The photograph is a portrait of my friend, Christian Carabias; actor for Telemundo’s show, Mas Sabe El Diablo and Sacrificio De Mujer Univision.

I finished setting up lights two hours early of my shoot. Christian was at the pool when I asked if I could use him to test the lights. His name is Christian (emphasize Christ) and he’s an actor so I asked him to act as Jesus praying to the father.

On huge photo shoots when you are a big shoot photographer hiring a team you’re going to have a MUA, Stylist, Hairstylist and one or three Assistants; depending on what the shoot is for you might even have an Art Director, Creative Director, Copywriter, Graphic Artist, Photo-Retoucher etc. breathing down your neck as you shoot. However, a good team creates great work; those people are there for reasons.

Those big shot photographers don’t hire those people because they can. I’ve assisted on photo shoots with large teams as such. They the team members have titles for reasons.

I’m not considered globally a big shot photographer as yet. But, on my smaller commissioned shoots and some of personal shoots I’m working with a MUA, Stylist, Hairstylist and maybe an assistant to help with reflectors etc. Doing so now prepares me, and makes me feel comfortable when I’m working on my larger commercial client’s projects.

I encourage you to build a great team to work with because it makes life so much easier at the end of the day.

However, there are still times, like this one when I photographed Christian, when I need a fix for my addiction to photography. When this craving occurs, once again I’m the assistant, the MUA if necessary and the stylist.

I’m going to take you through the process of this quick image and simple things to remember when you are the team of your photo shoot.

First thing as a photographer, using a DSLR camera, please, please, please shoot in RAW. Shooting in RAW gives you complete control over your images in post processing. You are able to color balance your photographs, adjust / decrease the exposure, fill light, clarity, blacks, brightness, and highlight etc.  To get the directional light I used honeycomb grid on Elincrome 500 strobe and positioned the strobe head above the model titled down about 45º.

The arrow above is pointing at those cutout-animal rubber bans that seem to be in fashion currently in Miami; everyone’s wearing them. I don’t really care much for them and I knew as soon as I saw the photographs uploaded to the computer I didn’t want them on his hand in the final image.

Stylists are a necessity. Even though the model doesn’t have a shirt on for the shot there are still minor distractions/considerations that the stylist would have to take care of. On these one on one shots you’re going to have to be your own stylist. Forgetting like I did, often results in unnecessary Photoshop time.

If I did hire a stylist for a shoot I probably would have asked them to bring the thorns of Jesus’ crown, drape a garment on him and the ask the MUA to make blood around his forehead.

If it were for a client, you’ve been your own team for so long, when a team comes along to work with you, you’ll know whether it’s good enough, or if you need to get some new team members.

For this shoot I was my own team, but now, that gave me a chance to collaborate with a really sick graphic artist if I wanted to. If I did collaborate I would have the artist put a crown of thorns on his head etc and the blood marks; making sure the artist is very professional and work is up to the industry level.

If you compare the last two screenshots you’ll notice that this one here is a bit cooler, not cool as in “duddeee” but cooler as in literally less warm. That’s called correcting your white balance. The easiest way/the proper way to correct the white balance would have been to have a gray card and take a picture with the gray card against the model. Leave your camera on a tripod with a sync cable, or a wireless remote, or putting it on self-timer, or if you have a really fancy trained chocolate-lab dog, or an assistant you call your dog (what-up dog) then have him/her/it stand in the frame with the gray card.

Next you would use the eyedropper tool in camera raw, drop it on the gray card and POW, there goes your white balance. If you have a client that’s going to be like, OMG you’re the final image is in black and white/ OMG the final image has so many gradients and photo filters on it did you forget to use a gray card?!” if so go ahead and get one.

If purchasing your digital camera and your tripod drained your pockets, $30.00 looks a lot like next months electricity bill and not a gray card. The next option to white balance the photograph is to find something as neutral (gray) as possible in the image and place the eyedropper tool on it.

The arrows in the last image were pointing to where I wanted the image to be brighter and darker. When in camera raw I like to open my photographs as an object in Photoshop, instead of just clicking the open key. The reason for opening as an object is because when you double click on the object layer you created, it will take the image back in to camera raw. (Step 1) I duplicate the image layer in Photoshop, hit (E) for the eraser tool, click on the image a message will come up asking to rasterize the image, hit yes. Now you would have an object layer below and a copy of the rasterized image above. The next thing would be is to double click on the object layer and bring it back into camera raw to fix the bright ness and darkness. Open again in Photoshop and repeat step 1.

You would now place a layer mask on your photograph then paint. The default layer mask it’s on the mask will be white. When like this you mask away the areas you don’t want. Example: I know I wanted his face to be brighter like the image but keep the other areas dark. I would have been time consuming for me to paint away the areas I don’t want.

To avoid this long process I simply invert the layer mask to white by selecting the mask then pressing command + i (control + i on a PC). When the layer mask is white, layer beneath it will be shown. Now here’s the thing to remember. When painting on a layer mask, if the mask is white you use the black paintbrush to show and the white to hide again and if the mask is black you do the opposite the white to show and the black to take the image back to its original look.

To make the image in black and white I press command + u (control + u on a PC) then the color balance window will pop up, you will see saturation use the slider and take it all the way to the left. Simple. There are other ways to make your image black and white this is the one I chose to go with.

Now we are almost close to the final image.

If you compared the screen shot to the previous one you will see I removed the rubber bands from his hands. It’s simple to do that. Get familiar with using the clone stamp tool, the patch tool and the healing brush tool. I use those tools to remove objects and work on skin etc.

The image is almost complete. I could leave it at that stage if I wanted to put I do a little something extra in the post processing of my images to give it a look I’ve locked down. It’s nothing genus like a Dave Hill effect, but it’s something I’m persistent with and here I’m now announcing it, “that, Dwayne Tucker Touch”.

Before I speak about that Dwayne Tucker Touch effect I want to point out something else I’ve adopted to my preferred style look. If you look at most of my portraits in my portfolio you will notice some of them are either in the left side of the frame or positioned in the right side of the fame. After shooting so many of them I filtered my images and noticed I like doing it and stuck that look.

The image now looks gray because I applied a high-pass filter. To access that you go to filters – other – high pass. When I apply this filter to my image then select overlay to overlay the layer it sharpens the photograph and gives some really cool highlight effects. After working with it several times moving the sliders back and forward, you’ll notice how sharp is harp enough for you. For females I like to keep the skin unsharpened because it looks nasty, but I do like to bring more highlights in the hairs and eyes etc. Play around with it and you will figure out what works for you.

Now Christian Carabias is a black and white Jesus in my photograph.

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When I was a beginner, I was afraid of using light; mainly because I didn’t know how to use it. One of my photography professors shared the secret with me about using light. I’m going to share it with you. The secret about using light and the best way to use light is to, put the light where you want it. It’s that simple. If you placed light behind a subject, in front of the subject will be dark. Do you want it to be dark? If so leave it, if not then place the another light where you want more light and take the photograph. For this photograph I used one light to the left side of the model and I felt as if I wanted to bounce a bit more light on to the subject so I used a reflector.

You should be familiar with your f-stops, shutter speeds and ISO settings by now. You want to be  familiar before you start using strobes. Because then we start talking about shooting with 1/1 (full power), half power etc. The more you practice the better you will get at it because you will start to remember the settings.

Getting good at anything takes practice. However, Practice/Getting better with our photography gets quite expensive; no one never told you photography was cheap. If they did they were lying to you. There are ways to cope with the expenses though; rent the equipment. I’m not able to afford my flock of D3’s as yet, I’m not able to purchase my Elinchrom lights as yet like I used for this shoot. They are in expensive though, somewhere around 1.6k for the kit with two lights etc. if you bought them. If you are in my position the money comes and the money goes, you have electricity bills pay, phone bills, (if you are a photographer wanting to make it turn off your cable like I did), internet bills, the list goes on and on. If you’re not and you are going to purchase them anyway, help a brother out, forget the 500 go for the 600 and make your purchase here: Purchase Elinchrom Strobes

You probably didn’t buy those lights, but if you did thank you because you just helped me pay my mother back for all of the money she spent on me for college. I rented the light from a company Apeture Professional Studios & Supply in Miami, Florida. I’m giving them a shout out here on the blog because they are extremely nice people and they have amazing professional gear you can rent for cheap for film and photography.

So what now? Write your client a proposal and include the fee of renting the equipment you need. After a few shoots you will begin to stack a few dollars to buy the equipment you need. The downside  is a little profit lost for you. If you had the equipment you would be able to charge your clients the same fee, but, you make more because you don’t have to pay to rent. A few losses/ lower profit won’t hurt to get your name out there with better looking photographs.

Scott Kelby has a book, well Scott has many books, but the book that teaches you how to shoot a portrait with one light and multiple ways of lighting portraits is called Photo Recipes Live Behind The Scenes: Purchase Photo Recipes Live On Amazon

I was fortunate enough to help Scott out as a second assistant on a few photo shoots. I like that the book comes with a dvd you can watch and follow along with. Scott may seem pretty down to earth in the dvd, really relaxed and excited about you learning. Well, that’s because he ’s really that way;  I like that about him, an all around nice guy, nothing filtered. The book makes you feel as if you have Scott right there teaching you one on one. Scott Also has an app now for Photo Recipes, take a look at this article, it’s mentioned on the 4th subtitle. [Here's The Link].

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As a professional photographer I love portraiture photography. Photographing my friends for fun during lunch breaks in high school as an amateur photographer has a lot do with it.

My friends over at Eternal Truth Tattoo in Miami, Florida (located on 5th and Ocean Drive) have a new super talented tattooist on the team. Ejay is a new member of the Eternal Truth Tattoo’s Family. When I met him for the first time, I knew his look would make a killer portrait. He was so easy to work with because he’s easygoing with a great personality.

To cook this portrait I used my Nikon D300’s, a 35mm-135mm lens, a reflector, and the SB-900 with a white umbrella. To edit the photograph I used Adobe’s Camera Raw and Photoshop.

Ejay was preparing his gear to work on a new client. I prepared my gear and told Ejay to ignore my presence. Every time I shoot a new image, I push myself to add more spice to my on location workflow; if you want to call it that. One of the spices I try to pull the most flavors from is composition. Finding the righting angles and capturing the perfect action of your subject is not easy, but clearly not impossible.

If I asked Ejay or any of the tattooists of Eternal Truth Tattoo how they improve their skills, I’m sure they would tell me their skills developed over time with hard work. My advice to photographers, as a photographer is to take more photographs and develop compositions mixed with moments that work for you. Good luck, now go and have fun.

If any questions please don’t be afraid to ask me in the comment form: if you love what you see show some love in the comment form as well.

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At my last photo shoot, I came into contact with, literally the most disrespectful person at one of my sessions! I’ve been photographing a lot of skateboarders in Miami, Florida recently. Wanna take a guess at who this disrespectful person may be? The title of this post kinda’ gave it away. (The Photographs Displayed are Images Made From The Session That Inspired This Post.)

A Skateboarder Cop…

…well a security guard who thinks the costume his boss gave him to wear made him the most powerful person in the world. The security guard spat at my skater.

If you are a skateboarder, if you film skateboarders or if you photographed skateboarders I’m sure you’ve been kicked out of a location before. I’m used to getting kicked out at the most annoying times, like right when all the lights are set up. I understand why securities has to kick us out at times. They’re only trying to keep their jobs. They don’t understand that we’re trying to do the same. Some of the nice ones might say, “okay I’ll give you one try to get the shot you need then you have to leave.” or “Bro, I have to feed my kids. You really have to leave the property.” Those approaches are understandable.

@RunKelly and I were unpacking our gear and I looked over at the skaters the security ran outside shouting at the skaters. When I say shouting at the skaters, I mean SHOUTING at the skaters. “You can’t f**king skate here! Get off the f**king property!” If anyone approaches anyone with that tone they are going to get a reply back. One of the skateboarders answered him back saying look you don’t need to curse and shout to tell us to leave.” And that’s when the security guard spat at him. So he spat back. I don’t agree with the entire situation. In my mind he’s no longer a security guard he’s just a big pussy in a costume, spitting at my model that happens to be under the age of 18. I immediately ran over to the guard to clear things up. The little 5′9 guard’s mouth wasn’t as big when he saw me come over. I told the skaters to leave and I told the guard to ease up before a problem really occurs. I didn’t want to make a scene, so I didn’t punch him in his face like I wanted to. Mainly because all of the money we have now is for more gear and not for bail lol. It frustrates me to even write this right now because it still pisses me off that he would do such a thing to a 13 year old!

My Quick Tips To You For Shooting Skateboarders and How To Avoid Getting Kicked Out Before The Shot

Capturing  skateboarders at the right moment of action is not easy. If you want to do this for a living as bad as I do, you should start puting work into it like I do. There are ways to get around getting kicked out of your location- example you can contact the property owner and make a deal with them. But if you’re broke on a tight budget like I am, only using: Nikon D300’s, SB-900, Pocket Wizards, umbrellas and reflectors – renting the property is not an option. You’re going to have to that risk of being kicked out as well. BTW If you’re that person thinking  it’s easy as putting the camera into continuous mode and getting a lucky shot – bullshit.

Keep A Ten Dollar Bill…

…they work 9-5 as a security guard. That means he / she probably is not making as much money as wanted. That ten dollar bill looks good for lunch. I honestly  believe they don’t have to kick us out at times; I’ve paid-off countless guards to get shots. Shots that didn’t make my portfolio or even make it to my hard-drive. — Sometimes you have to do what you have to do for what you love.

In The First Tries…

…if you are working with lights etc. tell your skater to go down the street away from the set to warm up while you set up your lights. If the skater practices around you while you are setting-up your lights, it only increases your chances of being spotted by the skateboarder cop. Set your lights up, shoot great skaters and get the image within one shot.

Settings To Use…

…I’m going to be brief on the basics. If we were painters and I gave you a canvas  I expect you to know what brush to use for the strokes you prefer mark. In photography you’re going to develop memory for the camera settings which works for certain situations.  1/500 of a second freezes action, F – 2.8 lets more light into the camera, the lower the ISO (old school ASA) the less grain = the better quality of the photograph, however, the higher the ISO = the more light into the camera. Look for the best angles. Shoot a lot, fail alot, filter your good ones to develop your style good luck now go get shooting. (Even I am still in the process of mastering – I’m just sharing what I know with the community.)

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YouTube Channel: 242dt

Quick Post:

…was a great person to work along with; expect more from her here on the blog.

Being a photographer allows you to interact with great people, with great talent and great vibes. I’ll be the first to tell anyone, our job as photographers is the best. The person I speak of in particular is one of my recent models, Ashley Hewlett.

Ashley was chosen as an event model for Roxy and she was the host model for a Teen Vouge event at Dadeland Mall in Miami, Florida.

I photographed these images about three weeks ago.

I’ve been looking at Surfing Magazine’s 2010 Swimsuit Issue, shot in Malibu and Puerto Rico by photographer Lauren Ward as well as the photography for the ad I saw for Reef in Surfer magazine.

Reasons why I look at those photographs and ads are because I would like to be shooting for those magazines someday and I need to study, to know what they are expecting.

There were a lot more photographs from Ashely’s shoot; two years ago I probably would have posted all of them. I became a bit more selective of what photographs I want to show out there.

A few problems I ran into that I’m going to fix:

Every photo shoot I’ve been lucky enough to walk away with a good image. Even if the image wasn’t what I had envisioned, I had manage to add a photo to my collection. Part of that comes from shooting  A LOT for practice. If you keep shooting you will learn what your eyes like and dislike.

Likes and Dislikes:

The photograph above was from the first locations. I wanted Ashely to think as if she was walking around doing her own thing, maybe on a vacation somewhere tropical and I took her to the side to take a photograph of her wearing her swimsuit.

Ashley’s modeling nailed the idea I gave her perfectly. My main concern every time I shoot a model in a swimsuit is to keep her looking sexy and at the same time keep her from looking slutty/ trashy.

The guy from the vendor was nice enough to let us photograph at the spot for about 20 mins. He even gave Ashley a hat he made. A portrait I took of him is sitting in my print box. Next time I go to that spot I’m going to surprise him with it.

On the view finder the images were looking nice – The poses were excellent, compositions were excellent, but my concern now-a-days is, background distraction.

To help easy my mind from breaking the computer screen when I viewed the images there,  I had to thank God (and the Photoshop Guys from Photoshop User Tv ) for some of the things I know in Photoshop.

I added a layer mask of Gaussian Blur and painted Ashely back into the foreground to somewhat make that busy background less distracting.

Mistake number two of the practice day:

The day of this shoot we went to a location on the beach. I wanted Ashely relaxing, laying out and enjoying her day at the beach.

People were around us on the beach looking ,we even had some people stop and take pictures of us working etc. but Ashley remained focused and nailed every image.

On location I thought it would be an okay idea to maybe have these people blurred in the background doing whatever the want as Ashely relaxed.

It was my fault not getting the image I wanted because I didn’t choose a place with less of a crowd for a shoot like this.  I’m happy with that mistake because now it will never happen again. Her being a model, I’m sure she didn’t mind the crowd drooling over how gorgeous she is.

The problem was that the background became to busy for what I was trying to capture. Maybe if I had Ashely laying out with her friends chit chatting or something I would keep the same backgrounds as before. In this case the photograph didn’t breath enough for me as to why I didn’t keep them and post them here.

As I looked back at Lauren’s photographs and saw her backgrounds with the models…ouch..let’s just say that I love my Nikon D300’s so I didn’t throw it on the floor. Moments like those make me was really upset with myself because I’m way too passionate but I control myself.

We lost a lot of light for what I wanted so it was time to move on to the next locations.

Here are two images I managed to escaped with..Ashely will be shooting again with me very soon again for me to capture that image I have stuck in my head. That day I will only be working on that image and capturing it. I will keep you updated.

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Eternal Truth Tattoo is the only tattoo shop on South Beach’s Ocean Drive in Miami, Florida. I got my first tattoo there and it’s the only place I will be getting tattoos on the beach when I’m in Miami. I state this because I’ve developed a relationship with the artist there and I click with the vibe I get from them. Naw don’t be silly that’s not the only reason why – one of the main reasons why are because I got to know the artist, I think they are crazy sick at what they do and it’s comfortable knowing how much they love tattooing. What’s crazy super cool to me is that there are no room for mistakes and these guys manage to, well they have to knock it out perfectly one shot. Unlike us artist, like myself, using Photoshop and running to the Eraser Tool / brushing away our mistakes on layer mask.

Random fact of the day, “I’ve always been a fan of tattoos, epically sleeves on females; if done right I swear to you, to me, there points goes up and they become super frickin’ sexy in my book.”

Eternal Truth Tattoo agreed for me to pop in when I want to photograph portraits and lifestyle shots for me to share with you here on the blog. Pretty sick huh! I’ll tell you more about this later in this article. BTW – I nicknamed the fish seen in the photograph above Mr. Fishy because he’s apart of the fam at Eternal Truth Tattoo, but he didn’t have a name.

As a photographer I pay great attention to detail. In high school from 8^th grade up to my first year of IB I studied theater arts. One thing I learnt from my theater arts teacher, Barbara Rees, is to ALWAYS observe. Keen observation got me a number of photography gigs and it allowed me to create most of my lifestyle images. Observation is brutally important as a photographer, a businessman, a hustler, and a human being.

Whenever I go somewhere I pay close attention. One thing I pay close attention to is the way I’m treated / respected by others. Part of why I will be blogging about Eternal Truth Tattoo is because they make me feel welcomed and part of the family. Eternal Truth Tattoo’s owner, Oscar Guerrero…

… found on the internet, some of my photographs of tattoos on skateboarders. Oscar gave me a shout and told me he liked my work and what I was doing. Him reaching out to me to tell me that made my day; I was in the Bahamas photographing at the time he called. I gave him a call back and asked him if it would be possible for me to take portraits of the staff at the shop, photographs of people getting tattoos and lifestyle photographs of the artist. He agreed so expect to see more of these articles popping up on the blog with some crazy lifestyle-portraits of people with tattoos.

I decided to photograph at Eternal Truth Tattoo because they made me feel comfortable being around when I got my first tattoo, I like the vibe of the shop when I’m just chilling there and I want to share this experience with you through my photographs. Come on down some time get a tat and chill with us; I usually tweet when I’m over there (Dwayne’s Twitter). Eternal Truth Tattoo’s staff a.k.a “The Family” adds to my collect of, “Oh wait…there are real / down to earth people in Miami!” Your gonna’ be stopping by sometime so let me introduce you to the staff.

Meet Christina Zamora:

Chances are that you will hear her joyous voice welcoming you into the store like she welcomed me. Christina is Eternal Truth Tattoo’s store manager. She’s a really cool lady to chill with and her energy along with the music in the store keeps the store pumping.

Meet Antman:

This is pretty much the Antman himself, always focused on what he’s doing; he’s a super crazy talented tattoo artist. You don’t see him smile much though, it’s because ideas are constantly running through his mind for new tats. When you speak to him one on one, you can tell he’s crazy passionate about what he does and he’s quite knowledgeable of the inks. I asked one question the other day about details in a tattoo that I want and in reply he gave a book back of verbal answers, along with Drew jumping in. Oh wait you didn’t meet Drew as yet.

Meet Drew:

(There go Antman thinking again- Drew is to the right) It’s funny that I mentioned Drew and you didn’t meet him as yet. I say this because trust me when you meet him you won’t forget him. Drew has the character of one of those people if: it’s raining outside, Katrina floods are hitting Miami, every building except Eternal Truth Tattoo is wiped away on the beach (and my apt) and bodies are floating by outside of the front door – Drew would find a way to brighten up the day making everyone laugh.

Eternal Truth Tattoo has a facebook page: Join Here

I post videos and take photographs with my phone usually of funny things happening around the shop when I’m there so be sue to add them to your facebook.

Until Next Time…They Call Me DT.

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Victor Aragon of Miami International University of Art and Design scores the first goal at last game of the season. Yesterday the team fought with all they had unfortunately they lost 4-6. The new season starts September 2010 and I will be back on the sidelines photographing the games. (Click Images For Larger Views)

Shooting action in general is tough; the challenge of shooting it is what makes it fun for me. Throughout articles of this blog I mention that practice is the key to success for anything you want to be great at. I’m a commercial advertising, lifestyle, portrait and sports photographer. For practice as a photographer capturing action I’ve been photographing at Miami International University of Art and Design’s futbol games. Friends I encourage you to practice, practice, practice it’s the only way to get better.

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It’s late writing this and I was thinking about calling it a night but naw. I do care about the people who stop here to read what I have to say.

Photographing Soccer Games:
I’m going to keep this write up brief by sharing with you things I experienced the day making that image for Miami International University of Art and Design futbol team. Use some of the advice when shooting your next game. Hopefully my experience will help you feel a bit more comfortable if you are wondering how to photograph a soccer game or how to capture action.

This time of the year in Miami, Florida is extremely hot. The weather is something you should always take into consideration before shooting. It only makes sense to right? It’s really irritating wiping the grass off of my leg, wiping my face with paper towels (or my shirt) and trying to focus shooting the games at the same time. I learnt my lesson from shooting previous games. So to avoid that extra distraction: I wore flip-flops for my feet to feel comfortable in the weather, a tee shirt and long jeans because I sit on the grass. I took a small bottle of water with a towel to keep me hydrated and to stop the sweat from making me look as if I was out there playing on the filed.

For this game I shot my Nikon D300’s with the AF-S VR Zoom-Nikkor 70-300mm f/4.5 – 5.6 lens. God I love that lens. Something I love to do before shooting anything is putting the camera in aperture priority mode then take a snap shot and letting the camera automatically decide its settings. It’s a comfortable starting point for me. From there I put the camera in shutter priority mode. Then I adjusted the shutter speed to 1/500^th of a second at F/9 and -0.3EV. 1/500^th of a second freezes action. My White Balance was set on direct sunlight, A-4 and the camera was shooting Vivid. Those settings allowed me to get a warm photograph with the motion frozen.  My ISO was set at 320. I start out at ISO 200 and adjust to what I feel is the best for me. When your settings are best for you the next thing to do is to wait for the moment and fire.

Good luck with your shooting out there!

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In the heat of Miami past Sunday at Senator Gwen Margolis park in Sunny Isles, Miami, Florida MIU wins 3-0. To become successful at anything, practicing is vital. To keep getting better than good enough takes commitment / dedication. Fridays are one of the days the guys of MIU’s fútbol practice for their games. Last Friday the team welcomed me to photograph their practice as practice for myself. Photographing as much action as I can helps me to become a sharper shooter as a sports photographer.

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More To Come…See you at the game next Sunday!

Btw I tweet when I’m at the game and send a TwitPic as well.

]]> http://dwaynetucker.com/mius-soccer-team-slid-victory/feed/ 2 http://dwaynetucker.com/make-better-photographs/ http://dwaynetucker.com/make-better-photographs/#comments Tue, 27 Apr 2010 20:52:43 +0000 Dwayne Tucker http://dwaynetucker.com/?p=1801 Warning: call_user_func_array() [function.call-user-func-array]: First argument is expected to be a valid callback, 'Array' was given in /home/dwaynetu/public_html/wp-includes/plugin.php on line 166
]]> My uncle used to tell me, “the only mistake I’ve made is when I thought I’ve made a mistake.” I’ve added to his quote – “and if that mistake was made, make the best out of the worse.”

GoldSaturn held an event at Cafeina Miami Lounge and asked me to photograph the brand’s new turbans, on location. I knew it would have been a blast because it was an opportunity for me to mix a bit of lifestyle with portraits. The turbans illustrate the look Sex and the City stylist, Patricia Field, styled Sarah Jessica Parker’s character – Carrie Bradshaw. GoldSaturn’s turbans retail for $26.00

Miami, Florida, based GoldSaturn designer David Jon Acosta is an old college buddy of mine. GoldSaturn has been featured in: teenVogue, Nylon, Miami Herald, NBC’s Around Time, Miami News Times, Daily Candy, and Ocean Drive Magazine etc.

Before the shoot I erased all scary thoughts of expectations. Erasing those thoughts allowed me to go into the shoot with faith mixed with the skills I’ve developed over the years. Doing so was enough to boost my confidence.

The only things I knew about the shoot was: it would be in a lounge, at night, low light levels, models would be moving a lot and I would have to separate them at times from the event to get head-shots portraits wearing the turbans.

When I got upstairs of the lounge I began to check my gear; something you should do before you leave for the shoot. With me was my: D300’s, SB-900, Gels, and a 35-135 lens.

I wanted to shoot an 18mm-55mm or 24mm-70mm even better if I had a 14mm-24mm lens. The 35mm-135mm was my only option but it was okay because I’ve photographed that lens so much I knew what angles I would get best from it. At that point I started to regret putting the 70mm-300mm back on the shelf because I would have had another lens option to shoot; that lens makes awesome portraits!

I give all props to those club photographers for getting that ‘POW’ light they capture. The light the club photographers achieve requires a lot practice. I kid you not, that night I’ve had the most fumbling with settings on a camera from when I first started about 8 years ago.

I went into the shoot with no expectations but when I looked on the LCD screen on the back of my camera the image I had in my mind was not there. I said to myself Dwayne you’re not a club photographer so stop trying to get that look alike light. At that point I became fed-up. The images weren’t bad but I wanted it to match the light I saw the club photographers capture. Why I wanted that is still a mystery to me! Let’s make it clear that I am happy that I stuck to just shooting and not trying to do what I see other people do.

Running through my mind were thoughts like: low light levels = lower shutter speeds, strobe will help you, pop the white card, maybe place a diffuser, use a lower F-Stop, maybe change the EV, add more power to the flash, if lower shutter speeds camera shakes can still occur, movement is alive what about shutter priority mode.

My brain wanted to explode because of a few images I took and was not pleased with. The music, people bumping into me, drinks being spilled on my hands in the lounge (way to close to my camera) cigarette smoke in my thoughts; I was loosing my cool. (Cafeina Miami Lounge is a chill place to hang out with friends and I will be back there – don’t get me wrong.)

I leaned over and told David I don’t know how I’m feeling about the outcome of these photographs his reply was, “Dwayne I trust you.”

Okay great, more pressure, thanks David!

I placed my camera back on to my favorite settings to start out with- the lowest f-stop possible and 1/60 of a second, double checked to make sure I was shooting camera raw went back in Side and said let’s make this work.

I can’t explain how much of a joy it is working with great models. I spoke to the models and said give me your best let’s make magic. From there on I was somewhat satisfied with the images. (We started to have fun – sometimes that’s all it takes.)

I uploaded the images to the computer as soon as I got home about 3 a.m. and started to produce. Keep in mind that I try to wake up 5:30 a.m. every morning and I was on my third photo shoot within that 22 hours frame. Maybe that can explain why I was becoming frustrated the entire night until I went outside to take break and return at doing what I’m best at.

I showed Greg the images on the computer and he couldn’t understand why I was tripping about the images not being good enough. I didn’t want to admit that, okay yeah I freaked a bit and the images were okay so I kept my mouth shut. I put way too much pressure on myself. I’m okay doing that though, it makes me want to keep pushing harder.

A quick shout out to Photoshop User TV for tips I’ve learned over the years of watching their weekly Photoshop Podcast. When I started to edit my images I was like okay what about a little bit of this and a little bit of that.

I shipped the images off to GoldSaturn then got a reply email from David saying one of photographs I were complaining about made it on Paper Magazine’s article by Peter Davis about GoldSaturn’s turbans.

All of that said was to express why it’s important to learn your skills to improve your talent. Remember the only mistake you’ve made is when you thought you’ve made a mistake because there’s always a way to make the best out of the worse.

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A few weeks ago my business partner and I decided to go for a skate. I left my camera for me to relax and skate for a bit. When it comes to NOT photographing, I usually don’t stick to the plan. It’s really hard for me to do so. My BlackBerry has a camera and if I see a photo opp without doubt I’m pulling it out.

If I don’t have my BlackBerry with me, which is really unusual it’s still okay because I’ve trained my eye to see though the lens without one. If I saw a frame that I would have liked to capture and I didn’t, I take a mental note and write it in my little book of big photograph ideas that I must create.

We made a late decision skate; therefore we didn’t go to MIA Skate Park because sitting in the middle of rush hour here in Miami was not an option. Instead we went to Peacock Skate Park in Coconut Grove and there I met skateboarder Kevin Jorquera.

Something I never understood was why is it so hard for people to meet people; the bottom line is that we are only people. Not to mention that some you meet has their head high up their ass but there’s even a way to get your message across to them. If you suffer from the, “I am afraid to say hello and what I am thinking symptom” it’s time to treat yourself by fighting to change it.

Writing that, I do sound a bit of a hypocrite because a few weeks ago I had taken aback losing my balls when I saw my favorite role model’s (Scott Kelby), favorite photographer, Joe McNally at Photoshop World. I said a bit of a hypocrite because I did, in a short amount of time grew more balls to go over and shake Mr. McNally’s hand and introduce myself to him. (Hello ladies )

Kevin and I made a date to photograph and made these images. What I like about shooting this skater (like most skaters) was the attitude. When I text Kevin to photograph his reply was, “Alight man just tell ask me when you ready.”

When I saw Kevin skate I could tell he live for it. The way he treated every trick, if he didn’t land a trick the way he wanted, he would get back up and practice it until he got it. The same way I treat every frame I shoot until I get that ‘POW’.

Before working with any model whether it be: a skateboarder, surfer, lifestyle model, anyone if I have the chance to (I make the chance to), I love to get to know as much about the model before we shoot. This makes them feel a bit more comfortable in front of the camera. Work becomes just another day with a camera and a friend.

I asked Kevin a few questions via text:

Q. Do you want to be come pro?

A. I want to be pro. No doubt about that.

Q. What’s your motivation?

A. My motivation is probably the joy I get from it. And learning new tricks.

One of my goals is to photograph for Magazines like Transworld Skateboarding, Thrasher and have clients such as Element, Zoo York etc. I pick us those magazines monthly to see what’s being produced and what clients are asking for. From what I observe, there’s no bullshitting with the work and that’s what I like. Knowing that, I push so hard to meet those clients needs so when I work with them it feels as natural as when I am doing it here on my own.

It was a pleasure working with a skater that pushes hard to meet his goal. I can assure you this won’t be the last time you’ll see skateboarder Kevin Jorquea here on the blog!

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