Just a reminder when I’m not blogging I update my fan page and my twitter often: Dwayne Tucker’s facebook fan page | Dwayne Tucker’s Twitter. That shot above is from my computer’s webcam. That’s the first photograph of my representative (Tom Costanza) and I.  Tom was introduced to my facebook fan page a few days ago; now that I have time to write a little I’m doing it here on the blog. If you have any questions about shooting with me use the contact page and ATTN it Tom or TC.

A Photography Team

That’s a little snap shot of a team I had working with me about a month ago or so. The model (far left) is Daniel Mateus Lages from Next Model Management in Miami, Florida. In about a few days or so, or whenever I get to it I will be featuring Daniel on the Model Image Day section of my blog. Right now there are only females but we are creating another section for male models as well. I clicked on that link just now to make sure it works and my reaction was, DAMN I have ton of updating to do. My images grew so much from then.  (Go ahead join Dwayne Tucker’s facebook fan page and you’ll be notified when I post the images).

A quick little update about MID (Model Image Day) – I respect what models are doing out there. Working with a great model always makes my job as a photographer easier. I like to give back to the models I worked with and to other great models out there that I see pushing hard to make their way.

Back on topic…

The far right of that photograph is my buddy Ace. Ace assist me in some of my shoots down here in Miami, Florida. Ace is pushing his photography down in Miami as well. He photographs music bands. I met the lil hommie in Zumiez at SunSet Place when I went to buy some new skate-boarding shoes. I’m a huge fan of tattoos and he had a pretty sick sleeve; the crazy part about it was that he did it himself. Not be shy and afraid to talk to a person can go a far way; go out there and meet people!

I’m so A.D.D.

The black guy in the photographs is my male stylist Apuje Kalu. I said it like that because it beats me saying the other guy with the reflector is my buddy Daveed, Daveed helped me out because he lived in the area and scouted the location for us blah, blah, blah. You’ll notice that I keep it real as I am on this blog and I get straight to the point…excluding the time when I drift away from the topics as I’ve been doing.

Apuje is an amazing stylist. I love working with him because he brings energy to the set and he has a ton of passion for styling. Anyone I work with must be extremely passion about what they do. This won’t be the first and last time you’ll read his name on this blog.

When is the right time to create a team?

I mentioned that production is easier when you have a team, it’s also easy to make a fool out of yourself if you don’t know what you’re doing. There was a time and there are still times when I have to be my own assistant, stylist and MUA. I didn’t need a MUA for this shoot because I only use my MUA when I’m working with females. (I’ll introduce my MUA Jenna Marie Streitenfeld with a photograph shortly.)

Back on track…

I abide by you live and you learn – but, if you want to go out there an make an ass of yourself then be your own guest. My point that I think I’m struggling to get across here is that if you don’t know how to direct your team then why have one. The right time to build your photography team is when you’ve dabbled in the areas a few times know what to expect from the team that you intend to keep. I felt as if it was time for me to use a team because: I know when I wanted to use a diffuser therefore I won’t be guessing on set, I know when I would like my assistants to hold the reflectors, I know I would have clients on sets and it will save everyone’s time if I have assistants build the lights on set for me (time is money – I don’t own my own studio – if I did I would wake up earlier and do it myself (probably not); I can make this list goes on but you got the idea now.

Two more shout-outs then I’m out of this bitch…

Above is MUA Jenna. I met Jenna a few months ago. I get along with Jenna because what???  – because she’s passionate about her work. To add to that I really respect her because she’s a hustler, something I relate to, hustling hard. If you want to, go a head and check out some of the images she worked on over at her website: KissThisMakeUp.com

My final shout out goes to Christine Bourie and Patrick DeCarlo from Total Recall Vintage to close this brief write up of photography team work info, short updating about the newest members of Team DT. and giving shout-outs. I met Christine when she was styling for a buddy of mine. I fell in love with her work, I fell in love with her professionalism and most important what?? — I fell in love with Total Recall Vintage because they are super passionate about what they do. Patrick and Christine are awesome people. The photograph below is a mix of both of my stylist working together. The  photograph below the male was styled by Apuje and the female was styled by Christine. That’s about it yall! Peace!!

–

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My phone rang late one night, it was GG asking me if I could take some portraits of him. We stayed up on the phone until about 3 a.m. and started shooting the images at 9:30 a.m. the same day. A ton of planning involved, I’ve worked with GG before, I love his hustle as an artist, we work easy together therefore the shoot was fun.

I’ve been going back and forward with the suburban editor of the Miami Herald about getting this interview in the paper…it has been a few weeks now. I get their drift. I’m persistent with my photography. With seconds of my life  to come,  I hope they get my drift. If they ever call me, I wouldn’t turn them down, I’ll be happy to know they finally understand me.

If the interview article ran it would have been like this:

Dwayne, what made you explore the life of GG with your photographs?

I respect GG’s passion for his work. I met GG about a year ago and
like everyone else, I became a fan and as well as a collector of his work.

If you looked at GG’s Artwork, his paintings tells stories.
I relate to his style of story telling because I tell stories with my photographs.
Therefore I decided to give GG a story of his own with my photographs.

The portrait of GG shows the viewer he’s a painter.
To do this was easy, I had him hold his paint brush.
I love connecting my subjects with symbolism.
You will notice a Rubix Cube is consistent throughout the story.
I used the Rubix Cube to illustrate/to symbolize the complexity/the struggle of being an artist.

The story begins.
GG sleeps and dreams about his future.
His painting stays on the side of him to show his work is close to him.
Even when GG sleeps he’s being inspired for new pieces.

GG reads about world problems and gets inspired to create new pieces.
It’s important for GG to stay up to date with the current times.
Along with that, it’s important to have a business mind to go along with talent.
I placed a phone on top of the Rubix Cube to illustrate: while GG’s gets new inspirations
he’s also waiting new opportunities phone calls.
On the front cover of that paper is a soldier talking to a little girl telling her know that everything will be okay.
This takes us into the next photograph.

Their are rockets on the canvas GG’s carrying on the way to his journey to the galleries.
This painting reflects the inspiration of the soldier talking to the little girl. The rockets on the canvas symbolizes
the war and the broken hearts symbolizes the little girls sorrow.

The complexity of his purpose in life starts to makes sense as he walks towards the gallery.
Like a rocket, GG throws up the Rubix Cube.

GG’s foot is in the door.
I highlight the climax of my stories by photographing the climax image in black and white.
Here, GG gets his foot in the door. Getting your foot in the door takes away a portion of the complicity. However,
we as the viewers knows the cube’s still in his hand; therefore life is still complex.

We can sit here an analyze this photograph talking about reflections, talking about the sign on the door saying “Open, Come In”, all the way to his Nike shoes symbolizing, sometimes you just have to, “Just Do It.”

Hard work pays off.
This is the only photograph where the cube is not twisted. However, it’s still not solved. In fact, it’s the beginning of all problems for an exciting and complex journey waiting to be solved.

–

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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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A few days ago I posted the portrait shown above of Tattooist Ejay from Eternal Truth Tattoo. I was excited about the shoot, I was excited about the photograph, I was excited about editing and sharing the photograph. I got feedback from members of the Professional Photography Industry Group on Linkedin that shared some of the same information. The feedback made me re-edit Ejay’s portrait so I’m sharing it here with you.

The first comment was from Stephen Caissie. Stephen is now a photographer and was a creative director at ID Design and an art director at theadlibgroup. He said,

“I don’t mind the lighting (I’m a sucker for the high-structure thing myself) but as an art director with a decade of experience I can tell you that the composition here is actually pretty terrible. I’m telling you this in the spirit of constructive feedback, not because I think you’re a bad photographer – your shot of Greg Gayle shows that you do know what you’re doing – but because I really don’t think this is a good shot. The large black object in the extreme foreground, out of focus as it is, wouldn’t be so distracting if it were taking up, say, 1/8th of the total image area, but it’s more like 1/5th. None of the lines are leading the viewer’s eye towards your subject, and he’s half hidden. My advice would be to crop the image up from the bottom to just under the tat on his upper arm, and in from the left to the edge of that vertical piece of metal on the wall. Nothing outside that area is in any way interesting to look at and is just fighting with your main subject. This way you’ll still get a little of that blurry foreground object to help create a sense of depth, but it won’t be nearly as prominent.”

I appreciate helpful comments like Stephen’s. When I got back to my desk, I took a look at the photograph and I agreed with him.

As photographers, we should be looking for that perfect composition in our viewfinders. It’s a must to practice like I do to become a sharper shooter. I will remember to recheck my composition more detailed for my staged shoots. In this case, Ejay was setting up to work on a client so I had to work around his movement.

Stephen’s comment reminded me of a design project I worked on my freshman year at the Savannah College of Art and Design.

It was the first project I learnt about and used psych lines. Psych lines are lines you use in art to lead the eyes to different sections of your artwork. Find these lines or place these lines in your compositions when setting up the set for your photographs.

Above is the out of camera image for the tattooist portrait. I circled parts of the photograph I knew I work on. In camera raw and Photoshop I used different techniques I picked up over my eight years of doing this and placed them together. I strongly advise you to use Google, YouTube, Vimeo and search for tutorials and watch Photoshop User TV episodes. I’m still getting better at what I do, and I will forever be on my journey as a photographer. Somewhere on this journey I learnt that it’s the edit that really counts. Learn your tutorials and take your work seriously. I should have titled this article, A Great Edit Makes A Great Photograph.

The photograph below is the new version of Ejay’s Portrait. I took into consideration the advice from members of the Professional Photography Industry Group.

Numbers one, two and three are to show how psych lines works in the photograph. Number one leads the eye to the tattooist (somewhat). It mainly leads your eye to the blurred object in front that creates depth of field. The depth of field gives dimension to the photograph. Number two and three leads the views eyes to the tattooist’s eyes. Naturally the viewer’s eyes should look for the eyes of the subject. Number four and five illustrates the depth of field. I explained the fifth number earlier about the blurred object in the front. The objects labeled number four, I made solid black hole in them because to me it created more distances. It’s hard for me to explain it the way I would like to. You are probably going to think I’m crazier than I really am in a second. The black holes are like passage ways to space / to emptiness / almost to a galaxy for my mind; it adds more distance into the photograph creating a stronger depth of field. I get a feeling of, what is behind if I went. I could almost feel the cool breeze of another world when looking at it.

Above is the final image (so far) for the tattooist portrait. I could see it being changed again if it were to be used as the front cover of a magazine. It would probably be cropped between the edge of his hat and his left shoulder (the one with the tattoos).

Remember to look for and shoot that perfect composition, utilize psych lines, make a great edit and share a good photo. Good luck.

See you next time!

The Biscayne Skate Park project is the result of many members of the skateboard community working together with the City of Miami, specifically Commissioner Marc Sarnoff’s office and the Omni Community Redevelopment Agency.

I wanted to enjoy some good afternoon skateboarding in Miami, while it was free so I purposely left my camera at home. When I got to the skate park I felt so much love and support for the project; I was pissed that I left my camera at home.

When I started photography, I used to complain about not having a good enough camera. After shooting for a bit, I learn capturing moments / capturing the story is sometime, if not all the time most important than what camera I was using.

My BlackBerry has a camera built into it,  so why the hell not (I used it as my fix for my addiction). I wrote this article to tell you use whatever camera you have. I don’t have a flock of Nikon D3’s (I would love to though) but I do use a Nikon D300’s. I didn’t have my D300’s so I settled with the only camera I had.

Commissioner Marc Sarnoff’s office, the Omni Community Redevelopment Agency and MiamiSkaters.com I want to personally thank you for putting this event together for us skateboarders in Miami. Thank you again for helping with the park’s project.

–

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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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Prior to my photography portfolio being active I posted my photographs in blog post and shared articles about them. I am still going to do so. Posting to my blog allows me to share some photographs that won’t necessarily make it to my portfolio page but I would still love to share them with you.

To make a photography portfolio like this one – I purchase a template and spent a lot of time editing the photographs to fit it and personalized it. I’m not a flash designer and I didn’t see point of sitting down HOURS to create a portfolio like this from scratch. As a photographer I don’t see the point . Unless you are trying to start a flash design company :S

The point is that you want to have something what’s going to represent you and your work. If you aren’t in a position to purchase a flash template or pay a flash designer to make one for you Wix.com is an easy site with some cool shit in there to play around with. Check them out. When I launch DT.’s MERCH I will be using them to make my e-commerce part of the site to sell my photograph tee-shirts etc.

HOW TO USE?

The middle left of the screen of the portfolio page you are going to see a menu button. I’m deciding if to just have the menu stay out as seen in the snap shot above. Looking through the code to figure out how.  Over the summer you will see photographs and maybe even some video, constantly being added to my photograph portfolio. I think the zoom feature on this portfolio is cool but unsure it if to keep it if it’s gonna give me faster loading time. What do you think?

In the menu bar there are different collections of photographs for you to look at. Enjoy them and hopefully my hustle helps you keep your hustle on!

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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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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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Follow Dwayne Tucker on Twitter of His Updates: Click Here

The videos below are by the Photography Business success coach Beate Chelette. I am posting the videos because like you, I crave to learn more and more…and more..about what I love. Most important Beate shares some great information with these videos!