Photography "Unplugged" at Hakone Gardens, Saratoga

As many of you may know, I teach a fair number of advanced photoshop classes to many photographers near and far. They are really popular for the new inductees of digital imaging. Advanced photographers are interested as well. Unfortunately, a large majority of digital photographers have a "shoot now, fix later" approach to photography; only because they think they can.

Photographing a wedding or engagement with over 1,000 images, the "fix later" motto is neither reasonable, efficient, nor effective. Lighting is extremely important in making images come alive! For example, having a large light source behind you while you are shooting a group portrait will help you make a significant stride towards getting your subjects to love you (especially the older folks). They will look younger, as their wrinkles melt in the beautiful, even window light.

To prove my point, I did a wedding just yesterday with nothing more than a camera, a small Canon 580 EX Flash unit and capturing the images by following the light. Photography Judo or Photography Unplugged, if you will. Pushing and pulling my subjects to light them in resplendence. Enlisting the fastest force of nature as my ally, instead of battling it.

We shot in various locations, from the tea ceremony in the house to the challenging white balanced lighting within the buildings of the Hakone Japanese Gardens in Saratoga. Many of the group shots were shot at 2pm PST summer afternoon, under the harsh California sunlight. The end results however, are over 1,000 images that do not need to see the likes of a healing brush, or for that matter, any Photoshop at all.

Of course, this isn't all about photography and light. Without a beautiful bride and groom (Sophie and Jimmy), good photography can only go so far. On top of that, well deserved credit goes to Tiffany, the makeup artist whom I've worked with numerous times. She did a phenomenal job with the hair and makeup, that's for sure!

Photography "Plugged" into Photoshop

I love this image I shot on Saturday. It tells a beautiful story. Look at the elements in the image. A proud uncle giving his speech; his hand, adjusting his red tie in a splendid satisfaction. Master of Ceremony, an aura of enthutiastic charm surrounds him. The bride-to-be, touched, on the verge of tears. Her fiancé, next to her, a pensive smile. In the foreground, Uncle Richard, listening attentively, taking it all in, a beam of supportive approval.

It's a moment captured in time. Deliberative human emotions splashed with colorful personalities and characters. Yet, something is wrong. This photograph will probably pass us by as just a shot, not taking another look from us after the quick 1 second look....only because the essence is lost in technicality!

A complex scene as this, invites the viewer to explore the deep details of the image. To make the experience meaningful, detract the viewers from distractions and focus on the subjects that are important. To achieve that, remember the key rules.

1. Bright and colorful regions attract interests
2. Dark regions remove interest
3. Contrasty regions cause the viewers to pause.

Notice now that we have a few issues. Most of the technically interesting part of this image are found in the areas that we don't want the viewers to see. The bright and tall white vase in the foreground, Uncle Richard's white shirt, those utensils and glasses on the table, saturated colors creating major distractions. We really don't have any point of interest.

What we can do is to first convert the image to black and white so that we can fix the main issues in the photograph. We then tone down the uninteresting areas and increase the brightness and contrast on the faces. That by itself is half the battle. We then go into the details of retrieving the texture back into the faces that are overblown in highlights.

Then, finally, throw the colors back into the photograph by toning it down low to pull the viewers in since the bride is wearing such a beautiful red dress, red tie of the speaker, etc. We don't want to lose those. The image would have done well in B&W but a splash of color will make it look more exciting. It's a Chinese engagement after all and the color red is good luck! Note: Got a request to remove the vase completely. I suppose it's warranted. Cloning tool took me 2 minutes.

Voodoo PC - Envy in resplendence

We got a call for a last minute product photoshoot by a good old friend, Tony. Tony is one of the few friends that I trust. Over a decade ago, we worked and practiced judo together. He saw my interest in photography and referred me to photograph Sun Microsystems' tradeshow in Las Vegas. So, it's fair to say that he jump-started my Photography career. Thank you, Tony. You rock!!!

Fast forward ten years, Tony now works in Hewlett-Packard's Voodoo division. He wanted simple images for the blog, to show the world the packaging offerings of their latest and greatest Voodoo Envy 133. We were stoked. We get to lay our greedy little hands on the sleek machine of what looked like Bugatti of laptops. We picked up the item from Tony's office. He gave us a 5 minutes rundown on what the team needed. Then, off we went, back to the studio to shoot these resulting images.

Other than the iPhone, I never knew a product could get SO MUCH press coverage. After shooting the Envy, we retouched the images and sent them back to HP. Within a few hours, half a dozen blogs have our images on them and they were swarmed with comments from avid fans. It's covered in the following websites and blogs:

• The Next Bench - The official community of Voodoo
• Engadget - website on all cool gadgets
• Rahul Sood's blog - blog by the founder of Voodoo
• The Die Line - The leading package design blog.

We definitely felt privileged to play a part in the advertising of this ravishingly stylish machine that "blends art, innovation and performance for life".

- Michael Soo