Bobs blog

Hi all.  It was kind of a do nothing weekend at my house.  We played games and watched movies.  I want to cover how to make a static photo a little more interesting.

I shot this photo a few years ago and I like it but it doesn’t seem to draw your interest to the main subject, the bride and groom.  Here is how I decided to resolve that.

1. I used the cropper and selected the entire file.  I then checked the box in the menu bar titled “perspective” and pulled the top right corner down a bit and the bottom right corner up a bit to reduce the left to right receding perspective.

2. I duplicated the background layer and changed the blending mode to “multiply”.  This darkens the entire photo substantially.

3.  I added a layer mask to the duplicate layer and used the elliptical marquee tool to create a selection where I wanted the “spotlight” to fall.  By using the “transform selection” option under the “select” drop down menu I was able to skew and elongate the ellipse into the shape I desired.  I then filled my selection on the layer mask with black.  I did this again for the spotlight facing the opposite direction.

4.  Once I had my spotlights laid in I blurred the layer mask 15 pixels to create a soft edge on the spotlight.

This whole process took about 5 minutes and now the photo has an X created by the two spotlights which leads the eye directly to the subject.

• a fleshy underground stem or root serving for reproductive and food storage
• type genus of the Tuberaceae: fungi whose fruiting bodies are typically truffles
  wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
• a person who slides down a snowy slope on an innertube, (Wisconsinese).

Yes, that is right, I went tubing with my kids this weekend at Calumet County Park.  This is the very place I learned how to ski.  The ski hill is now a tubing hill, no skiing.  Put your tube under the rope tow, YOU lay on top of the rope then you are dragged up the hill.  Point the tube down the hill, hop on and hang on!  What, no brakes on these things, greeeeeaaaattt.  Dig your heels in and disappear into a thick cloud of snow, thats how to stop.  Scrape the snow off your frozen face then do it all over again.  Wheeeeee.

This is an example of my Photoshop work.  The model was actually on the cliff face (hazard pay?).  I extended the photo to the left by adding more lake and trees, added a sky, changed the models shoes, removed the rope holding the model, altered the rock structure on the cliff, added the pepper plant, turned the peppers red, added extra peppers and leaves, added the small plants to the (new) cracks in the cliff face, added a shadow behind the pepper plant, altered the models skirt then applied color and contrast adjustments to achieve the final look.  Whew!

What I did this weekend can be summed up in one word….   photograph hockey!  (Yes, I know that is really two words.  Consider it a Bushism.)  Thirty-six total hours of driving, standing on the ice, photographing, selling photos, packing and unpacking gear.  That’s about it really, quite a dull existance.  I wish there was more.  Did I mention how a weekend like that completely wipes you out.

If I can get a few of the better photos I will update this post to include some shots.

It was a little chilly for Florida, but being from Wisconsin we braved the 60 degree temps and headed to the headed to the beach.

Hi everybody, this is my first ever blog post.  (Wow, you say, with a sarcastic lilt.)  Why don’t I start by telling you a  little about me.

Family

Me, Wife, Daughter #1, Daughter #2, 2 cats and 1 good ol’ dog.  Since we are kinda’ private people I won’t say much about them, other than acknowledging their existence.  I will post photos of them from time to time to prove they do exist.

Work

Ahh, this I can talk about.  I am employed by Image Studios.  We are a full service studio offering photography, video, post production retouching and soooo much more.  Go ahead and click on the Image Studios link to check us out, you know you want to.  I am a Photoshop retoucher which means I get to make our photographers already great images even better.  Or sometimes the Image is um….   not so great and needs some lovin’ up.  Thats when I get to have some fun.

I photograph weddings, events, or basically whatever somebody is willing to pay me for.  My site can be viewed at www.bobcashmanphotography.com.  I also do sports action, team, and individual photos.  Its hockey season now so I get to stand on the ice for up to 20 hours on a weekend.  This is more a test of will than anything else.  How much cold can one human endure.

Play

This category could go on and on and on.  I will keep it to my faves.

Favorite sport to play, tennis.  Am I any good?  Well….  good enough that it is fun for me and challenging for my opponent.

Best game for the Nintendo Wii, Mario Cart Wii, for now anyway.  I highly recommend racing via WiFi.  You race real people from anywhere in the world in real time.  You think you’re good racing the computer then you race real people and get your @&& kicked.

Camping.

My wife and I used to go into the forest and set up in the dispersed sites.  Imagine a 10 to 15 acre lake with only one camp site, set in the middle of the Nicolet National Forest in Wisconsin.  Or maybe take a goat path road (trail really) back to a trout stream where you see no other people for days.  That’s what we did.  Now with kids, we stick to state parks.  Its like camping on the freeway during rush hour but we have fun anyway.

Bicycling is great around here.  Many abandoned railroad beds have been converted to cycle trails in the Rails To Trails program.  Check out that link.  I do a lot of cycling with my family but mostly around town.

My warm weather ride is a Genuine Buddy 125 scooter.  Yea, yea, I know!  But it will do 60 mph on a flat and gets 85 mpg doing it, plus two wheels is infinitely more fun than four wheels.  I expect to put around 4000 miles on the scoot in 2009.