Amy Nelson-Blain's Blog.

Wanni Spring/Summer 2012/13 Lookbook. Showcased...

Sat, 19 May 2012 10:14:12 +1000

Wanni Spring/Summer 2012/13 Lookbook. Showcased at Sydney Fashion Palette April 2012. These are a selection of my favourite photographs.

It was so exciting collaborating with designer Wani Uppal-Sahni, creator of label WANNI.
Her S/S collection was featured in this year’s Sydney Fashion Palette. Her collection is inspired by Reincarnation. It magnifies feminine beauty utilising gorgeous fine fabrics and delicate embroidered embellishments with elements of her Indian culture. I adore her garments and was honoured that she contacted me to photograph her collection.
We shot over 3 days at various locations around Sydney CBD with two models, Rosie and Veronica. The girls were a delight to work with and were so vivacious and professional.
Fatima Memedoski was our Make-Up Artist and Hair Stylist. Fatima is amazing! Her work is flawless.

Team Credits
Photographer: Amy Nelson-Blain
Designer and Stylist: Wani Uppal-Sahni
Make-Up and Hair: Fatima Memedoski
Talent: Rosie Morris and Veronica Morland

Proofing and Printing

Thu, 17 May 2012 12:03:29 +1000

Continuing on from my previous posts discussing my camera and photoshop workflows. I will now share with you my tips for achieving correct prints.
If you are finding or have found in the past that your images are coming out darker or lighter than what they are on screen when printed, it is because you need to calibrate your monitor and have better colour management settings.
You also need to find out the white point and black point of the printer at the printing lab.
I will firstly talk about printing at home.
Although I do not recommend this, because it is much better to have your prints done at a professional lab.

To print accurate and pleasing photos you need to give your printer the correct information. In a nutshell, you need to tell it what colour space your file is in and what colour space you want to print in (the type of paper your printing on).

An example of this is below. I own a Canon MX870 printer. You will need to look at your printers manual to find a way of adjusting these similar settings.

These are the printer settings:

These are the printing settings in Photoshop:

You want to make sure that Photoshop is managing the colour of the document and that the printer knows what type of paper you are printing on.

For this example I have selected to print at 8” x 10” on Canon Photo Paper Plus Glossy II. I then let the printer know this by selecting “GL2/SG2” which is the same paper type.

By doing this, you should hopefully be able to achieve some nice results.

Let’s now look at how to prepare your files for printing at a professional lab.
Once you have selected your chosen lab, you will need to find out the black point and white point of their printer.

In Photoshop create a graphic that is 2 inches wide and 12 inches high.
Set at 16 BIT - RGB Colour - 300DPI.

Then create a black and white linear gradient from top to bottom.
Posterize this and set the levels in posterize to around 36.

Using the eye dropper tool hover over each tonal section and set the RGB values for the tones displayed in the info palette. You probably only need to do 4 sections on both the black and white blocks.

Then flatten the image and save this as a TIFF file with what your chosen lab has as set as its printing settings.
For example the lab I use prefer TIFF files at: 8 BIT - Adobe RGB (1998) - 300 DPI.

Then you will send this file off to be printed at your selected lab.
When you receive the printed gradient, you will be able to tell which black point and white point is going to be best for your shadows and your highlights of your photographs based on your computer monitor.

Then when it comes to sending off your final photographic files.
In Photoshop go into Image > Adjustments > Levels and set the output levels black point and white point numbers to what is referenced on your printed gradient.

After you have done this your image may look really washed out or overly contrasty on your monitor because the black point and white point on the printer at the lab are different to your monitor, however when you get the print back it should look perfect and near

A small photo-shoot that I did for my friend Amanda’s...

Fri, 04 May 2012 14:00:50 +1000

A small photo-shoot that I did for my friend Amanda’s Jewellery designs, Make A Strand Jewellery last year. These were my favourite shots from the day.

Photographer: Amy Nelson-Blain
Hair and Make-Up: Boo Talbot
Jewellery and Styling: Amanda Webb / Make A Strand
Talent: Ebony Wright @ Jeep Management

Aromatique Essentials Magazine Issue 13. Photographer:...

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 17:04:00 +1000

Aromatique Essentials Magazine Issue 13.

Photographer: Amy Nelson-Blain
Stylist: Julie Nelson
Hair and Make-Up: Chereine Waddell
Talent: Veronica Morland @ Dallys Models
Jewellery: Make A Strand

Rebecca and Nathan invited me to come along and film their...

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 13:53:35 +1000

Rebecca and Nathan invited me to come along and film their daughter Eve’s 1st birthday celebration and dedication.
They celebrated at St. Peter’s Town Hall.

Song: “Favourite Girl (Instrumental)” by The Icarus Account.
Music licensed through TheMusicBed.com.

Beauty shoot featured in SYN Magazine March 2012 issue, page...

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 13:46:46 +1000

Beauty shoot featured in SYN Magazine March 2012 issue, page 178.
http://issuu.com/synmagazine/docs/issuethree

Behind the scenes video:

“Field of Dreams” Editorial for WHITE Magazine...

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 13:02:18 +1000

“Field of Dreams” Editorial for WHITE Magazine February 2012

Music: In The Morning by Nicole Reynolds.
Licensed through the Vimeo Music Store.

Beauty shoot featured on the cover of En Vie Fashion Magazine...

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 12:53:15 +1100

Beauty shoot featured on the cover of En Vie Fashion Magazine March 2012 issue.

Photographer: Amy Nelson-Blain
Make-up: Chereine Waddell
Hair: Doran Lu
Talent: Isabelle @ EMG Models

Read the complete issue here.

Tehan and Mandeera’s story is definitely incredibly...

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 12:02:00 +1100

Tehan and Mandeera’s story is definitely incredibly romantic! They first met on New Year’s eve in 2007 at a mutual friend’s NYE party in Sri Lanka.

Tehan spotted Mandeera from across the room and thought she was absolutely beautiful. They chatted away through out the evening, sharing each other’s stories and dreams. Whilst the two were in Sri Lanka for their holidays they kept in contact and met up for dates, they describe it as “We were both feeling something special, we couldn’t explain it. We were just feeling so happy being together”.

Just as they were getting to know each other and enjoying each other’s company it was time for them to leave Sri Lanka and return home, Mandeera was to go to Toronto, Canada and Tehan to Brisbane, Australia.

Knowing that they had never felt like this about anyone before they agreed to embark on a long distance relationship.
After a while the distance just became too much to handle so they ended the relationship.

Two years passed and they ended up finding each other again in Sri Lanka, sparks flew and they both realised this was something very special. They made a commitment to see each other as much as possible despite the long distance.

Mandeera came to see Tehan in Brisbane later that year after rekindling in Sri Lanka, and Tehan flew to Toronto in September.
They met up once again in Sri Lanka whilst visiting family and friends, on December 26th 2010 they got engaged.

Mandeera and Tehan contacted me to shoot an engagement session and photography for them. They flew me to Queensland and we drove from Brisbane to Kirra Beach. I was so amazed at it’s beautiful white sand and crystal clear blue ocean - so much nicer than Sydney beaches.

Tehan and Mandeera were such a delight to hang out with and work with. I loved the fact that they were more than willingly to do something unique for their engagement session and splashing about in the water in a cocktail dress was definitely something I was interested in capturing! Haha.

Here is a selection of photos from their session:

Photoshop Workflow

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 12:06:00 +1100

One of the most important things when photographing and retouching, is preparing your work for printing and to have consistantcorrected colour throughout your photographs. Even if you decide to push your colours to the extreme for creative effect, starting off with a proper correction is very beneficial.

It is important to ensure that all your settings are in-sync with each other; from camera to monitor to photoshop to printer, to produce the same photograph (or exceptionally close to) throughout different mediums. If you are converting your files to different colour spaces through each pre-production process, the more you can potentially degrade the quality of your original image.

Continuing on from my first blog post about adjusting your camera settings for shooting RAW to give yourself a higher dynamic range, I will now go through my process of bringing photographs into Photoshop for post-production.

Firstly, I would recommend calibrating your computer monitor. Many computer’s are set to a default colour hue of blue/cyan, this is so that when they are on display at a store, they appear bright and crisp and look more appealing to the consumer.
This is not useful for consistant colour correction. You need to be able to distinguish the black and white points of your monitor. You do not want to have deep shadows or blown out highlights or an over saturated color hue.

There are various products on the market that will easily calibrate your monitor for you. I would not recommend trying to judge it by eye. I use a Spyder 3 Elite, it’s brilliant and quick and I always receive consistant results every time.

Once your monitor has been calibrated, then you can begin setting up Photoshop for post-production.

I work in Adobe RGB (1998) - This will be consistant with my camera, as previously I said that I shoot with the Adobe RGB color profile.
You will need a RAW conversion software, Adobe Camera Raw is a great program to start with - otherwise Lightroom is what I use.

I convert my RAW photographs to Adobe RGB - 16 BIT at 300 DPI and saved as a PSD (or you can use TIFF) file for working on.

Here is a screen shot from ACR once you have clicked to open and edit a RAW file:

This is in Lightroom when you go to Export your RAW files:

In Photoshop, my colour workflow settings are as follows:

To get to this go to Edit > Colour Settings.

My proof settings are as follows:

To get to this, go to View > Proof Set-up > Custom.

It would be a good idea to save these settings as your preferences.

I choose to work in RGB for the sole reason that it is a very common and standard colour profile with a broad color gamut. sRGB has a lower color gamut range and therefore will not yield the maximum numbers of colours for print.
CMYK does come into play in terms of printing for magazine publication, as generally this is the most common profile used.
This is why it is set to U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2 which is the standard for offset printing. This will be beneficial if you are requested to convert your colour profile to CMYK and then you won’t have highly noticeable colour shifts after doing so.

Once I have completed my retouching, I save a high resolution TIFF for printing.
I then covert the image to 8 BIT and the colour profile is kept at Adobe RGB (1998) with 300 DPI.

For viewing on the web, I save as a JPEG - 8 BIT - 72 DPI and converted to the colour profile sRGBIEC61966-2.1.
I use Convert to profile under the Edit tab. If you use the Assign profile it can make noticable colour shifts and should only be used if your original file does not have an embedded colour profile already.

That’s it! You are now ready to start achieving quality results from your photography!
Keep an eye out for my next post which will explain how to set-up your printer or lab for proofing your images based on your monitor calibration and how to get beautiful, near identical prints to what your photo would look like on your monitor originally.

In September last year I was contacted by Cliché Magazine to...

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 13:00:00 +1100

In September last year I was contacted by Cliché Magazine to shoot a winter inspired editorial for them.
I was thrilled and got to work planning the shoot straight away, already knowing exactly who I wanted to collaborate with.
There were many hiccups during the process of this shoot, originally we had 2 models scheduled - however only ended up with 1 girl. The prop stylist ended up going away on a spontaneous romantic get away and I had to arrange to pick-up the props before the shoot. The jewellery designer ended up in a small car accident just as we were leaving the studio after a long day. The magazine publication was delayed due to a change in ownership.
It was all a bit dramatic but worth it in the end as we got some beautiful images and a publication!

Unpublished extras:

Behind the scenes snapshots:

I shot both photographs and video on the day. Using only natural light (my favourite!) - the walls, ceiling and floor were all painted white so there was no need for reflectors, the light just bounced around beautifully and the large windows made lovely catchlights in the models eyes.

Here is the short film I created to go along with the editorial:

‎”Winter Rose” editorial published in the Cliché Magazine February 2012 issue.
Purchase your printed and/or digital copy from MagCloud:
http://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/340449

Music: Late Autumn by Chris Welsh.
Licensed through the Vimeo Music Store.

A visual summation of December 2011/January 2012. Shooting the...

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 19:30:00 +1100

A visual summation of December 2011/January 2012.

Shooting the Wanni Spring/Summer Lookbook.

Shooting the Make A Strand 2012 Jewellery collection (Bridal pieces shown below).

Filming behind the scenes of the White Magazine 2012 Autumn issue, styled by Teeki Designs and photographed by Ben Adams.

Published in En Vie Magazine.

A romantic and whimsical editorial and prose featured in En...

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 11:31:00 +1100

A romantic and whimsical editorial and prose featured in En Vie Fashion Magazine February 2012 Issue. Read the complete Issue here.
Extra’s that weren’t published:

I shot this story back in November 2011, on a brief trip to Queensland. I really wanted to shoot on location at the beautiful clear crisp beaches on Queensland shores. I hooked up with Ashleigh Kelly through Facebook, she pulled some gorgeous samples from a Gold Coast designer Lisa Brown - they fitted perfectly for the concept that I had visualised.

Alexandra King was our model for the day and she was a pleasure to work with, very versatile and more than happy to dance in the ocean and roll around in the sand for me!

You may have already seen the short film that I released as a teaser, if not, view it here:

Lina from Chanele Rose Flowers put together this concept, based...

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:57:00 +1100

Lina from Chanele Rose Flowers put together this concept, based on the 1991 movie “My Girl” - being a huge fan of the movie as a kid, I was definitely excited when she asked me to come along and film for the day.

The aim was to illustrate what children can also bring to your wedding day. Many couples choose not to have children attend their wedding, but who could resist such cute outfits!!

I collaborated with a wonderful team of talented people, and our bright young stars did an amazing job on the day.

Also featured on The Knot Wedding Obsessions Blog, click to view their post.

Credits:
Cinematographer: Amy Nelson-Blain
Photographer: Clarissa Lum
Flowers and Styling: Chanele Rose Flowers
Hair and Make-Up: Candice Lee
Girl’s Dresses: Tea Princess
Boy’s Suits: Blame the Baby
Cupcakes and Biscuits: Sweet Couture
Stationary: The Little Paper Pantry
Favours: C’est La Vie
Talent: Shelby, James, Billy, Maddy, Chad and Chanele

This post is dedicated to my beautiful companion Poko, my pet...

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 02:49:00 +1100

This post is dedicated to my beautiful companion Poko, my pet mini lop eared rabbit.

Yesterday morning at 11:00am, my mother and I found Poko deceased in her eating/toilet area. She had been perfectly fine over the weekend and had shown no signs of being ill, nor did her routine change. My boyfriend had seen her alive and happy when he left for work earlier in the morning and within 3 hours she had died.

Poko and I were one and the same, she had a hard start to her life due to a medical illness and I nursed her back to health, most people would probably have given up on such a small creature. Through having my own medical experiences as a child and wanting to help her through her illness we developed a really strong bond, she completely trusted me and was so loyal to our friendship.

This is Poko’s story.

When she was 2 months old she began to suffer from a head tilt and became unbalanced in her walking. After taking her to a local vet, they deemed that it was probably just an ear infection and prescribed antibiotics. After 2 weeks Poko had not improved and her head was almost completely horizontal, I knew that this was not just an ear infection and after doing a lot of research I found that she may of had Encephalitozoon Cuniculi - I searched around looking for the best vet in Sydney who specialised in treating only small mammals like rabbits and reptiles and took her to see him and his team.

Poko was indeed diagnosed with E.C., which is a parasite that moves through the blood stream and it does not respond to antibiotics like bacteria. It is spread through the urine of other infected rabbits. There is no cure, only preventative treatment.

During her 2-3 month recovery, I had to nurse her, wrapped in a towel and keep her in a small box to prevent her from hurting herself. She could no longer walk or stand up, due to her head tilt, she would continually flip over and roll all over the place. She could not eat or drink by herself and I had to syringe feed her. She also had to be given 3 medications twice a day by syringe.

Poko made a miraculous full recovery after 3 months, and her head tilt was completely gone. She was perfectly healthy again and continued on to have a happy bunny life.

We have no idea why Poko died suddenly, perhaps she had a heart attack or perhaps she was suffering from an infection. She showed no signs or symptoms of being unwell.

I am devastated at her passing, as she was a beautiful soul. She was always supposed to be mine so that I could give her a chance at having a happy life. I know that I gave her an extended 2.5 years of life, that she may not have had otherwise and I know that she was really thankful for that. I miss you Poko and I love you.

9 weeks old:

Snoozing by the heater:

Just chillin’:

The first night we brought Yuki home:

My mum took her to her farm property “Paradise” and buried her in the main garden and placed some hay and roses over the top.
Rest in peace my darling. We all love you.

Photographer: Amy Nelson-BlainHair and Make - Up: Chereine...

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 11:36:29 +1100

Photographer: Amy Nelson-Blain
Hair and Make - Up: Chereine Waddell
Talent: Elise Pearson @ Platform Models Sydney

Shooting in RAW

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 10:39:00 +1100

Shooting in RAW is far superior than shooting in JPEG. I am going to be discussing with you the differences between using RAW and JPEG file formats when it comes to retouching photographs.
The RAW file format is digital photography’s equivalent of a negative in film photography. There is no industry standard RAW mode. Each camera manufacturer has it’s own proprietary format. For example Canon have CRW or more recently CR2, Nikon have NEF.

You may also notice that when you download your camera RAW files to your hard drive that additional files called ‘XMP’ are also included. These files store the metadata for the RAW image (keywords, caption, date, etc.) as well the edits you’ve made in Adobe Camera RAW (or equivalent program) on an image. If you discard it, you’ll lose that information.

RAW data is the output from each of the original red, green and blue sensitive pixels of the image sensor. RAW data from most high-end digital cameras contains 12 bit data, which means that there can be 4096 different intensity levels for each pixel.

If the data is stored as a JPEG file, it is modified by in camera set parameters such as white balance, saturation, sharpness, contrast etc, it is subject to JPEG compression and then stored on the memory card like this. In an 8-bit file (such as a JPEG), each pixel can have one of 256 different intensity levels.

Actually, 256 levels is enough, and all printing is done at the 8 bit level, so you might ask what the point is of having 12 bit data. The answer is that it allows you to perform a greater range of manipulation to the image without degrading the quality. You can adjust curves and levels to a greater extent, then convert back to 8-bit data for printing. If you want to access all 12 bits of the original RAW file, you can convert to a 16-bit PSD or TIFF file.

Dynamic range refers to the range of light to dark that can be captured by a camera before becoming completely white or black, respectively.

TIFF files are larger than JPEG files, but they retain the full quality of the image. They can be compressed or uncompressed, but the compression scheme is lossless, meaning that although the file gets a little smaller, no information is lost. Every time you modify and re-save a JPEG image, it loses more data.

The only advantage of saving JPEG data is that the file size is smaller and the file can be directly read by many programs or even sent directly to a printer. The disadvantage is that there is a quality loss; the amount of loss depending on how much compression is used. The more compression, the smaller the file but the lower the image quality.

When I am shooting, I have a custom picture style set on my DSLR.
Ideally you want to reduce the sharpness and contrast that is within the camera settings, you want to be able to work on an image with the highest dynamic range possible, so that when it comes to post-production and you are pushing your creative effects to a more extreme level, you are going to greatly reduce the amount of artifacts on your final image.

Shooing with a Flat picture style is what I use. This is also recommended for when you are shooting video on a DSLR. You do not want to go Super Flat or push it too far, otherwise you will find that the range of your mid-tones when post-processing will become very messy.

Your settings should be as follows:

There are various other picture styles within the camera, with the general aim of reducing your sharpness and contrast for different lighting situations. As long as you have your correct exposure and white balance set (definitely do a custom white balance, not the presets) you will be set. You should have your colour profile set to Adobe RGB and your exposure and white balance should be manually measured with a light meter and a white/grey card.

Example of “Flat” picture style on a still photograph:

Note the broad range of shadow and highlight detail across the image.

After adding contrast and sharpening in Lightroom:

Merely brightening or darkening a JPEG file; both in dynamic range and in the smoothness of tones, could not achieve similar results.

The RAW file format uses a lossless compression, and so it does not suffer from the compression artifact visible with “lossy” JPEG compression. RAW files contain more information and achieve better compression than TIFF, but without the compression artifact of JPEG.

I will be writing another post as a continuation of this on how to prepare your images for post-production and printing.

Editorial featured in Aromatique Essentials Magazine. The A-Team...

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 10:45:00 +1100

Editorial featured in Aromatique Essentials Magazine. The A-Team came together again and shot another gorgeous story.

Photographer: Amy Nelson-Blain
Styling and Set Design: Julie Nelson
Hair and Make-Up: Bernadette Talbot
Jewellery: Make A Strand
Silk Flowers: Teeki Designs
Talent: Kat Andersen and Alex Brennan @ AVA Model Management
Featuring: Aranel, Belle and Arwen

‘Amariel’ and ‘Alassea’ are Signature Perfume Blends created by Aromatique Essentials for their ‘Ethereal’ range.

I shot this Bridal Accessories editorial back in June with...

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 20:29:40 +1100

I shot this Bridal Accessories editorial back in June with Amy Oram, the owner of Teeki Designs.
She pulled together an amazing collaboration of different designers garments for this shoot which was to be “everything but the dress” for the bride!

This was in the middle of Winter so the weather was absolutely terrible, luckily we had already planned to shoot indoors at a boutique studio near my place. It was the perfect setting, with an old fireplace, tall french doors and wooden floorboards - plus studio backdrops.

I decided to use all natural lighting and reflectors in the end, rather than flash. I wanted the photos to have a soft, ethereal feel to them and using flash just looked to harsh.

We had candles, lots of bouquets and rose petals and a fog machine to help set the mood too.

You can view the beautiful behind the scenes video of the day, filmed by the amazing photographer Julia Trotti.

The Team:

Photographer: Amy Nelson-Blain
Videographer: Julia Trotti
Talent: Amber Bernauer & Brooke Lazarus
Hair Stylist: Rachel Wood
Make-up Artist: Megan Vaughan
Flower Headpieces: Teeki
Lingerie: Hopeless Lingerie
Bridal Cape: Kristi Bonnici Bridal Accessories
Flower Bouquets & Arrangements: Wild Lotus Florist
Shoes: Wanted Shoes
Props: Stylist’s own

I’ve been waiting a couple of weeks to be able to share...

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 12:08:00 +1000

I’ve been waiting a couple of weeks to be able to share this beautiful engagement film of Daniel and Tabitha with you all. As we had planned to submit it to some wedding blogs.

The mastermind behind the session was Luisa Brimble of Serendipity Corner Photography, she put together a wonderous creative team.

A little bit inspired by Kinfolk Magazine and of course the simplicity and celebration of love.
We shot this at Bangor Park in Coogee on a gorgeous warm spring afternoon. Apart from the occasional myna bird swooping down at us from the trees, it all went as planned!

Daniel and Tabitha met at a Church in Bondi Junction, Daniel noticed Tabitha immediately due to the luscious ”fro” that she was exhibiting. Being a young lad with curly locks himself, he was mightily impressed!
They had encountered each other in brief conversation a few times, but Tabitha was quite timid and at the time Daniel thought she was too young and hip for him.
Ironically 3 months later Daniel and Tabitha’s mother’s went for a coffee together and were discussing the potential of their two children being together! After hearing of this news Daniel decided he better make sure that Tabitha hadn’t got the wrong idea and thought that he had set this up, finding this all very interesting Daniel thought to himself “Why not!?” and decided to ask Tabitha to meet him for a casual drink.
From that moment on, the two of them were constantly texting and emailing each other and their love began to blossom.

For a long time their friends and family had been asking “When are you two going to get married?”, Daniel and Tabitha had often thought about the idea but wanted it to happen at the right time and not just “because”.

Over the Easter long weekend, Daniel took Tabitha to his Uncle’s farm near Mudgee.
They ate a delicious lunch with family with home grown vegetables from the farm. Completely satisfied they decided to go for a walk around the grounds and had a peaceful nap under the warm sunlight.

Daniel then took Tabitha to the farm’s Airstrip, which has a 180 degree view of over 40 kilometres looking north toward Mudgee and there overlooking the beautiful view Daniel got down on one knee and proposed to Tabitha (3 times, just to make sure she knew he was serious!).
Of course, Tabitha said “Yes Yes Yes!!”

This engagement shoot is also featured on the Australian Style Me Pretty Blog, head on over there to view all the photos and hear more about how this unfolded.

Cinematographer: Amy Nelson-Blain
Photographer: Luisa Brimble
Make-up: Megan Vaughan
Hair: Melissa Cauchi
Prop Stylist: Rebecca Isgrove Reah
2nd Photographer: Anneliese Christensen
Flowers: Clementine Posy
Picnic Hamper: The Sydney Picnic Co.