Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I. Caucus Day 2008 During and after the Caucus

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Caucus Day 2008: Overview D ecisions, Decisions, and more Decisions… Yes making decisions can make most of us stressed out. One way that I use photography is as a meditation. I shoot to refocus my nervous energy in a creative act. I let my sub-conscious work on the decision of who to vote for while I’m paying attention to the visual world around me.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Caucus Day 2008: Location L ocal Elementary School: The caucus was held at the Steven’s School. This map of the US painted on the school ground felt relevant to the caucus and voting process. I decided to shoot it. I chose the northwest corner of the map for my camera position because that felt right. I even placed my Tully’s cup about where Seattle should be.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Caucus Day 2008: Tool C anon S5-IS: The Canon superzoom wide is limited to a modest wide angle. I would have preferred a super-wide. It’s field- of- view could have shown Los Angeles, California, where I use to live until I moved up here in As it is, California is not in the frame. I could have backed up to include it but the composition would have been less desirable.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Caucus Day 2008: Camera framing & image cropping C rop up to 10%: The subject is very flat. I wanted to bring depth into the shot. My point of view, the coffee cup, lens perspective, and the black dog is my attempt to add depth through 1-point perspective and contrast. Seattle Washington is the foreground and the dog is more near Cuba. I used a black ‘cropFrame’ to eliminate undesirable details.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Caucus Day 2008: Lab work in Photoshop A dd Presence & Depth: Besides the basic lab work, judicious dodging and burning has been applied to the flat subject and lighting scene. Now there is a more ‘feel’ for foreground to background. And the yellow state border lines has been intensified for a more linear ‘feel’. Use the keyboard Up & Down arrows to compare this with the previous image…

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Caucus Day 2008: Attention to details L ab Work: Retouch Get rid of the bright fender and put some detail in the coffee lid. Unfortunately, at this small scale, the detail work is not that obvious. Again, use the Up and Down arrow keys to compare the difference…

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Caucus Day 2008: Color saturation L ab Work: Hue/Saturation I went beyond the basic lab work. I used Hue/Saturation adjustment to increase the saturation on the image. It affected the yellow line the most making it stand out more. Do the image comparison again using the Up and Down arrow keys…

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Caucus Day 2008: Story S tory: Applied design While lab working this image, I continued to think about my choice for the presidential candidate and the ‘united states of’ America story. I visualized a waving flag overlaid on the map scene. Not having such an image, Photoshop was used to fabricate it. I used our colors, S-curve, blur, and mask gradation to achieve the final effect. Replacing the Tully’s cup with a Starbuck cup could have made the image funnier…

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Caucus Day 2008: Variation on a theme A merica’s Future: Here is another take on the USA map shot with a focus on the future, children.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Caucus Day 2008: Lab work moves… C ropFrame: This image has a black ‘cropFrame’ applied to it as the first step in the basic lab work process. Then rest of the image adjustments were applied: 1.Levels adjustment 2.Brightness/Contrast 3.Color adjustment I purposely amputated the child’s head and created a near tangency with the younger child.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Caucus Day 2008: Final image A pplied Design: This step isn’t required for this class. It’s being shown as an example of how an image might be used in the market place. Caucus for America Pacific Northwest Point of view

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Caucus Day 2008: Mural montage Children’s Voices: This wide panel is a montage from two separate shots taken from a much larger mural done by children at the Steven’s Elementary School. I shot the parts to show ‘facing challenge, real danger, and happiness’.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Caucus Day 2008: Relevant shooting facts A rt Work Shots: The montage required Shooting two 4 x 6 feet sections from a much larger mural that was not very well lit. My first attempt to capture it hand-held (no tripod) was not too successful even though I used the stabilizer. Emergency – I turned on the flash and I moved off to the side in order to avoid flash glare on the art work. The lens was set to 14 mm, which was a compromise setting. The flash setting took over the camera exposure setting and reset the camera to 1/60 th f/3.2 (wide open).

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Caucus Day 2008: Strong responses K eep Up: With the Jones I spotted this outrageous storefront display on my walk back to my house. I obviously had a very negative response to it. Based on this promotional exhibit, I wouldn’t use them for my investment or investment advice. But, it seemed like a very good potential example shot…

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Caucus Day 2008: Lab work phase S tep 2: Process No cropping was required so I went directly to the 3 image adjustment steps. I had under exposed to retain the thread detail on the ‘DOW 10,000’ stitch work. The basic processing safely brought the image to a ‘mild’ tonal range.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Caucus Day 2008: Custom retouching R etouch: Step 1 Photoshop ‘Select’ the text DOW 10,000 stitch work. Darken it using the Brightness/Contrast adjustment to reduce it’s image presence.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Caucus Day 2008: Custom retouching R etouch: Step 2 I though that ‘bear market’ is about the DOW moving- up. With that mistaken notion, I clockwise rotated my camera to get the bear to face up. I also retouched to clearly isolate the diagonal line of the staircase to echo the ‘moving up’ story. Please use the Up & Down arrow keys to compare this with the previous image to check out the staircase detail.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Caucus Day 2008: Custom retouching R etouch: Step 3 Presentation ready means to take care of all the little details. Use the Up and Down arrows to move back and forth between this and the previous image. Try using the squint-viewing technique.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Caucus Day 2008: Engraver’s need for detail H ere to There: In 1 steps Before After Talk about the engraver’s need for full detail image. It’s possible to make the After image look like the Before image in the printing process. But, it is not possible to make the Before image look like the After image without a serious loss in image quality.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Caucus Day 2008: Using reflections N ewell A.I.A: I walk on and found this Kodak opportunity not too far from the previous Bear shot. The scale model was behind glass. And the neighborhood was reflected in the glass. I controlled the reflection to become part of the promo display. ‘cropFrame’ added and full processed

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Caucus Day 2008: More reflections G reat Reflection: I found this cool ‘reflection’ shot further down the street. Camera original

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Caucus Day 2008: 4 step basic lab work S tep 1: Add crop frame I cropped even tighter to remove distracting image details.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Caucus Day 2008: 4 step basic lab work S teps 2 to 4: Basic lab worked with ‘crisp & shiny’ as my guiding light. Apply the following adjustments in the 1 to 3 order. 1.Levels adjustment 2.Brightness/contrast 3.Color adjustment

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Caucus Day 2008: Advanced lab work D odge & Burn: Used the Dodge, Burn, and Unsharp image adjustments to bring the image to the ‘crisp & shiny’ state.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Caucus Day 2008: Making comparisons F inal Image: See? This is a self portrait done at the Phase 3 or even 4 level. Before After After

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Caucus Day 2008: Great Wall T exture Mine: I love this kind of rich texture detail. This camera original doesn’t have anything near what I saw. But it has the detail that I need to work with in the following lab process.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Caucus Day 2008: Great Wall L ab Steps: 1 to 4 This has been crop framed, processed, and retouched to show you what I saw with my mind’s eye.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Caucus Day 2008: Great Logo P arting Shot: Beautiful red color, great logo design, and fine fabrication work. I am still using scene reflections to draw the painted and chrome surfaces.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Caucus Day 2008: Great Logo C olor Variation: Color change for a totally different look and feel. Use the keyboard Up and Down arrows to compare the Blue and Red color variations. Was the original color blue?

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Caucus Day 2008: A Full Day: I made my vote that I can live with and I used my nervous energy to make both intuitive and thoughtful images for myself … and for future class demonstrations.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I x End