Upde Designs

I had an opportunity this week to do some portrait work for one of our banks.  The bank held an event for a selected group of people and one of the opportunities we offered our guests was for them to have a portraiture of themselves made. So I got to do the photography.  I was happy to contribute a small amount to a very successful event.

When I do portraits I will normally use  a green screen for my backdrop.  Green screens and blue screens have been used for decades and have become an invaluable part of a photographer’s toolkit. By photographing subjects against a green screen or a blue screen background, they can be easily isolated from that background and composited onto a different background entirely.

The primary reason for using a specific color backdrop is to avoid clashing with any colors on your subject. This is why red screens are not commonly used – due to the amount of red in human skin, it’s impossible to get good results when shooting people. Green and blue are both far less prominent in skin tones and therefore work as a successful keying color.

Additionally instead of buying lots of different materials and trying to haul them around you only have to take one backdrop and then you can make the image look like it was taken anywhere.  The biggest problem with green screen is lighting it properly.  Too dark and it blends with subjects hair.  To bright and you get what is called green splash (where the green color actually reflects on your subjects hair and skin.  Not a good thing.  I’ve learned a lot about shooting against a green screen but it is still tricky and I always seem to struggle getting the lighting just right.

Now if you look at the image above.  I was set up for a portrait (one person, two at the most.)  But these women wanted a group shot so I had to improvise on the post processing.  I’m not thrilled with the end product but you get the idea.

What are some piratical uses for green screen?  You see it every day when you watch your weather forecaster stand in front of his/her map. 🙂  Thanks for checking in.

A couple of unusual things about this image.  One, Josh’s eyes are open.  Most of the times I’ve been around him he has been asleep.  Two, I actually got to see him in person.  Since I missed seeing him on Thanksgiving and Saturday because of these stupid headaches Angie and Ben asked us if we wanted to stop by and see Josh Sunday afternoon and I was still feeling pretty good so we jumped at the chance.

Here’s Grandma doing her thing again.  Once she gets Josh in her arms it’s hard to get him away from her.  I did get a little QT with him though.

The proud parents showing off their newly remodeled bedroom.

Thanks for stopping by.

For the first time in over a week I actually got out of the house to go somewhere other than a Doctor’s office.  I’ve had a headache all day but it has been manageable so right after lunch I told Jeanne let’s go for a ride and shoot some stuff.

This beautiful Nativity scene was at the intersection of downtown Main street in Epworth, Iowa.  I shot a couple of image,s but there was so much shade on the inside of the scene  and that hid a lot of the detail.  So I decided to shoot it in HDR and I’m glad I did because I was able to capture all the great detail of the characters in the scene.

I love this image of Jeanne walking along near a little stream in Graf, Iowa.  It reminds me of an Image I took of her in 1979 one November Saturday while at my Parents home.  She was walking along the field in back of their house and our little Schnauzer “Pepper” was running after her grabbing at her coat tails.  I always liked that image and this was a similar setting (sans a dog of course.)

Right across the park in Graf is this huge rock wall that Jeanne said had a lot of Fossils in it.  We walked across the road and over the ditch and climbed up to look at some of the rocks.  Well Jeanne did, I stayed near the shoulder of the road and you know that is what 300 mm lens are for, so you don’t have to do a lot of walking.  It felt great to get out and it didn’t have much effect on my headache so it was a good thing.  Thanks for stopping by.

Did I say “Week” actually what I meant to say is 10 days from hell.  I woke up on Wednesday morning November 17th with a bad headache.  I had only had 3 hours of sleep from the night before, because my little Grandson Joshua had been born.

So I attributed the headache to just a lack of sleep, work stress, and over all excitement of the birth.  Well ten days later, 3 different doctors,  two injections, an IV, trip to the ER, and a ton of pills and I’ve still got the headache.

Amazing as it may seem sadly, it is the truth.  I missed all of Thanksgiving including seeing my Grandson Josh.  When I can’t eat there is really something wrong and I didn’t get one bite of turkey Thursday.

I’ve had a Cat Scan, all sorts of neurological tests and the only thing they can tell me is “You have a migraine.”  Not what is causing it or even how to get ride of it, just “you’ve got a migraine.”   Now I’m not really complaining.  Honestly I was over joyed when the ER Doctor told me that my CS didn’t show anything of concern, but still you would like to have some kind of answers.

Oh yes and the pills above.  Three doctors, three different prescriptions, same results.  I still have the migraine.  Thanks for checking in.

I’ve been having some health issues so I haven’t been shooting much.  I missed all of Thanksgiving but I was able to to take a couple of images of Jeanne’s parents with Joshua Wednesday evening.  Jeanne drove over to Ames to pick them up and they were only here for an hour when Angie, Ben, and Josh stopped by.

I love this image.  See how Josh has slipped down in between John’s arm and his body.  Josh didn’t wake up the entire time they were there but John and Jay certainly enjoyed looking at their Great Grandson.  I regret not getting a 4 generation shot but just couldn’t make it up for that on Thursday.

Hard to imagine that he has only been here seven days and already the lives he has touched and changed forever.  I had a doctor’s appointment today and after being poked and prodded for an hour or so I was given a shot and sent home to rest.  Well I called Angie and she said to stop by to say hi.  Naturally I never go anywhere (yes even to the doctor) without a camera.

Angie was just hanging out with Josh.  Naturally he was asleep when I got there so I got to hold him for a while and then she woke him up when she changed his diaper.  He doesn’t like to have his diaper changed but once the Nuk hit his mouth he was in good spirits again.  Nuks and Binkeys are great inventions.

He just laid there for the longest time looking all around taking in his surroundings.  He would look at me and then roll his head and look at his Mom just to make sure she was still there.   I didn’t spend too much time there as the medicine was starting to kick in and I wanted to get home before I got drowsy.

So I said good-by to my little grandson and beautiful daughter and left them to continue their getting to know each other.  Pretty nice way to spend an hour.

No we haven’t put up the tree yet.  I’ve been a little under the weather for the last few days and haven’t felt like shooting anything.  This morning I’m  a little better so I was rambling through my photo archives and came across this image.

I didn’t do anything with it last year so it is still “new”, sort of.   Anyway I wanted to post something so you’d keep checking back.  I haven’t seen Joshua since last Friday so I imagine he has changed a lot since then.

He was supposed to get his first “professional” photos taken yesterday and I hope that went well.  Of course no professional can do it with the love and attention that grandpa can. 🙂

Thanks for checking in.

Hey look, his eyes are open.  This is about the first time I’ve seen him with his eyes open.  Angie was stroking his cheek and he was busy looking at me laying on the floor beside him.

This was his first full day at home and after a rough night he was taking in his new digs.  Jeanne spent the day there helping Angie get settled in with her new Son.  Poor Dad had many patients to see today but I’m sure that his thoughts were with his Wife and Son.

Yes I had some QT with Josh as well.  This image was taken by Angie with some serious Potoshop work by me.  🙂  That is why I finally opted for black and white.  I’ve decided I look better as a vintage black and white then full-blown color.

Jeanne hasn’t lost her Mothering skills.  She could get Josh calm with little effort.  I’d get him wound up and crying and then Grandma would settle him down.

This is a great image of Angie and Josh.  He had just finished feeding and was getting all comfy.  He had slept most of the day Angie said so I suspect they won’t get much rest tonight.  Brings back a lot of memories of dark circles under the eyes.