When it rains...

I'm used to shooting landscapes so I'm used to adverse weather and usually prepared...shooting portraits however, is a different story.

I had my first 'rainy day' shoot over the weekend...something I'm definitely not used to. I was pleasantly surprised with how the pictures came out. I had a great subject, it wasn't POURING and the lighting was actually helpful as I avoided harsh shadows.

I found some websites helpful in preparing for the weekend so I thought I'd share, in case anyone else finds themselves looking for tips on shooting in the rain :)

A good source on preparing yourself and your gear for the rain http://www.lightstalking.com/shooting-in-the-rain

Some tips on shooting in the rain. http://www.brighthub.com/multimedia/photography/articles/20467.aspx

Some inspiration! http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/09/07/35-brilliant-examples-of-rain-photography/

Changing your identity plate in lightroom

If you haven't found it already, there's a nice little option to customize the identity plate. It's nice if you have clients who will be looking at the photos via your program and ads a little professional touch.

Under the Lightroom menu, click 'identity plate setup' to bring up the setup box.

While in there, make sure 'enable identity plate' is checked and 'custom' is selected. Then edit as you please!

Tilt Shift Photography Effect in Photoshop

Start with a nice overhead shot - I used this one I took of a Seattle pier, taken from the Space Needle.

Open in Photoshop and enter Quick Mask Mode (press Q on your keyboard)

Select your gradient filter  (press G on your keyboard) and click 'reflected gradient' from the top toolbar

Draw a vertical line starting with the center of a focus area to where you want it to go out of focus (confusing, yes - mess around with this one)

When you've made your line, it'll look something like the above. Review the mask area, if it's not exactly where you wanted, redo your mask

Press Q again to exit Quick Mask mode. This is now your selection to use for the next step

Go to Filter, Blur and Lens Blur. I use the default setting here but feel free to tweak it a little more to get the effect that you like most.

From there you can adjust your photo even more - this is totally up to you. The below photo is my final result, cropped and curves adjusted.

HDR Tutorial

I've been trying to find the time to type up a quick tutorial on HDR photography but found this oldie on the Abduzeedo site and felt it was a quick yet very good tutorial for almost anyone with a digital camera. Some newer DSLR cameras do have an auto exposure bracketing which makes it much easier to get the multiple exposures - For those of you who don't that option or don't have a wide enough range, this tutorial will help you.

This is basically the same process I followed except I used my Sony DSLR and shot in Raw. Below are my 3 before exposures and the final result.

And here is the final result

Now! Go check out the tutorial (click here to be redirected) and start playing with HDR photos!

There's another really great, detailed tutorial on Tone Mapping in Photomatix here

For more information on HDR and Auto Exposure Bracketing, visit one of the following links:
http://www.idigitalphoto.com/high-dynamic-range-photography-explained/
http://www.photoshopcafe.com/tutorials/HDR_ps/hdr-ps.htm
http://hdr-photography.com/aeb.html
http://www.photoxels.com/tutorial_exposureBracketing.html

HDR photos

This was an awesome lighthouse, just outside of Newport, OR. It ended up being more than a random stop as we got to see a new seal pup make its way into the world. Quite the unique experience and well worth the $7 for the park fee.

This was along the OR coast, just past Cannon Beach.