Tag: mask

  • Tutorial: Milky water and Misty Forests

    Tutorial: Milky water and Misty Forests

    We spent the weekend in Paso Robles,  deep in the heart of the ‘other’ grape growing place in California. In addition to all the fine wines, there’s art everywhere, some of it even quite nice. The pictures that captured our attention was a series of paintings that depicted landscapes as viewed through thick fog. We…

  • Tutorial: Burning the Jeep

    Tutorial: Burning the Jeep

    With a friend heading in to town for the weekend, we started planning our most elaborate burn shot yet, we wanted to surround our Jeep with fire and smoke. The fire was the easy part, we’re getting quite good at that. We simply took the fire whip idea (tutorial here) and made a 9 foot…

  • Tutorial: Beautiful Smooth n Soft Skin

    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…

  • Tutorial: spinning, burning, layers, blending, masking and textures

    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…

  • Tutorial: Flares and Fake Scars

    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…

  • Tutorial: Making a Huge FireBall

    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…

  • Tutorial: Making an Antelope Goddess (multiplicity tutorial)

    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…

  • Tutorial: Light Painting Tools

    Tutorial: Light Painting Tools

    People stop me in the streets and ask ‘Aren’t you that guy that does those things?’ Once the confusion passes it normally, fortunately, turns out they’re talking about light painting, and the next question they ask is ‘How?’ The exact technique for each picture will be revealed as and when this blog progresses, but for…

  • Tutorial: Orton Glowing Poppies

    Tutorial: Orton Glowing Poppies

    Taking a picture of flowers usually gives you a good starting point for a “glow” effect known as “Orton”. There are many ways of creating this effect. Some produce almost a perfect copy of what Mr Orton would have achieved in his dark room back in the day, others, not so much. My favorite way…

  • Review (Olympus EP-2): Our 4/3rds Weekend at East Brother Light Station

    Review (Olympus EP-2): Our 4/3rds Weekend at East Brother Light Station

    As you know my lovely wife and I are about to hike the Grand Canyon. This epic 3 day walk, carrying all our gear will probably kill me, but that’s OK because I intend to leave some lovely photos of the event for my descendants to quibble over. The problem I have, is what camera…

  • Tutorial: Neighing in the rain (white balance)

    Tutorial: Neighing in the rain (white balance)

    It’s all about the crop or It’s all about the temperature I posted the below picture last week. I was very unhappy with it at the time but I couldn’t work out how to make it better. Thanks to May‘s version of the image, I now know what I was doing wrong. The above picture…

  • Burning Smores

    Burning Smores

    I know websites are supposed to show your successes and achievements but I thought I should be more honest than that, and show the failures too. This is Deanna (my ever patient wife / model) wearing a latex horses head – what do you mean you don’t own one? Everyone should own one! – setting…