Articles about shooting portraits

Michael Albany in Itailian is Michael Albany

 

I received a message from a Facebook friend this morning telling me that they saw my Free Portraits for the Unemployed on an Italian web site. You can view that article (and a slide show) here: la Repubblica.it. Here is the English translation:

“Just a photo to beat the crisis? Maybe not, but Michael Albany (look at the website) is convinced it will help to find work. In fact, Michael, a photographer from Pennsylvania, since last summer offers free his professionalism for the unemployed. Inside the crowded job meeting Michael rented a booth and portrays those who need a nice photo to be included on the curriculum and especially on their online profile LinkedIn, the site will soon be finding work in the U.S.. Thus, people who stand in line for a portrait, first passing through the hands of a makeup artist and then in front of the goal of the photographer, without spending a penny for a service that typically costs $ 225. “I can not do anything to help people – explains Michael – I want to do it more often but I have a home. In fact, he is a victim of the crisis. The job shortage is compelled to sell their houses to go forward. Past job meetings in which he participated, on 28 January in Philadelphia, has worked continuously for five hours, photographing 170 people, without taking a break to eat or smoke a cigarette. (di PAOLO RIBICHINI). “Unfortunately I could not please everyone, and so 50 people who were lined up, went away empty-handed. In the future I hope to do this at least every week or every month” (by Paolo Ribichini). Above, Michael Albany”

I get thank you’s from all over the world for offering this service to the unemployed for free. In fact, I just received a thank you from Marta Machesi of Italy while I was writing this. You are more than welcome Marta! If we meet in person, coffee is on me!

Please read more by clicking the link:
Although it is great to be globally known, or some may say even famous, the thing is that these people that I photograph are unemployed and need your help. They aren’t looking for a handout or even a bail out, they are looking for a job. They just want to work, to earn a decent living, to take care of their families. They want a chance to start over.

I know how that feels. I lost my ‘real job’ not that long ago and it gave me an opportunity. I got the opportunity to take my part time photography business full time. It is a dream come true in some ways and a nightmare in others. I get to do what I love and what I am good at. I get to think about the one thing that gets me excited all the time. That part is great!

But the other side, the nightmare side, is the fact that businesses aren’t spending as much money on photography as they used to. Everyone who has a camera thinks they can take photos that will do fine for the bride or their company or their friends. And some do, but many don’t. In the mean time becoming a successful photographer is getting to be as difficult as becoming a rock star.

Is it possible? Sure it is, but what is the cost? The cost to me so far is my life savings, my house and many, many 20 hour workdays. I can honestly say that I am quickly becoming a ‘famous’ photographer. But guess what. Like those I photograph, I don’t really care if I am famous, I just want to work. I want to do what they want to do. I want to get up in the morning and have a job to go to, in my case, a gig, a shoot, anything that puts the camera in my hand.

If you don’t have a need for a photographer, that’s fine. Do you need a receptionist, a medical tech, an experienced business person, a forklift operator, a driver, a data entry person, a… The list is very long. Stop saving those few Dollars, Euros, Rubels or whatever and hire somebody!

If we get people working, they will spend the money they earn, that money will go to the company that hires someone else and eventually someone will spend it on your company, service or product. If you hold on to it and you don’t put out a helping hand, there will be no relief from this crisis and you think we’re in a shit storm now?

Be your neighborhood’s, your city’s, your state’s, your country’s, or even our world’s solution. Hire someone. And if you need a professional photographer I probably know someone that can help you out. One of them might even be me.

Until next time…
Happy Shooting!

One Handed Photoshop – Basic Retouching

 

Well, it’s Monday and I have another One Handed Photoshop Tutorial for you! I apologize for the length of time it takes to make these. The videos themselves only take a few minutes its the typing the blog post that takes time. I am typing one handed after all. Drat! Now its Tuesday!

Anyway, I got such a positive response from the first 1 Handed tutorial I just had to keep going. That and the fact that I will be one handed for at least 3 more weeks. This time I took the same image and removed a few distractions and cleaned up a little razor rash.

You can view the full tutorial right after you click the link!
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Not photography related…

But it is photographer related (well I am in it anyway)! See me on Fox 29 or watch it here:

Happy Shooting!

One Handed Photoshop – Make The Image Pop!

 

You probably know already that ice is slippery, but did you know it’s sneaky too? It is when its black ice. It was hiding in my driveway last week and it took my feet right out from underneath me. I remember hearing a distinct snap too. Then I realized that snap was my wrist. So here I sit typing a blog post with one hand. The other is in a cast and itching like mad!

I was due to write my weekly post over the weekend but now I can only type so much and its less than half as much when using only one hand. So I got to thinking, what can I do one handed that I can put on my site? 1 Handed Photoshop Tutorials were born!

Below is the first in what I hope will only be a short series of tutorials that can be done quickly and easily, and with only one hand, in Photoshop. This first one is on how to use the High-Pass filter to make your images pop out at the viewer. Click the link to watch the video and take a look!

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Free Shots 2 – A Guests View

Well if you haven’t heard yet on January 28th I did Free Business Portraits for the Unemployed again. Each time I set up an event I try to have a different team with me. The idea is that I want let more people know about others and the challenges the unemployed person faces.

This time my team consisted of Theresa Rivers, Sol Levy, Annie Nason, Susan Schroeder and Linda Slodki. All were of great help and you can see us working together in my previous post Joblessness in the LA Times and the video in that post. Linda felt the need to say more about the event so for the first time ever below is a “Guest Blog” entry.

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Joblessness in the LA Times

 

In my last post I told you how we had an amazing turnout for the job fair where I was doing Free Business Portraits for the unemployed. 6400 unemployed people in any on place is an amazing amount of people. So amazing in made the LA Times! Tina Sussman wrote an article titled “A snapshot of joblessness”. In the article you will get a strong sense of the feelings of people that attended the event. I strongly suggest you read the article.

Additionally Scott Lewis of Scott Lewis Images to some photos of the event that are outstanding. In the article you can click on my image on the left column to see them (I’m the bald guy in the purple shirt with a camera in front of my face).

I put together a little video of stills and some video clips so you can see the crowds and perhaps get a feel for what I was trying to do at the event. You can take a look at it below.

It was a humbling day. So many needing just a job. They don’t want handouts, they want a job; a chance to prove they can do the job and do it well.

I also wanted to thank Annie Nason, Sol Levy, Linda Slodki, Theresa Rivers and Susan Schroeder for all their help and a special thank you to Michelle Buckman of Fox 29 in Philadelphia who allowed me to be a part of the event.

Until next time, Happy Shooting!

6400+ Unemployed at Job Fair

 

Over 6400 people came to the “Jobs Gone Wild” job Fair Thursday January 28th. 6400 unemployed people in one place! Over 200 of them wanted Free Business Portraits. Unfortunately I was only able to get to a little over 170 in the 4.5 hours I had to shoot. I wanted to stay and photograph them all but the facility had to kick me out due to another event schedule just a few hours later.

I arrived at 5:45am to begin setting up and to be interviewed by Michelle Buckman of Fox 29 News in Philadelphia. When I arrived fire alarms were screeching in our ears. After about 20 minutes they stopped temporarily. Then just 1 minute before we were to go live on Fox they went off again! Luckily they were just testing them and we were able to have them turned off in time for us to go on air. The interview is below. (and yes I have a cold)

I took over 550 images that day and I took the time to talk to each person I photographed. My job is not only to snap a portrait but to make people relax for that portrait. I will be blogging about the event again soon. I will have images of the photoshoot, the event and of course the lines too! I will also be adding some of the finished portraits when I get through all of them. Please check back often to learn more about how the event went. I was also interviewed by a reporter, Tina Susman of the LA Times and as soon as I know when that interview will be published I will be sure to add a link to it.

Moving forward I am looking for location hosts. Anyone that has the space where I can continue these events please contact me. I had to turn away over 50 people and I want desperately to help them all. As a location photographer I do not have a studio to use and I need a space that is in Philadelphia for these people. I am open to planning other events outside of the Philadelphia area as well. If you or your company can help, contact me via the Contact Michael page of this site.

If your company is planning layoffs, Free Business Portraits for those being released gives your employees a better chance at landing their next position. Please contact me so we can work together on helping those that need help the most.

Thank you all, Stay Tuned, and until next time…

Happy Shooting!

Only A Week Away!

Last year I created Free Business Portraits for the Unemployed to give back to my community. I wanted to do something for those around me that had found themselves without a means of paying their bills, wondering how they could ever afford a photo shoot if it is a challenge to put food on the table. I have been there. I know what it’s like to not have the money to pay the bills, to put all the bills in a hat and pull out the one you are going to pay this month. I have been without a home too. I have spent weeks living in my car, sleeping in it or on sofas. I know what it’s like to have nothing and I never want to be there again, ever!

I said to myself one day last summer, “what can I do to give back to all those that helped me? What can I do that will make people feel good and that will help them out of the jam they find themselves in?” What can I don’t have a lot of money, I don’t have a huge house or even a couch the average person can sleep on. I can take pictures and I do that well. I can take peoples portraits and I can help them look their best when recruiters and potential employers look at their resume’ on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. That is something I can do!

So back in August of 2009 I did my first Free Business Portraits for the Unemployed. I was impressed by how grateful everyone was and how it seemed to be big news that I was doing such a thing. I’m still not sure why being nice to people is news, but it got the word out to people and we were busy all day. I was able to make people smile because I was there to help in an unconventional way. There is nothing in this world as gratifying as lending a helping hand. Nothing feels so good as when you look into a person’s smiling face and they say, “Thank you.”

When Michelle Buckman of Fox 29 asked me if I wanted to do it again, how could I say no? So this time next week I will be making final preparations for the next session of Free Business Portraits for the Unemployed. This time we are going to be shooting at a job fair. Not just any job fair but Fox 29 (http://www.myfoxphilly.com) and JobCircle’s (http://www.jobcircle.com) “Jobs Gone Wild!” job fair! (http://www.jobsgonewild.com/)

These events are a tone of work for all involved. If you think about it, even the participating companies have a heck of an investment. There is the space they have to rent there is the booth (and trust me, they ain’t cheap), the staff to staff the booth, the onsite quick interview, the follow-up and review of all the resumes and inquiries they get and that only gets them to the point where a standard ad on a job board gets them. That’s a lot of work!

Are you giving back to yourself? Are you working as hard as these companies are working to land your next position? If you are trying to help place someone, are you coaching them to make sure that when they attend these events or go on interviews that they are dressed properly? Do you ave the same information on your LinkedIn or Facebook account as you do on your resume’? Do you have an image in person that matches your picture on social networking sites?

If you are not 100% with any of these questions, you want to attend this job fair. This event is going to be different. There will be the usual resume’ critiques and the companies looking to hire, but that is about where similarity ends. There is also going to be a personal stylist. Adrienne Simmons of “PS I Love You” (http://www.psiloveyoullc.com/) to give advice on your attire and your look. Does it match the position you are striving for? Or are you dressing for an entry level position?

Don’t forget to come see me too! Get your picture taken! Why not? You’re dressed nice anyway, you may as well get a good portrait done. Besides, your parents or spouse will love having an updated picture of you!

I hope to see you on the 28th at the Wachovia Center in South Philadelphia. Bring your resume and your smile!

Until next time, Happy Shooting!

HDR In Photography

Unless you have been living in a vacuum for the last few years you have heard of the latest trend in still photography, HDR (High Dynamic Range).  Everything from real estate to portraits to advertising is using HDR as a way to grab the viewer’s attention.  Even I have written a couple of pieces on HDR and how to get the effects that really make an image pop.

Is it a trend or the future of photography? I believe that the trend has passed and that HDR is here to stay. More photographers are using HDR everyday and with that, more ways to get ‘the look’ are being used and discussed.

Is there a best way to get the HDR look in your images? I don’t feel that any one technique has yet emerged as the single ‘best’ way. Clearly HDR soft’s (http://www.hdrsoft.com/) Photomatix and Photomatix Pro are the current choice of the majority of users today. Of course many are using the HDR component in Photoshop as well.  It just seems that Photomatix is a better tool for tone-mapping than what is included in Photoshop, so far.
 

I used Photomatix on the image to the right, the image above and the self portrait in my last tutorial and many images you see on this site. For me it works better than the HDR tools in Photoshop. With the tools in Camera RAW of Lightroom 2 (and soon LR3) the hyper real, super sharpening of the James Effect became available. By combining those two processes alone the possibilities become endless.

No matter what tool is used as a solution HDR and super sharpening is here to stay. So what does that mean for your photography?  Should you use an HDR process in every image you create?  Probably not but ultimately, that is up to you. How and where you apply it, the sky and your creativity are the only limits.  The fact is that you should be at least considering it, learning about it and figuring out how it may fit into your workflow.

If you are the client rather than the photographer, what does HDR mean to you?  HDR means that more of the colors you see in real life will come out in the images you want and need. Whether a simple tone mapping in a portrait, a full multi image HDR or having the full dynamic range included in your advertising HDR is going to give you a more appealing and dare I say, more dynamic, image.

HDR is coming on full speed ahead and for me it is the greatest thing since photography went digital.  In each image I take I wonder how I can generate the feeling that I had when I decided to capture the image.  Now the processing is as much of an adventure as the photography itself.  This is a chance for photographers to jump ahead of their peers; an opportunity to be the next leader in photography.

Until next time, Happy Shooting!

“True” HDR Portraits (You Know, with Bracketing?)

On my last tutorial I received many comments on how changing the exposure level of a single raw file then creating an HDR image is not a ‘true’ HDR image. So I shot a bracketed self portrait and generated a new tutorial.  This is the image that resulted.

100104-Me_1510hdr

I am not sure how letting the computer in my camera do the bracketing is any less ‘true’ than doing the same thing manually in Lightroom or Photoshop.  But, I come from a purist photography background; as in I shot film, developed film and have lost years of my life in a dark room (go into the darkroom at 7 in the morning and come out and it’s still 7am, on a different day!), and I am actually fond of the smell of fixer.

I will admit that there are many, many photographs out there today that don’t look anywhere close to real. Some are meant to look that way but many more try to pass themselves off as some type of surreal reality.  I want people to know that you can achieve some very true to life images using HDR processing.

This morning I took many self portraits while bracketing 1/3 to a full stop. I shot sets of 3, 5 and 7 frames.  I found that when doing self portraits it is a bit more difficult to sit still than you think it is.  I was using a programmable shutter release (Nikon’s MC-36), my D200, one SB800 with a grid spot, and one SB900 for fill and of course a tripod.

In the tutorial below I start out with the three bracketed images and using Adobe Lightroom2, Photoshop CS4, Photomatix Pro3 and Imagenomic Noiseware Pro and I make what I think is a very true HDR self portrait. I do it all in about 15 minutes too! It’s actually very easy. Check it out! (tutorial should open in a new tab/window)

clickhere

This tutorial won’t fit on YouTube so if you want to share it, feel free but send your friends to this blog post.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and I think this should satisfy all those that wanted a ‘True HDR Portrait’.

Until next time,

Happy Shooting!