The Season is Changing from Summer to Winter.

The season is changing from summer to winter here in the Sinai, that means that right now we have more cloud formations than we usually have during the year.

I have taken advantage of this opportunity to photograph the sky, with the different formation the clouds are taking, cumulous, cirrus clouds etc.

I will now file these sky photographs that I have taken under Sky_clouds. So that I can use them later on when I have a photograph with a boring looking sky where a sky with clouds would take the photograph to a different level of just being an ok picture to become a great one.

Remember when you are adding a sky you need to make sure that the light conditions and its direction fits in with your picture otherwise it will look fake and that is not the look we are after.

You can apply this idea to different elements of your pictures some pictures look better if you for instance add a moon, it could be full moon or a crescent etc. So you can also go and build a library with different moon shapes. If you choose a crescent remember to apply the moon the right way up depending on where the photograph is taken. Since the moon crescent looks different if you are here in Egypt compared to England etc. Since I grew up in Sweden to me the crescent moon here in Egypt looks like it is upside down.

They key with adding elements to your photographs is that they always need to look natural/real and seamless.

When making your own library of photographs that you need to use later you need to have a fool proof filing system. Something that works for you and is simple. Don’t try to make things more complicated than they have to be is something I always try to live by. Since these are photographs that I will be using over and over again I will save them as a TIFF file instead of a JPG file, to make sure that over time the photographs still have all their pixels intact. Every time you open a JPG file it looses quality.

This morning I played a bit with motion blur. You can be quite creative with it. The problem I have with this picture of the car is that it does not have a driver so either it is a very futuristic BMW that can drive itself or its just a picture that is unrealistic, I would have to opt for the second choice unfortunately but it proves my point above that when you are changing a photograph make sure you think of all the elements, you want the finished photograph to look realistic otherwise you will only annoy the viewer.

If you need help with your Photoshop skills I can recommend a magazine that comes out every month in the UK called Digital Photo. Every issue also comes with a CD with video lessons of how to use different Photoshop skills and other photo tricks. It is very useful they also always have a gear tests that can make interesting reading, if you are looking for something new to add to your photo arsenal.

Retouch an image in Photoshop.

Final image ready for delivery to Client.

As a Photographer you get commissioned to take photographs according to the clients needs. What the client often forget or do not think about is that the dates that you are booked to do their photo shoot the weather might not be to the photographers advantage to take the particular photographs that you are assigned to do.  I have below made some or maybe some of you would say a lot of changes to the original picture. But to be honest it does not necessarily have to take to long to do as long as you know what you are doing and that you have the photographs that you might need available. Here I have added another photograph to the picture that I was assigned to take. I have added a photograph with clouds on to make the sky a bit more interesting. I have also warmed up the picture a bit as well to make it look like the sun is shining through the clouds on a sunny afternoon.

When you do something like this to a photograph for a client you do have to remember that it does take you longer to make and deliver the final image and that you need to incorporate that time into your pricing so that you do not end up working and not getting paid for all the work that you have done. But I can guarantee that you do get a happier and more satisfied client because of that little extra time that you took making it. So if you do not feel that you have enough Photoshop skills to make changes like these I would suggest that you find out because it will pay you back in the end tenfold. 

The original image.

Changing the composition of a photograph

Sometimes when you are on a photo shoot you are presented with photo opportunities that you just cant miss but if you had planned it you would have changed a few things like in the photograph below we had the scene set up for two golfers putting on the green. But before we had started to shoot that scene a camel rider came by. I took a few pictures of them walking by. Now when you look at the composition of the golf bag I was wishing that it was facing inwards the photograph and not out so that the viewers eyes are not drawn out of the picture but rather in towards the camel rider.  So since this shot was not planned the golf bag is facing the wrong direction if I would do it again I would turn the bag and also direct the camel rider into a different position in the photograph. But a quick fix of a photograph like this is to copy and mirror the part of the image you want to turn in photoshop. Which I did here, below I have posted both pictures so that you can see the before and after of what I did. I could also have changed the position of the camel rider in photoshop but to me this time it was not necessary for this picture to work. But it is definitively doable with not too much effort if you are familiar with photoshop.

Picture above is of the final image after I have changed the position of the golf bag.

This is the before picture.