Fine Art Series - SUBMERGE

A Bit of History

Ever since I found a copy of Deluxe Paint on my families Amiga 1000 (this is before Commodore bought them) I loved playing around with digital images. When I got to High School I transitioned to using Adobe Photoshop (version 2 from memory). I did well and had work shown at the yearly state-wide show called ArtRage. Then I followed my passion for sound and left the "playing around" in image software to a distant memory.

So fast forward to current day and my discovery go still photography and the hundreds of hours I already put into learning Photoshop for editing and my passion for playing around with concepts has come back.

SUBMERGE

Prints available soon for order. Make sure that you sign up to the mailing list for details.

EVA - A Painterly Portrait

Model: Eva Ning Wei

Above is my beautiful friend Eva. This is from June in Perth, Western Australia and playing around in a studio just for laughs.

This photo represents a move in my editing workflow that I am happy with. I am always trying to improve how I retouch and practice constantly to evolve. While this style is not for every job, for my personal work, this is definitely a step in the direction I am happy with.

BTS (Behind the Scenes)

In this image I broke down the steps in a more specific way.

Firstly I moved to different RAW convertor and started using Capture One by Phase One. I am amazed at the quality I can pull out of this software over Adobe Camera RAW.

Secondly I structured my retouch into desecrate sections as you can see on the right.

Working non-destructively in Photoshop and strictly in my new workflow I can move up and down the sections efficiently and fix issues I notice as I work (look at it from bottom to top).

The final result should be full of texture, colour balanced and give a look more of a painting than a straight photo.

Close up of final image. Notice the texture and tones. Click to enlarge.

Lucy & Touch of Class

On Saturday I spent 8 hours with the beautiful Lucy Sky Diamond doing one last shoot before she moves to Canada. We started in the studio and then moved to amazing heritage listed B&B.

The hotel had amazing decor and the building didn't have a level floor anywhere (it made it interesting to say the least).

If you are in Perth, Western Australia next weekend, make sure you see Lucy at the Perth International Burlesque Festival.

Lucy will also performing at the PA Burlesque Festival (Pennsylvania) and the Ottawa Burlesque Festival later in the year.

Lucy is wearing her blue Ombré costume by Corsets by Nasty Ginny in this photo.

BTS (Behind the Scenes)

This shot is actually incredibly simple but does require some knowledge of colour temperature. The main light from the right is a 80'' octabox with grid in another room. No flash was used, only the warm modelling light. As it was dusk, I wanted to mix the ambient light from the window behind Lucy with the key light from the octabox. The strobe would have been too blue and made the overall colour a lot more flat. Keeping it with the modelling light only, gave me a contrast with the ambient being blue and the key light warming Lucy up. The trade off is that I needed to shoot at a high ISO, in this case 1600.

As you can see from the before and after above, there isn't a huge amount of changes done to the image. I removed the smoke detector from the ceiling and some lines from the walls. I tone down the purple and contrast slightly and selectively sharpened Lucy. Lastly I reshaped the ceiling slightly so it's no so tilted. The actual building is completely skewed, but that is the charm of older buildings.

Kim

Kim is a model, fashion blogger, makeup artist and YouTube personality who has a big following in Japan.

You can follow Kim's work at www.kimdaoblog.com

A Note on Technical Details

A few people asked me about doing BTS (behind the scenes type posts), I generally think that the end result is the most important regardless of the process. That being said, I also recognise that people want to learn and I personally wouldn't be at the level I am without the generous information posts of BTS details by other photographers. So while I'll keep it to a minimum I will now start sharing on the blog some BTS information and photos, etc. If you are not interested, well just move to the next post. If you want more information, then comment below and I'll try to help.

BTS (Behind the Scenes)

Camera: Canon 5D MKIII
Lens: 85mm f1.8 @ f2.2
Shutter: 1/160
Strobe: Beauty dish left of camera
Modifiers: V-Flat Right of Model
Background: White Cyclorama

Emily

On Saturday a bunch of us hired a studio in Perth (WA) for a few hours just to have a play. We where all exhausted from working all day at Supanova Pop Culture Expo but everyone became alive again once in the space.

There was no plan, no makeup, no hair styling, no wardrobe, basically we walked in as is, and shot.

The above image is of Emily, one of our models for the night. The image is a mix of continuous and strobe light.

I'll post more images from the night over the next couple of weeks.