I wanted to update you on “the state of the blog.” I’m not sure what to call its current state. Hibernation? Sleeping? Actually, I prefer the term “creative pause.” 

For the past 19 years, I’ve had the awesome privilege of connecting with you through this blog and then from my other blog, LightroomKillerTips.com, and it’s been an incredibly fun and fulfilling experience.

However, balancing the demands of writing regularly for two blogs has become really challenging, and neither is getting the attention it deserves, so I’ve made the decision to take a creative pause here on ScottKelby.com so I can focus on LightroomKillerTips.com and give it the attention it deserves. 

I don’t want to pull down this blog because it still has a lot of relevant content that people still access daily (in particular, the wonderful Guest Blog Wednesdays archive, the brainchild of photographer and colleague Vincent Versace, and raised carefully from a pup and nurtured for so many years by the awesome Brad Moore). 

I also want to be able to interrupt this creative pause if I have something important to share, like the Worldwide Photo Walk winners or important milestones in our industry, so you haven’t seen the last of me here yet. 

This pause will help me to refocus and recharge my creative energies. It’s not a goodbye — it’s more like a short intermission in our conversation. During this pause, I’ll dedicate my efforts to LightroomKillerTips.com, where I’ll continue to share all the latest Lightroom techniques, tips, and commentary (essentially stuff that makes Adobe upset with me). 

I want to express my deepest gratitude for your support these 19+ years, for all your feedback and encouragement, for all the smiles and laughs along the way, and for having my back when I needed it most. It means more than you know. 

In the meantime, I hope we can stay connected via LRKT, and my Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram pages. Thanks for being a part of it all, and I hope to see you here from time to time, and over there, too. I wish you all the very best on your Photoshop, Lightroom, and photography journey. 

Warm regards, 

-Scott

The post OK, What’s Going on With This Blog? appeared first on Scott Kelby's Photoshop Insider.

I’m delighted to present to you this year’s ten finalists and our 2023 Worldwide Photo Walk Grand Prize winner (note: these were announced live on the air during last week’s episode of ‘The Grid.”.

NOTE: After the winner is revealed below, I’ll list some honorable mentions: images that didn’t win a prize but deserved some recognition nonetheless.

Here are this year’s Top 10 Finalists (in no particular order):

MONA HASSAN | ALEXANDRIA, EGYPT Photo Walk

JEANNINE PITRE | LAVAL, CANADA Photo Walk

CHUCK BRUTON | SPRINGFIELD, MISSOURI USA Photo Walk

OZGUR SECMEN | MURATPASA, TURKEY Photo Walk

JUSTIN BAJE | SURIGAO, PHILIPPINES Photo Walk

MICHIKO NISHIJIMA | OROMOCTO, CANADA Photo Walk

MOHAMAD AMIN SHARAFIANI | KERMANSHAH, IRAN Photo Walk

RANDY SEAMAN | ST. AUGUSTINE, FL USA Photo Walk

JAMES NICO GALLARDO | NAHA PHILIPPINES Photo Walk

NORMAN LOWE | NEWPORT, UK Photo Walk

IVONNE VIDANA | CUIDAD JUÁREZ, MEXICO Photo Walk

This is one of those images that grabs you from the start, and the more you look at it, the more it reveals. The lighting is great, both inside and out, the color is wonderful, and the expression of the person inside the building really makes the image. Plus, there are so many layers in this image which help draw the viewer into the image, and of course, it’s a storytelling image. It makes you wonder who this person is, what they’re doing, what’s the story here – it’s just so intriguing. It’s one of those images where there’s just “something about it” that makes it special. I don’t think it’s one thing – I think it’s all of those things I listed and more. Very well done. Congratulations, Invonne.

Although there’s only one winner, I felt some images were so good that even though they didn’t win a prize, they still deserved to be recognized, so I present our Photo Walk Competition Honorable Mentions (in no particular order):

Thanks to all our Photo Walk Leaders

It’s an awful lot of work to lead a Photo Walk (ask anyone who has led one), and a thankless job, so let me be the first to say “thanks.” We couldn’t do any of this without our volunteer walk leaders around the world, who do such a great job of creating the walks; working and wrangling their walkers, judging the local contest from their walk, and making the whole thing happen on the local level, and that means a lot.

We’d also like to congratulate to the Leader winner:

Mark Anthony Agtay
Location: Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

Also, a big thanks to all the talented photographers around the world…

…who created such inspiring, creative, and beautiful work, and special thanks to those of you who contributed to the Springs of Hope Orphanage in Kenya — it means more than you know.

Congratulations to all the winners, and honorees. Have a fantastic day, everybody!

-Scott

The post Here Are The Official Finalists and Winner From This Year’s Worldwide Photo Walk™ appeared first on Scott Kelby's Photoshop Insider.

Editor’s Note: After many years of managing the Scott Kelby Guest Blog Series, this will be the final guest post. I wanted to end the series with my first guest post from 2008, the telling of my insane trip to Mexico with Joe McNally. Thankfully I haven’t had any trips as bad as this one since, and I don’t think any of Joe’s other assistants have either! Thanks for reading all these years, and I hope you enjoy this final guest post.

As most of you know, before coming to work with Scott, I was Joe McNally’s assistant. When Scott asked me to be his guest blogger for this week, I thought it might be a good opportunity to both finish the story and share it with a (much) larger audience.

Before you begin, a word of warning. It’s a bit long, so I’ve parsed it into four parts to make it a little easier to get through. As you’re reading, you’ll be thinking, “How can this get any worse??” I assure you, it can and it does. I hope you enjoy!

Part I – Always Double-Check Your Carry-On

The second job that I assisted Joe on was a portrait for AARP in Washington D.C. The subject was a lawyer who had taken up pottery in his retirement. Since it was only the second shoot I’d been on with Joe, I was still getting the hang of packing gear in the Suburban… Still learning the best place for each item to go. Location work being what it is, we had to park about half a block away from the pottery studio and walk the gear over. Of course, it also started pouring the rain.

This meant that I had to walk back and forth from the studio to the truck, in the rain, to retrieve gear that I had forgotten to bring on the initial trip. Multiple times. One of these items was a knife. The cameras have these L-brackets on them that partially cover the USB port, making it difficult to access when shooting tethered, and thus requires a knife to pry it open. “Hence”, Joe informed me, “the knives always travel with the cameras.” Okay, point taken.

The shoot went well, and Joe worked his magic to create what looked like daylight pouring in through the studio screen door when it was anything except sunshine and kitty cats outside.

Photo by Joe McNally

From D.C., we continued traveling and began working on the NCAA Basketball preview issue of Sports Illustrated. Seven colleges over the course of about two or three weeks to do portraits of the “big freshmen.”

Fast forward a week or two, and Joe and I are flying to a different city every other day. This was a new experience for me, seeing that I’d flown a total of three times in my life before this trip.

We were going through security at Salt Lake City Airport one early morning, en route to Tucson, when the TSA agent pulls my camera bag (Joe and I each traveled with one) and says he needs to look through it. Sure, whatever. Nothing out of the ordinary…

So, he begins digging through it, and pulls out a knife. A Leatherman to be exact.

TSA Agent: “Sir, did you realize this was in here?”

Me: “Oh, crap. I wasn’t even thinking about it…”

The searching of the bag continues… He pulls another knife. Swiss Army. Suspicious look…

TSA Agent: “Sir, is there anything else in here I should know about?”

Me: “Um… I think there might be one more.”

Yep. Another Leatherman.

Me: “Just a second, let me get my boss. He’s coming through the other line.” I turn around. “Joe…”

TSA Agent: “Sir, is this your bag?”

Joe: “Yeah…?”

TSA Agent presents knives.

Joe: “BRAD!! WHAT ARE YOU THINKING!? YOU CAN’T BRING KNIVES ON A PLANE!!!”

Me: (very sheepishly) “But… You said the knives… always travel… with… the cameras…?”

At this point, I think the TSA Agent realized it was an honest mistake and explained our options. They can either confiscate the knives, or they could allow us to ship them back home via the Hudson News right next to security that happens to sell packaging and stamps and ship things.

So Joe goes over to package them up and ship them home, while I sit down and feebly attempt to tie my shoes with trembling hands. A kind gentleman sitting beside me who saw everything tries to assure me that it’ll be okay.

I finish putting my shoes back on as Joe comes back over, and we begin walking toward our gate. I’m not really sure what to do or say, so I muster up enough courage to glance over and say, “I’m so sorry.”

Joe just begins laughing. LAUGHING! After I almost got arrested.

I’m slightly befuddled as to why he’s laughing instead of yelling at me. He explains that he’s pulled his share of bonehead moves during his career, so he has to have patience and be forgiving. You have to learn from your mistakes and move on.

I finally muster a bit of a smile and we make our way to the gate. Little did I know that before the trip was over, I would test his patience, grace, and forgiveness as much as humanly possible…

Part II – Check and Double-Check Vital Items along the Way

We finished shooting for SI and retreated to Coronado Island, outside of San Diego, for a few days rest before heading south to cover the Baja 1000 for Micron. Needless to say, this differed immensely from the previous job I had in college, working part-time for a mid-size daily newspaper. Joe reminded me of this as we sat having breakfast on the patio one morning, overlooking the harbor and city, surrounded by palm trees and beautiful weather.

I was enjoying my stay on the island, walking around the nearby area snapping pictures, driving down to the village and shopping for flip flops, and visiting the beach at The Del.

Yes, all was going well until the day before crossing the border to Mexico…

As I’m getting things organized, preparing to cross the border, I decide to ahead and pull my passport out of the camera bag pocket I had packed it in. I unzip the pocket, stick my hand in, and don’t feel anything.

What. The. Crap.

I proceed to empty every single pocket of every single bag I have with me. Every zipper unzipped, every pocket emptied, every nook uncrannied. Nothing. It’s official…

I… have lost… my FREAKING PASSPORT!

The passport that I had just gotten for this trip. The passport that had never been outside of the United States. The passport that had no stamps on any of the pages. Gone.

I go down to meet Joe for breakfast, having absolutely no idea what I’m going to do or how he will react. He walks in and greets me, but sees the look on my face and immediately asks what’s wrong.

“I can’t find my passport.”

He looks displeased, to say the least, but gains his composure and immediately begins thinking about how we’re going to pull this off. Luckily, it is 2006, and I can still get into Mexico with a U.S. driver’s license.

Once we figure this out, we breathe a potential sigh of relief (you never know for sure what’s going to happen until it happens). We enjoy the rest of our time in Coronado, then prepare to venture south of the border.

The next morning, we awake, load our rental vehicle, and drive south. We arrive at the border and pull out the instructions that have been emailed to us on how to get our visas (the process involves a lot of going from one office to another and then back to the previous office, and it has to be done in a very particular order).

At one point, I am asked for my passport. I smile and say, “Driver’s license?” as I hand it toward the officer.

“Passport…?”

Big, friendly smile. “Driver’s license…?”

He rolls his eyes and accepts my license, finishes processing the paper work, and we’re on our way.

Sweet! I made it into Mexico without my passport! It was a big moment of joy for me. Unfortunately, it would be short-lived…

Part III – Be Very Careful, But Don’t Always Use Your Head

“I’m okay, I’m okay, I’m okay… Wait.  Son of a… Is that blood?! Oh, $%*^! This did not just happen! I did not just crack my head open on a TRACTOR FREAKING TRAILER!! Seriously! This can NOT be happening! Not after all I’ve already been through!”

This, along with a stream of obscenities, is what was going through my head (besides the tractor trailer) at the end of the same day I crossed the border. Let’s rewind a few hours…

When Joe and I arrived in Ensenada a couple of days before the race, we met up with the Micron people we were working with, and they guided us up into the mountains to the Wide Open Horsepower Ranch, where their team was staging. They were getting the cars ready, making sure everything was in order, and it also served as their party grounds. Not like a frat party or anything, but they were definitely having a good time.

We sat down to eat while different people came up on stage and made presentations and speeches, all the usual thank-you-for-everything-we-couldn’t-have-done-this-without-you-yay-for-us kind of stuff. As we were sitting on the folding chairs, my butt started hurting because of my wallet. So I took it out and stuck it in my jacket pocket. The night wore on, Joe snapped some more pictures, then decided to call it a night and get back to the hotel. So we hop in the rental, along with someone to help guide us back down out of the mountains and into Ensenada safely.

We arrive at the hotel and try to check in, but they’re overbooked. As Joe attempts to work his New York, uh, “charm” on the guys behind the desk, I realize that my wallet isn’t in my back pocket. Oh, but I stuck it in my jacket pocket, and I left my jacket in the truck.

“Hey Joe, can I get the keys from you to get my jacket? I forgot it in the truck.”

I go out to the truck, grab my jacket, and feel around in the pockets…

No wallet.

Therefore no driver’s license, no work visa, no debit/credit cards, no cash… nothing. Yet again, crap.

I go back in and hand the keys to Joe, very much unsure of how exactly I’m going to handle this, especially since he’s already tired and still trying to get rooms for the night. He keeps talking to the guys behind the desk, but finally glances over at me and sees the very worried look on my face.

“Brad, what’s wrong?”

“I lost my wallet.”

“You… lost your wallet?? Brad, I can’t get you out of the country without your ID.”

“I know. But I think I know where it’s at! I stuck it in my jacket pocket when we were eating dinner, and it must’ve fallen out right around where we were sitting! I’ll go back and find it, and take him (the guy who guided us to the hotel) back since he has to go anyway! I’ll find it, and everything will be okay!”

I honestly don’t remember what Joe’s reaction was at this point, but he says that he was ready to leave me in Mexico to fend for myself. I can’t blame him.

I made the half-hour drive back up to the ranch and dropped off our guide, then parked the truck. Now, one of the other team sponsors was Monster Energy Drinks, and they had a big tractor trailer with a stage set up between where I parked and where we had eaten dinner. So, I decided that it would be faster and easier to go through a gap between the stage and trailer than to go all the way around it. Wrong.

I ducked down to go underneath the trailer, thought I had made it to the other side, and raised up too early too quickly. My forehead hit the metal edge and knocked me on my rear. I regained my composure, hoping that I was okay. I didn’t feel any pain, other than my neck being jarred from the impact. I thought I was okay, until blood started dripping onto my glasses. Then an internal string of curses started going through my head. As I made it out from under the trailer, a young guy saw me and came over.

“Dude, are you okay??”

“Yeah, I think I’m fine. I just need something to stop the bleeding.”

“No, man, you need stitches! That’s a nasty gash!”

“NO NO NO, I do NOT need stitches. I can’t need stitches!”

“Just sit down over here and let me get the medics…”

Cue examination and questions… Yes, I did actually realize the tractor trailer was parked right there. No, my head doesn’t hurt for some reason (I think I managed to cut through the nerves or something). My neck hurts. Is a neck brace really necessary? Okay, fine. Yes, I have insurance. No, I don’t have proof. I lost my wallet. Yes, I do realize that I am royally screwed, thank you.

This all takes place as a crowd of people gather around to see why an ambulance with flashing lights just pulled up and take pictures of the idiot who just cracked his head open on a tractor trailer. The medics get me onto a stretcher, load me into the back of the ambulance, and off we go down an entirely-too-bumpy road to the hospital. Luckily, the Micron guys were able to make sure I get taken to a private hospital, so that put my mind a little more at ease. I know it’s a half-hour drive back to downtown, so I decide to kill some time and text my old college roommate on the way…

We arrived at the hospital, and it was indeed private; they turned the lights on as we came in. The doctor did x-rays of my neck to see if it was injured, but it wasn’t. Then he began stitching up my head.

Back at the hotel, while this was happening, Joe has finally gotten a room and is settling in for the night when he gets a knock at the door…

“Joe, sorry to disturb you, but your assistant is in the emergency room with a big gash in his head.”

I can only imagine his reaction, and I’m not sure I even want to do that. Thankfully, he didn’t shut the door and leave me to fend for myself… He got dressed and came to the hospital.

Because the gash was so deep (down to the skull), the doctor had to do three stitches inside, then six outside. While he’s working on me, Joe shows up. I’m lying on the gurney and see him come in out of the corner of my eye. The whole time, my biggest fear was how he was going to react. I could’ve given a crap about my head at this point, I was worried about whether or not I was going to have a job after this trip was over!

Joe walks over and asks, “How ya doin’ there, Brad?” He describes this next part as a There’s Something About Mary moment, the scene where Ben Stiller gets, um, “stuck” in his pants zipper and everyone who tries to help says, “Oh, it can’t be that bad…”

Joe leans over to see how my head looks, thinking, “It can’t be too bad… OH MY GOD!! I CAN SEE HIS CRANIUM!” Thankfully, that’s his internal reaction and not his outward reaction, as I had not actually seen the wound at this point. He just says, “Well, you gave yourself a pretty good gash there, Brad.”

This how my head looked about a week after it happened:

Joe consults the doctor to make sure I can still work in the hot sun over the next few days, and the doctor says it’s okay as long as I take my antibiotics and wear a hat. As they’re talking, I sit up on the gurney and look back at where my head had been for the past hour or two. Blood… Lots and lots of blood. Pretty much the entire top 1/4 of the gurney was red with the former contents of my head.

We wrap things up at the ER, and Joe drops me off at the hotel and goes to the pharmacy to get my prescription filled. I go up to my room and grab a very careful shower. Once I’m cleaned up, I send a text message to my mom back in Tennessee, thinking that she’ll get it when she wakes up in the morning.

“Can you cancel my debit and credit cards for me? I lost my wallet. Also, I have 9 stitches in my head, but I’m okay.”

Unfortunately, this awoke my mother at 3 a.m., and she called as I was lying down to sleep. “Mom, the signal here sucks and I can’t hear anything that you might be saying. But I promise that I’m okay and will call you in the morning. I need to sleep, so please don’t call back. I love you, goodnight.”

Of course, right before my alarm goes off the next morning, my phone rings again. It’s my mom, wondering if I got mugged or something. I explain what happened, what I needed her to do, assured her that I was okay, and got ready to go scout the race course with Joe.

Part IV – Sometimes, It Just Comes Down to Luck

The scouting went well and was pretty uneventful, other than Joe hanging out the side of the truck going down the highway to take pictures of the Micron tractor trailer while it was driving down the road. We figure out that we’re going to have about two or three chances to intersect with the cars since we’re only covering the first day of the race and not the whole thing. Each of those times will come and go very quickly since the cars aren’t exactly slowing down to pose for a picture, so we have to be right on with whatever we shoot.

On race day, we get to our first shooting location, a hill where the cars will get air as they come across, and set up amidst all the drunk and rowdy race fans along the sides of the road. Keep in mind that these are public roads and not closed off. There is minimal police presence to keep things under control, other than a cop at an intersection to stop traffic for the race cars when they come through. As we’re setting up, civilian cars occasionally across the hill and are met with cans, bottles, and even chairs. We do our best to avoid any flying debris, though I think Joe may’ve caught some spray from a not-empty beer can.

Joe goes up the road a short distance to the next hill with a long lens and puts me at the bottom of the jump with a wide lens (this isn’t the ideal situation to set up a literal remote camera, so I acted as a “protective” remote, if you will). As I mentioned before, police presence is quite minimal, and these drunk race fans aren’t being held back by any sort of barricades or anything. Joe and I aren’t the only ones there with cameras, so everyone tries to get as close as they can to get good pictures. One man in particular got too close…

I’m not sure what happened to him, but he was airlifted out by helicopter. After this happened, everyone backed up a few steps.

From here, we loaded up and raced to the next location. I don’t think I’ve ever driven as fast as I drove down that two-lane Mexican highway that day, passing every car I could when I had the chance. We made it to the next location, Joe did his thing, and off we went to the final location.

We didn’t make it in time, though. Joe got out and made some snaps (his personal favorite of the day, actually), and we turned around to head home. As we stopped to get gas, I realized that my face was feeling really weird. Particularly my forehead… I asked Joe if my face looked swollen, and he didn’t even answer.

“Give me the keys, I’m driving.”

See, I had forgotten to bring my antibiotics with me, so my forehead was swollen to the point that I could barely see out of my right eye. But we made it back to the hotel and I took my medicine and went to bed.

We woke up early the next morning, as Joe and I both were ready to get the heck out of Mexico. I drove most of the way back, but pulled over to swap places with Joe so he could drive across the border.

As we got to the border crossing, I started to pull out the police report I had filed for my “stolen” wallet.  Joe saw it and told me to put it away immediately as it would cause the border patrol to ask questions unnecessarily. As we got closer, I became more nervous on the inside, but didn’t let it translate into any body language. Finally, our turn came to cross…

Joe rolled down his window and showed the officer his passport.

“Everybody in the vehicle American citizens?”

“Yes sir.”

“What was your purpose for visiting Mexico?”

“We’re photographers who were covering the Baja, sir.”

“Do you have any drugs, alcohol, or firearms in the vehicle?”

“No sir.”

“Alright, you gentleman have a good day.”

“Yes sir, you too.”

And with that, I was back in the United States! Now all I had to do was get on the plane without any form of official ID.

The plan all along was for Joe to take a few days of relaxation in LA when we were done, and for me to fly back home with all the gear. So I dropped him off at Hertz where he got his new rental and drove north, and I went back to take care of the rental then hopped on the shuttle to the airport.

I arrived at the airport and made my way to the Delta counter. As usual, the man behind the counter asks where I’m going and to see my ID.

“Well, I’m going to New York LaGuardia, but, um… I lost my wallet in Mexico. All I have is my pass from the Baja 1000 and a copy of my birth certificate (that my mom and Lynn, Joe’s studio manager had emailed to me)…”

“Oh, no problem. Happens all the time! Here’s your ticket. Have a nice flight!”

“Um… Okay, thanks. But what about security? Won’t they need to see my ID?”

“I’ve got you covered. Come with me.”

We walk over to security, and he says, “This guy lost his wallet in Mexico, but he’s good.”

They shrug and say, “Okay.”

I empty my pockets, go through the metal detector, gather my things, and go to my gate.

Everything was smooth sailing from there. I was very happy to get back to a familiar bed and be able to relax for a few days. My family was also glad to have me home in one piece for Thanksgiving a couple of weeks later.

Over the next two years, I made other mistakes, but never again anything on the level of what happened on this trip. Now I’m working with Scott, and I’m pretty sure that he has his fingers crossed every day, hoping that I got all of my mishaps out of my system when I was with Joe. So far, so good, but I’m sure you’ll hear about it if I do anything royally stupid.

One of Joe’s favorite sayings is something along the lines of, “Don’t run away from your mistakes.  Embrace them. Take them out to dinner and become friends so that you can learn from them and grow.” I think I took this idea a few steps further and had little mistake babies on this trip (named ’em Dangit, Darnit, and Jimbob). But I did learn from them, and that is what’s important.

For those who actually read this whole thing, thanks for hanging in there! I hope that you found it was worth it :-) And if you want Joe’s side of the story, you can read it here. Have a great rest of the week!

-Brad

The post The Final Guest Blog: Photographer and Mishap-Laden Adventurer Brad Moore appeared first on Scott Kelby's Photoshop Insider.

Photographer’s Fast Track Webinar – Unlocking The Secrets The Pros Don’t Want To Tell You!

No “Grid” this week because we launched The Photographers Fast Track with a free Webinar designed for anyone who is tired of just making small incremental improvements in their photography. It’s free, so please share this with anyone you think would enjoy it (plus there’s a free goodie for anyone who watches – you’ll dig it)!

New KelbyOne Course: Get The Most Out Of Your RAW Files In 5 Steps with Serge Ramelli

Learn five key steps for creating natural drama in your photographs! Join Serge Ramelli in this session from the Lightroom Conference as he breaks down the five steps he takes on every one of his raw photos. Through a series of demonstrations you’ll learn exactly what you need to do to get the most out of your raw photos.

The post Photographer’s Fast Track Webinar – Unlocking The Secrets The Pros Don’t Want To Tell You! appeared first on Scott Kelby's Photoshop Insider.

Editor’s Note: Mark’s post from 2019 about boosting your creativity has always stuck with me, so I wanted to share it here again today. Enjoy!

A Power Boost

I’ve been working as a Professional Creative in a variety of roles for over twenty years now. I’ve run the press/printers, worked at an internal creative group supporting marketing, then to being at an agency, to now running our studio/agency with my wife. One thing I get asked on a regular basis is, “What would make me a better (insert title here).” In this current era of our industry, the situation has flipped from when I was starting out. The hardest part back then was getting good enough gear to execute your ideas. You could have all the ideas in the world, but you couldn’t execute something that looked professional. That was why we all wanted to work at big agencies, magazines, corporations, etc. They had the resources to make great things, and we all wanted to be a part of something at that quality.

Today, that’s simply not the case… The challenge is no longer the gear. Yes, there are gear-heads out there, I’m sure a few of you are clutching your XQD cards right now ready to tell me all about how it’s amazing and made you a better image maker. Maybe you have the latest HSS strobe and want to tell me about how it helps you stop hair at 1/2500^th of a second while flicking it in a shot. Let’s not even get started on 4k-5k displays, or mirrorless cameras, or megapixels.

All of that is impressive, but it’s not making you better at your career. It’s making you capable of executing a particular feature or solution. But I see people starting out today executing very technical, and impressive, projects in part thanks to the quality of consumer grade technology. 

I thought for this post I would offer a few of my favorite tips on what creatives can do to give themselves a boost. That power up that I know can’t be bought, and yet is necessary to be a leader and succeed in your services.

Ideation

How do you generate ideas? For some people it comes very naturally, and for others it’s a real struggle. Do you stare at a blank canvas when someone says “go” and it just stresses you out? 

Bringing a concept to your projects can really help show your ability to execute a visual narrative. If you have a strong community, collaborate with them. I often ping my friends, and colleagues, to get their ideas and thoughts. I don’t speak only to other photographers or designers. Quite the contrary; if I’m doing a project for a new restaurant, I’ll call my friends that work in the food industry and get their thoughts. “What do you wish you could see done for your field?” If I don’t have those resources, I’ll go out to lunch and introduce myself to people in the restaurant that is well designed. I’ll offer to buy the manager a drink if they chat with me for a few minutes.

If I don’t have those resources, then I use a bubble map. This is almost secondary for me now and it happens on every scrap piece of paper on my desk. It’s almost a way of taking notes during a call.

Start with the detail you know the most at the center. Then ideate bubbles outward with secondary and tertiary details. Then as you move farther out you get into more abstract ideas that might help paint a picture in your mind. That picture can influence color choices, shapes, composition, and more.

Design Thinking

Steve Jobs (RIP), and now almost every leader in the modern corporate world, believe that “design thinking” is a pivotal skill for success. Understanding how to solve problems creatively isn’t just some “artist” mindset, it’s a process. One that is taught, and practiced, by some of the biggest firms in the world today. For some, in this modern era, it’s a natural occurrence that is second nature to them. Firms like IDEO and others, really pushed this process into the design of everything and anything. From shopping carts to lamps to logos. Rapidly prototyping their ideas with a fail fast mentality so that as something breaks, they learn from it quickly and course correct. How would you apply this to your own services and value proposition? Even if it’s not a process you put your clients through, it’s something you can put your own ideas through to see if they can stand on their own merit. Evaluate them with peers and see if they have the same outcomes.

The key of Design Thinking is considering the impact, or experience, of the user versus the creator. What will it mean to those who receive the experience versus the experience of the person solving the problem. This alone offers a shift towards empathy of the audience, our brand’s audience.

Empathize: Define and understand the audience.

Define: Make clear exactly the problem to be solved.

Ideate: Brainstorm and aggregate all the ideas you can around the needs.

Prototype: Build a proof of concept from your ideas.

Test: Try it on the media, or with a specific audience, refine and improve.

Communication

Ok this is a biggie! I mentioned it briefly in my first guest blog post about becoming a professional creative. Most clients/customers don’t hire you because of your talent or creativity. In fact, those are an expectation of your service. But, what clinches a lot of work for some creatives over others is their ability to communicate effectively. Here’s just a few things to consider.

Being accessible. Create as many access points as possible for a client to reach you, and make sure you set it up in a way that it’s easy for you to manage. I personally have 5 email addresses that I manage, however they all route to the same single inbox. A flag in Gmail tells me which address they came from. When I choose to respond, Gmail sends it back as if it was from the originating email. You can do this with other mail providers also.

Social Media. I also have contact notifications setup for all my social media streams I care about (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram). Yes, I have given up some of my personal life to always being accessible. But it’s important if I’m going to get work. So, I don’t have to respond immediately, but noticing when a lead contacts me is extremely important. I have contact/message buttons on my social media business pages also.

Old school. Lastly the classic. A contact-form. Some people don’t want to chat verbally, and they might not be into the millennial preferences of social media. So on my page people can use a contact form to send in their requests for info. Just make sure your form requires a return email address, phone number, or some other point of contact info. Include a direct Call-to-action. If you’re not a web designer, a lot of good web template services now have a contact form template they will provide you for free.

Facilitation/Meeting

A great professional creative who acts as their own Producer understands how to facilitate meetings, or other engagements, so that the client feels confident in you. This could be a whole course unto itself. But, let’s cover some basics that are really important for when you meet with a client or are setting up a meeting.

• Have a clear agenda, establish your rules of engagement, share it before the event
• Focus on the topic of your service or the project details
• Stay impartial and open to everyone’s thoughts/feedback (no client wants to feel excluded)
• Set proper expectations for everyone involved, such as Roles/Responsibilities.
• Be prepared! Always go to a meeting with more information than you’ll probably need. Consider the variables.
• Know your value, what you’re offering, and what else could be an upsell

It’s essential today to have soft skills that provide a next level quality of service and engagement with your audiences, clients, and more. Having the latest and greatest piece of gear is a tactical way of finding efficiency improvements in executing a project, but it’s not going to be the reason people come back to you.

I remember working once for a studio that bought two RED cameras when they first came out. The price tag was ginormous and they were stunned to discover that during our pitch meetings no one cared about the bullet point stating we used RED cameras. No doubt, the gear was impressive, to us. But to a client, all they heard was “so you like gear.” Later we spoke to how that equipment enables us to execute at a quality of our ideas which only we could deliver. What became clear is the client wanted to hear/see the quality of the idea most and they left the gear up to us.

My advice is always remember to invest in developing yourself as much as possible. That is where the true value comes from as a Professional Creative. Then build your equipment to the scale of your ideas.

Good luck, and please comment below with some of your favorite Boost ideas.

You can see more from Mark at MarkHeaps.com, check out his articles and class on KelbyOne, and keep up with him on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

The post Guest Blog: All Around Pixel Guy Mark Heaps appeared first on Scott Kelby's Photoshop Insider.

Big Updates and Announcements w/Scott Kelby, Erik Kuna & Guests | The Grid Ep 579

This week on The Grid, Scott Kelby and Erik Kuna are joined by Jefferson Graham to talk about mobile phone travel photography! But first, they’re announcing a new webinar, sharing Lightroom tips, talking about new OnOne Software updates with Dan Harlacher, and Photoshop tips. Tune in for an tip-packed episode that you’ll be sure to enjoy!

How to Create a Personal Connection with Your Travel Images with Scott Kelby

Take your travel images to the next level by making a connection to something meaningful! Join Scott Kelby in London, England, as he shows you how he created a personal connection to the photographs he created on this trip. The idea is to tie together your travel photography and something you are passionate about to tell a more personal and meaningful story of your trip. As Scott travels around London he shares tips and techniques to help you get the most out of your next trip and then puts it all together in an Adobe Express page.

The post Big Updates and Announcements w/Scott Kelby, Erik Kuna & Guests | The Grid Ep 579 appeared first on Scott Kelby's Photoshop Insider.

Editor’s Note: Here’s a great post from 2015 featuring Robert Foldy’s walkthrough of his portraits of the Miami Heat on media day!

Hello everyone, I’m Robert Foldy and I’m a freelance commercial sports photographer based just outside of Nashville, Tennessee. I’ve been a friend of Scott and Brad’s for quite a while now and they have asked me to share with you some images and tales from a recent shoot. As always, I’m extremely humbled to be asked to share with you.

In 2015, I was asked to photograph each of the Miami Heat players before the start of the 2015-16 season for one of my clients, Getty Images. The most common opportunity to photograph professional or college athletes is on what’s called “media day.” If you’ve never heard of media day, it’s basically a day dedicated for all of the players on a team to fulfill various media needs, from still photographs to radio broadcasts to television interviews. This is a very busy day for the athletes. I’ve had the pleasure of covering a fair number of these over my career for different teams and organizations, and I’ve been able to pick up a few tips and tricks from others as well as stumbling upon some of my own.

Allow me to explain a bit more of how the photo section of these “media days” work. For basketball, most of the activity takes place on the practice court at the team’s home arena. The team/league, and typically a large local paper, will do photos as well, but traditionally in different locations around the arena. I don’t know exactly what else these players were required to participate in on that day, but I know there were at least 7 different sets of photographers from various newspapers and wire services set up and making portraits in the same room that I was in.

This is one of the first challenges. It’s a technical challenge with all of those strobes firing and all of the other distractions, but it’s also difficult to make a strong, unique image when these players are pumping out the same photos for various photographers as if they were on an assembly line. I don’t mean that to belittle any of those agencies or photographers, and those photos are very good and very important. However, my assignment was to make something different than the other photographers there that day, and I took it upon myself to strive for what I hoped to be a different image than anyone shooting any of the various teams and players throughout the country. Where as the other media day portraits are used for editorial work or television, the images from Getty are often used in advertising campaigns or for other commercial purposes.

I’ll start with the gear stuff. I know when I first started reading this blog the gear stuff is the first thing I’d look for. So if you’re like me, here you go. I used Elinchrom BRX monolights (a BRX250 and three 500s) with the Skyport triggering system, two Westcott strip banks for side/back lights, a basic Elinchrom reflector to light the background, and an Elinchrom beauty dish with the silver deflector (with and without the diffusion sock) as my front light. I shoot with both a Canon 5Ds body mounted to an EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens, and a 1DX body with an EF 85mm f/1.8 USM lens. The 50 plus megapixels of the 5Ds gave the images a ton of detail, while the low noise capabilities of the 1DX, along with the 12 frames per second motor drive, allowed me to shoot using just the modeling lights and capture the exact moment of the player’s expression that I was after.

I wore my Spider Holster dual camera system so that I could easily switch between camera bodies or have my hands completely free, and tethered into Lightroom on my laptop (just the 5Ds, as that was my “primary” camera). Every client wants things done a bit differently, and for Getty I always shoot JPEG. (I’ve had to familiarize myself with a lot of functions in my Canon cameras that I didn’t really know were there to help get my JPEGs as close to perfect as I can right out of the camera). I shot large JPEG plus RAW for this shoot just so I had a backup, but I’m proud to say that I was able to use my standard JPEG workflow for all of the photos that I delivered. Below is an iPhone photo of my setup.

As you can see, it’s not a typical portrait setup, so let me explain a little more about media day. Photographers get, on average, about 2 minutes with each of the players before they’re onto their next commitment. They move from one photographer directly to the next. How do I make good portraits, much less ones that are unique, in less than 2 minutes?! That’s where this dual background setup comes in. I can get two different looks with one lighting setup, without my subject really having to move or reposition. I cannot take any credit for this idea. A good friend and Getty staff photographer, Mike Ehrmann, told me about it and uses it himself, as do many other very talented shooters.

But, like anything I learn, I try to adapt it and make it my own. Although I used the two background idea that Mike had used, he traditionally uses it with all of the light coming from the front. It gets more difficult when you try to add lights behind the subject as well. But, if done correctly, I can get 3 different looks, each of those with a few different expressions, giving my clients a good variety despite only having the players for a short period of time.

I’ll start with my “main” setup. I shot these straight on, strobed, white background shots with the 5Ds and 70-200, ISO 100, 1/160th of a second, somewhere around f11. Before you give me too much grief about the players sitting down, like the great portrait photographer Peter Hurley did, let me explain to you why. I agree that most of the time portrait photographs look best when your subject(s) are standing, but there are a few problems with that on media day.

The first being that I’m trying to make a different photo than everyone around me, and everyone else has the athletes standing. But the main reason why I have them sit is more psychological than physical. I try to set up my little “portrait station” to be welcoming and comfortable. When the players walked up, instead of posing them and asking them to stand one way or the other, and then turn and pose some other way, I simply introduced myself and asked them to sit down, put their feet up, and make themselves comfortable. “Imagine you’re just chillin’ on your couch at home watching TV…except for some reason you’re holding a basketball.” I’ve found that an approach like this gets them out of the “routine” of media day, and into something along the lines of, “Wait a minute, I’ve never taken a photo like this before.” I try to make them feel relaxed. Sure I have an agenda/shot list in my head, but I don’t tell them that, I let the photographs come to me.

For this shot I knew I wanted some more serious photos, but also something with a bit of that specific player’s personality. If I were to ask them to smile, the players would just give me what I have nicknamed their “media day smile.” So if they did, I would jokingly say to them something along the lines of, “Come on man, that ain’t your real smile. Give me the smile you would give me if I told you I was sending this photo to your mom.” Bam. You’re in.

But photos of people smiling are a dime a dozen, so how do I make something different? Something genuine, something that really shows their personality, but do it in less than a minute? I have found a trick that seems to work pretty well for me. After I snap a few frames, I drop the camera in my Spider Holster and walk up to them like I’m about to tell them a secret. In the pros, a lot of these guys are married, so my conversation with them usually goes something like this: “Hey man, are you married? (If yes, keep going, if no, skip ahead a few lines.) Okay, well, let’s go back a few years to before you were married, okay? Okay, so you’re out at the club with your buddies, the place is packed, everyone is having a good time. You see this group of girls walk by and they are smokin’ hot. You realize one of them keeps checking you out, you think she’s worth getting to know a little better, so the next time you catch her looking your way, you give her ‘the look.’”

At this point, they are usually snickering because they know exactly the look you’re talking about. “You know the look I mean? I call it the ‘ay girl’ look.” (I now demonstrate my best attempt at the “look.”) “I’m going to walk back over there, but when I count to three, do you think you can give that look to the camera?” Admittedly it works on some guys right out of the gate and others not so much, but it gets them out of their own way and continues to get them to relax. If they try the look and it doesn’t work, that’s usually followed by laughter. Like Dr. Hurley says: sometimes it’s not the face you’re after, but the smile you get right after the face.

So at this point, hopefully they’re playing ball with you (yes, I just made a basketball pun). That’s when I holster the 70-200 and grab the 1DX with the 85mm. I have this camera set to Monochrome JPEG, and on the 1DX cameras you can adjust the sharpness and contrast, as well as apply filter and toning effects for black and white images right in the camera. My exposure settings were somewhere in the neighborhood of ISO 1600, f2 and 1/500th shutter. I shot these in black and white for a few reasons. One, I like black and white images. Two, I shot these only using the modeling lights from the flashes, so I knew a ton of mixed color temperature ambient light would be creeping into my photos and my white balance would be a mess.

Free from the tethering cable and not having to wait for lights to recycle, I was able to keep those looks and expressions coming while they were still trying to make a good “ay girl” face, and the subsequent laughter that follows. My good friend David Santiago from the Miami Herald took this photo of me while I was trying to shoot just that. (Oh yeah, that’s another distraction. In addition to the portrait shooters, a lot of papers or agencies will cover the event overall, so there are people shooting photos and video of you as you’re shooting photos of the athletes.)

I like to get in really close with the 85mm. It may make the subject a bit uncomfortable at first, but in the end, they’re all real human beings like us, and they want to look good in the photos. A lot of times they’ll ask to see the photos on the back of the camera. If they like them, you’re in even better shape moving forward.

I still know that I’m on a time crunch, so once I know I have what I need from the front, I tell the players that they’re almost done, I just have to make a few more frames. I re-holster the 1DX, grab the 70-200 again and head over to the side so I can shoot them against the black background. (Below is another photo from David Santiago. You can see another photographer’s setup right next to mine, and there’s another one next to that, and 4 more on the adjacent wall.)

This shot also requires some foresight. Remember how I mentioned that someone had told me about the two background idea, but that all of their light was coming from the front? Well, if I were to fire all 4 of my lights and shoot from the side, my photo would be a mess. There would be light spilling into the lens, the strip banks would probably be in the frame, and it would just not be the image I wanted. I’ve used other brands of lights and triggers in the past, and my work-around was to plug the background light and strip banks into a power strip and then just turn off the switch before taking the shot on the black background. That worked, but is not ideal. By using the Elinchrom Skyport system, I had the background light, the strip banks, and the beauty dish all in separate groups. This not only allowed me to turn each of the groups up and down individually, but also allowed me to fire just the beauty dish.

To close, I’d like share with you a story from a few years ago… I was shooting another team with a similar setup and was trying to use the same tricks. It was towards the end of the day and honestly I was starting to get tired. I was pretty far away from this player who was a bit larger than some of the other guys, so I was zoomed all the way in towards 200mm, and instead of walking over to him and really selling the “girls in the club” story, I kinda gave a brief explanation from across the room. After I’m finished I ask him for the “ay girl” look and he gives me something. Not perfect, but not bad. I shot a few more at that distance and then came in close with my 85. I ask “hey, give me that ‘ay girl’ look one more time.” “OH! You were saying ‘ay girl’, that makes a lot more sense. I thought you were saying ‘egg roll’.” I lost it. My assistant, the other photographers near by, the player’s handler, he and I we were all cracking up. “The rest of those guys were giving me that look thinking they were giving it to an attractive girl, you gave it to me for an egg roll!” “What can I say, man, I really like egg rolls.”

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this, and I hope it encourages you that, despite the obstacles you may be facing on any particular shoot, if you think outside of the box you can still walk away with some unique images! Cheers!

You can see more of Rob’s work at RobFoldyPhotography.com, and keep up with him on Instagram, and Facebook.

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Open Lighting Q&A w/Scott Kelby, Erik Kuna & Lenworth Johnson | The Grid Ep 578

This week on The Grid, Scott Kelby and Erik Kuna are joined by fashion and beauty photographer Lenworth Johnson for an Open Lighting Q&A! They discuss gear, show lighting setup diagrams, share helpful KelbyOne courses to dive into, and more. Tune in to see what tips you might be able to pick up that could take your lighting to the next level!

New KelbyOne Course – Mobile Photography: Capturing the American West with Jefferson Graham

There’s nothing like the vistas, clouds, and landscapes of the American West! Join Jefferson Graham on an epic tour of national parks, old towns, and scenic western byways as he teaches you how to capture amazing photos and videos with your mobile devices. From the best light to the worst, good weather and bad, Jefferson teaches you how to treat your mobile device like a pro camera to get pro shots. With lessons on video capture, drone photography, timelapse, post processing, and more you’ll come away with a new appreciation for what you can create with mobile photography.

The post Open Lighting Q&A w/Scott Kelby, Erik Kuna & Lenworth Johnson | The Grid Ep 578 appeared first on Scott Kelby's Photoshop Insider.

Game-changing AI Hacks Every Portrait Photographer Should Know

There’s a ton of buzz out there when it comes to AI infiltrating the photography industry. Some photographers are adamantly against using AI in their work, calling it fake or cheating. But the truth is, this disruptor is here to stay, and while it might feel nice at the moment to side with the ‘never-AI-ers,’ you’ll end up regretting your resistance to it in the long run. 

I, too, was cautious in the beginning since I’m primarily a portrait photographer, and no photographer can compete with an AI generated corporate headshot for $30 bucks. So I definitely understand both sides. But in this article I’m going to highlight some of the amazing ways photographers can use this new tech to their advantage, in their portrait sessions. 

Adobe has officially released their AI image generating engine (Adobe Firefly) into Photoshop. In my other business, I teach Photoshop. This allows me to beta test for the company, so I’ve  been exploring this new tech for a few months now. And… it’s amazing. Tasks that used to take me half an hour to complete now take a few seconds.  

Tip 1: The Dreaded Fly-Away Hair Cleanup

Gone are the days when I used to have to spend hours painstakingly retouching out each individual stray hair from a portrait. Now, I let Photoshop’s AI do that grunt work. I start by making a selection around the edge of the hair, and then use the prompt area in the Contextual task bar to input a phrase like “remove fly away hairs, clean polished hairline.”

The generative fill then gives me three variations to choose from (within the Properties window) and all I have to do is simply pick the one I like best. Here is the before and after of the one I chose as the final.

And the magic doesn’t stop there. I wanted to see if the AI could reduce cross hairs which make hair look frizzy in some instances. So I tried it and to my astonishment it worked. I circled the affected area, imputed the prompt “remove frizz,” pressed the generate button and was astonished by the results. 

This type of work used to consume my time worse than mistakenly stepping through the Narnia wardrobe portal. And now it can be done within seconds. These are the types of tasks you can easily use AI for when you’re a portrait photographer. 

Tip 2: Reconstructing Parts of Your Subject

Often, in an effort to make my subject feel closer to the viewer, I’ll slightly crop off the top of their heads in the images. This gives the viewer the feeling that the subject is closer to them than if their head were intact. It’s a tried and true method many headshot photographers have used over the years. But every so often I get a reply from a client asking me to put the top of their head back in. In the past this would have required me to go back to the files in my archives, find the certain look/outfit that client was wearing in the chosen frame, find a nearby shot that had the top of their head in the photo and then manually try to align both images and blend them. 

Now, thanks to AI, it’s as easy as using Generative expand. 

All you need to do is activate your crop tool, then make sure your Fill option in the top settings bar is set to “Generative Expand,” drag the canvas out, hit the crop check mark, and viola! The top of the head has been constructed for me within seconds. Another instance where AI has saved me 20 minutes of work.  

This also works for arms and shoulders that may have been inadvertently cropped out of the shot during a headshot session. Reconstructing these parts of a body is easy-peasy for Photoshop’s Adobe Firefly. 

Tip 3: Easily Remove Glare from Glasses

This is something I’ve learned how to avoid over years of trial and error in camera. But trust me when I tell you these techniques were not learned overnight. Thankfully generative AI can help with this too, and with a much faster learning curve. 

Make a selection around each set of reflections, and simply click generate. The AI will do it’s best at matching the color, contrast, lighting and surroundings of your image while generating your fix. 

For this, you can either choose to leave the prompt field blank, or input what would be generated behind the reflection. 

I find that doing this in chunks gives you a better result. So do one section of the reflection, then repeat the same steps until all the reflections are gone. 

Remember that you have three options to choose from each time so make sure you choose the best result for each area. Here are the results after I completed three generative fills to remove all the reflections: 

WARNING: Make a note NOT to select the subject’s iris in your selection. If you do so, you’ll generate a new iris which will not represent the person you’re photographing and will make the portrait unauthentic. 

In closing, AI doesn’t have to be scary… at least not yet. So why not use it to make your life easier as a photographer. Using these tips while you retouch your portraits can save you tons of time and increase your productivity tremendously. 

For more Photoshop training, please visit Kristina’s YouTube and Instagram pages. And for more of her portrait work, visit KristinaSherk.com.

The post Guest Blog: Portrait Photographer and Retoucher Kristina Sherk appeared first on Scott Kelby's Photoshop Insider.

The Grid Blind Photo Critiques: Perfecting Your Aviation Shots

Join Scott Kelby and Erik Kuna in this critique session as we dive deep into the world of aviation photography. From the allure of dusk shots to the pitfalls of over-lighting, we explore how to truly capture the essence of aircraft. Discover the importance of sculpting light, the challenges of nighttime static shots, and the nuances of post-processing. Whether you’re an aviation enthusiast or a budding photographer, this session offers invaluable insights to elevate your shots. Don’t miss our highlight critique of a standout image that truly soars above the rest!

New KelbyOne Course: Making Your Skies Look Fantastic in Photoshop with Scott Kelby

Have you ever taken a photograph only to find that the sky has problems? Or, have you taken an outdoor portrait but the sky doesn’t look all that interesting? In this class with Scott Kelby you’ll learn how to make the sky look amazing in all kinds of situations. From taking the sky you have and enhancing it to repairing it to completely replacing it from scratch. By the end of the class you’ll have a complete toolkit of techniques for making your skies look their best in all your photos.

The post The Grid Blind Photo Critiques: Perfecting Your Aviation Shots appeared first on Scott Kelby's Photoshop Insider.

Editor’s Note: With Halloween just around the corner, I thought it would be fitting to revisit this 2015 guest post from Mark Rodriguez!

Go Shoot Yourself

Hello, My name is Mark Rodriguez–though some folks on the interwebz refer to me as Godriguez–and I am a self-portrait/conceptual artist from Tampa, Florida. When many people think of self-portraiture the first thing that will usually come to mind is that they are just selfies, and it is a form of narcissism that should be eradicated from the earth. They hear “selfie” and think of dirty bathroom shots with duck lips and shot from a high angle. But a well-crafted self-portrait can in fact be a form of therapy, as has been in my case, and can help tell stories that might only be important to the artist themselves.

Let me step back and give you a bit of history as to how I began shooting self-portraits in the first place.

Back sometime in 2011 I joined what was then a new social media platform called Google+ that was still in its beta phases. It was during this time that I was still searching for my own style in photography in general and G+ was a great vehicle for this with many different themed days that I could explore different types of photography and post them along with likeminded groups of people and get genuine feedback from a really supportive community of artists. During this time a new theme was started by Jeff Smith and Levi Moore called the Selfie Sunday Project where every other Sunday you would post a self-portrait. Sometimes there would be a theme for the week, sometimes not. But always there was an enthusiastic group of photographers that posted and I could not wait to see what they would come up with each week. It was at this time that I finally dipped my toe in and gave it a shot.

I will have to say that at this time I didn’t know anything about self-portraiture and had the misconception that it was some narcissistic thing. So I went about it cautiously and timidly, but soon found a release that I had not known before in doing them and quickly became a regular each time the theme rolled around. To me it was a great exercise in discipline in choreographing the setup, lighting, costume, and at the same time being an actor/model and somehow pulling it all off in a cohesive final shot. It was at this time I also found it to be extremely therapeutic as well.

It was around this same time of year in late October, 2011 that I found out just how cathartic self-portraiture could truly be. I was planning my selfy for the upcoming theme that week, which was to be a Halloween themed shot. I was going to be a swanky devil with a martini glass and looking quite smug. Unfortunately for me something tragic happened in my life the day before I was to do the shot. My mother passed away from complications from a stroke she had suffered earlier that same week. Now, many people might shut down and withdraw from the world when something like this happens–but much in the same way when my father passed away and I threw myself into my artwork in design school at the time–I threw myself into the shot I had planned but modified it into a fitting memorial to both my mother and father

Instead of a swanky, smug devil, I portrayed myself as a sad devil in a state of remorse holding a portrait of my parents. Both of my parents were huge in my life and they were the most giving, caring people I have ever met. So my interpretation of the shot was that the devil was depressed because these were two loving souls he would never have. To reinforce the symbolism of the shot I am wearing what was once my father’s red sport coat and tie, holding the portrait and frame my mother gave me when my father passed away and I am sitting in a chair that came from the house where I grew up. I pulled from the strength of my parents to make this shot because they always somehow found a way to see a positive in every situation and make the best of it. They always supported my art, and I felt by honoring them with a portrait that celebrated that spirit was the most fitting tribute I could ever accomplish. Each year around this time I create a new portrait sitting in the chair, holding the same frame and photo of them and I will continue to do so for as long as I am able. Self-portraiture as therapy, I highly recommend it.

I am actually a very shy and somewhat reclusive person, so the thing I truly love about self-portraiture is it can give you an outlet to be many of the things that you might not be. You can be a saint or a sinner, a joker or a gentleman, a loser or a legend and all in the safe confines of an image. I am extremely eclectic in my tastes and self-portraiture also lends to that as well. Having the ability to explore many different styles and themes yet still have a cohesive feel about them is a major draw. The thing about my work is it is created for myself first and everyone else second, and that is a key aspect to self-portraiture. For me as it is a very personal experience.

When I create my art, the first and foremost person I have to impress is myself. If I cannot impress myself, how can I possibly think anyone else would like it? I am my own worst critic, and in that am very critical with what I share when it comes to my work. If an image does not fit my own perceived standards of what is a quality finished piece then it will never see the light of day to anyone else. My self-portraiture more often than not tells a story, and if that story isn’t ready to be read then I continue to work on it till it does, or it goes into the garbage bin and I start over once again. I feel too often people worry too much about how others will like their work instead of staying true to themselves. You should always ask yourself this simple question when creating art: “Would I hang this on my wall?” If the answer is yes, then proceed. If not, move on to something different.

Story is paramount in much of my work, and is most evident in another Google+ themed event I participate in called the Chrysta Rae photography scavenger hunt. In this event you are given a list of 10 words and it is up to you to interpret each word in a photograph anyway you feel fit. It can be literal or abstract and I always like to push the meaning of the words each round. The community involved with this event is one of the most encouraging and supportive group of people I have ever met and truly an anomaly as far as any organized groups on any social media platform is concerned. It is yet another way that I have been able to establish my style via my self-portraiture in a very nurturing environment with no egos or trolls of any kind and if they do pop up they are run out of town quicker than you can blink an eye. It is in this event that I have again used self-portraits to tell stories and it really pushes you creatively in how you go about creating it.

An example of pushing the meaning of the words I often refer to was in one of the hunts when we were given the word “feather.” While quickly images come to mind of birds, a bird wing, a drop of water on a feather, or just a feather by itself, I pushed the word via some mind mapping until I came up with an image referring back to colonial times and the act of tarring and feathering people around the time of the Boston tea party. For that shot I stood half naked in my garage, pouring dark Karo syrup all over me and then pulling the feathers from a pillow and sticking them into the syrup. The problem was it was a hot summer night and I began to sweat which caused the feathers to begin to slide which made me have to add more syrup and more feathers over and over again. It was one of the most disgusting sensations I have ever felt in my life but you know what? It was totally worth it to get the shot across in my head and tell the story I wanted to tell that maybe this pour soul was totally upset that he got tarred and feathered but at least he still got his cup of tea. I will go to very extreme measures to get the shot in my head and have done everything from covering myself in latex paint, jumping backwards off a ladder onto mattresses on the ground, to making myself physically sick from chain smoking a cigar to get the right amount of smoke in the photo…whatever it takes to get the shot, whatever it takes to tell the story.

While still on the subject of the hunt, it was from it that I created a self-portrait that would go on to win the Best in show Guru Award at this past year’s Photoshopworld. The word for that shot was “happy” and again rather than showing a smiling baby, a smiling face or something of that sort, I thought to give it a twist and show something sinister lurking behind that smile. Again story and sometimes hidden elements are key to much of my work as is evident in this one. The choice of t-shirt in this shot reinforces the story for it is the classic “see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil” done by the amazing artist Carolyn Curtis, however, if you look closely my forearm is covering the “see no evil” face of the trio. I love subtle symbolism and try to weave it in there when I can and it is another level of storytelling that might not always be apparent to the viewer, yet it is there if they look deep enough. I don’t feel you should try to over explain–or explain at all–your work as it should be up to the viewer to interpret themselves and I personally want everyone to get their own emotion or feeling when they view my work. It should be as personal an experience for them viewing it as it was for you to create it.

I hope this gives you a little glimpse into my world and the world of self-portraiture and maybe shows it in a different light. While there is plenty of badly shot, self-absorbed, narcissistic-type, “selfies” out there, there is a whole other world of self-portraiture that is therapeutic, creative and can be an avenue of imagination that you can explore that is both personal and enlightening. I want to thank Scott Kelby and everyone at KelbyOne for giving me the opportunity to share my story and insights with you and I hope was able to convey just how personal self-portraiture is to me and could be for you…now go shoot yourself…metaphorically of course.

Mark Rodriguez is a Tampa, Florida based artist. Check out his inspirational interview on KelbyOne. You can keep up with him on Instagram and X (Twitter), as well as see some of his behind the scenes videos on YouTube. In addition to photography, He also creates animations and does voice work for the non-profit learning series WhyU.org.

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