LeggNet's Digital Capture

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There are a couple opinions on using UV or Skylight filters. Many photographers use them to protect their lenses, while an equal amount of shooters feel that it’s counterproductive to put a “cheap piece of glass” in front of their expensive optics. I fall into the “protect my lens” camp.

My decision to use UV filters on my lenses paid off big time while I was on the shoot in Seattle. I had just made a lens change when my 24-105 rolled off my camera bag onto the slate floor. The lens hit the hard surface on its front edge. I expected the worse when I picked it up, but the lens cap and UV filter took the fall for the lens. I did a quick check to verify that focus was still intact and moved on with the shoot.

In retrospect, the $35 I spent on the filter paid for itself many times over with this single event. If I hadn’t had the filter attached, the lens barrel would have taken the hit. At the very minimum I’d now be unable to attach filters, or worse the front element would’ve been damaged.

Now, off to pick up a replacement filter.

Canon 30D, Canon 50 f/1.8 lens – 1/60 second, f/1.8, ISO 400

LeggNet’s Digital Capture
© Rich Legg, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens – 1/40 second, f/4, ISO 200

LeggNet’s Digital Capture
© Rich Legg, Inc. All rights reserved.

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I’m sitting in the Seattle airport waiting for my flight home. It’s been a fun but hectic weekend. Following on the heels of Friday’s City Lifestyle shoot, Saturday and Sunday’s plans were Creative Concept images at a local nightclub and Business Professional shots at Seattle’s city hall.

Today’s image is a quick edit of one of my captures from Saturday. We had a dozen plus models in very creative costumes to choose from. The setting was an old building that has been converted to a dance club. The predominantly retro clothing worked extremely well in the uniquely decorated club.

One of my sets featured the model Mr. Peter Big (yes, his legal name) so I created a series loosely borrowing from the movie The Wizard of Oz. Peter was a great sport with the concept and really got into his part. I don’t expect the series to be big sellers, but it was sure fun to shoot.

It was a great event and I’m flattered to have been able to attend. I’ve got a few days of sorting and editing ahead of me to prepare the selected images for sale. You can count on seeing many more samples from the weekend over the next few days here on the blog.

Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens – 1/100 second, f/6.3, ISO 100

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Yesterday was a great, albeit very busy day. iStock provided us with several models as we broke into groups of 5-6 photographers (and a creative director) and headed out to separate shooting locations.

My group spent the first part of the day doing urban lifestyle shots on the streets of Seattle. This type of shooting came very natural to me since I do this style of work quite often. Our models Brenda, Mindy and Kaleb did a stellar job and kept their energy high in what had to be an exhausting day for them. Today’s image is a sample from this shoot. While the rest of the group was finishing their lunch, Brenda and I walked down an alleyway to create some shots. The lighting in the alley was perfect for the look I wanted. What you don’t see in this shot is yours truly shooting with his right hand while wedging a reflector between myself and the wall with my left.

After the city lifestyle shoot, we headed to a rooftop shoot for more lifestyle images including a final BBQ party scene with all 15 models.

It was a fulfilling yet tiring day. Shooting around 600 images can have that affect on me. And guess what, I get to do it all again beginning in a couple of hours.

p.s. Rasmus, where are you?!?

Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens – 1/250 second, f/4, ISO 160

Labels: stock

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I arrived in Seattle yesterday afternoon and spent the evening hanging out with a couple dozen iStock Diamonds (contributors with 25,000+ sales). This image is a quick shot taken from my hotel window before calling it a night.

The agenda for today begins with a breakfast meeting at the Space Needle before heading out for 8+ hours of shooting over several locations. As always, it should be fun.

Canon 5D, Canon 70-200 f/4L with 1.4x extender – 8 seconds, f/7.1, ISO 100

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I’m off to Seattle for iStockphoto’s Diamond Exclusive iStockalypse. This is my first time attending an official iStock event and with this one being open only to Diamond/Exclusive photographers it promises to be extra special. The schedule is jammed with three days of shooting at some great locations with professional models. It should be a lot of fun.

Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens – 1/20 second, f/4, ISO 400

Labels: istockphoto

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I had nice surprise this week when a dog food bag featuring one of my images arrived in the mail. The designer went out of her way to supply me with a copy of the package she designed. Very cool!

Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens – 1/125 second, f/4, ISO 100

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Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens – 1/125 second, f/6.3, ISO 100

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As the total amount of images I’ve sold through my stock portfolio channels increase, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep track of how individual shots perform. One thing iStock does is to place little Flame icons above an image’s thumbnail as they reach certain milestones (100 sales, 500 sales, etc.). To help me keep track of my All-Star Images that have reached this milestone, I have created a lightbox containing each shot that has sold a minimum of 100 times.

I like what another iStock photographer who I met through the ‘net, Rasmus Rasmussen, had to say about the iStock flames:

So far I have had 66 images (as of this writing) reach the 100 sales mark with another half dozen or so expected to hit it in the next week. There are numerous images in the set that I expected to do well, but there are definitely some sleepers that I never expected to make he set.

While having an image hit a milestone of 10, 100, 500 etc. sales is rewarding, I still like the very first sale of an image the most.

Labels: stock

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My wife and daughter (not pictured) were invited to participate in a shoot for a local television news feature about women rock climbers. You could count on your fingers the number of hours of video I have shot in my lifetime, so it was interesting for me to watch the videographer at work. She told me that the Sony HD cam she was using is capable of recording about 30 minutes of video on an 8 gb CF card (the video geeks reading this can probably chime in and tell us exactly what camera she’s using). These cameras are fairly new to the station.

I spent most of my time belaying the climbers, but I was able to catch a few behind-the-scenes images with my G7 that I had in my pocket. In this image the videographer is perched on the same rock I used when I did a stock photo shoot at the same location.

Canon G7 – 1/100 second, f/3.2, ISO 100

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Love it or hate it, a popular style of shooting in stock photography is the photographing of models or objects against a pure white background. By pure white I mean a background with absolutely NO detail, RBG values of 255,255,255 – Nothing!

There are an abundance of ways to create this look from simply cutting out the subject in Photoshop to doing it entirely ‘in camera’. I prefer to go for the latter method.

For today’s featured image of Michelle holding a weight, I relied on a studio setup to create the majority of the ‘pure white background’ in camera and then finished off the look in post-processing. To setup the shot, I placed two monolights shooting through white umbrellas onto the background of white seamless paper.

I set the monolights so that the exposure on the background was in the range between f/11 and f/16. For me, using lights of different power it took a small bit of adjustment to get it right.

The next step was to place Michelle in front of the white background at a distance that would give a nice rimlight from the background reflection but not overpower her. Since this photo was for a stock purpose I allowed the light to reflect a bit aggressively onto the left side of her face. Had this been for a portrait, I would have adjusted differently to eliminate this.

I lit Michelle with a combination of a large softbox and a reflector. The exposure metering for her was f/8. This is what I set my camera on. By doing so, I had a background that was sufficiently over-exposed but not so much that it caused excessive blow-back which can lead to problems like lens flare, blown edges and such.

In post-processing, I shoot RAW so the first step is to convert the RAW file in AdobeCameraRaw (ACR). My default setting in ACR is to show pure white highlights as red and pure black lowlights as blue. As can be seen in the screenshot, my shot came close to having a pure white background with very little adjustment.

Now, with the majority of the work done, I open the image to complete editing in Photoshop. I know from what I saw in ACR that I will have a few areas to clean up to guarantee a pure white background.

After opening the image in Photoshop, the first thing I do is create a temporary Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer and pull the brightness slider all the way to the left. What this does is show me the areas that I have to finish cleaning up to get the desired white background. Any area that is not absolute white (255,255,255) will be immediately apparent.

To clean up these areas, I will use one of a couple methods. If it is an easy spot in a corner or two, I will simply create a new layer and paint the area(s) white. If it requires a bit more finesse because it’s around the model (like this image), I will use a levels adjustment layer along with some vector masking. Once I get the background how I want it, I then delete the temporary Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer that I created.

After creating my white background, I then go on to complete my processing including other steps like facial retouching, whitening eyes and teeth, sharpening, etc.

As you can see by this example, the easiest way to create the background and my preferred method is to do as much as possible in camera. In doing so, the Photoshop work required for a series of images is minimized and this dramatically drops the time needed sitting in front of the Mac.

Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens – 1/160 second, f/8, ISO 100

Labels: photoshop, tutorial

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Can you remember gas for under a buck a gallon?

I was digging through a shoebox of old photos looking for one of me with a mullet to show my daughter (that’s another story), and I came across this one. Think about it – I could fill up my Saab for around $15.

Nikon FM2, Vivitar Series I 70-210 f/2.8 lens – Exposure unrecorded

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Can you remember gas for under a buck a gallon?

I was digging through a shoebox of old photos looking for one of me with a mullet to show my daughter (that’s another story), and I came across this one. Think about it – I could fill up my Saab for around $15.

Nikon FM2, Vivitar Series I 70-210 f/2.8 lens – Exposure unrecorded

LeggNet’s Digital Capture
© Rich Legg, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens – 1/125 second, f/5.6, ISO 100

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Last week I put out a second call for readers who would like to put their photo editing skills to work on one of my images (original post). Within an hour I received email from four volunteers wanting to take on the task.

I have since received the four edited images. In addition to doing a great job applying their editing chops to the image, they each wrote a narrative on what they did and why they did it. While the results are similar in many ways (no one cropped the shot?), they each added a little variation.

Each person was provided with an unedited JPG and RAW image (shown above) of the model standing on the rock at the Great Salt Lake. The only guideline given was that they could do whatever they wanted. Here are their results in no particular order.

Jake Spurlock

I was really excited when I saw that this was going to be the photo to work from, especially after I was unable attend the Photowalk at the Great Salt Lake a few weeks ago, and was further depressed when I saw the breathtaking images that came back to Flickr as a result. So, how cool is it then to get the chance to edit this image, and get to put a little bit of Jake Spurlock into it.

To Start:
I do all of my processing by starting with Apple Aperture. Beginning with the RAW 2.0 processing, I delved into the levels adjustments. I pulled black to black, crushing the blacks a little, created some highlights in white, and the made a nice midpoint. I did this on all three of the color channels respectively.

After levels, I moved into contrast, definitions, saturation, and vibrancy. When I take pictures, and then edit, reality isn’t at the top of my list of rules to follow. If I was going to make movies, 300, Batman Begins, and Speed Racer would be the inspiration. That being said, this photo evokes the idea of a warrior princess, standing guard over a kingdom. So, contrast is pushed, super saturation, and the image gains a lot of character.

One cool Aperture feature is the shadow recovery tool. Basically, it selectively adds some gain to the black areas of the photo. For video people, similar to setting the knee level for broadcasting equipment. Boosting this brought a lot of detail in from the rocks, and really shows off their awesome texture.

With these adjustments, I was really satisfied with the clouds, rocks and water. Yet, the warrior princess was a little dim, and lacking the glow that she deserved. So, I created a new version from the master, and went to work again creating the same look for her. When I was content with how she looked, I exported versions of both images, and brought them into photoshop for some blending.

This was a pretty simple, yet laborious process. I am sure that everyone reading this has had to do this before, so I won’t go into to much detail. I had my darker layer as the background, and then pasted the other on top. I went to work with the eraser/lasso/marquee tool getting rid of the excess. If you look at my image and contrast to the original, she is clearly a blond in the original, but I really like the look of her with dark hair and used the darker background source for that.

When all of the erasing was done, I used the dodge tool around her outline on the background layer to give her a little bit of an angelic glow. Followed up with spot healing brush for some legs, arm and face. I don’t bother too much, after all this is a warrior, not a cover model. 😉 After that, save as a .PSD, and reimport back into Aperture.

Once back in Aperture, I added another round of vignette. It created those dark and foreboding clouds, and added to the rock detail at the bottom. Part of the post process is to send revisions back and forth to my wife who has a great eye for detail. Wrote up a summary, and off to Rich for posting!

Thanks, what a fun process!

Visit Jake’s Flickr stream at flickr.com/photos/whyisjake/.

Jeremy Hall

How I Did It:

1. Adjust the RAW image using Adobe RAW for white balance and contrast. Most of this was done in the basic panel of sliders. Some additional HSL panel adjustments for color, especially the skies. Opened in Adobe Photoshop CS3.

2. Placed a second copy of the same image as a layer with RAW exposure adjustments for the model (ignoring the background). Masked this layer to block everything but the model. Rasterized this layer.

3. Made a copy of the second layer and changed to “Screen” mode for even more lightening of the model. Adjusted opacity of this layer to 27%.

4. Added a layer for cloning and healing tools. Used the “sample all layers” option to adjust the models dress to hide the seam in the middle. Felt like the leg showing and uneven shadows of the dress were distracting. I also removed some of the brighter splotches of white on the rock for the same reason.

5. Added a “Dodge & Burn” layer, which is a new layer filled with 50% gray. Using a larger brush set at 8% brushed in white and black alternately in varying places for contrast and emphasis. This was mainly used to darken the rock base and even out the exposure on the rest of it. I also increased the cloud dramatic contrast.

6. Added another masked dodge & burn to give a glow around the model for a kind of other-worldly glow, like the heavenly lights are pouring down on her. Cheesy I know, but it seemed to fit.

7. Added a photo filer layer to warm up the image a bit overall. Default warm (85%) color with a little added density.

8. For the web resized image, I downsized, added some Smart Sharpen filter on a copied layer (72%, 0.3 radius). Masked the layer and brushed on where I wanted the selective sharpening applied.

Visit Jeremy’s blog at www.whatsgottastay.com.

Patrick Fata

Thank you for the chance to work on this challenge. As a beginner, I appreciate the opportunity to concentrate on the post-processing only, while knowing that the result will be critiqued by a gifted and experienced photographer.

The picture has a very interesting composition and a lot of detail. This abundance of detail, especially in the rock, made me decide to go B&W. I also liked how the model’s dress stands out in the original, so I ended up going with selective desaturation.

To obtain the B&W, I output the red channel to gray using a channel mixer layer. I also added a Curves layer to darken the shadows a bit. Still wanting more contrast in the rock, I isolated it, copied it onto a new layer, and applied an overlay blend mode.

The red dress was isolated using a color range select, and then tweaking that selection with mostly the eraser. I then brightened the red a little by turning the cyan down in the red channel of a selective color adjustment layer.

I hope to have done justice to your great photo.

Visit Patrick’s blog at www.lestrodesigns.com/blog.

Seva Seetharaman

The original image itself had a very nice contrast to it so I decided not to tamper with it too much. To me, this was one of those images that needed very little modifications to make it look the way it should. So below are some changes that I thought would make the image look better.

1. I started off by adjusting the color curves in GIMP to enhance the overall temperature of the image.

2. I then adjusted the color levels to enhance the contrast of the models bright red outfit to the cloudy background.

3. I sharpened it to make the image crisp.

Thanks for giving me this opportunity and would like to participate in another one if possible.

Visit Seva’s blog at picsnbytes.blogspot.com/.
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And there you have it, the four edited images. If anyone else would like to take a shot at this image, grab the original from leggnet.com/images/blog/photoshop and post a link to your edited version in the comments.

Labels: photoshop

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The next Photowalking Utah event has been set. It will be an evening ‘walk around the downtown area of Ogden. Here are the details:

Date: Saturday, August 16, 2008
Time: 5:30 pm – ?
Where: Downtown Ogden

The group will be rendezvousing in the lobby of the Union Station located at 2501 Wall Avenue (map). For the photographers coming from the Salt Lake area, riding the UTA Frontrunner train is a great alternative to driving.

These events are open to photographers of ALL skill levels, from first time shooters to seasoned pros. This is a great way to meet other people that share your love of photography.

For more details (and to announce your participation), drop by the event discussion by clicking HERE.

Canon 5D, Canon 70-200 f/4L lens – 1/160 second, f/8, ISO 100

Labels: photowalking

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When I plan a stock photo shoot, I always think about how designers/advertisers/editors can use the images I create in their work. Chances are, if I can’t think of multiple uses for an image then it won’t end up selling very well. This is sometimes hard to come to grips with. Early on in my stock shooting, I had some pretty artsy shots that I really liked and thought would be big sellers. To my surprise and disappointment, many of these images ended up not selling at all.

Today’s image is an example of shooting with the end use in mind. Since the passing and implementation of California’s new cellphone usage law on July 1st (link), I figured that there would be a need for fresh images portraying cellphone use while driving. With this in mind, I took one of my models to an empty parking lot earlier this month and photographed several scenes of her using a cellphone while driving.

In this case it worked. This morning I awoke to find one of my preset Google Alerts had located multiple uses of my image of a driver texting. The Christian Science Monitor provides content for television station websites throughout the country and for their story on texting-while-driving they purchased this image from my iStockphoto portfolio.

As John “Hannibal” Smith said, “I love it when a plan comes together”.

Labels: stock, tutorial

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If you could only use one lens on your camera, which one would it be?

We all tend to have our favorite lenses. Anyone that has read the exif data on my images can easily spot that my “go-to” lens is the Canon 24-105 f/4L IS. For my style of shooting, the range of focal length on this lens is ideal (especially on my full-frame 5D). I have wondered if a 24-70 f/2.8 would be equally as good for me though.

I’m curious which lens other photographers would choose. Would it be one with some reach like a 75-300? Or maybe something that can get really wide like a 17-40? Or are you a ‘Prime’ shooter like Thomas Hawk and want to stick with a 135mm?

Is the focal length more important to you or the speed? Do you stick with your camera manufacturers models or go third party?

Let’s hear what you have to say…

Canon 5D, Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens – 1/50 second, f/1.8, ISO 800

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If you could only use one lens on your camera, which one would it be?

We all tend to have our favorite lenses. Anyone that has read the exif data on my images can easily spot that my “go-to” lens is the Canon 24-105 f/4L IS. For my style of shooting, the range of focal length on this lens is ideal (especially on my full-frame 5D). I have wondered if a 24-70 f/2.8 would be equally as good for me though.

I’m curious which lens other photographers would choose. Would it be one with some reach like a 75-300? Or maybe something that can get really wide like a 17-40? Or are you a ‘Prime’ shooter like Thomas Hawk and want to stick with a 135mm?

Is the focal length more important to you or the speed? Do you stick with your camera manufacturers models or go third party?

Let’s hear what you have to say…

Canon 5D, Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens – 1/50 second, f/1.8, ISO 800

LeggNet’s Digital Capture
© Rich Legg, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Today’s capture is another example of the cross-lighting setup detailed in yesterday’s post.

Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens – 1/160 second, f/4.5, ISO 100

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I spent some time yesterday with a couple young men in the studio. My goal going in was to shoot them with serious expressions against a dark background.

In today’s image of Ryan taken during the session, I used a cross lighting type setup (diagram below). The arrangement consisted of a of a softbox camera left lighting the model’s right side and a second softbox on the opposite side of the model lighting his back and left side.

I like the results achieved. If I were to do the shoot again, I would lower the power on the back light a small amount. Even though the detail was retained on the side of Ryan’s face in the original image, I lost detail and blew out the highlights a bit in processing.

Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens – 1/160 second, f/4.5, ISO 100

LeggNet’s Digital Capture
© Rich Legg, Inc. All rights reserved.

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friend (frěnd)
n.
1. A person whom one knows, likes, and trusts.
2. A person whom one knows; an acquaintance.
3. A person with whom one is allied in a struggle or cause; a comrade.

Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens – 1/126 second, f/5.6, ISO 100

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Last January we had a bit of Photoshop fun here on the blog with the Calling Photoshoppers post. In it I invited a few photographers to give a shot at editing one of my images. I then posted the results for everyone to see. It was pretty cool to see the different take each photographer took in editing the image.

Well, it’s time to do it again.

I am looking for four blog readers that would like to put their photo editing chops (Photoshop, Gimp, Lightroom, Aperture, etc.) to work on an image that I supply. They will each have one week to do whatever they would like to the image. In the end, I will post all the edited images along with the photographer’s commentary on what they did and why.

If you are interested in participating, please email me at rich(at)leggnet.com with the subject of “COUNT ME IN!”. I will take the first four respondents (plus one alternate).

UPDATE: We’ve got our participants. Thanks for the speedy replies.

LeggNet’s Digital Capture
© Rich Legg, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens – 1/125 second, f/5, ISO 100

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Happy birthday, friend. www.KennethLinge.com.

Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens – 1/200, f/4, ISO 100

LeggNet’s Digital Capture
© Rich Legg, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Whew, I am wiped out!

I spent this morning doing a stock photo shoot at a prestigious preschool in the area. The director/owner arranged for the models in exchange for photos for the school’s use. We had a pretty aggressive schedule to get the images both the school and I wanted. I photographed the nearly 20 models for the better part of three hours in numerous sets in the school.

Here’s a sample from the shoot to share before I dig into the sorting, editing, uploading and keywording of the 400+ images.

p.s. If you didn’t know, preschoolers have a LOT of energy.

Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens – 1/125 second, f/5, ISO 100

LeggNet’s Digital Capture
© Rich Legg, Inc. All rights reserved.

This is not photography related, but I’m sharing it because it literally made me laugh-out-loud. My friend Aaron produced it with a few of his buddies for an upcoming talk on teamwork. Enjoy.

This is not photography related, but I’m sharing it because it literally made me laugh-out-loud. My friend Aaron produced it with a few of his buddies for an upcoming talk on teamwork. Enjoy.

LeggNet’s Digital Capture
© Rich Legg, Inc. All rights reserved.

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I’ve changed my mind about camera phones. Being someone who makes my living as a photographer and having thousands of dollars of equipment, I used to dismiss camera phones as nothing more than a toy.

This all changed last month when a Photowalking Utah mishap forced me to upgrade my Blackberry. My new (non-soaked) Blackberry Curve has a 2 megapixel camera. The reason that I’ve altered my opinion is that I now find myself using my camera phone for taking quick notes. I will frequently see something that gives me an idea for a future photograph and in place of making a paper note I will take a photo with my Blackberry. I used to frequently carry my Canon G7 for this purpose, but now I have another option.

Any other photogs finding themselves using camera phones? How are you using yours?

RIM BlackBerry 8320 – exposure unrecorded

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Today’s post is a couple of samples from yesterday’s Teenage Driver photo shoot with one of my regular models, Kylee. The afternoon sun and an empty parking lot made a great location for the shoot. As always, Kylee was a lot of fun to work with and it shows in the images.

Canon 5D, Canon 70-200 f/4L lens – 1/200 second, f/5.6, ISO 200
Canon 5D, Canon 70-200 f/4L lens – 1/400 second, f/4, ISO 100

LeggNet’s Digital Capture
© Rich Legg, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Today was another day for a couple of milestones in my involvement as a contributor at iStockphoto.com. The first happened just after midnight as I sold the above photo of a young woman in a fitness club. This was my 30,000th image sold from my portfolio on the site.

The second milestone happened with the acceptance of the photo below. With this photo being added to my portfolio, my overall acceptance rate has surpassed 90%. When I first began submitting to the site in 2006 my acceptance rate began in the mid 50% range and has steadily climbed. I feel like I’ve been in the 80′s forever, so it’s great to crack the 90% number.

Next month I will be attending the first ever Diamond’lypse in Seattle. This is an event where only Diamond/Exclusive contributors on iStock are invited to spend three days hanging out, shooting and learning together. It’s limited to 30 participants, so it should be pretty cool to attend.

As most people know, shooting and selling for iStock (and now Getty) has changed my life. It has allowed me to expand my photography in ways I never expected.

And it’s a lot of fun!

Now I promise, no more iStock updates until I sell my 50,000th image.

LeggNet’s Digital Capture
© Rich Legg, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens – 1/125 second, f/4, ISO 100

LeggNet’s Digital Capture
© Rich Legg, Inc. All rights reserved.

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The event offered a colorful assortment of subjects to shoot

Most of the people that know me for any amount of time probably come to learn that I’m not much of a morning person. Because of this I cringed a bit when I read the schedule for the latest Photowalking Utah event. The outing was an early morning session photographing hot air balloons at the America’s Freedom Festival in Provo on the Fourth of July. The balloons began inflating at 6:00 a.m. which necessitated a 5:00 a.m. wake-up call to make it to the field in time.

As many of the photowalkers as we could get to hold still for a group shot

A total of about 20 photographers joined in on the ‘walk. Since the starting time was so early, we didn’t have one set location to meet. Instead, we were able to coordinate as the event took place to join together. Afterward, the majority of the group headed off to breakfast together.

The heat of the inflation

The partial cloud cover eliminated the chance for any “balloon against blue sky” shots, but it kept the temperatures in the manageable mid-eighties range.

Inside the envelope of a balloon being inflated

One of the pilots tapped me on my shoulder and asked “want to get a cool picture?”. I obviously answered yes. With that, he took me inside the envelope of his balloon as his crew inflated it. It was kind of surreal being inside the massive craft as it grew over my head.

An “over-the-head” no look shot

Nikon / Canon / Nikon

I must admit that I’m glad I got up before light to attend this event. I took as many pictures before 8:00 a.m. as I usually do on a full day of shooting. It’s always great to hang out with my photowalking friends and this outing was no different.

The next Photowalking Utah event is still being planned. Keep an eye on the announcement section of the group’s Flickr page at www.photowalkingutah.com.

Labels: photowalking

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Another news organization lifted my image, but this time it was quite a bit closer to home.

Back in May I blogged about the Wall Street Journal illegally using my copyrighted image on their website (LINK). Well, last night I was tipped off by a friend and found the exact same image being used for a news story on the local ABC affiliate’s website.

I fired (pun intended) off an email to the webmaster about the smoking gun (pun again intended) I found on their website incriminating them in the illegal use of my image. Within the hour I was contacted by the Executive Producer of Online Media for the station. He apologized for the usage and removed the image. In discussing the situation with him, he told me that this image had made their way into their purchased image collection and he assumed it came from Getty.

This is becoming extremely frustrating. I have neither the time nor resources to go after these companies that illegally use my images. In both cases, the photos were low-res samples taken from Flickr. While I enjoy the exposure and community Flickr provides, I have to wonder if it is worthwhile. My other alternative is to blatantly watermark my images there, but I hate the look of it in addition to the effort that this would require to retro-fit my 3000+ image collection on the site.

Links:

The Wall Street Journal Lifted My Image
Smoking Gun on Flickr
Smoking Gun on iStockphoto

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My obligatory “the day after the fourth of July” fireworks photo.

Canon 5D, Canon 70-200 f/4L lens with 1.4x extender – 20 seconds, f/13, ISO 100

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Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens – 1/160 second, f/9, ISO 100

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(Reprinted from the Arizona Republic newspaper, December 1, 1999)

Daniel K. Legg, 35, passed from this life in his Phoenix home on November 25, 1999 after a courageous 16 month battle with cancer.

Dan was born in Folsem, California on July 3, 1964. In 1970 he moved with his family to Chugiak, Alaska. He graduated in 1982 from Chugiak High School. During his high school career he was the Alaska state springboard diving champion in 1980, 1981 and 1982. He earned varsity letters in diving, music and drama.

After graduating high school, Dan moved to Tempe, Arizona to attend Arizona State University. During college Dan was a member of both the diving and bowling teams. He lettered while on the ASU diving team. He graduated from ASU with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. He was a member of the Arizona State University Alumni Association.

While attending college dan began his career with Discover Card. Starting in customer service, Dan moved up successfully within the company. At the time of his death, Dan held the position of Regional Training Manager.

Both an accomplished musician and athlete, Dan had competed on a national level in springboard diving, bowling and music. In 1996, Dan reached a high point in his bowling career with a perfect 300 game. He was locally a member of the Grand Canyon Men’s Chorale since 1991 and became the assistant director in 1994. He was the director of Voce Com Brio, a men’s singing group.

Dan was a fun-loving spontaneous man with a unique sense of humor. Dan loved the finer aspects of life and yet was equally at ease in a down-to-earth setting. He leaves behind a large circle of close longtime friends. The numerous friendships he had speak of the many lives he touched.

He is survived by his parents Patricia A. Legg and Richard H. Legg of Chugiak, Alaska; his Paternal Grandmother Lavilla Legg of Twin Falls Idaho; his sister Rebecca L. Legg-Merrell and husband Terry L. Merrell of Healy Alaska; his brother Rich H. Legg and wife Michelle P. Legg of Sandy City Utah; his close cousins Vickie M. Shipp of Twin Falls Idaho and Brenda R. Beckwith of Victoria British Columbia; his nephew Logan R. Merrell of Healy Alaska; his nephew Kristopher R. Legg of New Braunfels Texas; his nieces Elisabeth “Missy” and Sarah N. Legg of Sandy City Utah and countless other living relatives.

Dan was preceded in death by his brother Gerald R. Legg; his maternal grandparents Mildred and Victor Pratt and his paternal grandfather Charles R. Legg.

A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. on Friday December 3rd at Happy Valley Baptist Church, 24220 N. 43rd Avenue, Glendale Arizona. Officiating will be Art Meirose.

Memorials in Dan’s memory may be sent to the Mayo Clinic Foundation or Birchwood Community Church Building Fund, 22208 Birchwood Loop Road, Chugiak Alaska 99567.

Mamiya M645, Mamiya 80mm f/2.8 lens – Exposure Unrecorded

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Canon 5D, Canon 70-200 f/4L lens – 1/320 second, f/4, ISO 100

LeggNet’s Digital Capture
© Rich Legg, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens – 1/100 second, f/5.6, ISO 100

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Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens – 1/100 second, f/5.6, ISO 100

LeggNet’s Digital Capture
© Rich Legg, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Through the spring and now into summer the number of readers of LeggNet’s Digital Capture that subscribe through RSS has been steadily in the mid-600’s. On today’s post I’m asking for more.

On the many blogs, photography and otherwise, that I follow I rarely visit the site proper. Instead, I read their posts in Google’s RSS reader. It is much more convenient for me to have a one-stop-shopping solution than going to each individual website. I encourage the same thing on my blog, which is the reason I include full web posts in my RSS feed instead of just a headline or snippet.

If you are at least a semi-regular reader of my photography ramblings, then please take a moment and subscribe to my RSS feed. Here’s the subscription link:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/LeggnetsDigitalCapture

Additionally, if you want up-to-the-minute ramblings rather than daily updates, you can follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/leggnet.

Now maybe I can at least crack 700 subscribers 🙂

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One hurdle that photographers often encounter when selling stock photos is that (in many cases) their image will become part of a bigger project. Unlike portrait and fine-art photography where the photographer creates a final product, stock photos are frequently incorporated into a larger design.

One change I had to make to my workflow was to minimize the post-processing I did on images that would be included in my stock portfolios. Initially this was difficult, since I felt the images needed a bit more punch. I am now comfortable with the process and always think about the “bigger design picture” when processing my stock images.

Todays image is a perfect example of this. Designer John Kicksee uses stock images in his designs of book covers. For the cover of Aces High , John incorporated my image of a crime scene victim into the design.

When looking at the original image, you can see the vast amount of changes he made to it for inclusion into the final piece. In addition to a crop and horizontal flip, John took a lot of effort to transform the photo into pseudo-artwork. The final product is incredibly better than it would have been if he had used my photo un-edited.

This is just one more thing to consider when shooting, editing and ultimately selling stock photos.

Labels: stock, tutorial

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Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens – 1/125 second, f/9, ISO 100

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Last night we did an “In the Park” photo shoot to create images for my stock portfolio. In this example from the series we used a single silver reflector to light Kylee as she sat with her back to the evening sun.

Canon 5D, Canon 70-200 f/4L lens – 1/200 second, f/4, ISO 100

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Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens – 1/100 second, f/4, ISO 100

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Saturday evening’s Photowalking Utah event at the Great Salt Lake was a lot of fun. We had over 40 photographers join us for a few hours of capturing the lake at dusk. It was especially great to see so many first-timers among the shooters.

The group met at Saltair for a short welcome session before following the evening’s guide Charles Uibel out to the lake. Charles has been photographing the lake for quite some time and has an impressive body of work. He knew the place and time to be at to capture some great shots and really made this outing a success.

The highlight of the evening was undoubtedly our model, Heidi. She’s a friend of David Terry who graciously volunteered to do a Trash-the-Dress session with an old wedding gown. She literally spent over two hours in and around the water being photographed.

The recap wouldn’t be complete without mentioning the fatalities from the evening. I had the embarrassing misfortune of slipping into the water in front of 25 photographers. While I saved my camera gear, my Blackberry is down for the count. David Terry, in search of the perfect light placement, had a Speedlight (along with a new Radio Popper) fall into the lake. And lastly, I didn’t see it happen, but Mike Calanan’s phone took a swim as well and last night I saw him on Twitter looking for anyone with an extra Verizon phone.

As I write this there are over 225 images in the Photowalking Utah Flickr group. It’s amazing to see the different variations of the same subject that the photographers captured.

The details for the July Photowalking Utah event are still being gathered, but the plan right now involves blue sky and hot air balloons. It promises to be an event that you won’t want to miss. Stay tuned to here (and photowalkingutah.com) for details.

Labels: photowalking

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Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens – 1/160 second, f/10, ISO 100

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Today’s low-effort blog post: another image from yesterday’s Rock Climbing Shoot.

Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens – 1/125 second, f/4, ISO 250

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We (Michelle and I) spent this morning photographing rock climbers on some sport routes near town. The purpose of the shoot was to add to the climbing images in my stock portfolio. I’ve photographed climbers a few times and the challenge for me is to capture the feel of the sport.

To shoot the climbers I tied myself off to an anchor about 1/4 the way up one of the routes. By being in close to the climbers on the rock, I was able to overcome the typical “looking up” rock climbing photo. We invited several members from my daughter’s climbing team and some other climbing friends to model for us as they climbed.

In the featured image Andrew is straining to complete a climb (which he completed). I focused on his bleeding hand and positioned myself to have his face in the out-of-focus background. My original plan was to post this image in color, but the bright red blood on his middle finger was too distracting – so black & white it is.

For lighting I used a diffused 580EX Speedlight mounted on camera. I set the strobe to a -2/3 f/stop setting to provide fill light to the scene without making the shots look artificially lit.

Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens – 1/160 second, f/4.5, ISO 160

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Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens – 1/40 second, f/6.3, ISO 400

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During last week’s stock photo shoot with Brittanie I took a small detour and captured a few portraits for non-stock use. This is one of the images. In this shot, I wanted to shoot her in a non-classical type of pose. The goal was to have everything but her skin blend into the background. Here is a diagram of the two-light setup used.

What this diagram doesn’t show is the large gobo between the key light (on the right) and the background used to eliminate light spill. Additionally, I placed a 3×4′ piece of black acrylic in front of Brittanie to use as a table and to add a subtle reflection to the bottom of the shot.

I’m pleased with the result, especially the lighting on her face which converted very nicely into black & white. If I were to shoot this again, I would use one additional light as a low-power hairlight to add a slight bit of separation between her shoulders and the background.

Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens – 1/125 second, f/4.5, ISO 100

Labels: studio, tutorial

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It’s always fun to take a look through my website stats to see where my traffic comes from. I thought I’d share a peek under-the-hood of LeggNet.com for today’s post. Here are the keywords used in search engines over the weekend that led web surfers to LeggNet.com.

I get the feeling the the person searching for “Bedroom Photography” didn’t get what they were looking for.

circular polarizer 24-105 5d – mac corr – post processing techniques – istockphoto.com – great salt lake – saltair 3 inc – smoking artistic photograph – istockphoto download – how do you compare sensor sizes in digital camera – spontaneous combustion – digital capture – photography back ground set up – most secret [place on earth – photoshop muted overlay – digital camera sensor sizes – digital night and salt lake – photoshop net.com – light bulb burnout – soft skin tone – image sensor sizes explained – free online mosaic generators – photo shoot for executives – high pass sharpening – gymnastics photos – two speedlights – gymnastic photo – 2 speedlights on one kamera – splash photography setup – cross processing in photoshop – high speed splash – ttv photography – es ist wie es ist erich – private jet utah – steve richard photographer – classroom photos – post processing technique – photowalk utah – kylee sharp utah – photoshop high pass filter – missionaryshoes.com – istock download – gymnastic photo links – laboratory photo – how to get photos from istockphoto – ttv photo – left eye viewfinder – how to smoke photography – kylee – smoke prior to spontaneously combusting – couples photo shoot salt lake city – photographing paintings – photograph snow – the onion stock photo – “©istockphoto.com – i’m burned out photography – through the viewfinder digital camera – mamiya 55mm 1.8 – difference between full frame slr – leading lines in photography – soft skin photoshop – tightening levels – highlight – tone curve – post-processing technique – viewfinder layer – bedroom photography – black and white bride photoshop – smoke shots – bovine photographer

Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens – 1/100 second, f/11, ISO 100

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With today being Friday the 13th, I looked for an appropriate image to post. I thought that I might have a shot of a black cat, but the closest thing I could find was this fuzzy little kitten that belongs to the receptionist of the office next door. It’ll have to do.

Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens – 1/125 second, f/9, ISO 100

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Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens – 3/10 second, f/4, ISO 400

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I’ve had a busy few days working on the stock photography side of the business. I have a goal of increasing my portfolio size by a minimum of 200 images a month, and this past weekend I made great progress in creating June’s additions.

On Friday, I spent some time shooting a first-time model for a high school student themed series. Kylee did a great job and I look forward to working with her again in the future.

On Saturday the theme was “Women’s Hands”. I worked with Kattie again (she was featured in April’s “Cafe” shoot). We had a great time coming up with poses for her great looking hands.

After taking Sunday off, I got busy again on Monday with a studio session with Brittanie. We shot a diverse set of images ranging from basic headshots to lifestyle images. And to answer the many questions, I have not modified her fantastic eyes – that’s how they really look.

Today will be spent finishing the processing, keywording and uploading of these shoots. Then it’s time to begin planning the next sessions. Simply put, that’s my formula for being successful in stock photography: Plan, Shoot, Edit, Upload, Repeat…

To view these sets as they become available in my stock portfolio, visit the following links:

Kylee – High School Student
Kattie – Women’s Hands
Brittanie – Young Woman

Labels: stock, studio

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Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens – 1/125 second, f/9, ISO 100

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…or maybe a more appropriate title would be: How I Spent My Saturday Morning. A big thanks to Kattie and her beautiful hands.

Labels: stock

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Today’s image is a sample from this morning’s photo shoot featuring close-ups of hands. In the session we shot over 200 images of model Kattie’s hands in various scenes.

Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens – 1/100 second, f/11, ISO 100

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I am always on the lookout for fresh faces to use in my photography. I was recently introduced to Kylee by a friend. She had never modeled before but saw my stock work and thought it would be fun.

We did our first shoot together this afternoon. It was a lot of fun and Kylee did an absolutely great job. The student series we created will be appearing in my portfolio soon.

Canon 5D, Canon 70-200 f/4L lens – 1/160 second, f/8, ISO 100

LeggNet’s Digital Capture
© Rich Legg, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens – 1/1600 second, f/4, ISO 100

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Back when I first began using an SLR camera, one of the first rules that I learned was to maintain a fast enough shutter speed to eliminate blur when shooting handheld. The formula that my high school photography teacher (Mr. Cresop, I wonder where he is now) taught was to use the lens focal length to determine the shutter speed (for example, for a 50mm lens the minimum shutter speed would be 1/50 second). This advice is still good to use today. Even with things like image stabilization, a fast shutter speed equates a sharper image.

On occasion though, a longer shutter speed can add an interesting blur to the image. In today’s image, my friend Kenneth Linge borrowed my camera to demonstrate this recently in downtown Salt Lake City. He had the model stand very still while photographing her as a couple guys walked past. The relatively long shutter speed of 1/10 second gave a nice motion blur to the onlookers. By bracing himself on a lamp pole, he was able to minimize the camera movement and keep the model acceptably sharp.

This is another example of when breaking the “rules” of photography can work in the photographer’s favor.

Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens – 1/10 second, f/25, ISO 160

Labels: tutorial

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Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens – 1/60 second, f/11, ISO 100

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I have recently added a second speedlight to my out-of-the-studio kit with the plan of being able to travel a bit lighter and more efficient. In the past I would bring along a monoilght for off-camera lighting at events, but now the second speedlight negates that need.

Today’s portrait of Pastor Steve at last weekend’s wedding shoot was captured with this two-speedlight setup. I had a Canon 580EXII on my camera with a 430EX on a lightstand with an umbrella to the right. The two strobes communicated with each other via IR. I set the on-camera strobe at -2/3 f/stop to serve as a fill light and set the off-camera strobe at +1/3 f/stop to be my main light. I then put my camera on manual with an exposure of 1/60 second at f/5.6. The TTL (through-the-lens) function of the speedlights managed their power output.

As you can see from the image, this setup worked well. The biggest advantage over using a monolight was that I didn’t have to re-meter anytime I moved the off-camera light. The TTL adjusted the power output to my exposure. I could move the off-camera light back for larger groups and in for individuals without worrying about exposure changes. And, unlike my monolights, I was able to operate cord-free since the lights are battery powered.

Even though this setup works well, I think that in the future I will add one more Speedlight to add even more versatility.

Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens – 1/60 second, f/5.6, ISO 100

Labels: portrait, strobist, tutorial

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Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens – 1/125 second, f/5.6, ISO 100

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Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens – 1/125 second, f/5.6, ISO 100

LeggNet’s Digital Capture
© Rich Legg, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens – 1/160 second, f/8, ISO 100

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I spent yesterday afternoon in a gym doing a stock photo shoot of gymnasts. The girls were a lot of fun and with their help (along with their coach) we hopefully kept the poses ‘real’.

The extremely large room (12,000 s.f.+) was a challenge to light due to the rapid fall-off in the background. With my normal two softbox setup the athletes would have had a near black background. To solve this problem, I ended up firing a 600ws monolight at full power with only a reflector into the background to provide an adequate light level.

As I’ve said many times before, it is always great to go on location for these shoots. I especially want to say thanks to the young ladies on the team at Bailie’s Gymnastics for being so helpful (and fun!).

Labels: stock

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At 5:25 am this morning I reached a milestone in my stock photography business. Today’s featured photo of school girls marked my 25,000th image sold from my portfolio on istockphoto.com. This now secures my spot as a diamond level contributor and maxes out my royalty percentage. Of the estimated 50,000 contributors on the site, less than 250 are diamond level.

It seems like just yesterday that I posted about the potential income possibility of selling mircrostock images. Now here I am a short ten months later making my living selling stock photography.

I’m all about setting goals and reaching them. My next sales goal? 50,000 images sold by the end of 2008.

Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens – 1/50 second, f/10, ISO 100

LeggNet’s Digital Capture
© Rich Legg, Inc. All rights reserved.

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The next Photowalking Utah event promises to be a good one. We will be taking an evening walk out to the Great Salt Lake with noted photographer Charles Uibel as our guide. if you are not familiar with Charles’ work, take a trip over to his website at GreatSaltLakePhotos.com and see his remarkable captures of the iconic body of water.

For the outing, we will be meeting at the gate at Saltair on the South end of the lake. We will then caravan to the end of the road to begin the walk. The plan is to trek out to the shore of the lake for photography. In addition to landscape photography, we will also have models and lighting/reflectors available for portrait captures.

Here are the details:

What: Photowalking Utah: Great Salt Lake
When: Saturday June 21st, 6:00 pm – sunset
Where: West of Saltair on the Southern shoreline

As with all Photowalking Utah events, this is open to any photographer who would like to join in. It doesn’t matter what your skill level is, or what kind of camera you use – you are welcome to attend.

For up-to-the-minute information on the event, visit the Photowalking Utah discussion on the Flickr group at PhotowalkingUtah.com.

Note: For this Photowalk, you absolutely will want to have shoes on that can get wet (or bring rubber boots) and insect repellent on hand.

Today’s image is used courtesy of Charles Uibel. Visit his website at GreatSaltLakePhotos.com or his Flickr stream at flickr.com/photos/cuibel.

Labels: photowalking