Welcome to s•c•e•e•e Photography, western Kentucky's premier photographer for family portraits and senior portraits. Based in Marshall County (in Gilbertsville, near Benton), we are ideally located to serve Livingston County, McCracken County, Graves County, and Calloway County. Be sure to visit our site to see our latest Senior Photography or Family Photography, but while you are here, sit back, and enjoy the blog.
Stranger Sunday - Lee
Lee is another guy I met several months ago in Las Vegas. There was no doubt in my mind, he had led a pretty hard life, and unfortunately for Lee, several things happened at once that left him jobless and homeless.
Lee had been a realtor, which is the career he pursued when he first moved to Las Vegas. Soon he realized there was going to be more money for him in personal training, which he did for a while. It then hit him that Elvis impersonators could make some really good money in this city, so he worked on his moves and changed jobs again. All was going well until he injured his knee, which is a hard injury for a personal trainer or an Elvis impersonator. At the same time the economy collapsed, which left Lee without a job or a home.
Ryan Wells - Senior Portraits
This past Tuesday I had a fantastic senior portrait shoot with Ryan Wells, a recent graduate from Marshall County High School. I can't believe how fit this guy is! He played football for a couple of years at the high school, and then found his nitch in track. There was no doubt the high school was glad he did - he won several big races during his tenure, even playing a part in breaking one or more school records!
Here's a collage of some of the best shots from the portrait shoot, and you can see all of them in high quality at s•c•e•e•e Photography.
Give a shout out to Ryan and let us all know your favorite photo. If you like what you see, please share this post on Facebook, Google+, or Facebook. Just copy and paste the following:
Check out the awesome senior portraits of Ryan Wells at s•c•e•e•e Photography: http://bit.ly/13Nf0BI.
Friday's Frame by Frame
Welcome to Friday's Frame by Frame, where you can find some of the best photo-related links of the week in one place. Now, dive in and enjoy!
- VSCO's New Upcoming Camera App - I am sold on ProCamera, I am not opposed to trying a new app, especially if it is free.
- What a Way to Propose - Through the Lens! - I would love to think I am this creative, but alas, I am not. Besides, my wife would never look through my viewfinder. :D
- Incredible Self Portraits - Okay, if you haven't seen the work done by this teenager, you have really missed out! Can you say CREATIVE?!
- The Benefits of a Tripod - I have used a tripod almost as long as I have used a camera, so many of these ideas weren't new to me, but they were a good reminder anyhow.
- Creative Family Portraits - While some of these are too cheesy for me, there are also some great ideas here too.
- Inexpensive Infrared Camera - Okay, this is too cool! Before you get your hopes up, it can't be used really to see where hot and cold spots are in your home, but it can show if your plants are growing well. Awesome!
- Works of Art You Won't Believe Aren't Photographs - Okay, this is nothing short of amazing.
- Beautiful Black and White Photography - Not everyone appreciates black and white photography, but for those who do, you will enjoy this link.
- Portraits Before and After Drug Use - As I understand it, these are real life before and after pictures merged together. Amazing.
- America's Fifteen Best National Parks - Well, I just added some more places to my bucket list.
- Underdog Photo Portraits - This is hilarious.
Did I miss any? If so, share it with everyone in the comments.
A Little Noisy
Cut to the Chase: I have been fortunate enough to find a new method for reducing noise through Median Blending in Photoshop. Quite frankly, this is amazing. Though the application of this not going to be common, it certainly has its place.
One of the difficulties of digital photography is noise. Sure, film had grain, but noise is different and, in my opinion, ugly. As I was reading some articles on Friday, I stumbled across a headline that caught my eye on reducing noise: A Look at Reducing Noise in Photographs Using Median Blending. I honestly had no idea what median blending was, but I was determined to test this myself. Following the directions at that link, here are my samples of 100% crop images shot at 12,800 ISO on a Canon 5D Mark II. The first in each set is the original image, and the second is the image produced using median blending. There was no other noise reduction applied.
Original:
With Median Blending:
Original:
With Median Blending:
Original:
With Median Blending:
No, these images aren't noise free, but WOW, the are so much better than the originals, and there was NO NOISE REDUCTION APPLIED! This is, quite frankly, hard to believe.
Just for the curious - I found no benefit to using Median Blending on copies of the same image (i.e., all IMG_8049).
There are really limited applications of this, but for those cases where it would come in handy, it is very handy. One can presume that had this been done with 10 images, or perhaps 20, the noise would have been reduced more. This calls for further experimentation.
So, you can't close a post with a comment like that, can you? Here is a comparison of 20 images, all shot at 12,800 ISO.
Original:
With Median Blending:
Though is still considerably better, it might not be worth taking 20 images in every case; however, there are situations the noise reduction would be worth it.
The final experiment is to blend 20 images shot at 25,600 ISO. In the original 100% crop these images are almost totally unusable:
Original:
With Median Blending:
And as you can see, with Median Blending, this very high ISO image is totally usable.
Like I said earlier, the application of this is limited, but I fully expect to get an opportunity to use it in real life.
Red-Eared Slider
I am not sure this is a Red-Eared Slider, but it could be a Painted Turtle. This must be a good year for turtles because I have seen several already, and most of them have been attempting to cross the road.
