Kerr Photography - Victoria, BC, Professional Photographer » photoblog

Halloween: Zombies, Gangters and Rorschach

Matthew — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 23:32:10 +0000

Happy Halloween Everyone! Here are a couple of images from an early Halloween party that I attended. All of the pictures here were shot, amazingly enough, with available light. Editing was done in Lightroom 3 beta and Adobe Photoshop CS3. Be safe this weekend.

Don’t forget to vote for this photoblog at the 2009 Photoblog Awards!

Lightroom 3 Public Beta – Thoughts So Far

Matthew — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:47:29 +0000

When a software company releases a new version of a program that is used by professionals and amateurs alike, it doesn’t always make it to a public beta test. This is not the case with Adobe’s Lightroom series. Every edition of Lightroom (Lr) is put through a public beta test. That is to say that if you have an email address, you can test this beta, provide feedback and test run the new version.

I downloaded the beta on the first day it was available. When I checked the forums for it, there was one post. Cool. So far my impressions with the new Lr have been good. It’s fast at loading, the import function has been redesigned, and switching modules is a breeze compared to previous versions.

I tried some intensive editing the other day and it hasn’t changed much. The brush function has some new features added to it and there is the renamed post-crop vignette in the effects section. The only other effect is called “film grain”. Film must truly be dead if you now have to run your digital file through a noise reduction process and then add grain. I digress. While I was doing my editing as I added more bits here and there, the program itself got slower and slower and slower. Nothing really new here. I do most of my editing in Photoshop for this very reason (white balance and general adjustments aside). So, in terms of an editing software, it’s still not as good as it could be. Don’t get me wrong though, an update is there for a reason.

All of the pictures here have been edited completely in Lr and in my opinion look as good as they would if they had been processed through Photoshop. However, I would have had this post up yesterday if I did them in Photoshop. I guess, if you’re a photographer who doesn’t need/want to do heavy processing, this is a great program and I encourage you to go to Adobe’s website and download the public beta. It’s free and it won’t hurt you.

Something else I noticed while playing with the program, you can’t view your Lr 2 catalogs just yet. Adobe has blocked them in the beta for now. I like this, it prevents me from completely destroying my current catalogs. I’ll keep playing with the program for the next couple of months and if I find anything else that is super important, I’ll post it here. Here are a couple more images that have been processed with Lr 3. Go ahead and click on the image to enlarge it.

Remember to vote for this blog a the 2009 Photoblog Awards. Link is at the top of the sidebar.

New Laforet Movie Posted by Canon, Then Taken Down

Matthew — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:28:34 +0000

Canon needs to get their act together. They just released the Canon 1d MkIV. Or, just 1d4. Seriously how do they expect people to understand which camera is which? I still don’t know the difference between Canon’s 1d2 and 1d3 are.

You may remember when the 5dMkII or 5d2 came out with 1080p video that there was a video posted by director/photographer Vincent Laforet. It was called Reverie. It was quick, to the point and a very expensive short. I liked it. And it was the first video of it’s kind to be shot on an still camera. Now, we have hundreds of great videos out there all shot on SLR cameras. One of my favourite at the moment is by a photographer in Atlanta, USA. Andrew Kornylak did a whole series on bouldering and rock climbing where he shot interviews with the Nikon D5000 and then did still-video with the Nikon D3 by just blasting away and getting a cool, stop motion like feel.

Here is one of the videos from Andrew.

You can’t always tell when it switches from the 720p video of the D5000 to the D3 which tops out at 11fps.

Unfortunately, Laforet’s newest movie Nocturne isn’t available at the moment because there seems to be some strife between Canon Inc. and Canon USA. Hopefully it will be up on the web soon. Of course you can always find it on YouTube. Because everything is on YouTube. Laforet wrote on his blog that he has agreed to take the video down until Canon gets it together. If you missed it, here is Vincent Laforet’s Reverie.

Just so you know, Nikon isn’t sitting by with there video/still cameras and not producing movies. Bill Frakes did an amazing video with the new Nikon D3s. And yes, ballerinas in Austrailia.

Wedding Photography: A Look at Traditions

Matthew — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 22:48:44 +0000

Not all weddings are equal. Just like not all wedding photographers are equal. You have to choose the right one. They must meet a list of criteria that suit your need. Such as: style, personality, quality, direction, passion, and of course price. Sometimes, however, it is not all about price but how well you and your significant other get along with your photographer.

Just as you should choose your photographer, you should choose your traditions. I’ve seen comedies and TV shows where they mock certain traditions like feeding each other cake and the chicken dance. I personally enjoy the chicken dance. Of course, you could have your own traditions as well. The last wedding I shot they had belly dancers perform at the reception and then after everyone had eaten, we all went out side and performed a dance for the couple in the middle to commemorate their wedding.

An Idea to Improve Flash Photography

Matthew — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 00:01:31 +0000

This idea is not mine. I want to make that clear. I’m just re-posting this idea that David Hobby of Strobist.com came up with and posted to his blog.

Say you walk in to a room that you’re going to photograph for editorial, architecture, food. Whatever. The light sucks. Plain and simple, you need to add flash but you need the ambient for fill or maybe you can’t turn it off. Matching the colour of your flash to the ambient can be a pain. Especially, if you have no idea what the colour is!

Both Nikon and Canon do a very good job of the custom white balance, based on the ambient environment. If you are shooting available light, you just shoot a white (or grey) card and set a new white balance to match your mystery ambient light. With a little in-camera calculation, the camera manufacturers out there (Nikon, Canon, Sony, Pentax, Fuji, etc.) can correct to any CC-pack (colour correct) out there. You do your white balance, it tells you what colour gel to put on your flashes and you have a colour balanced flash! Wouldn’t that be nice?

Alright, here’s the tricky part. Nikon, (or Canon, Sony, etc.) you already have the ambient offset color information available in the camera, and it works great. How about you just give us a menu option to know how to CC our flashes so we can match the ambient without buying an expensive flash color meter?

Now all that has to happen is we have to get the companies listening. So if you like the idea (I do, and I know David Hobby does) go out and re-post this blog or strobist.com, or tweet it, facebook, delicious, digg, reddit, or any thing else you can think of. Let’s see if we can get someone to see us.

Moving Wood

Matthew — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 23:46:51 +0000

Just something I did the other day to try and inspire myself. It’s not fancy or finished. It’s only about a minute long and there is no message or meaning for it. The only reason for it is that it inspired me to pick up my camera (well, put it on a tripod at least). During the last year at school, I felt like I had so much creative juice (I was a ripe fruit?). Recently, however, I feel like that lemon in your ice tea at the restaurant, all the juice has been squeezed out and now it just haphazardly floats just below the ice. Click here if you are using a reader to view this post, so you can view the video.
So, in forcing myself to pick up my camera and take these 1400 pictures of yours truly stacking wood, I have also put my camera on my desk so that I see it everyday. Otherwise, it might just sit in my camera bag in the corner of the room waiting to be played with. Just after finishing up all the work seen in the video, I went out climbing at the local climbing gym. Then I finished the work in the yard. Suffice it to say, I was a little sore. Then I went sailing.
This little project also progressed me towards taking my camera to the coffee shop and taking pictures there. You’ve seen some in the previous post, but here are a couple more. Don’t forget to vote in 2009 Photoblog Awards!

Coffee Shop

Matthew — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 05:05:06 +0000

I was hanging out in a local coffee shop where one of my good friends works. He was closing up the shop and I was giving him a ride home. I used this opportunity to take my camera around the shop and take some more abstract pictures. After just watching a video about photography and using only one lens. I decided to get back in to that way of thinking. Clicking on my 50/1.8 to my D3, I went in search of something to stare at.
Here are a few things that I liked, there are a few more on my flickr photostream. Also, see if you can guess what a few of these are.

Add your guess as a comment below and I’ll let you know if you’re right. Don’t forget, if you like what you see, go to the 2009 Photoblog Awards site and vote for my photoblog.

Video

Matthew — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 02:51:45 +0000

This has been out for a while but it’s a video that Wired.com did about photography. Specifically, street photography using a natural light. I found on the strobist blog about a week ago and I feel that if you don’t read that blog, and you’re a photographer, you should. If you haven’t seen it here it is.

Click here if you are using a reader to view this post, so you can view the video. I hope you enjoyed that video, I’m going to have to get out the scrim and head downtown to try a little of this out.

Why is it so?

Matthew — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 16:52:02 +0000

I don’t know what my fascination with black and white photography is lately. I think it’s the contrast. Not the tonal contrast but the fact that black and white images are an interpretation of reality, not an image of reality. Merely representing shape, form and tone. It’s raw. I guess. That’s what I’m trying to say. I dig it. I was reading a blog about photography techniques. I came to the realization that “technique” is only one way of doing things. It suggests that you should use the lowest possible ISO when taking black and white images. The reason is because noise is evil and bad. Seriously. I like noisy pictures as much as I like noiseless pictures. It depends on my mood.

You may have also noticed an icon on the side of the webpage here. It’s for the 2009 Photoblog Awards (I know, you can read that). It’s a yearly competition that gives credit to Photoblogs from around the world. Awards go to: Photoblog of the Year, Best New Photoblog, Most Popular, Best Landscape, Best American, Best Black and White, Best Asian and Oceanian, Best Design, Best European. Voting is open until December 15, 2009 and at that point, blogs with a certain number of votes, the finalists, go on to be judged and the winners are announced at the end of the year, December 31, 2009. It’s run by the people at photoblogs.org which, by the way, is another really cool place to check out new and different blogs. Go check these sites out, and if you like my site, please vote for it by clicking on the link above.

Clean, Fresh and New.

Matthew — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 19:50:52 +0000

Just in case you haven’t noticed, I’ve made a few changes around the site. I had heard a few comments that my site was cluttered with visual information and inconsistent. I thought to myself, what is a clean and clutter free design. White. It’s simple, effective and brings the eye to the photograph itself. And considering I am a photographer and this is a photoblog, that almost makes sense. Redesigning the main website was a tricky decision, I wanted to keep my logo that I had, but it just doesn’t work very well. It seems like a stamp. So it’s been redefined and cleaned up as well. Please let me know what you think of the new layout. I’m open to opinion and suggestion.

And since I haven’t uploaded any pictures in a long while, here are a couple that I’ve worked on for the past month.