I couldn't resist!

Sorry for the delay in posting--it's been a busy few weeks.

I was supposed to be there as lighting director and a support to my new student who was making her debut behind the camera. Luna was doing an anthropology project for a class at the University of Hawaii when she contacted me. She was to explore the culture of a field that was unknown--but of interest to her. She wanted to explore fashion photography. She assisted me on a few shoots and took a bunch of notes, but I felt that she needed to actually conduct a shoot for the project to be valid.

Luna took on the challenge and set out to find her first model. She found Esther. Esther was indeed very pretty, but she was as much of a novice at modeling as Luna was at professional photography. Hmmmm...new photographer working with a new model...could be a recipe for disaster!


It wasn't! Esther was a great sport as I made Luna make the tough decisions about the lighting (with a little guidance) and as she built the set. Luna did NOT make the classic first time photographer mistake--she did not freeze and take way too long between shots. She kept shooting and directing Esther (with some whispered directions from yours truly).

I may have helped more than the usual assistant, but it was definitely Luna's shoot--she determined the lighting components and took on the task of directing a new model. Esther was great too. She was goood fun and was easy to work with. I think that it was a great success for both ladies.

Oh yeah, I was looking through the viewfinder at one point and Esther was in what looked like a very natural pose. Instinct took over (I've been pushing the shutter when a pretty girl is in front of my camera for thirty years, so I just starting shooting!) and I grabbed about 8 shots. The photograph of Esther that leads this story was one of them!

Liquify Filter

Sorry, this one’s being posted in multiple places because it’s a great technique. There is an incredibly wonderful filter at the top of the filter drop down menu called “Liquify.” You need to play with this tool if you haven't discovered it yet. Eddie Tapp introduced it to me several years ago and I quite frankly forgot about it. I ‘re-discovered” it this year and it as become once of my favorite retouching tools. It works by moving pixels around in some unusual ways. The filter has several tools to choose from. The two that I use most often are the forward warp and pucker tools. There are others like “bloat” and “swirl,” but I don’t have much use for them yet. You can also mask off areas that you do not want the tools to effect.

When and how do I use these tools? EVERY model will have a shot where the pose is great and the expression is terrific, but the body position creates a “roll” of skin that looks very unflattering and makes her look heavier than she is. I use the forward warp tool to push that roll of skin back where it belongs...and ”voila!” she is back in the shape that actually represents her body! I use the hash mark in the center of the brush as my start point to push the pixels.

I have every model “arch their back and suck in the bely.” It creates a flattering pose. I shoot fast and sometimes I catch a shot where she relaxed--or the angle extends her belly a little too much. The Pucker tool does a great job of tightening a loose stomach.

I mostly use the forward warp tool to open a model’s eyes a little. Sometimes a model will have a lazy eye where one will appear more closed than the other. While this is a natural phenomena that occurs to a degree in almost every photograph, sometimes it can be too distracting. Other times you’ll have a great model who gives you a wonderful expression but in doing so closes her eyes too much. This was the case in the photos below. Joanne Guillermo is a lot of fun to work with. She is a beautiful model with many very natural expressions. The smile in these photos is real and genuine, but in doing so her eyes wound up squinting a little too much. I opened her eyes by VERY gently using the Forward Warp tool in the Liquify Filter. The cropped versions of this commercial shot show the before and after results of using this tool.



















You need to use these tools with caution because they are very powerful and you can easily get an unnatural looking distortion. You can “Undo” one step, but as far as I’ve seen there is no History trail to revert to--you have to start over if you go to far and are beyond a single step mistake. Play with the controls on the right side of the dialog box to find the settings that work for you.