Portrait of a Diver...or How to Express Joy Without Even Trying...(but with a Lot of Photoshop!)

The original...10 layers in photoshop

...and two views of different little tweaks of the layers...bringing some layers forward and changing opacity on others...I'm not sure which one I like best...what do you think?

I was feeling pretty low today after I heard that the man I photographed had passed away, and I wasn't able to sleep at all, so I wanted to make something really alive of someone filled with joy. My daughter's diving teacher, Jeff Kunselman, has so much joy when he dives that for the past couple of summers I have been photographing him and making him a gift as a thank you for passing that kind of joy to Zoe, and this is what I came up with tonight. A couple of weeks ago, I shot him diving off the high dive, which he does all the time during class, just for the fun of it, (remember, when you shoot action, make sure to put your shutter speed at above 250 or else your picture will be mush) and then tonight I put down layers, ten of them, of him in his various stages of dive. I removed all of the opacity of nine of the layers, then worked on removing the environment around him with the eraser tool and the magnetic lasso tool, which I absolutely adore...it makes everything so much easier all the way around...and played with the hue and saturation of each layer. Then I duplicated the shot and made each different shot a different color and duplicated and flattened the whole thing and put those layers on top of the whole thing, and I started playing with moving the layers slightly up , down and to the side, and working with different opacities and moving layers around to see which layers should go closer to the top. I made an additional layer of just him standing on the board and enlarged it with the transform tool, then adjusted hue and saturation of him so that it looked right. You can tell that he just loves to dive, and it made me feel a lot better just working on it. I am really going to work on feeling the joy every day from now on.

Tell Them How Much You Love Them. A Lesson I Learned.

Today was a day like every other day. I catered to my children's whims. They fought anyway. I planted flowers. I did some laundry. And a man that I photographed last month died.

It was a casual thing. I was there, he was there. Someone said something funny. He laughed. I took his picture. I posted it with the rest of the pictures I took that day. No one bought it. No big deal. It wasn't his big day. He just happened to be there with a great big deep laugh coming out of his robust frame, his blue eyes crinkling at the corners; a kindly giant kneeling among a bevy of flitting butterfly princesses. I sent it as a gift anyway. And then he died. I took the last picture that was taken of him. They thanked me. I sobbed. And I hugged my family tight.

Proof that it's Not the Size of the Wand, It's the Magic the Wand Possesses

before painter

after painter

We just got home from our Watercolor junket, and I had to do a quickie painting of the spectacular WaterSound, Florida dunes and St. Helen Park in Inlet Beach, Florida. I need to mention that these shots were taken with a point and shoot camera (!) (because everyone in myu class only had point and shoots, so I wanted to shoot with them to show them how to make the most out of their cameras) which was pretty cool for me...I had never used one before, and I was impressed with the quality of the pictures, as well as the video and underwater features of the Olympus Stylus. Very much fun. I'm shooting in Reno and Lake Tahoe next week, as well as hanging out with our goos friends, the Dennis's and the the Skowroneks. Let me know if you want me to hang out and point and shoot with you. Even if you own a DSLR.

Light, Shadow, and Sand Castles with the Olympus Stylus

Today the beginning photography class I'm teaching in Watercolor, Florida moved east on Highway 30A to Rosemary Beach to shoot light and shadow at a sand castle building class. As I mentioned earlier, no one has SLR's, just point and shoots, so I punted, bought a point and shoot, and am teaching the class with that. Although mine is a cool one...it goes underwater for up to 30 minutes, (and got shrieks and gasps at the pool when my youngest, TT, ran over to my beach bag, grabbed it, and jumped with it onto her little crab float into the pool last night with a giant splash, )everyone knows that if you backlight with a point and shoot, you usually get a perfectly exposed background with totally dark, non-detailed faces. Well, it seems that this bad boy Olympus Stylus has the ability to meter on shadow and then transfer its findings to the big picture, so I, of course, didn't have a care in the world. But what about everyone else in the point and shoot world? The answer, my friends, is fill flash. While using a flash in the day time sounds counter intuitive, fill flash will fill in those harsh shadows like nobody's business, and You will be a photography hero in no time when your family sees their bright, shiny faces in pictures, while while still maintaining a nice shadow balance, which means that while your shot will still allow the highlights and shadow to shine through, it won't look all boring and blown out. Everyone's sand castles looked outstanding from our 9 a.m. till 11 a.m. shoot...I'm proud of my class! I can't wait to upload the pictures to show you! By the way, if you have any photos that look a certain way and you can't understand why, email them to me at photobarb@aol.com with a description of what you did, if possible, and I will try to let you know how to change it out the next time. Remember, taking pictures is supposed to be fun!!

It's Not the Size of the Wand. It's the Magic the Wand Posesses.

It's not the size of the wand. It's the magic the Wand posesses that counts. Today was the first day of my photography seminar in Watercolor, Florida. It is a beginning photography class, but one thing I didn't think of was to tell everyone to bring SLR type cameras, I just figured that if they were interested in photography, they would own a camera that you can put in manual mode...that means you, dear reader. If you are interested in photography and you aren't putting your new fancy new DSLR camera in manual mode, you might as well have a point and shoot, because the camera will be in charge of you, and not the other way around.

Well, today, every single person brought a point and shoot! I am here to tell you, as a person who has never had close personal contact with a point and shoot before, I pretty much freaked out, because everyone had questions that I wasn't sure I could answer. I went into instant freak out, panic, shove down a dozen donuts and panic some more mode, and then, just as I was set to embark on the next dozen, something inside me snapped and I just let go.

I don't know if it was the rain, the sweet faces of my absolutely cool students, Brian, Margo, Elliot, Jeffrey, Sarah from Alabama, Sarah from Tennessee, Jennifer, Julia, Jason, and Karen, or just a sugar high, but all of a sudden I just started giggling. If you can't beat them, join them, I always say. I called my trusty hubby and he ran out and got me a very cute little pink Olympus Stylus that seems to be indestructible...you can take it underwater to ten feet for a very long time, drop it from ten feet, change the ISO, adjust for macro, super macro, movement, blur, adjust the lighting for daylight, backlight, tungsten, and a couple of different flourescents, shoot in the rule of thirds insteadof those center weighted guys. I was impressed...It pretty much does everything except the laundry for you...gosh darn it...well, I guess that's why I have my hubby, now isn't it? So, in typical Barbara Stitzer fashion, I am learning as I go, and am for the duration of this whole course am going to become one with my mega macho pink camera, (whom I've named Pookie, of course, ) and then I'll show you what I did with it...and I am willing to bet that it's going to be pretty gosh darn cool. I'll be back after I snarf another donut.

Upcoming Workshops and Shoots

I just shipped my equipment to Florida for my upcoming photo workshop and photo shoots in the amazing Watercolor, Florida. I have rented a cool Victorian House, and will be doing a day on window light, a day on studio light, and a day and an evening on sunset shoots, even if the weather isn't holding up, because in life, light is crazy, even is Arizona, where there are 300 days of sunshine a year, and especially in somewhere like Florida, where it's almost guaranteed to rain every day. When I lived on Kaua'i, it rained every day, and, let me tell you, I should have bought stock in the Glad company, because the Ziplock baggie was my best friend.

Watercolor has special characteristics, and with these characteristics, challenges...the sand is super white, which can throw your meter off majorly, and the water clear and reflective; you can see your feet even when you're 30 yards off shore, and the light bouncing off the water can work a number on the old meter, as well. Also, there are a million, billion people out there...so I'm going to cover how to keep your cool when someone walks through your shot, and how to keep your clients focused, which is a biggie...people love to look around when there are spectators around, even when they're paying you good money to make them look your way. ;) They also love to talk to each other...it's like photographing people who are eating--don't do it! You have to make them ignore the crowds...a surefire way? It's covered in my seminar!

Reno, Nevada July 23-29 Photography Extravaganza

A couple of images from our "downtime" in Jamaica. TT wouldn't let the dolphin kiss her...I shot this of us with my 20mm lens while waist deep in the ocean. Thrillseeker I am.

Well folks, the dates are set for my Photography Extravaganza in Reno, Nevada, July 23-29. I am available tophotograph you and your families, and also to teach you how to take better photos. I'm almost full of bookings, thanks to you all, and to Jennifer Dennis, but I thought I'd throw it out there, in case one or two more want to have their portraits and paintings done by me, or if you would like me to take you out shooting. I have two sets of friends there, the Skowroneks, who probably rank as the best people to have the worst times with and still be able to laugh really really hard about it afterwards, and the Dennis's. I was pregnant with Zoe when Jennifer Dennis was pregnant with her Natalie, and we just bonded tight and stuck. The Skowroneks hike a lot and they have told me of some amazing spots, which is really great, because all I remember about Reno is that when I was a little girl, my father, a gambler from wayyyyy back, got a wild hair to go to Reno. We drove all the way up there from Long Beach, California, and when we got there, there were two casinos and a lot of absolutely nothing. My dad got out of the car, and a guy stumbled out of the casino and threw up on his shoes. My mom got out of the car to help my dad, fell over the curb, and split her lip. Neither one said a word. Dad stepped out of his shoes, they both got back in the car, and we drove the 9 hours home in silence. Now I hear that everything is much different. Reno is a fabulous, bustling town, filled with breathtaking vistas to take beautiful photos of your family. Hooray!