Bobs blog

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This past Sunday I decided to take the scooter (henceforth referred to as Buddy) for a ride.  I put on the protective leather jacket, leather gloves, polarized sunglasses and topped off the ensemble with my helmet.  Without a care in the world, or a destination for that matter, I gave the throttle a twist and I was off.  Buddy likes to go fast so she headed straight for highway 10/114 in the direction of High Cliff State Park.  The park is located on the northeast shore of Lake Winnebago.  The ride there was uneventful, cruising at 55 to 60mph all the way.

When I passed the park entrance it was as though somebody flipped the insect switch to on, overdrive actually.  To my dismay it was the first lake fly hatch of the year.  Crap!  I kept my mouth clamped tightly shut and my speed under 15mph.  All the specks you see in the photo above are not the result of a dirty camera, they are lake flies.  How do I explain lake flies to the uninitiated?  It is estimated the number of these bugs that hatch can number into the trillions!  There are so many of them they actually show up on Doppler radar, check it out.  They congregate in clouds by the tens of thousands and in the evening hover above anything warm.  If you look above your head you will see a column of lake flies, starting inches above your scalp and rising to about 10 feet.  When you move the column moves with you in an undulating motion, starting with the bottom and followed by the top.  The sound they make is also astonishing.  No soft hum, they are loud because there are so many of them.

Below I have included a few full size excerpts from the photo above for you to appreciate.  The photo was taken at the lime kiln ruins.  I also included a photo of the sign explaining these ruins.

After visiting the kiln I did a tour of the campgrounds and the park in general before an uneventful trip back home.

click photo for larger view

click photo for larger view

click photo for larger view

The project aim was to reduce the rusty look of the product.  After speaking with the client (Jeff Amstutz at A2Z Design) it was decided I would simply reduce the red color of the rust while maintaining the actual color of the caked dirt on the trenching belt.  Here is the original look.

I took the file into Lab color to render the color on the 16 foot boom arm and belt completely neutral.  I then masked back the areas of dirt and brushed back partial colors in select areas.  I also created an alpha channel based on the luminosity layer and applied that to the mask to bring back partial color in areas based on brightness.  I then flattened the image, converted to cmyk where I enhanced the yellows, saturated colors and enhanced contrast and sharpness.This is a simplified version of a 2 hour retouch job.  Here are the results.

This project stems from an earlier job where the end files were in black and white (gray scale).  For that project the background needed to be black and I needed to add motion to the belt, as though it was running.

The other image associated with this project was more difficult.  Still, it needed motion, however one of the steel plates on the belt had no teeth, it had a blade instead.  That blade needed to be removed and replaced with teeth.  After cannibalizing a plate, teeth and bolts from other areas of the file I was able to distort and warp them into place to make the necessary changes.

Who says Friday the 13th is unlucky?  I got to dance with my daughters on Friday, February 13th during the annual Town Of Menasha Daddy Daughter Dance at The Wave.  Linda (my wife) and I also photograph couples at the event.  There were over 300 people at the event this year and we photographed nearly 100 couples.

The evening began with a short touching speech regarding the importance of father – daughter relationships after which dinner was served.  Buffet style chicken, criss cut fries, salad, veggies and cake.  Music immediately followed dinner.  Imagine nearly 200 girls ages 5 to 12 screaming to High School Musical songs.  There was one slow dance set, otherwise it was dance til’ you drop.  Here are a few shots of my daughters and some chunky old guy, er…  me.  And NO I didn’t wear jeans, that was only to haul equipment and set up.  I changed into a suit.

As the temperature rises cabin fever loosens its grip.  This past weekend the family and I ventured to Heckrodt Wetland Reserve for an afternoon of sunshine and fresh air.  It was definitely wet, with the snow melting, but there was not much wildlife to see.  Half way around the trail loop we had racked up sightings of one amazing gray squirrel and a crow.  Suddenly, somebody said “did you see this animal”.  She was pointing to the base of a tree at the time.  I found myself looking square into the eyes of an albino Guinea Pig.  HUH?  A rare sight in the Wisconsin woods any time of the year, bot more so in the winter.  We informed a naturalist of our find.  He sent somebody to collect the little guy.

However, looking at this fellow inspired my next Photoshop tip.  How to remove red eye.  A common problem with point and shoot cameras.  Check out my “Bobs Photoshop Quick Tips” page for more on this.

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.