March 15, 2024

We say gear or new tools don’t matter, but sometimes they kick our inspiration into high gear and that does matter. I bet you’ve felt this too. Photos being too perfect was the topic of today’s Pro Photo Podcast so go listen in the background.

A blur like in these birds gives a natural emotion but the photo is still natural after my edit in BlackRoom.

A new camera is exciting and gets us shooting. But sometimes simple things do that better.

There’s a lot to be learned from history that we usually ignore. And the deep shadows drawn by pictorialist photographers are no exception.

In those days low detail drawm was more natural to the limited cameras and films. But it was still international. Today we have digital, clean details and sharp lenses but we can create that mood using modern tools and techniques in camera and in post.

I’ve bought expensive new lenses and stood with an empty wallet and a little excitement. Yes, they made my vivid landscape photography perfect and shape and I took good photos. But often it’s the imperfect that helps me discover shadow.

This frame was off. It was blurred but it had feeling. So I edited in more of a Stieglitz style and tone. You may love or hate it, but it gave me a fresh perspective on the session.

When I started buying old vintage lenses for a few dollars they had beautiful often soft details. Each one was like getting new gear even though it did not cost me that much. I pushed myself with them and realized that shadows not light and drama not sharpness were secrets to great photos.

The bridge into this neighborhood was flooded and the dark blurred photo of the cyclist leads the eyes out of the shadows and into the other side. A light platinum edit from Emulsion was used here.

Have you thought about why are rustic lamps and 19th-century lights so popular in 2024 and how that relates to photography? I love coffee and art.

On the side, I’m in charge of ambiance and design in a large cafe in Mexico. Some of the most popular things are table games, worn-out photo books, and handmade rustic lamps with Edison lights and burned wood tables creating an atmosphere. It is the Cafe of Light, it’s warm and relaxed and in Mexico, a very unique experience.

These details are planned, but imperfect and they make people feel at home!

THE SETUP: In a recent session, I had a lovely model and a single small strobe. I wanted a photo that was sensual but classy. Natural light, a dry river bed. One light let me create deep shadows and drop the background tones.
I got some beautiful results and edited with Filmist2 using Fuji 400H. Filmist2 is amazing but my edit was still sterile. I wanted more atmosphere like I’ve been exploring in my new project.
I took the FIlmist edit to Photoshop and used a process of layers and mixing inspired by the legendary David Hamtol’s work. It’s the same Filmic photo but gentler, more imperfect, and more magical. It’s not sterile. This is why I’ll use actions like Alchemist or this new pack I’m creating because they give me complex edits that I can adjust to the vision in my head today.

You can still have sharp detail. It’s not all blurs and abstracts. It’s about the atmosphere.

If you go back to the era of Alfred Stieglitz and the early pictorialist photographers or forward or forward to the 80’s era of partial fashion like David Hamilton you see a pattern. I’m going to share photos and their notes today to make this point.

Being a photographer who stands out is hard in the 21st century. Perfect photos are so easy and often automated. But are they perfect or boring? As someone who teaches and prints wall portraits, I value detail and high quality. Sometimes you need megapixels. But it’s not that simple.

Alfred Stieglitz used the camera imperfections of the day to create more dramatic images., I’ve been studying his use of shadows and tonality as I create new tools and projects.
I’ve always loved this 1940’s Kodachrome on the streets of London by Chalmers Butterfield. It’s a little soft, but it’s on the move and it feels like real life.

You see this especially when shooting film. It’s organic and feels like life in an Ain world.

Over the past few months, I’ve been working on a new editing pack to go along with Alchemist, backroom, and Emulsion. But this time I’ve been digging into iconic analog methods and getting inspired by implementing these techniques in my session and editing.

I edit a RAW photo. Say I use LR and C1 with Filmist or Silver. I get this edit and it’s good. But I’ve always said if I take the best photo and go to Photoshop, use layers, use Lumist or Blackroom or manually burn and dodge. I’ll also add something more.

I’m no stranger to high-detail razor-sharp photos so I can print large. But even in my landscapes, I’ve learned that deep shadows, nature clearing of clouds or trees, and mixing high detail with the atmosphere, lets us feel more about the place without faking it using Ai or pasted skies.
This is Mexico City, taken on my fuji and edited with Ektar 100 from Filmist 2. It looks good and it[‘s true to the film. But let’s look at the film reference.
My own scan of the shot made on Ektar 100 film. There’s an organic lack of perfection in the film. The preset does great and I love it. But sometimes less perfect shots will give us a more real feel.
Another un-retouched film scan was taken on Kodak Ultra 400. Film in itself is almost pictorialist in nature compared to clean digital files. There are flaws, imperfections scratches that make it feel like a different medium entirely.

If you saw my important video on the power of TONE in photography or have been to a Shadow Hackers live class you have the foundation for this.

But if we stop shooting safe and sterile and go all in with shadows and trying things. Not every photo will work but we will get inspired and new direction.

If you go on a trip to a beautiful place, I find a vibrant street or make a session with a beautiful person you can get inspired and create something fresh.

But I also get that when I am trying old techniques, trying to create new effects, and just going out with my camera trying extremes and not being afraid of detail but focusing on emotion and atmosphere.

Also a bit flawed. But this blut was natural and I let it ride to create a mood that worked with this dark shadowy pictorialist style edit. These may be extremes but they help me think.

Using new software or atmospheric editing effects will inspire not only your edits. It will make you think more about what you create on camera like it has done for some of my recent sessions.

Maybe you should wedding, or school photos. I know from experience it’s easy to get it a rut. So little things like an old lens that flares, making your glass dirty like David Hamilton or keeping some of the blurry photos and editing them in a more haunting way can change how you see the world.

Some of these photos may speak to me and not you. Some may be great and some not. But each photo I shared today affects how I feel and then the emotion of tone when I create the next session. It pushed that inspection we always need as artists.

I hope you found some inspiration and will share your comments below – Gavin Seim

If you’ve been to shadow hackers you’ve seen this example. The darkness along with with a platinum and cyan edit from Emulsion 4 is the opposite of how we normally light a portrait. Yet the subject is still dominant. I’m doing a video soon on why we need to stop lighting everything the same.
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February 26, 2024

White balance in photography is not what it is marketed as to sell white balance gadgets for photography.

Play around and you will see how simple photography white balance can be. You can also get my FREE film presets and Elegance masks here.

Today’s session was great for this because the light changed fast and was very mixed. But in the real world, this is usually the kind of photos you have.

I’ve talked about white balance before here but I felt like we need another visit. Photos end up lesser when we focus too much on what a card tells us is the correct white balance.

Due to varied lighting conditions in any one frame, these cards are often not even accurate. In today’s video, I’m going to show you how White Balance should be a flexible tool to balance your color and you should not let it lock you in.

FIlm pretty much has two white balance settings. Dayl;ight and tunsgten. You had to create around that or use filters in the post. Digital lets us have total flexibility.

There’s certainly a place for color charts. But even as someone who does a lot of color research and testing to make Filmist and other presets perfect I find them often unpredictable in real-world edits.

What’s certain is you don’t need an expensive White Balance tool for photos. If you are working in mixed light it’s mostly just a distraction. In a studio where light stays the same it could be useful but any grey card will work fine in my experience.

But in general. Don’t distract yourself. Focus on the shadow and the way you use line and tone.

Yes, I mean that in most cases. Leaving it behind will let you focus on getting your photos right in camera and in post you can focus on the vision you had and make the edit perfect for you rather than what a card or guide tells you.

Just like I taught you in my Shadow Hackers LIVE workshop to not trust a camera meter to make your exposure, you should not trust a grey card to decide the warmth or coolness of your color.

Of course, there can be exceptions. But I will say that in almost no project or session do I use a white balance tool anymore. It simply does not improve my work.

Gavin Seim

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February 20, 2024

Today’s video has been over a year in planning. Because I wanted to show you how powerful this is and how to use any camera in Xpan Mode and change your perspective.

See the Xpan frame guide at the bottom. I edited everything with Filmist 2 Presets for an authetic film feel. Share your Xpan crops on the Facebook Shadow Hunters Group

Anyone with any photo app can crop a pano. The secret to a digital xpan look is to commit and shoot that way in camera. The lines are fine. But the more blocked your screen is the more you commit.

Nothing here is permanent. Use a screen protector to avoid damaging the glass.

When I first started I used a marker to cover the entire cropped area. This means camera info could not even be seen unless I looked into the electronic viewfinder. Shooting this way meant I planned everything around that Xpan digital crop I was doing in post.

Don’t go halfway. There are many ways to crop a pano. But by sticking with this consistent 24×65 ratio you get that authentic xpan look on digital and it’s just a perfect panorama formula that’s not too wide and not too narrow.

You’ll also end up with a collection of work that has this beautiful constant because every frame is the same size.

Panos can be hard to share on social media. But in prints, they look amazing and don’t be afraid to go sideways or vertical with your panoramics. The Xpan format works perfectly on both and gives very distinctive images that suck in the viewer’s eyes.

The more you shoot Xpan digital crops in camera rather than just cropping in post the more you will see in unique ways and push the limits of your space, line, and tone. Combine that with Shadow like I teach in my Shadow Hackers workshop and you have a magical mix.

The biggest hassle can be finding where to draw your mask lines. So to make it easy I made this mask frame. Just take a photo of it with your camera with the white reaching to the edge of the frame on each side.

They review that photo and use the mask to draw the lines which will be the 24 x 65 X pan crop ratio. I’ve linked the image to the larger file so you can open it in a separate window.

Have fun… Gav

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February 16, 2024

The use of layers and masks in Lightroom and Capture has been getting better every year. But until now there was no speed masking in Capture One. Today that changes and bothers C1 and LR to get mask updates from Elegance 4.

Get Elegance 4 here. This is a free update if you own V4 (log in here). V4.8 also includes the Capture One Styles in the download. Just install them like any other style pack.

Today’s video looks more at Capture One because we’ve all been waiting a long time. But you can do all this in Lightroom also.

The secret to making masks practical is being able to create mask combos and save them as a preset or style. I created the idea of speed masking for this in my Elegance 4 presets but of course, you can make your own as I show in the videos.

To be able to make mask and tone-based edits saved into a style change how you edit in Capture One.

What I show today also works in Lightroom so If your focus is more on Lightroom check out this video also to see the power of the latest masks there.

The main thing is that LR masking has become powerful. The key is finessing what you do on each layer so you don’t over-drive your edit. Saving smooth combos of masks and layers into a speed mask makes you use these features.

Lightroom masks also saw updates and a few new presets in 4.8 so make sure you update. And of course, you can also save your own favorite speed mask mixes as presets.

Lightroom masks give us more mask and Ai options. But Capture one has more adjustments. I improved the presets in 4.8 for the Lightroom version for Elegance as well.

Capture One finally got Ai masking at the end of 2023 and in the recent update of 2024 can now save masks in styles. This changes everything. So tools are still lacking as I explain in the video but there are enough tools in C1 masking now that we can make effective Speed Mask styles and they are really powerful.

Finally, you can edit with the speed mask combos in Capture One mixing Ai and Luma mask tools in a single click like I did here combined with Ektar 1000 from Filmist 2.
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February 9, 2024

Black and white looks easy, but is hard. So what’s the best way to edit black and white in 2024? I’ll show you, but there are a couple of levels and you want to be comfortable with both.

In the video I use Silver 5 presets, BlackRoom actions, and Emulsion 4. You can also create your own versions of these processes manually. Just make sure you have something.

Many claim to be a new approach or the best. But what you’ll see in today’s video is that it’s more about the level of black and white you want to edit.

RAW fast and clean black-and-white edits are second to none. But the two more advanced methods we look at give you better black-and-white edits and don’t have to be complicated.

Over the years I designed all my layer-based tools to use the gradient map apprtach top black and white edits. Watch this video and I’ll show you how to use those manually.

It’s confidence to carry out your visualization and tools that let you try things efficiently.

Use shadows without fear like we talk about in Shadow Hackers. Because black and white is all about those shadows and the contrast they create. These methods just help you focus. Quick batch edits, then take the best and add layers of edits and atmosphere, use a tinting process if needed, and go to print.

This mix of cyanotype and wet plate processes created in Emulsion4 gives a strong drama.
Editing with presets and Lightroom and then a platinum process for this session finished it perfectly.
A selenium black-and-white edit approach was also finished in Emulsion 4. Like real selenium it’s subtle.
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