Monday, October 10, 2011

I have deferred this course due to time constraints.  I will come back to this course as soon as I can.

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Exercise 1 and 2 - Workflow

My workflow for shoots is pretty much the same whether there is a time constraint or if I have the luxury of time. Preparation for the shoot is basically the same as you need to make sure that you have all your batteries charged etc. If there is a deadline for the client then I normally will have a discussion before hand in order to understand what shots the client needs so that I can set up accordingly. If possible this would include a visit to the venue to see which areas are best for the photos.

Pre-shoot preparation

1. Charge batteries for speedlites.

2. Charge batteries for camera.

3. Format compact flash cards - make sure there's are at least four cards.

4. Make a preliminary plan for the shoot based on the client's requirements.

5. Check camera sensor and lenses for dirt and clean where necessary.



At the shoot

1. Make sure to arrive early.

2. Follow the plan made with the client, but be flexible

3a. For a time limited shoot transfer photos to laptop computer on-site so that the client has the opportunity to see the full image as opposed to the small image on the back of the camera. If necessary post processing can be done on-site and the photos given to the client

3b. If there are no time constraints then wait to transfer images onto desktop computer at home.


Post-production

All of my post-production is handled through Adobe Lightroom 3. For shoots that have a limited time frame pictures are imported into a new catalogue. Any photos that are glaringly out of focus or have poor exposure are not included. After this, if shooting for someone else, we will go through the pictures making an initial selection. After going through once and marking pictures we will then make a second pass through the 'picks' and choose the best of these. I find that after two passes generally, we have found the images that are the keepers and these will normally be the ones that will have corrections made and sharpening applied.

Once the post processing is done, the photos are supplied to the client in the agreed format.

The only difference in my workflow for projects that are not time limited is that I will make the initial selection of the 'picks' and apply some corrections to those photos before sending them to the client for their input. Once the final selection has been made I will apply sharpening etc to the images.

Normally I will try and keep everything in Lightroom for my post production work as it can handle 99% of the changes that I need to make. I do also have the option to move to Photoshop if the need arises.