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Hmmmm - it's summertime and I'm on vacation in Italy. Plenty of time to experiment with Photoshop. I read an article on LENSCRATCH about the Japanese photographer Michiko Makino and her stunning composite or double exposure photos. This photo is an experiment of mine trying to create something special with a base photo (see previous blog article) and nine identical photos of a another flower subject blended in two different ways. If we don't experiment - we don't learn and evolve as a photographer and artist.

I took those photos in July 2013 while visiting a restaurant nearby our Italian home - Casa Galeazzo. The new Analog Efex Pro 2 has a range of old camera profiles - and among those you find the very interesting "Wet Plate" effect. You have a multitude of control methods to alter the appearance of the wet plate effect, so it is possible to develop your own wet plate style. PetaPixel made a good review of this new addition to the Google Nik Collection.

It's no secret - I'm a big fan of the Nik Collection  from Google. And recently a new addition to this collection has been made - Analog Efex Pro .  The GUI of all programs in the Nik Collection is simple and very intuitive to use - but once you start playing around with the controls and see just how subtle the small tweaks can be, you realize the true power of this collection.  The GUI of the Analog Efex Pro is no exception. It's fun to select an analog camera preset from the list (Classic Camera, Wet Plate, Toy Camera, Vintage Camera) or select the "Camera Kit" and design your own preset. Create professionally stylized images by picking a preset, then diving in to fine-tune your approach. Adjust bokeh, textures, frames and other elements, then pinpoint the location of your effects with precise on-image controls. And additional cameras, films, bells, and whistles will be added. Below is another example:

Product photography is a new endeavor that I have chosen to explore. A Danish manufacturer of kitchen and food equipment asked me to photograph their full product line for a new e-store soon to be launched. The task also included some stop-motion video's. The lighting set-up was two Nikon SB-910 Speedlights mounted on Manfrotto Nano 5001B light stands. The light modifiers was a standard white umbrella and a Lastolite soft box.  A couple of PocketWizards FlexTT5 was attached to the Speedlights and a PocketWizard MiniTT1 and AC3 was attacked to a Nikon D800.  The items was placed on a white dining table with a non reflective surface. From here on the task was to avoid deep and dark shadows, but still keep a hint of a shadow to preserve a dimensional aspect. The item surface was rubber and metal. You can't imagine how hard it is to keep such surfaces free of dust particles. This becomes very clear when you look at the photos in Lightroom while doing the...

I really don't like to superpose a copyright logo or any other text across my photos. And I generally don't like all the different types of frames various software tools let you add to a photo. But I recognize the need to visually protect your work besides adding copyright information into the EXIF data, and at the same time promote your name and portfolio. So I've designed a compromise - adding a standard black frame and my name in RED and url in WHITE separated by a GREY square. I have not added a (C) in front of my name. Adding my name and URL implies that this photo is protected by a copyright (still part of the EXIF-data). What do you think? Does it ruin the photo?

D800 with AF-S 24-70mm, 1/80 sec at f/6.3, ISO 100, 0EV, 56mm Even on a cloudy day it's possible to find strong black & white photographic subjects - especially because the sky serves a a great softbox. When you go for a walk and bring you camera, try to look down! An amazing array of interesting subjects and pattern emerges right in front of you. Here I found an array of stone fragments and leafs that created a interesting pattern - very suitable for a black & white representation. I hope you agree. The photo was prepared in Lightroom and then converted to B&W in Silver Efex Pro 2.0.

My wife and daughter read their fair share of magazines and hence are exposed to many commercial featuring beautiful women and men promoting stuff that we need to buy to become happy. As my daughter is setting her sight on becoming a professional photographer we often discuss the commercials from a photographic perspective. The models are an illusion created to please our brain an create a stop effect. In real life they are still beautiful people, but in the adds they have undergone a transformation towards the unattainable ideal of a human being. You won't believe what can be done on the photo retouching process. Sometimes it is gentle and subtle changes underlining the already existing beauty. But sometimes it is deep and transformative changes, that creates another person. I'm not a fan of the latter, but can accept minor retouching to enhance what is already there. Let me give an example. In January I had the pleasure of working together with an new model with a very ...

SOS International is the leading assistance organisation in the Nordic region. From their emergency centres in Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland, they provide acute personal assistance all over the world. My assignment today was to photograph four employees for an "New Employee Welcome folder" and take some photos from the HQ entrances showing their logo. The time slot was short, so I went for a simple set-up with one Nikon SB-910 powered with an additional Nikon SD-9 battery pack and mounted on a light stand with a white umbrella. The flash was angled 45 degrees to the left of the person. On the opposite side I placed another light stand with a California Sunbouncer mounted. The SB-910 was triggered with my trusted Pocket Wizard FlexTT5 and MiniTT1 . In addition I used a PocketWizard AC3 to control the flash output. I used a Nikon D800 with a Nikkor AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8 lens. The client asked me to use a brick wall as back drop, which worked just fine. The s...

How difficult can it be was my initial thought when I asked to photograph (I don't want to use the word "shoot") a baby. The mother Malene is a former colleague and I also know her husband Rasmus. It's a lovely family and they live on the country side in a small town just aside a corn field. Lot's of good natural light and a fairly spacious home. The day we had chosen for the event turned out to be one of the hottest days in Denmark ever recorded. And there was no wind. The sun was burning hot and bright from a clear sky, so I had to photograph indoors using my Elinchrom D-Lite lamps and a California Sunbounce. My assistent (my daughter) was a great help. As you can imaging we were all sweating a lot and the little newborn - Emma - was also not comfortable. In addition the D-Lite lamps produced additional heat. My equipment was a Nikon D800 with an AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8 lens. In close quarters like this I couldn't use the AF-S 70-200mm f/2.8. I used bot...

Do we need all the mega pixels to create interesting photos? I believe not. But having fewer mega pixels at our disposal requires carefull planning while composing your shot, as you don't want to loose "pixel real estate" by cropping in post processing. I own a Nikon D300 with a 12 Mp sensor and it has served me well for 4 years. As I grew up shooting film I'm used to think all aspects through before capturing the actual photo and thereby keeping post processing to a minimum. But a Nikon D800 is on its way to me as the extra "pixel real estate" of a 36 Mp sensor offers a large freedom to crop interesting parts of photo. Take this photo as an example. I used my Nikon D300 with a Sigma 70-200 f/2.8 and walked to a nearby creek. The I sad down on a small canoe gangway and looked at the scene around me for nearly 20 minuttes before a photo took form in my mind. The photo was composed so cropping would not necessary. The still water entering a large area of ...

Exploring the CS5 toolbox is interesting. In 99.8% of my work I wouldn't never use the Art History Brush tool, but now that I have tried it on a rather doll photo, I might find other focus arreas for this tool. Here is the original photo - nothing special. I use Content Aware fill to remove some objects. And here is the same photo transformed by the Art History Tool. Remember to convert the photo to 8-bit or otherwise the tool won't work.