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Merry Christmas from Mosaic Photo

This is one of my favorite photos that I’ve taken. This was a fixed display at an annual light display at Botanica: The Wichita Gardens. It was a too dark to balance the lights with the sky, but that gave me a little bit more flexibility in my shooting. I had brought along my tripod with a cool ball head. I played with a few different techniques, zooming the lens during the exposure, changing the focus depth, and camera movement.

Quickly, I saw that I could mimic the movement of snow swooping down. This shot was a thirty second exposure, with the camera stationary for the first half of the exposure. Then, I moved the camera with my tripod head’s natural arc for the rest of the exposure. This movement gave a nice motion trail.

Little was done in post processing. A custom white balance let the blacks go to a deep blue and also shift the whites to magenta. This image was used for a Christmas card at Lawrence Photo to send out to its friends and clients.

From your friends at Mosaic Photo, Merry Christmas.

Google hosts Life photo archive

http://images.google.com/hosted/life

I stumbled across this a few weeks ago and subsequently spent a few hours pouring through these images. Life was the source of photojournalism for a long time. Google now hosts the Life image collection.

protip: add source:life at the end of any google image search

Post processing dictates the mood and feel of an image.

One of the things that takes a photo up a level of quality and meaning is post processing. Post processing is a term used to describe the work done to a picture after it has been taken.  How a photo is post processes influences the tone and feeling. There are a few images that make, and know right away what post techniques we will use. But there a lot of photos that are versatile, looking good in several different variations. Since post processing plays a big role in the feel of the photos, we want to make sure we tailor the images to your personality and preference.

Standard Processing

While we process each photo we take, most things are subtle. We correct for color, bring up highlights, knock down some shadows, or any other exposure adjustments. Here’s a photo with very little changes. Normal saturation (intensity of color). Blacks levels brought up a bit. The whites are white, the blacks are black. This is a good example of standard processing.

Grayscale Processing

One of the most common processing things we do is convert the photo to grayscale, more commonly referred to as black and white.  Black and white photos are clean and timeless. Pretty much all photographs look great with this processing, so if we deliver a color image to you and want it in black and white, we’ll be glad to oblige and send along a grayscale version.

Black and white photos can offer a wide range of feels. They can give a classic and retro quality, like the photo on the left. High contrast black and white pictures can give a modern edge. 
  

Vibrant Processing

High saturation can create a bright, happy feel. We have a process that mimics Velvia film, producing a bright, cheery image with intense colors.

Muted Processing

Next, we can create a subdued feel by warming the colors, bringing the black levels up, and decreasing the saturation. It’s a distinct look that can range from a grungy feel (below) to a peaceful happiness.

Creating the perfect feel

These are a few of the several looks we create from taking our solid images, made even stronger by the processing techniques we apply.  This isn’t an all-inclusive list. We’re constantly learning and growing, expanding what we do in every area of photography, including our post processing. We want to make sure that the photos we deliver are perfect, and will do our best to match your personality and likes through our whole process.

See the whole series: photographic style.

Memory videos

My friend, Jill Meade, started IdeaWorks Creative, where she puts her extensive video production experience to use. She puts together digital photos with music to make video slideshows for graduation, anniversary, weddings, or memorials. Jill also does promotional videos for events and conferences.

Her site has more information and some examples of her work. It’s worth taking a look at:
http://www.ideaworkscreative.com/

Photojournalism tells a story.

In its purest form, photojournalistic photography has little or no interaction with the subjects.  The photojournalist surreptitiously scopes the event, documenting the proceedings. The resulting images are pure and genuine.  As it relates to wedding photography, photojournalism is more relaxed than traditional photography, allowing for natural expressions and reactions of the day come through.

Good photojournalism is about capturing action.  The bride entering. The groom’s reaction to seeing her for the first time. Dancing. Smiling. The timeless exit from a beautiful ceremony. Capturing the events as they unfold. And that’s what we aim to do: capture the events of the day to tell the story.

We are all passionate about photojournalism. Laura loves the story of the day unfolding, and loves storytelling through photos. Photojournalism is one of C.J.’s favorite types of photography to shoot. Personally, I really like the facial expressions and the personal interactions.

Our photojournalism coverage of the day includes candid photos of  the bride and groom getting ready, off angle pictures of the formal portraits, coverage the ceremony itself, and the reception and celebration after. There will be some posts in more detail about some of these areas, but here are a few images showing our photojournalism style:

See all posts in this series: Photographic Styles