I bought my iPad 2 a couple of days ago and I am loving it. I used to carry my Macbook Pro all the time when out on shoots. I was looking for something lighter to carry and useful too. I do a lot of photo work on the go and Macbook Pro was surely a help. But nonetheless, iPad 2 is awesome too. I miss Aperture though! I hope Apple will come out with a version for iPad soon.

Now talking about the role of my iPad in my day to day photo jobs, I will publish a series of posts as and when I keep experiencing new things. Today I will talk about reducing the paper work in terms of Model release and Property release.

Usually when out on shoot I carry a folder with prints of Model release forms and Property release forms. I hope as a photographer you know how to these forms play an important role in protecting your rights and also these help avoiding legal issues. But the problem that arises out of these print forms is that you carry something extra and then later you need to maintain all of them somewhere at your office or home. Most likely, you might end up losing one in future.

Now that I have an iPad, I thought of exploring the world of iPad apps for something that helps me do digital model release and property release. I tried many apps but the one I finally find most useful is – Easy Release – Model Release App. This app also allows you to manage property release.

You can find more details by visiting the app page on iTunes. It looks costly at the first look but honestly this is going to be cheaper in long term. Let me know how your like it. The coolest thing is that you can embed the model’s photo with Id and send the file as PDF to multiple recipients.

Cheers guys!

Sunday was a cold morning when I rushed for The Paladin Knight Photo Shoot scheduled to begin at 7 am in Hope NJ. This shoot for an entertainment company that produces movies and picture-story books. It was kind of different because the whole set was suppose to be in medieval ages – so no modern stuff around and no electric or electronic equipment in the shots. The location was kind of very rustic and gave a feel of old ages.

Just 3 models but the shoot was for 3 hours. That included shoot for the storyline based on a theme and some head shots. The models were on their first ever photo shoot and it was kind of fun to work with them. Pictures are being processed in the dark room as of now. As they are ready, they are being uploaded to this website. So you can keep checking on the photos from the shoot here – The Paladin Knight Photo Shoot 2011

Behind the scene photos will be available soon.

2011 was very disappointing in terms of Fall Colors. I went all the way up to New Hampshire and Vermont in the hopes of getting some nice Fall photographs but all in vain. Later around last week of October, I found trees showing some bright ones near where I live in NJ. But the snow storm over the Halloween weekend weakened my already dying hopes. But then I was courageous enough to check on Princeton. I remembered from last year that this town has amazing colors from Maple trees and others. I was wandering with my wife and friends near the Art museum inside the University that I stumbled upon this nice small road with colorful trees on both sides.

By that time, sun had almost set and I had only little light to play around. I decided to take 7 exposures and merge them later to make an HDR image that would represent the true eye view that we were enjoying there at the moment.

For those who may have missed the treat, here it is – the final HDR image!

You may wish to order prints, click here!

I am a great admirer of Michael Orton and his pictures are amazingly wonderful and pleasing to look at. Most of them are landscapes with a painting feel. Orton devised a method of producing these photos with a stack of slide films and make a sandwich of it. The idea was to take series of two photographs and merge them together… of course without a software at the time.

He essentially take two photographs -

1. With aperture set anywhere between f/16 to f/22 so that everything is in focus in the landscape.

2. With aperture increased (e.g f/2.8 of f/4) to get a blurry look of the same frame with over-exposed shot.

Then he would merge them together to get the special effect that we call Orton these days.

Now I thought of reproducing this effect with a single JPEG file that I already have. Normally I would take 2 shots in a similar way and sandwich them together in a digital image processor. But I thought of reproducing the same effect with my old photos. Here is what I did -

1. Open in photoshop any image that you want to experiment with.

2. For over-exposing of the shot – Menu > Image > Apply Image and select Screen with 100% opacity in the dialog box.

3. Duplicate the image – Menu > Image > Duplicate

4. With the duplicate copy of the image, apply Gaussian Blur. I usually would prefer anywhere between 10 – 50 depending on the kind of image it is. More the radius setting, more painterly the image would come out.

5. Now press v on your keyboard to select the move tool. Hold down shift key and use the mouse to drag the blurred image to the previous image. Keep the shift key pressed until you release the mouse with the image over the original. If you leave the shift key before mouse is release, the resulting layer would not be aligned correctly.

6. Now you will see two layers in the Layers pallet. The blending mode by default is Normal. Click on the drop down menu and make it Multiply.

7. Press Cmd+E (in Windows Ctrl+E) to flatten the image.

8. Save it to your disk and you have an image with Orton effect ready.

Before -

After Orton effect -

I would usually not prefer doing this but it is a good way to convert images which are not shot for this purpose but if you would still like to have the effect in them. Some people do not prefer digital manipulation but I do not see anything wrong as long as you do it for creative freedom. After all digital photography is not just about an image out of your camera.

Write to me if you like this article.

On the occasion of Indian Independence day, we celebrated India Day at Rockland County NY. I was the official photographer for the event. It was not a good day for an outdoor shoot when you have thunderstorms and then intermittent rains. But I got some really good shots. It was fun and yes, even when the camera was wet in rains, it is still working!

You can check out more photos from this event at – Flickr

Email to me if you like the pictures or leave a comment there on Flickr.

It’s been 2 weeks now but feels like home. I am yet to explore the city but whatever I have seen is amazing. It is completely different experience as compared to USA. This is my first Euro trip and I am just loving it. People are so nice and friendly, almost always ready to help. Honestly, be prepared to be overwhelmed by their hospitality.

I see so much of similarity between India and London. All because India was a British colony for more than 200 years. Interestingly, I found out that Indian food is a part of English cuisine.

I loved the picture perfect Big Ben. And I have no idea why I like the Telephone booths around the city. I just love them here. In my opinion, the booths should remain there for times to come. They add that extra element to London.

I have 2 more weeks here and hope to shoot some pictures of the pristine city. As of now, I seldom took out my camera because of my day job. Weekends were busy too. I would certainly bring out more pictures this weekend. If you have been to London and you think there is something I should shoot, email me or leave a message on my Facebook page.

 
This saturday 16th July 2011, I had a permit from MTA to shoot photos inside the Grand Central Terminal, NYC. The objective of my shoot was to get enough shots to make a time-lapse video of the railway station. I was able to get enough of them and also took some shots of the interiors.

The interiors are amazing at the main concourse. I was tempted and could not hold on to just shooting photos for my time lapse video. The clock on top of the information center in the main concourse was the most fascinating one.

Here is the photo of that clock -

Then I thought of doing a time lapse video at Grand Central and it came out pretty ok -