Not A Starving Artist

newmediarockstars:

Check out our interview with Kingsley

Afternoon all! I’ve been asked about my workflow after a shoot a lot so here we go!… along with some free stuff.

Shoot > Lightroom > Photoshop 

I really don’t like how photos come out of the camera:

Yuck! its so DSLR looking… and boring. 

Workflow: 

FIRST After doing a photo session I’ll backup a copy of all the cards. Then proceed to make my initial edits. This means that I am going through all the frames and selecting the ones that I will edit. (Usually this is the longest process for me)

SECOND I will take the selected shots and load them into Adobe Lightroom. This is where I will make my second round of edits which includes: color correction and exposure correction.

Over time I started to notice that there was a certain color palette that I was attracted too and consistency use among different shoots. Cut down time on my workflow I started making my own user presets (the ones I’m giving away here.)

THIRD I would first apply my own preset as a base and then begin working and tweaking the photo within Lightroom. 

This means that my presets ARE NOT MEANT TO BE FINISHING FILTERS LIKE INSTAGRAM

FOURTH Once I’m happy with my edits in Lightroom I’ll open up the file into Adobe Photoshop where a bunch more edits and adjustment layers are made. 

The End!

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I’ve attached in the link below a zip folder of the presets I created over time to develop the “look” I use. (*Note: I have no idea what this look is called some of you have said: vintage/film/tones/colorful… lets just call is mellyish for now xD)

Inside there are 6 presets

1. Import:

When I import the first round of selects into Adobe Lightroom, I load the photos with my Import preset which pretty much sucks the contrast out of the file.  Mmm flatness! 

2. BW

This is my go-to base for making a black and white photo. Once again its completely flat.

3. BW-High Contrast:

Same as the previous BW, just with a little more punch.

4. Y-Highlight/B-Shadows:

Sometimes I like adding Yellow in my highlights and Blues in my shadows. 

5. Y-Highlight/M-Shadows

Other days I want Yellow in my highlights and Magenta in my shadows. 

6. Y-Highlight/R-Shadows

Sometimes Yellow highlights and Red shadows work.

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Pretty much I like to start off my editing as flat as possible, make specific adjustments, then make even more adjustments in Photoshop.

Good luck and have fun! Download

Please Like and Follow if this was helpful to you :)

I’m going to try to start blogging more of my behind the scenes things from my shoots on this blog. I’ve gotten a few emails last week regarding one of the images I took of Tori Kelly for her feature on NewMediaRockstars. So lets talk about the nerdy stuff in making the shot!

Since I don’t always have the luxury of scheduling the shoot time, I’ve gotten used to shoot when the sun is ridiculously blaring high. Its not fun. 

Shadows can be way too harsh and unflattering,  and generally I lose a lot of data in my files aka bye bye sky! 

The sun was pretty high for Tori’s session. For the image (above) I moved the singer/songwriter into a shaded area. The ambient lighting would be more even on her face.  This also made her positioned the sun slightly behind her, which created a nice rim light. Although the sun behind her also would cause Tori to either become a dark silhouette if I metered for the sky or blow out the sky completely if metered for the her face.

Expose properly for Tori, I metered for her face and then lit her using a beauty dish. To maintain a shallow depth of field I used a Singh-Ray Vari-ND (which also helped to cut down the ambient by 2 stops.)  

Peace! 

Settings:

Exposure Time: 1/160
F Number: 4.5 
Exposure: Manual
ISO: 100 
Flash: No Flash
Focal Length: 85.0mm

Photo Gear:

Camera: Canon 5D Mark II
Lens: Canon EF 85mm f1.2L II
Lighting: The Sun and  Profoto 7B
Accessories: Beauty Dish, PocketWizard II, Singh-Ray Vari-ND

(Source: blog.mellylee.com)

“Push hard enough and don’t live in fear of failure.”

Wise words from  a feature I did with Sarah Penna on NewMediaRockstars

Just noticed Michelle Phan blogged some of the still I took from her short “Underneath Your Love.” As I said before it was an awesome experience getting to work with all the creatives.

For me unit shooting provides a hands-on experience to see and learn more about lighting, story telling, and direction.

Thanks again for having me Ricebunny! 

I just experienced one of my most wth moments in my life. I left the NewMediaRockstars office around 6:30ish to meet up with my pal Janice to catch up over dinner at Love Letter. Once the food came out a man wearing a black hoodie, jeans, and had his face covered (I honestly thought he was just some punk kid dressed up as a wannabe ninja).  Out of nowhere he pulls out a handgun and walks over to me and sticks the weapon into my arm.  He tells me to get up and go into the kitchen.  He does this to everyone else in the restaurant.  

It was so strange when all of this was happening.  Everything felt so slow-mo like.  While walking into kitchen I remember asking Janice, “what’s going on?” It didn’t really occur to me that we were being held up.  It felt like more of a practice or rehearsal like when we used to have fire/earthquake drills in grade school.  While being held I didn’t feel scared at all.  In fact I felt my mind going into auto-pilot mode.  I went straight into prayer mode and recited the Lord’s Prayer over and over in my mind.  The energy surrounding me was so heighten.  All the ajimas were holding each other and ducking their heads.  One of the cooks had his hand under the back table on what I assume to be one of those security button things.  Another old woman crouching under the same table was trying to dial out 911 while the others were telling her not to risk it.  

The man eventually left with just the money from the register.  I’m oddly surprised that he didn’t run off with the rest of the items that were left in the eating area.  This whole fiasco didn’t really phase me until after he left.  From there my mind went into anxieties and worries. What if he fire at me while I was going into the kitchen? What if he fired at my friend who was inches away from me?  What if he fired at anyone for that matter?  With situations like these any small action could have lead to another end result.  Luckily, the result of this mess was that just money was stolen.  No one was physically harmed.  

I’m still a little shook up from this event, but in some strange way I feel empowered.  By empowered I mean that I am reminded of my own mortality.  I’m not going to be around forever and eventually I will die, and go to the maggots in the ground.  With this reminder I feel that I have no reason not to do everything in my power to chase my dreams.  

I WILL BE A TOP PHOTOGRAPHER

Life can be cut short at any moment.  There is no reason for us as people to live in fear.  We’re given only one life and one chance.  Why not seize the moment and do everything and anything we can to live it to its fullest.

Simultaneously lets not forget to love on each other. After tweeting that I was being held up I got a flood of messages from friends asking if I was ok. (Thank you all for caring! ) If I was shot or had died tonight, what if I never got another opportunity to see these people again?  Would I ever get to tell my parents thank you for raising me to the best of their abilities and that I appreciate them despite our differences? I remember thinking about the people that mattered to me, and how I probably haven’t told them how grateful I was for our relationship.

I feel like our human mortality can be right around the corner at any moment.  Lets never forget to live life and love on one another.

Apparently Kingsley is terrified of birds.  Whoops.  But it made for a coolish photo.

melly-lee:

Chased birds with ItsKingsleyBitch 

more at http://newmediarockstars.com/2011/12/kingsley/

New project uniting new media with entertainment :) 

melly-lee:

First photo from my new project check it out http://newmediarockstars.com