the time and effort to communicate with you in your native language - it's not everyday I meet someone who takes classes or learns ASL on his own to better communicate with his wife's friends. Daniel's a rare gem, and indeed, I consider him a good friend. Heck, he even got me Sonic! Anyone who likes Sonic can't be all bad. :P

Third thank you, goes to my ese, Anthony Peralez. He's been my friend for a good 8 years now, and we've been through thick and thin. I know I can always count on my ese to help me out and watch my back when things are rough, and he knows the same on my end. He was my best man for the wedding, and when he did the best man speech, he was doing his best to hold back tears and still talk, and while to some people it may have not been 100% coherent, I understood what Anthony was trying to say, and that's really all that matters. He also caught me off guard with the ring pop move when it came time to exchange our rings, but I should have expected something was up! :P

Shayla Copeland, Tamara's sister (and now my sister in law) was also instrumental in helping us in our day. She was there for EVERYTHING. Calming my wife's nerves, putting together flower bouquets, getting the music sorted for our semi-awake DJ, making sure everything was in the right place at the right time. She was, simply put, awesome. And soon, she's gonna be getting married too! I look forward to photographing her wedding for her :)

I apologize if I left out anyone. It was not intentional, but in all honesty, everyone helped us out in some way, shape or form. I know Tamara and I have the support of our family and friends, many of whom flew from places like Boston, Minnesota, California..just to see us get married. It would not have been the day that it was, without our family and friends.

Thank you, all.




Michael Samaripa and Tamara Copeland-Samaripa

Just a few shots for people to view.

Enjoy!





Simple tarts, I really liked the color on this, and I did a bit of photoshop work to make the colors pop even more.







This one is of my brother Jesse's new... half-wolf, half german shepherd? pet, dog, thing :P

These are some images of my friend Danielle. Enjoy!

Here are some of the photos I've edited for today. Couple are from a recent wedding, and some are of Tamara and I, over the weekend.



This one is of a flower girl who was at the recent wedding I assisted at, and she's got some powerful blue eyes. She's gonna be a real heartbreaker when she grows up!




This one is a macro shot of a ring I did, at the same wedding.





And all of these are of yours truly, and my fiancee' Tamara.













That's all I've got for today folks! I'll be posting more as the semester wears on. I've a full plate - with 5 classes!

My mother has been asking me for a photo to use for engagement announcements for the newspaper here in Manor, so I grabbed my future wife, my camera, and bought a cheapo tripod and shot this in Pflugerville.

Not too many edits were done to this, as we're both naturally beautiful people :P.

(not to mention, my future wife wants me to get rid of the bikini shots and put in our pics!)







next!





and last one for now. I want to reshoot them again at a different venue, and hopefully, with a a flash.

Elisha again! This time we did this at high noon, in scorching Texas heat, 105 degrees! Elisha and I were both sweating, and working, and creating these images! I had a lot of fun with these, and these are some of the images. I have yet more!