Author Archives: tyson robichaud photography

*The 5 minute Greenberg Treatment.

by in Lighting tutorials, Postprocessing techniques, Software tutorials / reviews and tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

What do you mean John McCain doesn't normally look like that?

For those who do not know, Jill Greenberg is a famous photographer to the stars.  Some of her work has received, uh, criticism, for her use of light or tactics to achieve certain reactions with, or effects on her subjects (see the crying babies in her ‘End Times‘ series, or the now famous John McCain shoot).  I call it art, but I do fall on the crass, perhaps cynical side of the human spectrum.  Regardless of your personal feelings toward her, the lighting she uses is dramatic.   Her style has been duplicated by many a strobist and comes about by a pretty easy to replicate setup.  Now, to do it well, is a bit trickier but we gotta start somewhere right?  Read on for a quick light set-up and easy to follow post processing technique. Continue reading →

*A big Thank You to Eric at Photography Bay!

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Eric Reagan from Photography Bay was looking for guest bloggers as he was taking an ‘easier’ week (any readers know how much time they spend on content over there), and as luck would have it, he decided to graciously use my submission.  Thank you to Eric and the PB team for featuring my post on complimentary color.  As my blog is just starting to get some legs underneath it and attempting to crawl from its infancy, I have been amazed by the community and camaraderie issued by so many other photographers and blog authors.  I hope to be able to contribute a bit from time to time and if able, provide a bit of promotion to other hard working photogs.  For those who’ve stumbled upon me here from PB, thanks for stopping by and I hope that I am able to provide a little reading and insight.  Please feel free to stop back by as I’ve got a few goodies coming up and hope to soon have a comprehensive catalog of tips, techniques, reviews and easy to follow tutorials helping all of us become better photographers, myself included fingers crossed.   Thanks again Eric, your generosity offering those of us, that don’t have the readership that your site has, the opportunity is much appreciated.  And, for my readers that don’t already know about and follow Photography Bay, I’d certainly suggest it, I stop by every day and enjoy the insight it provides.

Happy shooting all.

Tyson

*Floating in Photoshop! How to levitate in a photo.

by in Photography tutorials, Postprocessing techniques, Software tutorials / reviews and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 37 Comments

*Wanted to thank everyone who has stopped by to read this post over the last few years. I’ve received quite a few emails and seen links back to this article from many different forums based in many different countries. Thank you! As originally mentioned in the tutorial below, this isn’t a particularly original tactic, but if you put your own spin on it, it can produce some really cool imagery. Okay, on to my original posting, and thank you again for everyone who has stopped by. I’ve been really excited to converse, learn and meet with many of you since I started this blog over three years ago!

Enjoy,

Tyson

This is not an original idea, but so few ideas are anymore. While it may be a well used tactic, it can be very effective. I’ve played around with this technique a few times and it is one that when done decently will almost always get a “wow!” or at least a “huh, wait, what?” It is easy to do as well. It requires Photoshop, or if you are fundamentally against paying $600 for software you can download GIMP. I’ve used Photoshop for this one, so if using GIMP, you will need to translate these steps into GIMP-speak which shouldn’t be too hard.

Okay, our goal is to appear to be floating, or hovering so unless you’re an accomplished zen levitation master, you will need to take two pictures to create the illusion.

Continue reading →

*A photographic study in color, Henri Matisse style.

by in Photographic Study Masters Series, Photography tutorials and tagged , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

*Henri Matisse – “Woman with a Hat” -1905

Henri Matisse (1869-1954) is known for being one of the originators of the Fauvist style where contemporary impressionist rendition gave way to bold color and hard lines.  His use of complementary colors and shape provided a twist on traditional French painting.  While Fauvism was seen by some to be untrained and wild by comparison to contemporary style at the turn of the century, the use of vibrant, expressive colors enabled Matisse to direct the viewers eye through his canvas leading his viewer’s attention where he wanted it.

I’d like to play with the idea of utilizing complementary color using photography as our medium.

Continue reading →

*Focal Length, Crop Factor and Field of View

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How does sensor size actually affect focal length?

Focal length?  Effective focal length?  Actual focal length?  Crop factor?  Do you get more reach with a crop sensor?  Is it equal to a longer focal length?  There are some misconceptions surrounding what happens when a lens is used on cameras with different sensor sizes.  Let’s have a look at the differences between a full frame, APS-C and micro 4/3 sensor.

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*Your Micro 4/3′s camera + your existing lenses = limitless fun.

by in Photography gear, Photography tutorials and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 77 Comments
so much for compact...

so much for compact…

Who cares that Olympus and Panasonic have released relatively few lenses, mainly slow zooms, for the micro 4/3’s cameras?  Adding m4/3 mount adapters to your bag opens up a bevy of hundreds of lenses.  What you gain in variety though, you may loose in automated functionality.  Continue reading →

*High Dynamic Range with Photomatix

by in HDR 101, Photography tutorials, Postprocessing techniques, Software tutorials / reviews and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 14 Comments

Under the bridge, completely enveloped in shadow...

Are you ever frustrated by scenes that are too dynamically diverse having to lose your highlight and shadow info to expose for the midtone ultimately losing the shadows to dark noisy areas and blowing out your highlights resulting in detail-less white blotches?  I think that I can help.  This isn’t the only HDR or Photomatix tutorial on the web, but you’re here, and it’s free.  Regardless of how you feel about some of the HDR imagery that can bombard the senses, combined with the proper capture technique HDR software can help achieve, photographically ,the dynamic range that the human eye is capable of seeing.  By using this method of combining bracketed exposures, you can save yourself hours of dodging and burning, masking and aligning in Photoshop, with simple HDR software, or you can create your own fantasy cartoonish grunge-scape if that’s what you’re after.  I will walk you through step by step instructions regarding the proper capture and postprocessing  techniques using the popular HDR software, Photomatix from HDRsoft.  I also have a discount code to offer you 15% off (TRP15) if you choose to purchase the software.  To follow along, Photomatix is available as a non-expiring full free download (it will just watermark your images) to use and feel out the benefits to this very popular tool in digital photography.   Read on for links, techniques and a software discount…

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*Which lens for which situation?

by in General ramblings, Photography gear, Photography tutorials and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

different tools for different applications

I like to spend time on flickr.  It is an amazingly diverse community of photographers ranging from absolute novices to consummate professionals.  One of the questions that come up in the gear groups there and in conversation with other photographers quite often is, “which lens should I purchase?”  With interchangeable lens system cameras coming down in price by the day it seems, it is becoming much more accessible to acquire high quality photographic tools.  One of the main benefits to an interchangeable lens camera, is just that, lenses!  Which to choose and why?  C’mon in and we shall discuss.  Before the end of this article, you too will know which lenses will provide you with the best bang for you buck, depending on which buck you choose to bang… Continue reading →

*RAW vs. JPEG

by in Photography tutorials, Postprocessing techniques and tagged , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

Which file format should you shoot in, when and why?  Now that most photography is being captured in a digital format, we have so many more choices when it comes to processing our image files.  Granted, the amount of time you spend in front of a computer may be directly taking away time from behind the lens, but the question remains, do you prefer being an chef, or would you rather have someone else cook your images for you?  Continue reading →

*Metering and Exposure Compensation. Which, when, why?

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Metered off the wall…

Metering for a particular scene can be tricky.  The goal, in most cases, is to expose for your subject, telling your camera what it should consider the proper exposure for 18%, or “Middle Gray” and adjusting your exposure based on the light that is hitting your subject, or the light involved in the scene.  Most cameras will utilize an automatic, average metering as a default which most of the time will do a decent job at keeping the highlights and shadows in control.  First, before we delve into the different metering styles, we should examine one of the most helpful tools on your camera.  The histogram. Continue reading →