There was a good two day period where I just couldn’t get over the phrase “Wicked Pissah’”; a rare phrase only ever used or heard of in Maine.  Alissa finally understood what it meant after I lost my footing on a slippery rock and fell into Sebago Lake with my camera.  That…was a wicked pissah’!  Aside from my little accident, our trip to Maine was great.  Everything about Maine is fresh;  the air, the water, everything.  With Maine, I think of lobsters, blueberries, apple cider, Sebago lake, Amato’s Ham Italians, Whoopie Pies, Pizza by Alex, pine trees, family and friends.  If you’ve never been, you need to go at least once in your life.  Here are a few of my favorites from our 2011 trip.

You can see more photos of our family, taken by our friend Susan Mullen (<— Click) who also happens to be a fantastic wedding photographer!    I wish we lived closer or had a lot of destination wedding clients to tackle!

Since my last post on March 9th, so much has happened!  Little did I know then, we would be meeting our son Reid, only 6 days later.  He’s been a blessing to our family, despite some lost sleep, mainly on Alissa’s part.  I remember standing in the kitchen talking with Alissa when she took a phonecall from one of her nurse friends asking if we wanted to come in and have a baby!  Crazy right?  Yes, we declined but we opted to induce labor just a few days later.  Without even an epidural, we had a baby in a matter of 4 hours.  There was no way I was going to let this event take place without capturing some shots so aside from plenty of hand holding and encouragement, I did have my camera with me and captured as much as a supportive husband could.

For starters…I’ll introduce my son Reid.  The second, happiest day of our lives. (Choose 720HD)

Today I start a new chapter in my life as I make my way to Fort Rucker, Alabama to attend U.S. Army Warrant Officer Candidate School for the next 5 weeks.  It will be a bummer to be away from my family but the sacrifice and investment will pay dividends later in life.  Amidst packing and getting ready to head to school, we did spend a couple of good quality days together as a family.  Also, I’m happy to say Alissa is getting better with the camera and our family albums can now include photos of me as well!  Here’s a couple from the morning we spent at the Nelson Atkins and Kaufman Memorial Gardens.

Since March, I’ve lost another 13 lbs, bringing me to an overall loss of 65 lbs since April 1st, 2010.  What’s more is I haven’t seen my weight this low since high school.   I’ve invested quite a bit of time into it and gotten great results, not to mention I feel great!  To all of you who are reading this and who have families, we all know how precious our free time is.  Since 2008, most of that free time was spent on photography, however my shift in focus towards my fitness level has caused me to refocus most of that free time.  Earlier this spring I did have one opportunity to second shoot for Sarah Dickerson, one of my favorite KC wedding photographers.  I had a blast and didn’t want to let a couple of my favorite images go un-blogged, see below.  This is probably going to be my only opportunity to photograph a wedding this year and likely one of my last weddings in Kansas City as next summer we’re moving to San Antonio, Texas.

And a couple from the wedding.

April 2nd, 2010 my wife and I took a 10 day vacation to the French Polynesian Islands.  I was just back from 6 months of schooling in Washington, DC so what a better way to reconnect with each other.  At the time I tipped the scales at 292 lbs; the heaviest I’ve ever been in all of my life.  I had to make some changes for my overall health.

I’d done it before in ’01 – ’02 so I had the knowledge of how to do it, I just needed to stop making excuses and do it.  The moment I was back from the beaches of Tahiti, I hit the pavement, one foot in front of the other.. over and over again.  I can attest that it was not enjoyable at 290+ pounds.  I didn’t put much thought into changing my diet at the time, I just needed to make small lifestyle changes, something I could sustain for a while until exercise became enjoyable again.  And by the way, I’m referring to ‘nutritional intake’ when using the word ‘diet’, since dieting can be interpreted in a few different ways.

Weight loss was slow, that is, until I started taking a more mathematical/scientific approach to it.  I spent time educating myself, trying to learn more about my body and how it reacts to exercise and diet.  I determined my BMR which gave me a fairly close estimate of how many calories my body required in a day, simply to exist.  I purchased a heart rate monitor to track my calories burned during my workouts and set myself on a limited calorie diet and over time cleaned my diet up in my quest to regain my health.

You might be asking yourself exactly how limited?  Not that limited.  First off I set a realistic goal of a 1.5 lb weight loss per week, which meant I needed a 750 calorie deficit each day.  I calculated my BMR, accounted for my calories burned from exercise and ensured I had a 750 calorie deficit.  Sure enough, I was losing 1.5lbs per week religiously.  I counted calories using www.myfitnesspal.com (they also have an awesome app for both iPhone and Droid).  It’s free and it simplified the entire process.  Check it out sometime.

Jumping ahead to 9 March, I’ve gradually dropped 50 lbs over the past 11 months with the most success happening since Thanksgiving.  At my current weight of 240, my workouts are becoming enjoyable, my clothes are fitting better if not to the point where I need to replace a few items and best of all, I’m feeling healthier.

My pointers (because someone always asks) are rather practical and straight forward.

1.  Get it the mentality that this is going to be a slow process.  Your excess weight didn’t just show up on your doorstep one morning and refuse to go away.  It took years of poor nutrition, little to no activity… likely both.
2.  Go through your pantry and throw away the junk.
3.  Learn about your body and what it means to ‘eat clean’.  Determine your BMR and what it takes to lose a pound of fat. Begin to make small changes in your life; ones you can sustain for a long period of time.
4.  Make a plan based on your findings in step 2.  Hint:  www.myfitnesspal.com (and use it religiously)
5.  Get active!
6.  Be accountable.  Tell someone about your plan, post your workouts on Facebook using cardio tracker, and/or get involved in an online weight loss community.

A post wouldn’t be complete without a couple of photos (after all it is a photography blog) so here are a couple from tonight along with the recipe and nutritional information.

G’s Energy Snack
Makes 12

Ingredients

1/2 cup almonds (unroasted, unsalted)
1/2 cup walnuts (unroasted, unsalted)
1/2 cup pecans (unroasted, unsalted)
1/2 cup tahini
1/2 cup almond butter
1/2 cup ground flaxseed
1/2 cup chocolate 100% whey protein powder
1/4 cup organic maple syrup
4 tbsp. sweet coconut shavings

Finely chop the nuts and combine all ingredients in a bowl.  Separate into 12 even sized pieces, form into a ball and refrigerate / freeze.

Nutritional Information
Makes:  12 balls
Serving size: 1 ball
Calories:  231
Carbs:  12g
Sugar:  7g
Fat per: 17g (you want this fat!)
Protein: 9g
Fiber: 4g
Cholesterol:  11mg
Sodium:  35mg
Potassium:  70mg
Sugar:  7g

If you do a little research on the ingredients themselves you’ll find out these little guys are nutritional powerhouses!  Did you know that almonds, pecans and other tree nuts (not peanuts) do not cause spikes to your insulin levels, which means they are great for controlling hunger and losing weight.  Great for snacks between meals or pre workout.  Like any decent cook…I tried them and yes…they are awesome tasting!

Grapefruit! With it’s low glycemic load and high fiber content Grapefruit is another food that’s great for breakfast.   Give this a try sometime, it’s a great way to spruce up the ole’ grapefruit and sugar.

Broiled Grapefruit with Blueberry Sauce
Serves 2

Ingredients
1 ruby red grapefruit (Halved)
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 package blueberries
3 tbsp. agave syrup (or regular sugar if you want)
1/8 cup water
1.5 tsp cornstarch

Instructions
Blueberry Sauce:  Rinse blueberries, removing any stem pieces.  Combine blueberries and Agave Syrup in a small sauce pan on medium low heat, bring to a simmer while stirring frequently.  I usually crush about half of the blueberries, leaving some for texture / appearance in your final sauce.  Combine the cornstarch and water separately and a add to the blueberries while stirring.  Let simmer for a few minutes, on low heat.  Remove from heat and set aside.  The sauce should not be too thick, but not too runny either.  If too thick, just add a little bit of water to thin it out.  You can easily prepare this ahead of time as it will keep in the refrigerator.

Grapefruit:  Halve the grapefruit, section and remove any visible seeds.  Sprinkle half of the brown sugar atop each grapefruit half.  Place them on a sheet pan and on the middle rack and broil for approximately 5 to 6 minutes or until the sugar caramelizes and the grapefruit begins to sweat, be careful you don’t burn the sugar.  You will definitely know if you burn it.

Serving:  Place the grapefruit in a bowl, spoon the blueberry sauce over the top. Garnish if serving for guests!

Nutritional Information
Serves: 2
Serving size: Grapefruit half
Calories per serving:  211
Carbs per serving:  55g
Fat per serving: 0g
Protien per serving: 2g

About half of these calories come from the agave nectar (or sugar).  The above recipe is how I’d serve it to guests, but if it’s just for you and you want to save a few calories, I would suggest reducing the agave syrup by half.  This will save you 45 calories per serving and about 11g of carbs.

1:37 am…that is all.

With a jug of Starbucks Bold and a double batch of chocolate chip cookies courtesy of my wife, I was ready to go Sunday morning as the crew at Last Tangle Salon, Lora Wade Artistry and Rachel from Nuance Boutique continually pumped out model after model.  Never a dull moment.

With all of my recent travel, preparations for a new addition to the family and my degree of personal selectivity I’m still editing files but here’s a sneak peek for anyone who hasn’t been to my facebook page in a while.  Angela, (top image, below) has got to be my favorite model of the 30 or so I’ve shot with over the past two years.  Her images rock!  Maybe it’s because she different, and different reigns supreme.

If you’re looking at these photos wishing you could have something just like them…contact me.  You wouldn’t believe what I can do with something as simple as a plain wall in even the smallest of spaces.  A match.com profile full of professional photos!  Now there’s a way to kick off the spring for all of you singletons.  I’ll even bring the cookies.

Taking photos is just 1/3rd of the work that goes into delivering a finished product.  I’m going to walk you through my workflow for editing an image in photoshop but before I do, I’ll tell you there are many ways to get from point A to point B.  The takeaway is there’s no right or wrong way.  In the end, it’s your artistic vision and whatever looks good to you is what matters.  That being said… you don’t know, what you don’t, know so my intent here is to show you my way of doing things and maybe you’ll learn something new.

Here’s an image I took early last year for a Winnetonka High School senior.  It’s straight out of the camera and there have been no alterations of any sort.  Before we begin we need to prepare our desktop so let’s first press the “F” key to place the image on a neutral grey background.  This eliminates my distracting desktop background and the million files I have scattered all over it.  Also, by having the grey background, it allows our eyes to focus on the colors of the image instead of whatever is on your desktop.  At first glance you might be thinking the image looks great, and while it does, I’m going to point out some areas that will make you reform your opinion.  Without a shadow of a doubt, her youth has granted her great skin tone and complexion, but no matter who you are, or how many thousands of dollars you’ve spent taking care of your skin, when we start to pixel peep (zooming in 100 – 400%) nobody has perfectly complected skin.  Trust me when I say the 27″ monitor I edit with does not lie!

Step 1 – Color Correction

When I look at this image I see either a blue/cyan color cast.  Color casts can be caused by many different variables from clothing to reflected light.  In addition, each camera sensor handles color a little differently.  For example, my Nikon D700 creates a red color cast on practically every image, albeit not this one, figures.  Being aware of your surroundings, knowing your equipment and having great color vision will improve your images.  Since the image is a portrait and she is the primary subject, I want to correct her skin tones so they are as natural looking; not overly tan and not pale.  When I correct color, I think back to what each person looked like in person and try to replicate it as accurately as possible.  First, press the “I” key to select the eyedropper tool from the tool panel.  I also want to make sure the eyedropper is set to anything but “single point”.  For this image I chose 11 x 11 average which gives me the average color across a 121 pixel area.  Next, open the info palette from the palette toolbar.  This allows me to evaluate the color from the selection I’m about to make.  I want to sample the colors of her skin from an area where there’s a muted highlight.  Normally these areas are the forehead and the chin.  I don’t want to use the cheeks because these areas are usually where the majority of makeup is applied.  I chose the chin.  Now press and hold “SHIFT” and click on the chin.  As you can see below, this places a bullseye and number “1″ on the area you clicked.  You will also notice that after you clicked, it placed some percentages in your info palette.  The values are shown as Red Green and Blue (R, G, B) values, but I want to evaluate the skin in Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Key (CMYK) mode.  To do this, right click to the left of the values and select CMYK Color, also shown below.

In CMYK mode, the values for this image are C=10%, M=29%, Y=12% and K=0%.  From here forward, forget about the K value.  It’s supposed to be 0, and will never change.  I can tell from looking at these figures that there is in fact a blue color cast.  How?  I’ll explain.  The CMYK “formula” for caucasian skin should result in values where C is 1/3 to 1/5 that of M and Y.  Where this image has a C value of 10%, that means that the M and Y values should be between 30% – 50%.  With C=10%, M is balanced but Y is not.  When we boost the Y channel, we decrease the blue in the image, hence getting rid of the blue color cast I suspected.  If I’ve just lost you, maybe take a minute and google RGB and CMYK.  Simply put, in the CMYK mode, C is the opposite of Red, M is the opposite of Green and Y is the opposite of Blue.

To correct these figures I create an adjustment layer.  At the bottom of the layers palette click the black and white circle, and select “Curves”, as shown below.

Above your layers palette, is your curves adjustment box.  Since I’ve determined I need to correct the Y value in the image, I select the Blue channel from the drop down box, shown below.  Next to the drop down box, click the hand icon and then click inside the bullseye on the chin.  This places an adjustment marker on the blue channel which allows me to specifically target the blue color cast in the skin tone.  Now press the down key until the value of the Y is closer to the M value.  Really, what I’m doing here is altering the blue channel until it looks good.  The “formula” above, is simply a starting point, don’t worry about being exact.  If the image you’re working on requires additional changes to the other channels, you go about it the same way.  Simply select the channel you want to correct (Red Green or Blue), click the hand, click inside the target on the chin, and press up or down to make the correction.

After I made the curves adjustment, I felt it still had a bit too much yellow which I couldn’t correct in the previous step.  To fine tune the color correction I’m going to make another adjustment layer, this time I’m going to use a Hue/Saturation layer.  To create the layer click on the black and white circle below the layers panel, and select “Hue/Saturation”, shown below.  In the Hue/Saturation adjustment box, I’m going to select the yellow channel and reduce the saturation slider until it looks good.  For this image, I chose a value of -15.  I also changed the Hue slider slightly to a value of -12.  Feel free to explore the sliders a bit but remember that you want to make small changes whenever possible, nothing too drastic or your finished product is going to look like a hot mess.  As with the curves layer, you could also make changes to the other color channels if necessary.  At this point, the image has been color corrected.  I usually create a new group on my layers panel by clicking the folder icon and rename it “color correction”.

Step 2 – Skin Cleanup

Here’s where the fun begins.  The skin cleanup is the most tedious part of this entire process.  This is where I will remove stray hairs, fine lines, wrinkles (to an extent), dark circles or bags under the eyes, acne scars, or any other skin imperfection.  My goal here is not to make her a porcelain doll, I want to preserve her character while making a few enhancements.  To be most effective during this stage, you really need to take breaks from your image every once in a while, refresh your eyes and reevaluate the image.  First, let’s get the tools set up properly.  Create a new blank layer, from our layers panel, circled below.  From the tools palette, select the clone stamp tool, set the mode to “Lighten”, opacity at 100% , flow at 20% and check the box to sample this layer and layers below.  The key here is setting the mode to “Lighten” or “Darken” (depending on the correction we’re making).  Look at the image below and notice the stray hairs in the top right.  By setting the mode to lighten, what the clone stamp tool is doing is replacing any pixels which are lighter than the source point, with darker pixels.  The exact opposite happens if you have the mode set to “Darken.”  Remember to set a source point when using the clone stamp tool.  On a Mac, hold down Command and click on a clean patch of skin in close proximity to the area you are going to correct.

For this image, I’ve used the clone stamp tool around on the areas shown below.  You might think that these are such minor changes but many small changes will make a difference as you will see shortly.  Be sure to zoom in as much as possible during this step.

Here’s the image after I’ve made the corrections.

Next I’m going to dodge and burn.  Back in the day, the dodging and burning was done in the photo lab, to the actual negatives, but nowadays we photographers end up doing this ourselves.  If you’re new to dodging and burning, let me briefly explain.  Dodging is where we will lighten the shadows, and burning is where we will darken the highlights.  The goal here is to balance the skin tones and get rid of any excessively dark areas (blemishes) or for that matter, light areas, which could also be blemishes or scar tissue or harsh spectral highlights.  So let’s create 2 new curves adjustment layers, you should remember how to do this.  Decide which one will be your dodge layer and rename it.  Now click in the center of the curve dialog box, and drag the curve up just a little bit.  This action will lighten your photo a bit, but don’t worry, we’re going to fix that.  Press “X” to set your background to black and press Command + Del on a mac to fill the layer mask with black.  The last thing I do is change the mode of the layer to lighten.  I make the burn curves adjustment layer in the same fashion, but instead of dragging the curve up, I’m going to drag it down slightly, as shown below.  With the burn layer, I’m going to change the mode of the layer to darken.  Repeat the steps to rename this layer and make the layer mask black.  Now press “B” to select the brush tool, ensure the mode is set to normal, the opacity set to 100% and flow to 30%.  The last thing I’m going to do is create a black and white adjustment layer.  Click on the black and white circle at the bottom of the layers palette and select “Black and White.”  In the Black and White dialog box, drag the red slider down about -25 which is going to make the blemishes and areas to dodge, more prominent.

Going back to the dodge layer, I’m going to click on the areas of the skin which are darker.  Think lots of clicking!  I benefit from turning the layer off and on every few minutes so I can see the overall changes.  I also occasionally turn the Black and White adjustment layer off so I can see the changes I’ve made in color.   Below you’ll see some areas where you can use the dodge layer to improve the skin tone.

Here’s what it looked like after I was finished dodging.  Remember…little changes.

Below I’ve placed some circles around areas where I burned the image.  I didn’t do a whole lot of burning with this image.  I’ve circled the highlights of the skin and using the burn layer, I’ve just toned them down slightly.  The overall effect of the dodge / burn has neutralized the contrast in the skin, making it appear smoother while preserving texture.

Here’s the after.

The next thing I’m going to do is use the spot heal brush to touch up a few areas which I didn’t address with the dodge/burn layers, those areas are circled below.  From the tool panel, select the spot heal brush and set the brush to “content aware” which is only available in Adobe Photoshop CS5 (the most current version as of this post), as well as checking the box “sample all layers.”  Create a new layer and get to work!  What this is going to do is make the target area better match the areas surrounding it.  For this image, I’m specifically targeting pores on her cheeks with this tool.  Don’t overdo it though, remember, small changes.  I’ve clicked many more times than circles below, but I think you get the idea.

Step 3 – Teeth

A great smile with plenty of teeth showing just begs for a little enhancing, but not too much.  This particular image didn’t really need any adjustments but I wanted to show you how I edit teeth.  If when you’re done editing teeth they scream “Joe Biden!”…slap yourself in the face and try again.

In the images current state, if we made changes it would affect the entire image but, we want to specifically target the teeth so we’re going to create a layer mask.  First I’ll fill the layer with black by pressing “X” to select black and then Command + Del on a Mac to fill the layer with black.  Now press “B” to select the brush and make sure the flow and opacity are set to 100%.  Press “X” to select white as the foreground color and the “\” key to place the red cast over the image as shown below.  Now simply paint the teeth with the brush until it looks like something below.  If you make a mistake, press “X” to swap back to black and paint the area back in.  Once I’ve got something like what’s shown below, I’ll press the “\” again to remove the red mask.

Now to your Selective Color adjustment panel.  Teeth are primarily white, so I’ll start by select the white channel.  Once selected, reduce the yellow slider until it looks good to you (this removes yellow from the white channel).  Do the same for the black slider.  You can see the specific adjustments I made for this image below.  For more extreme cases where the teeth are more yellow, I would make heavier adjustments.  In that case, I might explore removing the black and yellow from the yellow channel.  Understand, each image will require something a little different.  Once you’ve done enough, you’ll know what each image needs just by looking at it.  Again, for extreme cases, you can also use a Saturation layer and desaturate the color in the teeth slightly.  I will sometimes brighten a smile, but I didn’t feel this image needed it as her teeth had great color and brightness to begin with.

Step 4:  Shadows / Highlights

There are a few shadows that I’d like to bring out and I’ve found a quick way to address them with a rather powerful tool available in photoshop.  I start off by pressing Command + Control + Shift + E on a Mac to merge all layers onto a new layer.  As shown below, go Image >Adjustments >Shadows/Highlights and select “show more options”.  You’re going to see a lot of sliders here.  My best advice is to play around with the sliders.  Each one affects the image a little differently and no two images are going to require the same results.  My shadow defaults are 35%, 20%, 93 px, and from there I’ll fine tune it.  If you’re used to filling in shadows by curves or levels with a layer mask, I recommend giving this method a try. 

The final step is image sharpening.  There’s a million and one ways to do this from sharpening filters to high pass filtering to custom actions.  For the majority of my work I use a simple Unsharp Mask.  I’ve shown you where you can find this in the image below ( Filter >Sharpen >Unsharp Mask).  I have my default set to 150%, radius of 1 and a threshold of 4.  From there I evaluate the photo and make whatever changes are necessary until it looks good.  Sharpening should not make a drastic change to your image.  I usually zoom in to the eyes, lips and hair separately and turn the sharpen layer off and on a few times to make sure I didn’t overdo it. 

I should also point out this level of editing is one of the many benefits of custom portrait photography.  This is a service most independent photographers offer and something that will never be offered to you at Sears, JCPenny or Portrait Innovations.

As of this posting, I’m sitting in a hotel room, without photoshop or any of my files.  I’m going to post a before / after shot similar to the one I did of Angela a few posts ago, once back to Kansas City so check back in a few days for the update to this post.

“I feel sorry for people who don’t drink.
  They wake up in the morning and that’s the best they’re going to feel all day.” Dean Martin