Yesterday I went skiing at Breckenridge as part of the KBPI Humpday Hooky promotion. Basically you get a lift ticket at Breckenridge for $10.50. That’s almost an $80 discount over their normal lift ticket price. Last year there weren’t a lot of people taking advantage of it, but yesterday there were a ton of people there. And of course, the weather was an issue higher up. I elected not to bring my camera with me, opting instead to just shoot pics with my cell phone camera if conditions warranted. But man, do I hate my cellphone camera. It is a Verizon XV6900 (also known as a HTC Touch), and it was definitely not designed for taking pictures.

After I got done skiing the knee deep powder at the top of Peak 7 (and learning how out of shape I am), I headed back down to the parking lot to get some pictures. The one above is the gondola that connects a parking lot in the town of Breckenridge with the base areas at Peaks 7 & 8. Parking there is $10, so I got to ski yesterday for a total of $20.50. Not bad at all. Next one will be in February. Keep an eye on my Colorado skiing website for announcements about the next Humpday Hooky. I plan on being there.

For my PVC Light Tent, I was originally using posterboard for a backdrop and some old white sheets for the “curtains”. Last week I went to a local fabric shop (Denver Fabrics, not the same as the Denver Fabrics online - long story) looking for some white ripstop nylon or sport nylon, along with black and white muslin. All they had was the white muslin. So I looked around the store a bit, and found some black poly poplin suitable for a backdrop. And then I found some cotton with a polyurethane laminate that is intended for people making their own baby diapers. It seemed suitable to me, so I got enough of it to make side and top curtains for the tent. I also got some velcro to use as attachment points.

Once home, I placed velcro squares along the top left and right PVC pipes to hold the side curtains up. I allowed for a little bit of crossover to the lateral pipes, in order to make sure the vertical PVC was not visible in any reflections. I had already had the cotton laminate cut to the rough dimensions I needed, so I hung one corner up, attached velcro in the remaining appropriate places, and trimmed the excess off the bottom. Did the same on the other side, then the top and was all done with the curtains. Had enough excess that I should be able to use the material in a larger softbox I am planning to build.

After this I mounted additional velcro to hold the backdrops up, and applied velcro to the backdrop material (the black poplin and white muslin). After a few test shots, I decided to add the front curtain, and cut a large + in the front curtain to put my lens through. All in all, things have worked pretty well in there. Here is a sample photo.

I still need to work out lighting and white balance, but with a little bit of time, those should work out pretty easily. More difficult is going to be perfecting the underlighting of objects to really give them some pop. I will be experimenting with that this week.

Oh, some people have been asking about these beer bottle glasses I am taking photos of. They will be on sale soon, and I’ll be sure to post a link when they are. Cheers.

Yesterday, I finally got to do something I had been saving up my pennies for: I joined the National Association of Photoshop Professionals! You might be wondering why I’m so happy about that. Since I’ve been doing photography seriously as a side business, I’ve grown to understand the importance of networking and how it can contribute to not only your business growth but your personal growth as well. Some people may say the monthly or yearly fees are not worth it, but I say they are every bit worth it to me!

Last year, I joined the Professional Photographers of America and the PhotoVision Educational DVDs, and I can’t tell you how vital they were for my success. Membership to the PPA gave me access to a wealth of information that you just can’t get otherwise, including connections with insurance companies, attornies and CPAs who specialize in the photo industry, business development strategies and a sounding board when something difficult happens and you need some expert advice. I find out about special seminars, tours and workshops (and get great discounts for them) before other photographers know about them. People wonder how I get all the information I post on my own blog as well as here….well, it’s because I’ve taken the time to get connected.

Meanwhile, the monthly DVDs I received from PhotoVision always seemed to come exactly when I needed them. Watching professionals work in studio and on location for various assignments such as weddings, senior portraits and maternity shoots gave me the education and the confidence I needed to get similar assignments done. It was great to see what equipment and techniques these nationally recognized photographers used while they were working, as well as to hear in interviews what drives their passions. Even though I’ve never met them, I feel like they are my buddies. And if I’m ever in doubt, those CDs are readily at my disposal to review over and over again helping me craft out strategies for my upcoming photo shoots.

I’m expecting the same from my new NAPP membership. I’ve already started receiving daily “Layer” tips to improve my Photoshop usage. The online tutorials are great, and the forums are helpful as well. The freebies section is amazing with tons of brushes, styles and shortcuts to make post processing easier whether you are using Photoshop or Lightroom. And I can’t wait to get my first issue of Photoshop Magazine.

Basically what I’m trying to say is this: You can’t do this all alone. You will notice that I champion joining photography social clubs and organizations that will help you stay in touch with like-minded people as well as get you out there shooting more often because I think it’s a necessity. Last week I joined the Mile High Photographers group and was invited to a special boudoir session being taught by a local photographer. Only 10 people were chosen, and I was one of the 10! I would never have known about this opportunity had I not joined. Sometimes your success really is about the people you know and the opportunities you get access too. Make it work for you!

I haven’t taken pictures just for the sake of taking pictures for a while. The other night I decided to change that. I started out with a candle, trying to get a good ambient shot of my daughter or my wife. Those didn’t come out so well. Then I shot the candle by itself - those did come out. Then I remembered a promotion item we had, a flashing replica ice cube. I grabbed it, turned it so the LED was in a steady on state, and fired away. I like how it came out. Sometimes you need to shoot just for the sake of it.

Besides being a photographer, I am also a website developer and consultant here in Colorado. It is a lot of fun for me when I get a project where I can use my skills from both areas. Such is the case this week, where I am working on a couple of websites for a Boulder glassblower. My existing light tent was not adequate for this project (no underlighting), so I set out to build a new one out of PVC. This isn’t rocket science, and a lot of people have done it, but I needed mine to be just a little bit different. I decided I was going to shoot the glass items on top of a glass riser, with a fluorescent light fixture underneath. To that end, I set of for Home Depot.

Shopping list:
- 8 1/2″ PVC Side Outlet 90’s
- 4 1/2″ PVC T’s
- 8 1/2″ PVC Male Threaded - Slip adapters
- 4 10′ x 1/2″ PVC Pipe
- 1 Low profile fluorescent light fixture
- 6′ 14/3, rubber coated extension cord (just cord, no ends)
- 15A Outlet Plug
- 1 18″x36″x3/16″ plate glass

Why I bought some of this stuff:
- The threaded male / slip adapters were because the side outlet 90’s have one outlet that is threaded. Instead of spending the time with a Dremel removing the threads, I just spent a few cents on the adapter and called it done.
- Fluorescent fixture and associated cord, plug was purchased because the selection of plugin light fixtures was not adequate for my needs. Total cost for the fixture, cord and plug was around $35, IIRC. If you are not comfortable with wiring together electrical devices, you should look for a pre-wired fixture suitable for your needs.

Construction was pretty simple.
1. Measure 14 sections of 30″ each (or whatever length you want to use) on the PVC pipe. After cutting, I used a file to clean up the edges.

2. From the remaining length of pipe, cut 4 pieces 3″ long. These are the risers to go higher than the light fixture (depending on your fixture, you may need to go higher than 3″).

3. Put together the 90° outs and the slip/ threaded adapters.

4. Using a rubber mallet, put one piece of pipe into one end of a 90° out. Continue doing this, making a square base such that the threaded/ slip adapters are facing upward.

5. Insert the 3″ lengths of pipe into the threaded/ slip adapters.

6. Attach 2 PVC T’s to a piece of pipe, and then set the completed piece on top of the 3″ lengths on the base. Do this twice.

7. To the top of each T, insert a 30″ piece of pipe.

8. Same as step 4, construct a square frame from the remaining 4 pieces of 30″ pipe and the 90° outs (with the threaded/ slip adapters facing up).

9. Invert the completed square frame from step 8 and attach to the top of the frame from step 7.

10. Completed item should look similar to the photo above.

11. For good measure, I took a wet paper towel and wiped down all of the pipe.

That is all there is to it. You will of course need sheets or fabric to make the shell of the tent, and some kind of material for the backdrop. So far I used 3 single-size sheets to cover my tent, a piece of posterboard for the backdrop, and my clamp lights for lighting (I have 3 of those).

My immediate plan is to hit a fabric shop and get white and black muslin for the backdrop, and also get enough white fabric to make a proper slip cover for the tent. But for now this setup is working well. Here is a photo from the tent.

This tent is pretty big and portable. If it is too big for your needs, you could try this alternative design. I just might have to build one of these and try it out too.

Watermark and copyright notices are something that everyone should use, especially if you are on Flickr. Naturally you want to put copyright information in the files themselves too. I haven’t been putting this information on my images in the form of a watermark until now because I didn’t know of an easy way to incorporate this into my workflow.

Lucky for me I recently came across Timothy Armes’ LR/2 Mogrify plugin for Lightroom 2 (it works on Windows and Mac). In order to use this on a Windows machine, you also need to download ImageMagick, a useful program I have used in the past in a LAMP environment for web applications. Lastly, you need a transparent PNG image to use as your watermark. The image I used for the photo above is at 30% opacity in Photoshop. If you don’t know how to create a transparent PNG image in Photoshop for watermarking purposes, I highly recommend Heather’s Watermark Tutorial.

My images typically start out between 7-9MB in size. Typical dimensions are 3648×2736 in size. Because of this, and wanting to ensure the watermark was visible, I made my watermark 200px tall. YMMV, but this works for me. If you are exporting to Facebook with the Friedl Plugin, you will likely need to adjust your settings substantially from what you use for Flickr. Just make sure you use Presets to save your settings for each type.

Once you have the file completed, it is a simple matter of using the plugin via Lightroom (after you have added it of course). The plugin gives you 9 base reference points you can anchor the plugin to, and then you can offset the placement in both the vertical and horizontal planes. You will have to experiment for a bit to see what works for you. One option you will see is whether or not you want to put the watermark on the image before you create any borders, or after. If you aren’t using borders, you can ignore this. I have seen some examples of incorporating the watermark/ logo into the border. Take a look and see if you like it.

Adding borders can be a bit confusing the first time you do it. At least it was for me. I thought that as you add numbers, you were working from the inside out. This means that the highest number would be the innermost frame, at least in my mind. It didn’t turn out to be the case though. Border 1 is always the innermost border. For my standard template, Border 1 is 15px all the way around and black. Border 2 is also 15px all the way around, and is white. Border 3 is the big one, at 30px all the way around and black in color. To me it gives images a nice framed and matted look. I only do this for the photos that get uploaded to Flickr and Facebook. Anything going to photos.chesterbullock.com (Zenfolio) gets no treatment, as I want the prints to be printed in original form without the borders and watermarks.

One thing to be careful of with the LR2/Mogrify tools - if you export later for a different purpose, make sure you disable the LR2/ Mogrify plugin. It stays on by default all the time in the Export window, and you could export something with edits you don’t mean to.

I truly wish I had come across this useful utility sooner. I am just very thankful I came across it at all.