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My last shooting with AirsoftXtreme, taken around 4-5 months ago (before I left Pinas). Magazine has already been released 2-3 months ago. I think its still available to buy.

Models: 
Abbie Delarama (Page Jeans,Smart, Skyflakes, AX babe, Mr. Donut etc.)
Carla Miranda (AX babe, FHM babe) http://www.fhm.com.ph/fhm-tv/sub/most-recent?gid=1036&mode=flv (she's the tall girl on the vid)
Wen (Sorry, dont know her last name and backgrounds)

MUA: Tia Pusit
Publisher: Christian Uybengkee

Assistant in Pose: Missy (I heard she did the current shooting with AX mag latest release)

BTS about the shooting: 
http://zirchsoftphotography.multiply.com/photos/album/92/Last_BTS_shooting_with_the_AX_group_AirsoftXtreme

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note: the background pic with the 2 old houses were taken last year when I visited a zoo here in Germany. Finally I made use of that photo, never published it anywhere before 

Im always inspired by the Fantasy Art artists from Deviantart. They often combine 4-10 photos, add alot of effects and heavy photomanipulation and end up to create a beautiful NEW photo. Surely this isn't 100% Photography anymore, but the very reason that the objects/subjects and every other element came from a different photo shows that this Fantasy Art cannot be created without the use of Photography. =)

 

The Lone Fantasy Warrior
Model: Carre Triguero
Heavy manipulated using 7 photos. The lonely warrior who walks her path from the darkside of modern technology that will eventually destroy us, to the world of mother nature by following her light of wisdom

 

Reaching for her Mind
Model: Abbie Delarama
Heavy manipulated using 3 photos for the background (came from the same set), and several hand shots (which are my hands hehehe). Many hands symbolizing the decision makings and life path settings of her life. Each hand wants to grab her. But with her neutral sad face, showing that she doesn't know what to choose. The wavy cloth behind her are the different path's she can choose from =)

 

Geisha Warrior
Model: Keith Quiozon
Heavy manipulated using 4 photos. The Geisha Warrior who walks her cold path to victory, without looking back, without looking at her past. Her life is where her sword swings =)

 

 

 

Something like these teapots would inspire many photographers to take a photo, A combination of form, colors and textures which just begs to be photograph.

I shoot this photo of a teapot in silhouette using 1 flash with CTO gel only. The flash was fired behind the textured paper.

 

 

 

EXIF Data:

Camera: Nikon D300
Exposure: 0.006 sec (1/160)
Aperture: f/11.0
Focal Length: 78 mm
Exposure: 0.00
ISO Speed: 100
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
 
The textures and gradient of the background really surprise me.

It is hard to say what is so attractive about minimalist still life and yet there is something about it. You can feel the texture, color and can easily distinguish it shapes and forms.

I can say that the lighting on this green teapot is not perfect due to its hard highlights showing on its surface.

A DIY stripbox was used to produce soft light on this shot. If i use a snoot or a gridspot it might produce a circle highlights instead of rectangle which I think is more unpleasing (imagine a white circle instead a rectangular highlights on the teapot).

The "steam" is actually a small cloth that I placed on the background and well out focus which read as puff of steam: A classic example of using people's expectations to persuade them that they are seeing something other than what is there...

This is  lighting diagram for the green teapot.

By combining the two light setup 1 flash fired behind the textured paper and 1 flash fire using DIY stripbox I produced various output by changing frames and composition...



For more tea pot checkout my Tea Time Project here

Cheers! and Happy Shooting!

This was very simple shot. Both in composition and execution, and one perfect example of producing an image of an everyday object from an unusual and dramatic viewpoint.

I use 1 flash to lit this subject and a translucent white fabric as the base for the leaf...

The setup:

1 flash with snoot fired underneath the translucent fabric.

I place various leaves as subject on top of my reflector(its translucent fabric act as large soft bank that gives soft light) and framed it up with my camera using 50mm + extension tubes then make a few test of exposure to obtain optimum details in my subjects...

the output:

 view complete set at my flickr

 Another subject using same setup. 

 

Happy shooting! cheers!

Thanks for MRF(TPC) / Multiply / PIPHO members for attenting this small workshop of mine. Hope you all enjoyed it and hope to see you guys next year again.

The New AirsoftXtreme Issue #10 coming out in 2-3 weeks (around July 2009) from now (FILBARS, Books for Sale, all local airsoft stores etc.). This was the last and fnal shooting I had with the AX team. Haayz...wish I could stay a little bit longer in the Philippines...

Make Up Artist: Tiya Pusit
Location: Tomas Morato Photo Studio
Thanks to Publisher: Christian Uybengkee

Another busy day, another batch to share my techniques in lightroom/photoshop. A cool group that was really willing to learn alot of stuffs. Passionate photographers who want to extend their knowledge in Post Processing their Photos. I really enjoyed teaching them and it was easy to get along with them. Hope to shoot with u again guys. Good luck in trying out your new skills! Sana di niyo nakalimutan. Basta pag may tanung, just PM me guys! =)

Another busy Sunday, waiting for my two clients/students to arrive after lunch and having some Photography related lessons together at my house. Once they arrived, we couldn't resist but to watch Paquiao's fight before we start anything else. I could hear my neighbors and my parents shouting and shouting from all sides, screaming for joy for every punch that Manny gives the opponent. Sadly, after 2 rounds of Manny's fight, the fun was over. So we resumed to our lesson. We started talking about camera basics, I wanted to know how much they already knew so I could level myself to the level they are currently.

Originally planned, a model from QC was scheduled to drop by at my place so we can use her for test shooting and post process her photos for her portfolio. But for some emergency reasons she couldn't come, so we decided to go down to the creek behind my house and photograph the people living there. I was happy that the weather played with us fairly, and as always the people from the creek were happy being photographed by us.

Now that we have captured all the photos we needed to start our Post Processing lesson, we went straight ahead to my house and started transferring my RAW files to my laptop. Step by step, I showed them my techniques on how I initially sort, order and post process the raw files in lightroom. I showed them how powerful the tools of lightroom are and how amazing it is to use.

Once we've finished our Lightroom Lesson for initially post processing the raw files, we now started to work one by one the photos using Photoshop CS3 (I don't want to use the latest version yet, I want to give it a little bit more time before I jump to the latest version). The first tips I gave them is how to convert photos into black and white with a good and balanced contrast and sharpness. There are many ways how to do it, but I gave them my technique and how to do it in a fast and efficient manner.

I must say I have missed shooting Street Photography style. Anyway, let's get back to the topic... As time passed by, I was teaching them colored photos (the ones you can see at the beginning of this blog), the emboss effects, the proper sharpening methods and how to work efficiently and fast in batch post processing photos, segregating landscape from portrait style photos on the fly with some softwares. I also gave them further recommendations bout brushes I use, and some links useful for editing and shooting. Before we ended the lesson, I gave them some overview how I shoot the Dave Hill style, and how I post process the Dave Hill style. I used the female Client/Student for test shots.

As we ended our lesson, they asked me how to do the photoshots where the same person appears several times from different angles. So I said "hey, before you leave, let me take photos from you two here in my living room". They were excited and were happy to participate. I've setup my 580EX II on my stand with a diffuser on it, my DSLR on my tripod and used a shutter release chord to execute each photo without any shake. Once were done, I postprocessed the photos and merged them all together, and voila, end product:

I also want to credit Mr. Christian Oliver Talampas, who was my previous student and a very fast learner: http://nativity08.multiply.com/photos From my students yesterday: http://krisarellano.multiply.com http://leiodungo.multiply.com/photos

Many asked me how do I do the cartoon / plastic effect on faces. I always said it's all in combining High Pass filtering, Smudge tool and playing around with other tools to make the effect livelier. But still they asked "Yeah but show me your whole process" so instead of teaching everyone who asks me for the workflow, I've provided this tutorial for those who want to achieve the same effect.

Please bear with me that some steps might could be achieved easier with other tools and filtering, but this is how I discovered it while playing around with Photoshop and I'm able to do it very fast. So if you think that there are steps that can be taken easier than mine, please leave your comment at the bottom.

Note: This tutorial requires user's with at least intermediate level skills in Photoshop.





Please download the original photo from Katanaz-Stock: http://katanaz-stock.deviantart.com/art/Female-Stock-18-67382561

Credits are given to him for giving out his stock photo's for free.


1. Open the image in Photoshop, and make a copy of the background layer or press ctrl + J to duplicate. This serves for the purpose that we won't directly edit on the background layer so that during the whole process we'll always have a backup of the original image. Now press again ctrl + J and your layer properties should now have 2 copied layers and the background.

2. Start using the Smudge tool and set the strength to 10%. Smudge all around the face, shoulders, under the chin, except the hair; be careful on the shadows, edges and details of the face.

Smudge tool:





3. Next is to set the most upper layer to the blending mode Multiply. Now select the layer below it and go to your menu Image -> Adjustment -> Shadow/Highlight. Play a little around with the advance settings so that the image won't be too dark and having too many black areas.




4. Now select the most upper layer, and press ctrl + alt + shift + e, this should make a merged copy layer of what you've done so far at the top. Select that layer and press again ctrl + J. Press ctrl + U and the Hue / Saturation window should open up. Desaturate the image a little bit so it won't have this strong red / yellowish color. In the meanwhile you can also lighten up the eyes a bit by using the Dodge tool, for this image I used the following settings:

Range: Highlights

Exposure: 10%
Dodge tool:




5. Make another copy of that layer and select the most upper layer for editing. Go to Filter -> Other -> High Pass and play a little around with the settings. For this image I've used 8.0. Then select the upper layer again and set its blending to Soft Light. Use again the Dodge tool and dodge a little bit on the face.

6. Make another copy, set its blending mode to Linear Dodge and it's Fill to 10%. Go to Filter -> Other -> High Pass and set this time a much higher value to concentrate on the depth of the large details. During the process the face might get some rough details, so just play around again with the smudge and dodge tool. In case you might want to try to use also the Burn Tool which comes in handy for shadows and details.

Burn tool: