Category: Tutorials
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Tutorial: Rogue FlashBender at FurCon
We’ve been to a few conferences / events recently where we’ve needed flash. But of course, you can’t wander around with your strobe on a mono-pod at these places, so off-camera flash is almost impossible. Enter the Rogue FlashBender. A large-ish flexible bounce card that allows you aim light where you want it. It’s big…
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Tutorial: Beautiful Smooth n Soft Skin
Having seen my new LinkedIn picture, my beautiful wife wanted one of her own. Of course, she didn’t want the ‘aged’ version I did for myself (see here) but something a little more realistic. Pictures of her wouldn’t usually be the subject of a tutorial because she’s blessed with a radiant smile, sparkling eyes and…
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Tutorial: Adding the Grime
I needed a new photo for my LinkedIn profile and wanted something that shows maturity but not age. Here’s how I added the grime to a standard photo to get the desired results. You’ll recall that a while back I built a continuous light ring for my Pretty Ugly People study: I used that on…
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Tutorial: Building the ‘Mega Light Wand 2000’ light painting tool
When you first get in to Cold Cathode light painting your ambitions will be small. You’ll be impressed when you’ve finally worked out how to take something that normally fits inside your souped-up computer and turned it in to something that works in an abandoned warehouse late at night. The kit usually contains at least…
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Tutorial: spinning, burning, layers, blending, masking and textures
This tutorial is the whole enchilada. We cover everything from the tools you need to spin wire / steel wool, the camera settings you need to capture the image, and then all the Photoshop stuff required to make the image memorable: layers, blending modes, transparency, masking, and multiple textures. It’s a tad long at 7…
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Tutorial: Flares and Fake Scars
For the final part of this tutorial series, we turn to the sexy but scarred leg of my filthy assistant (look it up) being lit by a road flare. You’ve obviously seen the video, the tutorial on fire breathing and the one on hairspray burning. This is the end of the road, I’m not going…
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Tutorial: Burning Aerosols Over a Naked Flame
Now you’ve seen the video of me playing with fire, and you read the article about how to make giant fireballs with cornflour, the obvious next question is, how do you burn aerosols such as hairspray? That’s what we’re going to answer to day. And be warned, this one gets hot. This is the picture…
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Tutorial: Making a Huge FireBall
By now you’ve watched the video of me burning stuff but you really want more info right? So here it is, the lighting and photoshop how-to of making a huge fireball from cornflour. This is the photo we’re going to create. Firstly, obviously you need a willing model. The more attractive and sexually charged the…
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Tutorial: Painting With Fire Video
I get asked all the time to show how I make fire pictures. Well thanks to the amazing directorial and camera skills of my lovely wife, I here present a brief look at fire blowing, throwing, and spinning. We use road flares, steel / wire wool, magnesium, hairspray and corn flour. Epic is probably the…
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Tutorial: Bringing the Storm
Today’s lesson is in adding dark storm clouds to a beautiful clear sky, without doing all that complicated selection nonsense. There’s always a debate raging amongst photographers about how much you’re “allowed” to change an image and still call it a photograph. Clearly studio model shots that are then composited on to images of urban…
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Tutorial: Making an Antelope Goddess (multiplicity tutorial)
The image of my multi-armed wife worshiping in Lower Antelope Canyon generated more conversation and ‘likes’ than anything I’ve done on Facebook ever. It was mostly ignored on Flickr, and has generated reasonable traffic here, so I decided to show you how to make one of your own. First, find an 8 armed friend… Plan…
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Tutorial: I finally ‘get’ flash!
Break out the freakin Champagne!! It’s only taken a year. On Wednesday I attended yet another off camera flash course. Just like all the others the presenter (who did a great job) talked about the inverse square law, about f-stops and just photo stuff. This time he said something that no ones else has ever…