New Portraits/Hair&MU

More shoots...

Ok, been a couple weeks since last post, but i have been sitting in front of the computer for hours and hours!!!
Finally, i have finished pretty much every bottle, all 5 of them.

The following bottles i am having different opinions on which image i preferred. The actual bottle had the graphic design on the back of the bottle, but it distorted heavily when trying to photograph the front, with the design still perfect.

So i took off the design, perfected the bottle, and used the design as either a background, or have it on a low transparency behind the bottle's label, which it's supposed to be anyway. One of the bottles have been composed differently as well, a bit of an overlap between glass/bottle.

These photos arent quite finished, as the Gin bottle still needs more editing, (water ripple coming from underneath), and the Absolute bottle needs its label put back on.

Absolute Raspberri

My 4th photograph for alcohol advertising. I am still going along clean, simple techniques, and using different elements in the photograph to pull together a convincing shot (for magazine use). This shoot was VERY difficult in the terms of timing. Of course the ice will melt under the modelling lights, which made it slightly difficult to position the lights to get the highlights etc. I also found it increasingly hard to photograph the ice, so it wasn't so "flat". when shooting i couldn't see the contours of the ice, jaggered bits at all. So this image is actually 3-4 images put together. I am yet to photoshop in the correct exposed label on the neck of the bottle. and the label needs some work, as i was chipping away at the ice, i noticed i was actually scrapping off the red label, which also took off the lettering in a lot of spots. Luckily... i have another bottle to photograph the label, and just stick in there which will be good. :).

I added a reflection to the images, as it was very "floaty" on the white background. I was however considering doing a different background entirely, by photographing a whole bunch of natural (unfrozen) berries, and have the bottle centered.... we will see how this goes first though.

Bottles left to photograph are SOUTH gin, and Absinth Fairy.

Kiwi revised.

So going with the thought "less is more" i revised the amount of kiwi in the shot. Removing the top right kiwi fruit as it was kind of heavy for the frame of the photograph, and it made it look as though the bottle was in a tank, (how the water comes from the top.)

So also removing some bubbles, and less clutter around the image, i came up with this:

42 below - bottle

ok so below is my final edit of the 42 below - bottle only.

I included and "morphed" 2 bottles together, the first being the silhouetted bottle, and the 2nd being the label. Below is the Layer by layer process of my final photograph.

I have also cleaned up the bottle, as seen in 1st and 2nd image. on the bottle has engraved information on the back of the bottle, but as it is clear it is still very visible from the front, so i have edited it out. it looks so much more effective without the busy images coming from behind.

The Label took a lot of work as i had to overlay the correct exposure onto the silhouettedbottle. A lot of time was spent on the bottom labels as i had to erase all in between the lettering.

Im still not entirely happy with the bottom labels, potential more editing to come.

KIWI FRUIT BEING EDITED IN NOW ! :)

So this is something which i have put together......

more anjeo

Ok so using my standard "bottle" from the previous post, i replaced the bottles in the following photographs, these photos are the "honey dripping", and sticks, still waiting on the shot glass as editing takes so long! They still have a little more work needed, (esp on the bottom 2 photographs) around the honey. Im very much liking the honey dripping one....

Anjeo Patron

So this is a work in progress collaboratively putting together 3-4 photographs, just for the bottle.

That doesn't include the extra elements going into the advertisement, which will be (not edited yet), honey dripping from honey sticks, honeycomb and shot glass on ice.

Looking through my boyfriend's ESPN magazines from the States, they do a lot of alcohol advertisement, and i feel that my final product would be perfect for their magazine.

So below are some screen shots of "the bottle", layer after layer.

This photograph is what i started with, So i used the cork from this shot.
This shot i used a silhouetted photo of the bottle, using the layer above, for the cork
This image is from a 3rd photograph and i used the label.
the fourth layer is for the lettering on the bottle, from yet another photograph.

kiwi fruit splash.

So on Open Day i took advantage of the studio being open. And took high speed photographs with the kiwi fruit that will be an integral part of my 42 Below advertisement.

These photographs will be later composited into the final image creating more of a balance and advertising interactive photograph. So here are some i took on Saturday, i was looking for bubbles, splashes and "swoosh" sort of looks. If needed i will photoshop in some elements In Kate's Imaging class. hmmmm....

retouching 2

so this is my second image editing.. start off with the raw image with Lightroom edits.

Photoshop cs5 enables selection around the hair to be absolutely amazing, which i can "cut out" the model, as the background is obviously not acceptable.

The following layers include photoshopping to the face and clothing with the new background. Using a combination of clone, dodge, blur and patch this is the final edit.

42 Below

42 Below is a top shelf Vodka from New Zealand.

I chose the Kiwi flavour as i can create a composite image including kiwi fruit sliced up and using flash equipment and a fish tank (or similar) to create an advertising image.

So i needed to start with a base image. This is the bottle. I started off with a vague idea of what lighting i wanted, which didn't end up so great. Then with the help from Geoff i created something 10x better.

Using 3x P70's with 2x large grids, and 1x medium grid and using the "S" table, created a beautiful silhouette. Then I added a snoot from a distance to capture the label and more highlighted areas on the front.

From what Geoff was telling me, i found it extremely hard to photograph a clear bottle from both the back (to achieve a 'glowing' effect), and to also light it from the front (to get the label). So suggesting instead to light the bottle, then light the label separately and merge them together. However from looking at the computer i found i much enjoy the more silhouetted look, but this won't work very well with what i have in mind to create the composite image.

retouching 1

This is for Imaging class with Kate Luke.

This image is my head shot image using appropriate photo-retouching. I thought because this image was a very clean, nice portrait i decided not to take the editing to "full" lengths as it would over-do the photo.

I started off with the Raw image:

Then did some minor production in Lightroom:

Following i retouched this photograph in CS5.

Exported file from Lightroom:

The first layer to edit on is the hair.

I cloned the hair from other spots and blended it in to match original hair (this is mainly visible in the fringe). Using the Dodge tool, i created nice highlights in the hair, and the Burn tool to use on the darker parts of her hair.

This layer also included minor skin adjustments, moles and blemishes using the Clone tool, and also the Dodge tool.

The 2nd layer I focused more on the skin:

This is where i "blurred" the skin on a low strength. I also used the Dodging tool and Patch tool to smooth out more areas in the skin.

The 3rd layer I focused on the eyes, wrinkles:

Using the Patch tool this removed wrinkles but remained detail and texture.

The 4th and final layer is where i played more around with "typical aesthetics", removing weight of her face and making it a bit more "magazine-looking".

This was done using the Liquify tool. Using this function can be over-used and it can also remove a lot of detail within a photograph if used too much as it is be compressed away. Also I added more texture to the left of her face using the Burn tool.

Furla

Just had my first client shoot, that came to me, instead of me locating them.

Furla in Manuka wanted some production shoots for advertisement usage for Canberra Weekly.

They weren't looking for anything fancy, just plain straight up shots, white background. They werent concerned about the background as the editor of the magazine would be cropping it to just the object only.

They were after a combination of bag, bag shoe, shoe, scarf.

They offered the job to me, which came with a 4 day timeline, this of course increased my price.

I came to them with my quote and agreements and terms of usage of my photographs. This included copyright of my images being reproduced, a specific time frame to pay me, and variations in the job that may occur, penalty fees etc.

Which they happily accepted no worries. I had reservations on the price i offered them, but i thought it was quite reasonable and i am after repeat business with them in a couple months.