Grace and Kyle, originally uploaded by mark.mortensen.

Yet Another image of the series from Kyle’s modeling portfolio shoot. Kyle has been waiting for these images for close to 2 months. I will hopefully get them all done by the end of this week.

Technical Ramblings: Two AlienBee B800s bare shot at the white seamless background (Savage Super-White) and one AlienBee B800 in a large softbox camera left. Also have a silver reflector disc camera right to fill out the shadow side of the face. Post work in Lightroom included; Sharpening, Exposure bump (1/3 stop), Clone work on the skin and some CA work to fix lens issues. Post work in Photoshop CS3 and the Totally Rad Actions; Oh Snap! (no defog layer which is a sharpening layer), Pro Retouch! (pretty’ize the face skin and pop Kyle’s eyes).

Uploaded by mark.mortensen on 29 Apr 09, 9.23PM MDT.

Kyle and Grace, originally uploaded by mark.mortensen.

Another from the series with Kyle for his modeling portfolio.

Personal Ramblings: I’ve started to notice that a couple of my autofocus points on my 5 month old Canon 5D II are no longer acquiring a focus lock. Doesn’t matter which glass or light they just don’t lock focus. As my daughter would say, “Whaty What!”. I sent an email out to Canon to inquire about repair this evening. However, I’m not really impressed that a camera body that costs $2700 is defective. First, I was seriously under impressed that Canon put the same autofocus system that was on the older Canon 5D in this new generation camera. You’d think they would of trickled down the improved (questionable I know) autofocus system from the aging 1D series. Sometimes I just don’t think the marketing people get a clue what photographers really need in a camera (more megapixels is not one of them!).

Technical Ramblings: 2 Bees on the white seamless and 1 Bee in a large softbox camera left. Lightroom sharpening and clone work on the skin. Photoshop and the Totally Rad Actions: Oh Snap! (no defog layer), Pro Retouch (skin smoothing) and some whitening of the background with Good vs. Evil.

Uploaded by mark.mortensen on 28 Apr 09, 9.45PM MDT.

Grace and Kyle, originally uploaded by mark.mortensen.

Kyle is back! I’ve not processed many images lately as my “real” job has been keeping me really busy lately. This is another image from the series I did with Kyle for his modeling test shots. Grace is his friend and should probably get into modeling as well.

Technical Ramblings: Three AlienBee B800s with two pointed at the background to blow it out and one in a large softbox camera left. Post processed in Lightroom with some minor sharpening and then to Photoshop and the Totally Rad Actions; Oh Snap! (no defog layer), masked out the contrast layer so Kyle’s dark suit has one additional contrast because it just goes black, Pro Retouch on the faces, Eye Bump on the eyes, Dodge! to whiten the background.

Uploaded by mark.mortensen on 27 Apr 09, 7.19PM MDT.

Kitchen, originally uploaded by mark.mortensen.

Recently, I’ve been looking for clients that need product shots to diversify my photography abilities. A couple of weeks ago during my open house for my wedding I found a client. He (Cliff Whitehouse of Bernwood Custom Desgin) is a friend of my wife’s that is a woodworker in Denver, CO. Cliff was looking to refresh his website photos so I offered up some free work since I’m new to product photography. If he likes these images then I will photograph some of his other work for real money! This image is his kitchen that he custom built all the cabinets out of Cherry with Walnut counter tops. He also built the stools as well.

Technical Ramblings: I should of grabbed a setup shot but was rushed for time. The prep time to clean up the kitchen took over an hour. Also it was challenging to balance the day light coming in the windows with my strobes. I used one of my AlienBee B800s in a large softbox camera left and another B800 in a large softbox in the back of the kitchen camera right. Used a light meter to get the strobes as balanced as I could but discovered I really suck at figuring out the correct lighting ratios. Post work was done completely in Lightroom where I just boosted the contrast, vibrance, clarity, adjusted the recovery (bring back some lost highlights) and finally sharpened.

Uploaded by mark.mortensen on 19 Apr 09, 7.32PM MDT.

Magic Cards, originally uploaded by mark.mortensen.

My son and I doing some lighting tests. Lately, I’ve been slammed at my “real” job so after been doing much photography. This image was taken a while ago and was working on my portraits against a wall technique. My son is really into magic so we used his cards as a prop as I held the camera. Saying on my shirt says “Yes, I know I need a haircut” and was given to me for a joke on my mom as my hair is getting a tad long.

Technical Ramblings: One AlienBee B800 in a large softbox camera left. The softbox is positioned up high. Post work only in Lightroom included: sharpening, contrast boost, vibrance boost and added the vignette.

Uploaded by mark.mortensen on 12 Apr 09, 12.21PM MDT.

Shoe, originally uploaded by mark.mortensen.

Looking through my Lightroom archives and came across an image I took of my shoe. Took this picture for an art class I was/am taking. Needed an image of some object to draw and the shoe worked.

Technical Ramblings: This is prior to my acquisition of the AlienBee B800s. I had a pair of home made light boxes with a lot of 100W equivalent 6500K compact fluorescent bulbs. Made the lightboxes out of foam core board and worked well for their purpose. I did the B/W conversion in Photoshop for this image.

Uploaded by mark.mortensen on 5 Apr 09, 9.36PM MDT.

The final pencil sketch of the shoe.

Grandfather and Grandson, originally uploaded by mark.mortensen.

My dad and son sitting in the Tattered Cover Book Store in historic downtown Denver, CO. We stopped at the bookstore after spending the afternoon at the aquarium. My son wants to sign up for the snorkeling with the sharks. I find this image interesting for some reason.

Technical Ramblings: Taken with my 16-35mm f/2.8 at ISO 1600. Did some sharpening and white balance correction in Lightroom and then off to Photoshop and the Totally Rad Actions; Oh Snap! (no Defog), Lux (hard), Warm It Up Kris (60% opacity) and EZ-burn (30% opacity)

Uploaded by mark.mortensen on 2 Apr 09, 9.15PM MDT.

Parents, originally uploaded by mark.mortensen.

My parents came into town for my wedding last weekend. It had been about 5 years since the last time they visited. One of the places we visited was the REI store in downtown Denver.

Technical Ramblings: Natural light. Sharpening in Lightroom and then Oh Snap! Totally Rad Action in Photoshop. I believe I pulled down the opacity of the Defog layer.

Uploaded by mark.mortensen on 2 Apr 09, 12.13PM MDT.