Joey Rules in Theory

I love rules that say don't follow the masses, and walking around the Disney Hall got me thinking. This giant metallic thing definitely stands out as a Los Angeles landmark and took Frank Gehry a lot of his own creativity to put together this timeless monument.

I made a list of my own rules of creative theory.
#1. Who cares what other people think. Don't compare yourself to others. Don't be nervous. Don't think. Just visualize and do. If the great minds of our time listened to what others thought, they would have not created their progressive work and not be respected for being great. You need to be your role model.

#2.Think with your mind, not with your medium. Painting, sculpting, photography, whatever. Mediums have creative limits, your mind does not.

#3. Exercise & go outside. When you feel good about yourself, you will perform better on every level. Exercise is a must for creative balance & progression.

#4. Be respectful to your subjects weather they are alive, dead, or inanimate. Just like when your mother used to tell you, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all..." It is easy to make your subject ugly and unattractive, but it takes skill and grace to make them look beautiful.

#5. Do. You can talk about "how to do" or get inspired, take classes or workshops, or research books for whatever creative avenue all day long, but practice makes perfect. All that talk about following your passions is interesting and "inspirational," but honestly, I prefer to practice. Do.

#6. The last rule is: There are no rules. Don't let anyone tell you to be like someone else or stop your creative groove.

With these theories in mind, I think The Disney Hall would look way cooler if it was purple.

Innovative Energy

I was talking to a friend the other day, and he asked me about my travel plans for the summer. Long story short, I have a lot of plans, and a lot of camping trips. He noticed that most of my trips are mostly outside and involve motorcycles and tents, and asked why. It is just what I like to do. I enjoy the outdoors. Especially in the American Southwest.
I got thinking.
At first, I started traveling and camping because it was fun. Then I brought my camera to show people that there is a whole other world out there besides the beach. (Some of you might remember when I would send mass amounts of emails with images attached...)
I started researching and traveling to strange places for awesome landscape photography.

People tell me all the time that they are impressed by my traveled check list. So when I was hanging out with my friend, and he asked why I camp so much, I began to realize that for me, being outside and traveling anywhere is where I get my renewing innovative creative energy. I don't climb to the top of mountains for photography, I do it just because I feel like it. That is my attitude and spirit, to just go. My creative passion comes from the earth and everything on its giant playground because I find everything about the planet interesting, not for capturing images with my camera.

My curious, visual, nomadic self will travel to all of the corners of the earth.

Here are some images over the progression of my work "on the road."

Before & After

Before


After


I think silhouettes can be powerful and striking images. My goal when I compose and edit an image is to make it interesting enough to look at for more than two seconds.

For those that know Zion, this is Angels Landing, one of tallest peaks to hike in the park.
Look at the pictures on the link, and then look at mine. what is more interesting?

How you get the black silhouettes is adjusting the levels of the image. In this case, removing the information from the dark part of the image, turning it black. And adjusting the saturation in the sky, to taste.

I was watching some intense hikers climb to the top, and thought a silhouetted shot would be cool.

Joe Photo visited Cypress College to speak to the Career Photography Class

Joe Photo was asked to speak at Cypress College's Photo Career class. Joe knows I am one of those life long students that can never seem to graduate college, and he called me up to let me know he was giving a presentation at my school.

Joe unveiled a new logo, too.


This guy is one awesome photo veteran that has a lot of solid gold nuggets of information in the wedding photography business.
Joe's book reccomendation for the class:E-Myth Mastery
He also likes monopoly, but good luck beating him.

"Every wedding is always different. People, places, plans & details, weather, preferences... My photography is blending traditional & different styles, with weddings, fashion, landscape, architecture, fine art, & journalism.

Blessed are the flexible.

Sometimes you never know who is watching. Always look nice. Appearance is key.

Success in your business is from doing all the small things, daily. If you let the small things go, you will lose sight of the big things.

Does time drag on while you work?
Follow your passion. Do what you love. Time will fly by and you will have fun working.

Confidence, especially in your fee.

Listen to what the clients have to say."

Stand by your work

I submitted this image as a printed 13x19 print for my digital photo class. The assignment was for stitching images together and make them look like one. But as usual, printed images from the school turn out way different from abused printers. So my final project does not really look like this.
Color is all relative, right?



When you have a photo critique, especially with a printed image as a final product, you must stand by your work. In the critique, I heard a lot of other students say "I wasn't sure about this...It didn't work the way I wanted...I could have composed the image better..."
No No No! It must be perfect AND you must like it. Taste is a variation, and you should at least like your work.

One critique against my image was the signs ruined the landscape. The teacher look over and said, "No way, that's what the image is about." This would be a real boring picture without the signs.

Viewing your image for printing.

Now this is a good photo tip for professionals AND amatuers.

When you make fine adjustments on your image, make sure you are viewing the image at 100% of the real image size. Make sure you are looking at full 4x6, 5x7, 8x10, or larger. This way you can see what your image will look like when you print it out. If you do not view the full image before you print, you may get some surprises on your prints that you didn't see on the monitor because sometimes what is on the monitor is not what will be printed out.

Before & After

Before...



After! WA LA!

Lately, I like to burn the details with contrast to make the details stand out, while complimenting a great subject in my image.



And finally, and nice email from a fan.

I wondered how you got those great people shots at the wedding. Very wise to camp out where people don't know they're being photographed.
Even so, it takes real talent like yours to be able to identify and capture the right moment (that may last a fraction of a second) in candid moments like those. THAT'S insight. That's a REAL photographer. Those are the shots that tell the story of the day, and Joe's really lucky he's got a second shooter who brings so much to the picture. Your portraits are among the best out there, but I also love your landscapes, because you have such an artistic eye. You just do all subjects well.
-Sally

Sharpening & Adjustments

Most photographers do not sharpen their images enough. They are almost afraid to sharpen.

You should do your extreme adjustments [to taste] down the stream of your work flow.

Sometimes when I open up an image, I just want to dive in and make my creative adjustments. But I need to follow the correct work flow.

Levels
Curves
Hue/Saturation
Other Adjustments [to taste]

Curves

The purpose of curves is to rationally set the range and midpoints of the red, green, and blue chanels.
The more you guess on your curves, the more you hack up your histogram.

Histograms

I don't give a crap about what your image looks like on your monitor or LCD screen, if your exposure is off and your histograms are not properly set,
your image is going to suck.
-Clay Spada.

Exposures

In my digital photography class, I am learning a lot of technical information and new stuff. The teacher says a lot of cool ideas and sayings that I think are blog worthy.

There is no such thing as 'what you see is what you get' in digital photography.

Tune Up

I started my digital photography class at cypress college tonight to fine tune those editing skills. The teacher told the class that the best resource for photo editing is not in a book, but to practice the medium over and over.

I have always said I have learned more from outside of class than in side the class room. After walking out of class, I felt excited to take this class. Its my style of learning.

Olympic Photographer

The Olympics are for the best of the best. Check out this veteran sport photographer, Vincent Laforet's Olympic gear! The large lenses in the back are over $7000, each. The Image below is over $60,000 of equipment.



Laforet's Blog

"I was able to borrow an 800mm 5.6 lens from Canon (both Canon and Nikon set up shot at the main press center and loan equipment to photographers, as well as make repairs on site, which is priceless!

The 800mm is a lens that's just been released by Canon and I really wanted to see what I could pull off with it. One of the reasons that this lens is useful is that there are only 4-5 of them here at the Olympics—and what that means is that there are very few other photographers who will be shooting with it. Why does this matter? Because you can shoot from positions that others aren't in (because they are shooting with different (shorter) lenses...) and this gives you a little more breathing room, and a better chance of making a unique frame. The Olympics are all about trying to make frames that no one else is making—and that's something that's very difficult to pull off when you're competing with the best 1,500+ sports photographers in the world."

My new Desktop

Speed up the camera lens and see what happens. I did not burn or darken this image, I just changed some of the sky colors. I think I shot this photo at 1/8000th of a second.

Crops that bug

Check out the crop power from the D300!



Never under estimate the power of a good crop


I was shooting some outdoor portraits, and this stink bug crawled across the lady's open toe shoe. She screamed, and I shot the bug. You can see the bug's eye!

Florescent Ambiance

I received a call to see if I could "work some magic" for a new casting studio. They sent me the first image below. They were exactly satisified with the images they were going to use for their website. They wanted to make the rooms look big.


These are some that I shot and edited. I used the recessed light and florescent lights with long exposures (and a tripod) to warm up the room.

You send it.com

Need to email a large file?
You send it.com You can email up to 100MB! (large photoshop files for you fellow photographers)

My world just got a little more paperless. (either that, or I am too lazy to figure out how to work my printer)