RB Photo and Design

Its been 6 months today since we lost our Charlie. I love you my bestest pal and miss you so much....

This is some of the best advice I have ever received. K eep I t S imple S tupid. The next time you are editing an image, take a moment and ask yourself if what you are doing is really enhancing the image or are you trying to improve a mediocre image. With programs out there like Photoshop and Portrait Professional, it is very easy nowadays to do all kinds of things to our images. Adding texture layers, doing selective coloring and softening a persons skin are super simple. But are these effects really enhancing your images? If the image is awesome to begin with why add these effects? Now I am not saying that editing effects have no place in photography, there are plenty of instances where adding a slight vignette will greatly enhance the subject matter of the image and there will always be that person whose images can benefit from some cloning and skin softening but it is very easy to overdue the editing and ruin a picture that on its own would have been great. I see a lot of portrai...

When setting up your subjects to photograph, avoid placing them in the center of the frame. Place them to the right or left of the frame leaving the empty space in front of the subject so they have room "to look into". Try using the rules of third. Placing your subject in one of the spots circled in the above image. Make sure your horizons are straight, and do not put your horizon in the center. Make a decision on which is more interesting, The sky/skyline or the foreground. Use diagonal lines to to draw the viewers attention to your subject. When photographing a group of people place them in a grouping that resembles a triangle or a circle surrounding one or two of the subjects. Watch out for trees and power lines "growing" out of your subjects head.Try to use backgrounds that are clean around your subjects head and aren't cluttered in the background. One last tip...Do not place your subject in the direct sunlight or facing the sun. Always place the sun behi...

I am going to be spending the weekend working on all the websites and facebook pages updating them to reflect the changes in our business model and pricing.keep checking back to see all the changes!

Have you ever went to a studio to have your pictures taken and the photographer had a large box or umbrella set up with a flash shooting in it and wonder why they do that? Well there are two reasons for this. One the umbrella and soft box diffuses the light, two they make the light source larger. Both of these reasons gives the light a softer appearance and softens the edges of the shadows. You get the same effect on a cloudy day. The clouds will diffuse the suns harsh light giving you nice soft light that doesn't have harsh shadows. So the next time you are taking a picture of your family, instead of popping up the built in flash, find a large window that the sun is shining thru and throw a white sheet over it and use that for your lighting.

Cropping off body parts. In general, you shouldn't crop off body parts, esp at the joints. I know that sometimes photographers do crop off body parts, but if you look they are almost never cropped off at a joint (there are some exceptions). The reason you don't crop a body part at the joint is it gives the subject a very unnatural appearance. In most cases it looks like the limb has been amputated. if you are going to crop off a limb then do it in between the joints. Examples of good places to crop are on the shin, thigh, forearm and abdomen. Places you shouldn't crop at are the ankle, knee, waist, wrist or elbow. As with every rule their are exceptions, but for the most part this a rule that is good to follow 99% of the time.

If you haven't heard of Creative Live, you are missing out! They put on free online workshops/seminars. There have been some awesome sessions from Zack Arias and Jasmine Star just over the last few months. There are a couple more coming up, Posing and Lighting with Bambi Cantrell on March 18th and Building your Wedding Photography Business with Jasmine Star on April 8th. There are plenty more workshops scheduled so go check it out: Creative Live