At the conclusion of a wonderful dinner with our dear friends, we realized that it was almost sunset. So we went upstairs to the roof to take in the view and continue conversation. What a treat to not only take in a bit of the game; but better still see the beautiful sunset colors after the storm we missed during dinner. It was also great because the rain cooled everything off and gave a wonderful freshening to the city. We sat and thoroughly enjoyed the scene and each other’s company for another hour. I am still filled up from the evening. This photo isn’t even in the top ten moments of the night.

I always want to get as much of the shot right when I frame my shot and make my exposure. However, the more I study my heroes in photography, I realize that processing is a vital second act that prepare the art for printing and/or publishing. My goal when processing is to complete and complement the composition. I will check to make sure the image is perfectly level; and sometimes I will reframe the shot to be square or wide depending on format I wish to print or publish. Then especially when dealing with RAW format (which is quite flat and boring without at least the internal camera JPEG processor) I consider what I remember the scene as I shot it and make adjustments to help the image look like what inspired me to open the shutter in the first place. I do not like to "photoshop" things that were or were not in the original frame (though sometimes, I will remove a blemish caused by such things as dust on my sensor or lens that causes a blemish in an otherwise beautiful sky) rather usually my processing is relatively subtle with only minor tweaks to highlights, shadow, and exposure adjustments; sometimes some play with vibrancy and saturation; and perhaps finishing with some contrast I want to draw the viewer into the image, to help make them feel what I felt when I was experiencing the scene live.

Those of you who know me, have heard my passion for helping enhance story by targeting the subconscious. As a cinematographer and photographer, I am quite passionate about using lighting to help the viewer immerse themselves in the scene. I want to "break the fourth wall" (which you’ve heard and read me talk about the scene breaking out of especially with live production) but sometimes (especially with photography) I do by drawing the viewer in closer to the scene… Consider how the shapes of your subject and background elements and how they interact will tell your story. Our brains are designed to seek these things out. One of the main challenges we have as photographers is to demonstrate a 3D world in a 2D format. To do this well, good photographers see (and understand how to capture) the light (and shadows) that interacts with these subjects to make a scene come alive.

"Creativity and ego cannot go together; but if you free yourself from the comparing and the jealous mind, creativity opens up endlessly."

-Jeong Kwan

I was scanning through some articles in a photography blog that I follow and caught an article by Rajib Mukherjee (https://www.picturecorrect.com/tips/creative-jealousy-and-how-to-deal-with-it-as-a-photographer/) featuring thoughts a photographer named Sean Tucker. He shared about how he struggles with creative envy. I certainly resonate with this as I go through seasons from time time to time, when because of spiraling down into jealous thoughts of others’ successes, I fail to be who I am best at being. I love the first thought shared by Chef Jeong Kwan as featured in Chef’s Table.

I commit to focussing on being the most excellent version of me.

"Remember that the mark of a [great] professional is that they run their own race; they're not constantly comparing themselves to others. They're not threatened by the work that other produce. They’re too busy doing what they do. They don’t allow jealousy to take up emotional and mental space."

-Sean Tucker

Create something beautiful today. Whether a photograph, a spreadsheet, performance art, or leadership moment. Make sure to care...

When lighting a scene, you need to consider the emotional message that you wish to convey.

1. Color - Choose a white balance. This is key to both mood and helps clue the viewer to the time of day. The opportunity to experiment with saturated light can provide seemingly countless options to get creative with steering mood.

Do you want to have a realistic scene in an office or do you want to break reality with musical theatre? What about concert lighting?

Remember that some scenes benefit from deep saturation, while others require the realism of only minimal color correction. Either way, color is extremely important.

I typed it first, here because yes it can be key to setting the scene, but more so is the foundation of subject light:

2. Intensity - Light’s intensity denotes how subdued or blown out the light is. Intensity can denote such differences as mid-morning sunshine in a field or the mood under a street lamp in the middle of night time.

The later example not only would likely use significantly lower intensity to create the scene, but would likely use two colors, the cool blueish moonlight, and the warm sodium colored lamp light.

3. Angle - This refers to the direction of light and how it strikes your subject. There are many terms, both from theatre and cinematography (ex. three-point lighting, special pool, key light, fill light, back light, side light, shin-busters, footlight, hair light, rim light, etc.)

Many of us are familiar to such terms as Rembrandt lighting or a butterfly lighting setup - those simply are two common setups that photographers use when shooting portraits.

The unique mood of each scene is steered in dramatically different ways by the angle of the light source or sources on the subject.

4. Quality - The softness or hardness of the light plays another role in the mood. Do you want defined shadows or smooth even light that seems to wrap around your subject. A large source of light is soft. A small source of light is hard. A source of light far away from your subject will produce strong shadows—an example of hard light. The closer the source of light that to your subject, the less pronounced the shadows that are produced.

Imagine difference between a 5º spot light from the corner of a theatre’s catwalk vs. the look of a model posing next to french doors with sheer drapes.

In addition to hard or soft lighting, consider the mood enhancement that can happen when a breakup pattern is between the light source and the subject.

With breakups we return to the hard or soft lighting. Is there a defined shadow of a bare tree branch or is there soft texture from an abstract theatrical breakup? So much can be done with texture. Perhaps another post should be written about texture alone!

I spent the past week driving through New Zealand with three of my friends. It was an incredible journey both with the chance to fellowship with my travel mates and certainly an amazing treat to experience such a beautiful country!

Here are a few of my favorite images I captured. The first set are from our first two days on the North Island; the second collection is from the remainder of our trip through as much as we had time for in the South Island. I have the rest of my images up on my Facebook page. If you're interested in prints of any of these (or any other of my photography) please do contact me.

Last night we transformed one end of the dealership to celebrate momentum. Red, silver, and white branding is maintained for this main event stage and the rest of the dealership.

VIPs are enjoying catered small plates. The president and others just completed their speeches. Guests are about to experiment the main event.

Pre-show look. Lights are slowly strafing across the ceiling above the "stage" that we made. Truss warmers are twinkling white on the silver sticks of vertical truss and anticipation is in the air (or is that haze?)

I prepared myself in position at lighting control (my Jands Vista S1 - I and/or my console are available for hire/rent) back stage. I transitioned the lights as the intro video played and encouraged the talent to break a leg...

Actually, I took this shot well after the event just before we tore down - through the veil of the CrushedBlack fabric, you can see the car already on stage - in the moment I was too busy firing off a barrage of lighting effects; as well as cuing dancers, actors, and a driver for their moments of the production.

I’m really bummed not to have any photos to share of the live number we performed. Hopefully I can get some shots or video from one of the guests. I wish I had thought to set up a GoPro or few to record.

After the event, I hurried to offer photography to guests as they all wanted to pose with the cast. I managed even to get a #castandcrew shot taken of me (in the coveralls that was part of the branding) with the performers. These guys are great, by the way. If you’re looking for actors and/or dancers (and/or hamsters?) contact me and I can refer you to some great Metro Detroit talent.

One of my other responsibilities was to take photos of the president and leadership holding their awards at the corporate stage for earlier speeches at far end of the room. This is my view walking back toward the main stage. I share it to give context of the space. Even at the end of the night, the mood still feels good in the transformed dealership.

Interesting to contemplate that two hours later, everything is packed up and the morning crew will be able to bring cars back into the space for normal operations.

I think this image is hilarious; this pair of hamsters remained at the ready long after every guest had taken photos and the catering had been cleared.

It was a fun event. It always is when a producer tells me they want to drive a car on stage!

"foggy dock in the morning sun"

I stopped at a park by my boys’ school on my drive in to work this past fall to photograph this image. A few people have commented on it which prompted my sharing this post. I love the placid hope that I get when seeing this image. You can’t tell for sure what is on the horizon, but you can take a few moments to bask in the glow and be thankful for the beauty of now.

I have my desktop set as my default for all downloads and saved PDFs while I’m in process with them. While I maintain my encouragement of keeping your desktop clean, I should note that files look particularly nice as they load on the right side of the screen!

If you’re interested in using this or any of my other images on your desktop, please ask. I am willing to share certain works for free with watermark - and I sell rights to use digital images as well. I should also remind you that I do also sell limited edition numbered prints of various works as well.