Tuesday, March 31, 2009

The East Coast. It's Kinda Like A Vacation But Not Really.

The reason for the title is that it is seemingly true everytime I come here. I never REALLY get to relax. Its a rat race of seeing relatives and friends all in a 8 day period. Karen and I hit 5 states. My professional photography career has grown to an actual career. Real clients, real second photographers, real deadlines, real photography. Sometimes "Blue-Collar Photography" sometimes real creative stuff... always good though and always for the betterment of business. I sometimes struggle on whether or not I should talk personally on this blog or should I keep it for photographers and the challenges of, or the creation of the craft. In this case, I'm going personal.
The reason for this is, that it is real, the story happened for a picture and I might have a bone to pick by the end of the post. No, I will, so keep reading.

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The plane ride was great... met some interesting people and I'm traveling with Karen... its a first for us to be traveling together, so its real nice. My uncle Billy says if you can travel with a girl and not kill eachother... you probably have a good thing going. Karen's a peach.
I will cut to the chase... we rented a Jeep Grand Cherokee, 2009, brand new. When I mean new, I mean this SUV had just 4 miles on it. Yes, 4... 4-4-4-4. 4. New. I liked it alot. We picked it up in Connecticut at Dollar Rent-A-Car from an old aquaintence of mine, Ellen. She gave us a great deal, and when we got in the car, I thought, straight up, this was phatty boombalatti.
Wood grain interior, olive green in color and two tone dark grey and creme colored inside. Two toned seats, gated tip-tronic shifting, dual climate control (Karen loves this, she likes it hot, I like it cold), 4.7Litre V8 engine with plenty of power, All-Time 4WD with 4-low option if needed, Sirius Satellite Radio to keep you laughing, and a navigation screen with a camera when you throw it in reverse for vision. I mean really, really nice SUV. Must be running in the 35-42k range, just a guess. It also says "trail-rated" whatever the hell that means. I've rented these throughout the years for Phish concerts and various weekends out and this one just took the cake.
So we Jam up to see my brother Patrick in Bangor, ME... if you haven't been up here.. nice and not to be mean, just spare yourself. I love my brother but that place blows. I don't want to be a Negative Nelly but seriously, wow. We left for Portland further south of there as soon as we took my brother to a movie and dinner. It was real nice to see him. He's a bit mentally handicapped and lives in a group home up there with some really amazing people that take great care of him. I sigh relief but can't help feel a bit guilty living the life out in California. Back to the Jeep. We stay in a nice place in Portland, ME, The Regency Hotel in the Old Port section... beautiful place.

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In the morning after walking around the shops, (not too many were open its kind of an off season) Karen and I headed West on the Route 25 towards New Hampshire, to the White Mountains I knew so well as a child. Lots of little towns along the way and trading posts and gas stations with local beef jerky and mud, sand, dirt and grime. Karen snoozed off and I passed a logging road going about 45 miles per hour... I had been thinking this Jeep's so nice I really wanted a sweet HDR shot for my portfolio... its new, we're going to some great country and I was sure to find a location. And Wawawoii here it was. As I pulled off the pavement and started through the ruts, the jeep bottomed out a bit and mind you it was raining so it was at least a foot and a half of mud and ruts... I kept thinking to myself, "nice mud and a detailed HDR shot... this is going to be sweet." Karen of course woke up in the ruckus and asked me sleepily what the hell I was doing... I didn't beat on the thing or push it hard.. I stepped on it a bit to get through... got up to the top of the hill were a couple of hardworking guys were standing there wondering who the moron was with the $40k SUV driving up their logging road. I got out in a button down with a sweater.. I must have looked real rugged and held up my big 1DS with a smile, "just wanted to take a picture," I muttered. I felt like a bonehead. Whatever I thought, "I'm a professional." I took my shots, kicked my feet off and got back in. Karen gave me a look and I turned the Jeep around and headed back out the way I came in. A little faster, as the spot I went through seemed a bit deeper and the ruts did too. It was, I bottomed out, but the Jeep kept on, and I got back out the main road... There was bit of grinding and rocks for a mile or so and other than some mud it seemed to be fine. Karen looks at me and says, "Honey I think you're really smart, but that was the dumbest thing I ever saw you do." I just laughed.

We stopped down the road with a few noises coming from the Jeep along the way. Getting out at a parking lot behind a closed pizza joint, we trekked over to a railroad bridge we saw and down the tracks.

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It was cool little hike, there was still a bit of snow for the time of year but it was only 40 degrees. After getting back to the Jeep and starting it up, one of the digital readings for the tire pressure announces that it only had 22 lbs of pressure, whilst the rest of them has 36. Nice. I broke it. F-%$#@. Is what I was really thinking. The parts on this are going to be cheap. (insert sarcasm here). MMMMMMM. Karen was probably thinking the same.

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We stop at a little spot called, Albany Service in Albany, New Hampshire. Little, little tiny place. A great garage though and the kid, Robert, took us right in. Apparently you could hear the air coming out of the right front tire. After a little swab of soap n water, nothing. After scrubbing the mud and dirt off the middle of the wheel, there was the leak. A nice gash in the aluminum rim from a rock. Trail-Rated. Yeah.

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They welded the aluminum and fixed it up for $85. They get it all on and more rocks start grinding.

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They dug quite a few out from each side after that from behind and in the calipers. Damn.

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I'm sure a new rim woulda been a grip. mmmm $400 maybe? We'll keep this one a secret from Ellen from Dollar. We lucked out, its real nice, however I'm not sure I'd spend 40k on ripped aluminum.

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Monday, March 23, 2009

One More For The Day.

After looking through things and consulting with a good friend of mine I have to come the conclusion that although Bit Torrents are great and kinda free, however as a professional theyd really don't have a place in my world.

As a matter of fact, my girl's father gets pirated movies sometimes and I always give her a hard time, its hard to believe that, as a professional, I would even consider ripping off a program. Especially one that gives you so much.. A professional could make their money back very quickly I believe. You can download a free 30 day trial from their site, www.lucisart.com, however you'll only be able to open the plugin from a preview window. I mean every aspect of Lucisart (pronounced Loosis BTW) is completely marketable and gives you an amazing HDR effect out of an 8bit file that has to be under 20megs wtih the trial version You won't be able to actually apply the filter. Lucis Art Pro 6.0 is supposedly "a thousand times better".

I think where this is crazily practical is in the skin tones of people in your pictures. With a program such as Photomatix, which totally rocks for HDR, the best in my opinion, is tends to dirty skin tones and also again, try keeping a person still for 7 exposures. Seriously, its nearly impossible. So to get details the way you want Lucis is really pretty sweet. I've posted some screen shots to give a little demo. These are only by using one slider on the plugin and also I know they'll be small in the blog. I think the one you'll notice it most is in Isaac's face and clothing. You can REALLY enhance the detail, but then you get that "halo" look that every HDR photographer on crack has. You don't want this in my opinion. You still need to get a great exposure for LucisArt. (more on this later)

Lucis Art runs out of Groton, CT and when I say "they" its really one gal, she has programmers to build the software and investors for the company. However she's the only employee. People must be buying this stuff up quick. It would be difficult to compete with trying to get this "look" without it. There is pro version that is $595 and totally worth every penny. If you're in business, its a tax write-off so do it. Next month its all mine.

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Ahhh. Bit Torrents.

Hey its a fight you know. I want to buy, buy, buy and buy software to enhance imagery and so forth. Its the age old, "you have to spend money to make it." I guess. LucisArt Pro allows you to get a very similar "look" of HDRi from a single 8bit image... thus making your images, more desirable. PLUS! you can get better details out of people, because trying to make people stay still for 7 exposures is often not too possible.

I've been working on a tutorial for the green Camry below... but its taken awhile because I never really thought about how much knowledge I've gained over the years in Photoshop. You just do it, over and over until you have major breakthroughs. Mostly I didn't know what I was doing until I did it. I may not be a Photoshop Genius, but its becoming apparent that I AM a whiz. I've never been a whiz. I've taken one...

The weekend has been pretty good... spent a ton of money (defeating the recession) clothes, food... and some other things I can't disclose yet but I shall....

Just got off the phone with a great friend of mine Lisa Seaman www.storylensinc.com she's great and does awesome vacation photography in Colorado and all over the world really. Also check out this site www.thewindypixel.com these guys just rock in Chicago... and one more for the road... my dear, dear friends, Joseph and Kristi Romain at www.kristilloyd.com who are killing the wedding photography industry.

Here's a little eye candy from me of Karen's little man just sleeping away.... love this little guy... when he's snoozing of course!

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Monday, March 16, 2009

Marketing Monday.

Ahhhhhhhh! We've got blogs connected to tweets and tweets connected to iPhones and iPhones connected to your knee-bones! Holy Guacamole. Just got of the phone with a great friend of mine leaving for NYC and taking a paid internship at Newsweek. Its right up his alley cause he's a visual journalist with a fine art addiction and a major in video editing and production. dylanisbellmedia.blogspot.com When things were slow at the end of last year we'd just call and talk to each other with coffee, underwear, and craigslist.

I'm co-hosting a Mixer for the Oxnard Chamber of Commerce with Tomas Cafe and CIMA Associates, Inc., on Thursday, April 16th at Tomas Cafe in downtown Oxnard, California. The flyer had to be done on the fly and into the printer by 1pm so I did this in about an hour and a half today. Came out cool though.

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Get on Board.

It has occurred to me that in the last few weeks of shooting for DCH Auto Group, that I will be needing to hire some individuals (photographers) to work with me. This client, while extremely lucrative, has taken up quite a bit of time. NOT that that is terrible at all, however I do need time to tend to other clients as well. What the plan is, is to leverage my time to come out to shooting maybe one day a week and have one or two other hired photographers on my staff to shoot the other two or three days. There is another DCH dealership, Audi, (very excited) and looks like Photon Concepts will handling that account as well. So really what we have is full blown double time job come the summertime. Its another breaking point for us and again we're incredibly excited. I can't wait to get a sweet RS4 or an R8 up there on the turntable.

Meanwhile we joined Photoserve.com a little while back, which is a collection of "The World's Best Photographers" according to them... and after looking at some of the talent, apparently we are! Check it out if you get a chance, and also look for my name, Peter Duffy under Automotive, Food, or Advertising photographers.

This is the guy we have out eye on to help handle the DCH account www.driftingperspective.com he doesn't have much, if at all any automotive work, but some pretty great imagery nonetheless. I'm excited about teaching a new person the techniques and works that I know so far about automotive photography. He's a great friend of Tom Kranzle, who owns Venturevisuals.com.

I haven't had anything too new in the past few weeks, so I'm hoping to pimp out some old work to keep my blog here visually entertaining as well. Here's one from a food shoot for Tomas Cafe in downtown Oxnard, California. Seriously one of the best lunches in Ventura County. The huge portions leave you full enough to skip dinner and want to take an afternoon nap.

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Thursday, March 12, 2009

Making it Happen.

Allright... so I'm a bit beat.. My girl's little boy had a ridiculous fever last night. He was hallucinating.... yes, "scary monkeys" apparently. My call time for the Automotive Studio at DCH Auto Group was pushed back yet again because of the gears on the turntable, but it looks like I'm gonna be back on track here in a couple of hours. Meanwhile I've been syncing blogs, websites and twitter feeds to all work together. I've also put the final touches on an image and uploaded it to all for everyone to enjoy. I really like this new client, the possibilities while somewhat limited are almost endless if that makes any sense. Anyhow time to rock and roll and get some real work done.

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Wednesday, March 11, 2009

The New Deal.

So it has come to my attention that I have been slacking on something for some time. Its difficult to manage time with so many things going on. I have made the move toward MySpace (a long time ago), graduated to Facebook, and now off we go on Twitter and a blog. Here on blogspot. It should be a good ride.
I've been pressing for more exposure as well for a while now and I'm glad I have great friends to push me and to be pushed. Creative friends, ones that would really like to see you succeed. Real friends, great ones. Welcome to the wonderful world of Peter Duffy and what has come to be Photon Concepts.

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