Mosaic Photo | Blog

Senior portraits

During the fall, a big part of my life is football, as I’m an assistant coach on the Wichita Heights football team.  Last fall, I got the chance to take some cool pictures of some of some of my players for their senior portraits.

The morning of the shoot, Justin and I drew out some lighting schemes over coffee and planned out some ideas. It’s always good to have a plan. I wanted to take some wide shots out on the field with a sweeping background of the stadium and sky. Then I wanted to head inside to the locker room and grab some portraits in there.

Here are a few of our favorite edits from the shoot. See the whole set here on our sharing gallery.

We make you look like you do

One of the most common questions we get asked is about if we can do acne removal or get rid of other blemishes. It’s a fair question. Either it is your wedding day when you’ve made so many arrangements and so many things going on, or it’s the portrait session you’ve setup, making sure everyone’s schedule fits.  

The simple answer is yes. We can get rid of that pimple that pops up the morning of your wedding day, or that scratch little Junior got playing soccer at recess. Rest assured, we can do a lot with our post processing. You being relaxed will lead to better, memorable pictures that reflect your personality.

Here are a couple of examples of our skin retouching. The first is from a newborn portrait session. The baby was one month old, and had a breakout on her face. 

Next is from an example from a self portrait after I got a black eye playing basketball.
  

So the next time you need a photographer, be assured that we’ll make you look your best – as you really are. Feel free to contact us at http://themosaicphoto.com, then click on contact. We’d love to hear from you.

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On this, the 200th birthday of Abraham Lincoln, I thought I’d show a few photos of the 16th President.

Here might be the earliest photograph of him from 1843.
 
Another one, taken in 1846:

A photo by Alexander Gardner of the President during the Civil War.

The latest photograph of record according to the Library of Congress:
 

See the Library of Congress Abraham Lincoln set on flickr.

We take pictures of things other than people! Sometimes…

We like doing commercial photography work. Even if it’s not editorial driven, C.J. and I especially enjoy real estate, landscape, or product photography. Such an opportunity came up recently.  John, the owner of a Christmas light installation company, wanted some pictures of a house his company had decorated.

For the first time, I used a flash application for this minisite of the Christmas light images from Airtight Interactive. It’s simple and fast loading, with handy navigation of the images (I’m a sucker for keyboard navigation through image galleries). Fast loading with easy navigation are a couple of the reasons Mosaic Photo went with Zenfolio for our sharing gallery.

See the final edits at this minisite:  http://themosaicphoto.com/xmas_lights/

Hit us with feedback on your favorite pics and the minisite layout in the comments section. I’m still checking the density and exposure on these. Let me know in the comments if you have troubles with them.

Special effect post processing

Sometimes, an image is begging to be tweaked in Photoshop. Like every other part of photography, the post processing can take a photograph to the next level.  Bad images can be salvaged and become decent pictures. A good image becomes great, and a great photo can become an amazing one.

One of the ways that we process an image is to add some motion blur to draw the eye to the subject. It’s especially nice on photojournalism and off-angle shots.  Here is a before and after. I started with a fairly strong image, then added some motion on top of a box blur.

Another of our favorite techniques is to selectively coloring an image. The result is both iconic and memorable.  The below photo was taken during right after the ceremony on the way to their reception.  Red was a big theme, and the result was stunning.

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