Kate & Kacey Coppola @ Chumash Casino Resort, February 26, 2009

Most everyone who reads my blog knows that I am the House Photographer for the Entertainment Department at the Chumash Casino Resort in Santa Ynez, California, which is about 30 miles north of Santa Barbara. Last Thursday night there was a small convergence of events for me at a concert at the casino: Big Machine Records recording artists Kate & Kacey Coppola opened for Little Big Town. Below is Kate.
Kate & Kacey are currently managed by Nashville to You. Nashville to You is partnered by Rick Barker and Lex Lipsitz. Rick Barker is my long time friend and cohort and the guy who got me into country music and concert photography and who created my job at the casino. Rick and Lex, currently out of Nashville, do promotion and management of rising country singer/songwriters. Rick managed Taylor Swift to her current national fame and fortune although their paths have separated as both have matured and gone on to bigger things ... that's the way in the entertainment world. Below is Kacey.

So, I happen to be the photographer where Kate & Kacey happen to have a gig. An opportunity to give some payback to the most supportive, dynamic, clever and professional promoter I know. I've sent a bunch of images to Rick & Lex and hope a couple may be useful. This is the sort of networking that far exceeds any other asset in the live entertainment photography business. You want to be successful ... reach out and help everybody, especially those who help you.



Travel Safe!

Dwight

GCPPA: Patricia Mathis on "Ordinary to Extraordinary"

It may seem like all I do is attend photography workshops, classes and seminars. They are easier to write about than a lot of my projects such as adding sound and a big monitor to my studio, or documenting my photographic work although I promise to do that, too. It is because they are nice and compact with clear beginnings, endings and intent/focus. With that said, here's a little review of my Sunday event with the Gold Coast Professional Photographers' Association: Patricia Mathis' "From Ordinary to Extraordinary" (you can see her work at www.reflectionsbypatricia.com), a $69 9:00am to 5:00pm event in Lompoc, California, which is 16 miles down the road from me.

I was invited to this seminar by Michael Collins, recent ex-president of the Gold Coast Professional Photographers' Association, by way of a standard flyer. I glanced at it, thought, "Not very interesting" and went on my way. But when I heard that my in-laws were visiting for the weekend, I took another look at the flyer and that's when I noticed all the awards that Patricia has garnered and I decided that I would give it a spin. So I spent all day yesterday listening to her and getting better acquainted with the GCPPA and PPC folks.

The seminar was broken into two distinct sections, one morning and one afternoon. In both, Patricia sat up front with the inferior laptop and projector/sound systems that were provided and braved through it like a Pro ... which she is, of course. The morning section was "Elements of Design" and the afternoon was "Photoshop tips and tricks with strong emphasis on NIK filters" ... Patricia appears to be sponsored by NIK, but her presentation was well rounded, didn't dwell on NIK so much as demonstrate what you can do as part of a larger workflow.

The elements of design section sounded dreary to me as a concert photographer who has no control. I mentioned this to Patricia who said, "But you get to compose as well as choose position!" Well, that might be, but since I never know what's coming in the next ten seconds on stage, that isn't very helpful. :-) But as so often happens to me when I've been in a particularly judgmental mode, I was totally disabused of the notion that this part wasn't for me. I was rapt! While not the slickest presentation, Patricia's presentation really hit a chord with me. Since I don't think of myself as artistic and since most of my paying work is concert style where I don't control anything, I have never even thought about the elements of design in my compositions. Now I can't get it out of my mind! I think I will be forever compelled to think about harmony, unity, dominance, complexity, oblique lines, verticals, "getting the milk from the grocery store" and all the other pieces clarified by her hand drawings, the works of Rembrandt and other masters as well as her own. An excellent pry-bar to open at least a tiny corner of the box I think in.

The afternoon section was equally inspiring. She worked through several images showing her skin and eye techniques, comparing lots of skin enhancement techniques both "manual" and using NIK filters, and lots of ways to incorporate the elements of design from the morning session to control and enhance the viewer's eye. She is strong on vignettes (which I generally dislike) and makes a strong case for them ... I guess I will have to change, sigh. She is right!

As she started to wind down it would have been a mistake to look away. Out of nowhere she demonstrated using clipping masks to create design elements and then magically demonstrated how to use them to make templates (I'll have to ask some of the other attendees to send me their notes on the steps, sigh) and even to fill text. While most of her work centers on Senior and Engagement/Wedding material it is easily extrapolated to glamor and fine art work.

There were a dozen or more examples of her final print output including books, gallery wraps, other print presentation media, triptychs and award winners. She talked about her prices and marketing experience and brands. All in all, well worth the time and effort!

As part of the GCPPA piece, upcoming events of the GCPPA were announced. They sounded too good to miss, so I joined both PPC and GCPPA and expect that I will be attending a number of events from now on ... it's just too much bang for the buck to miss out on.

Be Safe,

Dwight

PhotoArt: Fay Sirkis at The Institute

I spent an amazing week at the Lepp Insitute in Los Osos, California, at Fay Sirkis' "Impressions of Art" workshop/seminar. It was total immersion in Photoshop and Painter X in a workflow to convert your photographs into paintings. It was glorious. I have not a single artistic brain cell, but this gorgeous lady from New York seems to have given me a stem cell transplant (now that it's OK to do that again) and I was amazed at what we produced.

So, what happened? Fay walked us through her vision, sharing examples of her work along with their backstories to get our brains atuned. Then we started through the workflow for producing photorealistic images which first entails taking the image into Photoshop, retouching blemishes, treating the skin, a whole special section on working with the eyes (as Fay keeps reminding us, they are the "Gateway to the Soul".) We learned her "sandwich technique" for making adjustments. And once that was all done and we were swimming in layers, we flattened and caught our breath.

While I am familiar with Photoshop and did install Painter X on my workstation along with a Wacom Cintiq 21ux, I had no clue how to use Painter. Not a problem. Fay pulled up Painter and gave us a guided tour through the places we would need to go. But I have made this sound too trivial ... it is not! Fay spent many hours explaining and demonstrating where the various tools hide, what they do, their differences and similarities, how to customize them, arrange workspaces, palettes, panels and save them. And then she pulled her example images in and acquainted us with her workflow for photorealistic painting, step by step, with prepared student notes. And then she set us out to work on our own images all the while moving slowly from student to student giving intense personalized attention to everyone.

It is the way at The Institute to have open lab from 8:00 to 9:00 am each morning, class from 9:00 to 5:00 with breaks and lunch, and open lab again from 7:00 to 9:00 pm with assistants available to untangle our misunderstandings, find the tools we have hidden from ourselves, demonstrate the techniques that we missed because we were overwhelmed with information, and generally make sure that we are in control of the programs at our individual digital workstations which drastically reduces the class time needed to help less adept classmates the following day. It is a marvelous system.

The next major topic revealed a workflow that allows Painter to assist in jump starting our painting exploration. This is a fairly well developed set of ordered tools for enhancing target images, using the painterly tools such as brush styles and adjustments, creating an underpainting and then augmenting our hand painting enhancements.


So, what did I do that so overjoyed me? I took the picture of Anna, my daughter, from my previous blog entry, and turned it into a photorealistic painting which has been printed and my wife will have matted and framed for Anna's Grandmother. It is the image above. I also created a painting of Tom Jones from a concert capture of mine. I'm not sharing that image for now but I have included a detail in which you can see the brush strokes and style below. I have some project plans that I may reveal as I move forward.



Finally, we learned some additional critical printing preparation steps for enhancing the painterliness of our work and made a few prints. And then Fay explained many, many marketing tips and processes from handling the work in the presence of clients to titling, signing and numbering limited editions: the Ka-Ching portion of the program. It was surreal and filled with Fay's personal experiences and emotions.

Now, you may not be able to venture out to the West Coast to attend a Lepp Class with Fay, but there are other options. She has two tutorial DVDs available including the one I bought: produced in conjunction with Kelby Training. She has two more coming, one of which will be of particular interest to animal/pet aficionados. She is also touring with a number of other teaching Pros this year so you might want to check the Kelby Training website for that.

As always, I want to be clear that I am not affiliated with Lepp Institute as other than a normal student. I am also not affiliated in any way with Fay Sirkis or Kelby Training and receive no compensation or gratuity for sharing experiences. I should also disclaim that I have purchased wine made by Hal Schmitt (one half owner of Lepp) for my wife for Christmas but I am not reviewing it here or elsewhere.

Travel safe!

Dwight