J Scott Photography

Talk about a 4th Generation

The Four Tommy’s. This is a portrait that I made at Christmas of my new grandson who on his fathers side is the fourth generation named Tommy. This picture was one of several ad-hoc portraits that I took during a Christmas dinner.

The only gear I had with me was my Canon 40D, a 430EX Canon flash, and a Westcott Micro Apollo Light Modifier. I used the Westcott in order to soften and spread the flash which was mounted on the 40D hot-shoe.

I normally shoot in Raw, especially when I don’t have the ability to control all aspects of the environment and lighting so that I can…

Photographing Extreme Sports

As you can see from my photo galleries one of the subjects that I cover frequently is Action Shooting Sports. It could be argued that these sports fit into the Extreme Sport category although they have among the best safety record of any sport short of possibly badminton or ping-pong. Even so because real guns with live ammunition are being used some would say it’s an extreme sport. I agree that it is an extreme sport not…

Caution! Your New Camera May Cost You Dearly

The hidden cost of mega-pixels

The Mega-Pixel wars are upon us. Camera manufacturers sling about the Mega-Pixelosity of their latest models luring buyers in with promises of photo excitement, living the mega-cool Flickr© life-style. Are more pixels really the path to photo nirvana or are there hidden costs to this pixel orgy? …

Let’s See Some Skin

A few months ago I posted about the book Skin by Lee Varis. At that time I mentioned that I intended to purchase the book. I have since done so and I highly recommend this book. Even though some of the techniques in the book can now be done in other ways due to Photoshop CS4…

Adobe Fumbles with Photoshop CS4

Never before have I had such problems with Adobe. I pre-ordered my PhotoShop CS4 upgrade and was told that it would ship in a couple of weeks. A couple of weeks go by and no Photoshop.

I call Adobe and get a customer service rep whose accent was so thick I could barely communicate with him. I am told that my order is pending and will be shipping next week.

Next week goes by, no CS4. Call again, same situation. I can’t hardly understand the service rep,…

Want a Great Paper to Print On?

I love Ilford Galerie Smooth Pearl Paper. The results on my Epson Stylus 2400 Ultrachrome inks is fabulous. Make sure you use the proper paper for pigment based ink. For pigment based ink like the Epson Ultrachrome inks you want to order the Smooth Pearl in the red packaging not the Classic Pearl in the black package, which is for dye based inks. Unless of course…

Exposure

Ever wonder why your photos keep coming out too dark or too light? Always been taught to keep the sun to your back? Why doesn’t the photo look the way we remember the scene? It’s time to learn about exposure. The human eye is pretty amazing in what it can do. We can see detail in both the bright and dark areas of a scene. Even the best cameras that we have today are nowhere near the capability of the human eye and are able to reveal only a limited range of contrast. Cameras are getting better no doubt, but we need to understand that when humans look at a scene we see far more than our camera is able to reveal and have to help our camera to render the scene as we experienced it. This limitation can also be…