Beautiful Headshots For My Beautiful Friend

My friend Tiffany needed headshots so we did a session tonight.

She works at WHISPER SALON in Manalapan, NJ and they might be placing an advertisement in local advertisement magazine. The exciting part is that my photo of Tiffany will be featured in the ad if the do so. :)

We took about 125 serious shots and about 55 fun shots. Below are the final 3 shots that Tiffany asked me to edit so that she can decide between them for the ad. I also threw in a fun shot that I tonemapped to make it look kinda funky!

These were taken in my makeshift studio (for today that was my living room!) with a black muslin backdrop, with my D80 and the 18-200VR lens with the SB800 flash pointed straight at her (no bounce).

I had 2 room lights (with 60 watt flourescent bulbs in them) on in the room and I had a clamp light with a 60 watt flourescent bulb shining on her from the right side of the photo. I also attached my silver reflector to my tripod using a big hair clip (I really need to get some big clamps from Home Depot) to position the reflector diagonally out from her right.







Tonemapped from a single RAW file just for fun taken with the Nikon 105mm VR macro lens



Original Shot of the above:



If you live in the Manalapan and you need your hair done - make an appointment at Whisper Salon and ask for Tiffany! Their number is 732-677-1000 and they are at 55 U S Hwy No 9 Manalapan, NJ in the Target and Home Goods shopping center. See the Google Map below for more information on where to find Whisper Salon:

View Larger Map

Portrait Retouching Tutorial / Back to the Farm

LOOKING FOR A PHOTO RETOUCHING TUTORIAL?

The following link was shared with me today that's really helpful for retouching portrait or glamour photos.

Click here: http://www.perrush.be/ps_glamour_retouching_01.html

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Other than sharing that information....tonight I worked on some more of the horse photos that I took on New Years Eve. Thought I'd share some of these wonderful animals with you!

The first 3 photos below are tonemapped (using a single RAW image in Phototmatrix):





The shyguy series:









And lastly....the "intense stare"



To view more horse photos check out my horse gallery: http://jenweaverphotography.smugmug.com/gallery/2955359/1/244256037

Oh My Darlin' Clementine!

Today I met Clementine! My friend Tiffany's bird. Clementine is some form of a parrot...super small and cute. She reminded me of a bird I used to have...

I had my camera with me so I thought she needed a portrait shoot! All of these were taken with no flash in natural light from the window next to the cage.

Playing shy with me:







No longer as shy as she started out...



I SWEAR she was hamming it up for the camera!



And perched on her favorite spot...on Tiffany's head!



Here are 2 that I tonemapped the RAW file because I thought they would look interesting and I wanted the blue to really POP!

I put the lens of the camera right in the cage for this one to shoot upwards where Clementine was perched.





To view all of the Clementine photos I took today click here: http://jenweaverphotography.smugmug.com/gallery/4161855/1/243027042

PS: I just hit 2000 hits on my blog since August! Woo hoo! So exciting! Thanks to all of my loyal readers!

Hidden Treasures

Tonight I edited some of the New York City photos I took last Saturday.

When it came to the architectural shots I tonemapped the single RAW image to get some great simulated HDR shots.

I got to this photo and and I stopped in my tracks when I saw the shot after tonemapping!!! Take a look at the skyscraper on the left! The sunlight shining on the building created a.....HEART! I couldn't believe it!! This was not maipulated!!! I completely LOVE it!

I'm calling it:

I HEART NY



Some other favorites from NYC from this editing session:















Some people shots I really liked:

THE BREAKER



PORTRAIT



NYPD

I couldn't decide between the following 2 effects on this photo:

Photographing Snow/Photomatrix Tutorials/Abandoned New Jersey

How to Photograph Snow and Sand

Ever wonder why blizzard or snow photos made on overcast days almost always look dark gray and not snowy white like real snow? Click HERE for more information on correcting this from Ken Rockwell.

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Photomatrix Tutorials?

I was just searching the web looking for some Photomatrix Tutorials and found this (what I am really looking for is more in depth tutorials on using the sliders to my best advantage. I haven't found exactly what I'm looking for yet...and this searching and reading takes up soooooo much time!):

HDR Tutorial: How to create ‘High Dynamic Range’ images using Photomatix

If anyone knows any other good Photomatrix tutorials for free - let me know!

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Below are today's favorite works of mine...all are 3 exposures HDRs tonemapped in Photomatrix and tweaked in Photoshop.

Found these abandoned houses just by chance a couple weeks ago and I went back to shoot in this area yesterday in order to capture them. There are a handful of these abandoned houses on this one street and I can't figure out why they are all boarded up (since they look like they were in good shape).

It felt like such a ghost town...very strange being in this deserted place alone I must say. It's hard to explain...it was an eerie feeling as if they had fleed the area leaving in a hurry...parts of their world were left behind...items were still in the barn like someone was still working at the workbench.

Abandoned New Jersey
Old Barn....and a clothesline