In the first part of the coverage on the RoyalBLUSH production, I talked about the shoot and the lighting technique. Now let’s have a look at the post processing and retouching.
We had a very tight schedule to shoot and process with only a few days to get everything printed up for a show at GREENshowroom in Berlin. So I had to find a way to speed up the retouching on the 9 images which the client selected. As you may know a regular retouching process on a fashion image can easily consume a day’s work or more. Clearly we did not have this kind of time here. So I decided to work exclusively in Adobe Lightroom 2 and see what I can achieve using only this single powerful tool. I figured I could still take the shots into Photoshop if things wouldn’t come to a satisfactory result… But let’s start at the beginning!
I am a huge fan of Google Analytics, a free service which provides you with all kinds of more or less informative statistics about your website. One of the most interesting things about it is a filter telling me which sites are linking to mine (referring sites). I love to browse this category and see who is linking to my own site, what these folks have to say about me and why a picture or sometimes just a link appears in someone elses scribbling. Most of the time it will be someone’s blog using one of my images and is kind enough to provide linkage. Some time back a list of 99 remarkable photographers was posted on digital-photography-school.com, sending thousands of photo enthusiasts to my site.
Today I found the blog of Allison Ghegan, reviewing the work of visual artists. Here’s an excerpt of what she had to say about me:
“… I really like Henri’s photos and how he incorporates different angles and perspective throughout his portfolio. Henri photographs both black and white and color photos exceptionally well; proving his capablilities as an equally talented photographer in making use of color or lack there of. I think his strongest capabilities lie in his ability to take a undeniable emotionally charged picture that is interesting and unique to the viewer.”
Sometimes a feel like a kid opening a present, when I have a look at who’s following my work. You never know what you are going to find and I am extremely grateful for all the love I’m getting out there. It really keeps me going.
A big surprise was PLSR.net, a site who’s sole intent is to showcase the portfolios of noteworthy photographers. Suddenly I saw hundreds of hits coming in, so I had a look. The biggest surprise was that me, Nicolas Henri was the best rated photographer on PLSR! (They have a voting system over there, where visitors have a chance to rate the quality of the featured photographers. Make sure to give out your vote on PLSR !!!)
Another interesting one I found is Artists of Phtoshop. While I am first and foremost a photographer, Photoshop does play an important role in my work. So I was happy to find myself listed there - and even with a good rating by visitors! Check it out here!
These are just a few examples. There hundreds of other sites, some big and some smaller ones who’s authors felt, that my photography was noteworthy in some way. I feel very honored about this, I would never have thought that things would take on a life of their own on the net. So for all you folks out there who feature me and my work in some form: Thank you very much!
Today I felt like putting together an online portfolio of my latest fashion work. So how do I go about that? The idea of a slideshow came to mind. I was curious to find out what I could do with slideshows from flickr and see if there’s a better way yet. After all I want this puppy to do a bunch of things for me:
Smooth reliable playback! It just needs to work and look good, or it’ll do no good for me.
Embed code! After all I’ll want this to be posted in as many places as possible.
Linkage! I’d like to link back to my website, when someone clicks on an image or the player.
Updates! I might just want to add images, even though the slideshow is out and playing on various sites.
So I started with my flickr account, created an album, added my latest fashion images and defined the running order. Pretty easy, takes a few minutes. Hit the slideshow button, pick up the embed code and here we go:
Looks pretty good. Even has some navigation. But it only links back to my flickr account and no way to have it link to my site, which I’d much prefer! And sadly there is no embed code to be obtained externally, so no one else can host it on their site, blog, facebook, etc. There’s only a regular link, which won’t launch the slideshow player.
On the plus side however, I can update the album on my flickr account and the changes will filter back to all the places where this is published. Very cool!
Next up was slideroll.com, which also allows you to draw from your flickr account - or upload manually if you don’t have one. It was fairly easy to drag & drop from my previously created flickr album and create the slideshow in a web 2.0 type interface, which includes a timeline to organize the photos in. Here it goes:
Click on the images and it’ll take you to my site - good stuff! But still no external embed code for sharing… And no dynamic updating of the content. Plus the player is pretty small to my taste. However, Slideroll offers a free application to download and convert your existing slideshow into a physical movie. This can then be uploaded to YouTube:
Now the YouTube Version can be picked up and embedded elsewhere by anybody. But quality is poor and again no linkage to my main site. Plus the whole process of creating and then rendering out a movie file to then be uploaded to YouTube is a little cumbersome.
I found a few more slide making applications and services, all of which seem to do the same or less than the few options outlined above. Any of you have a link or idea to share on how to make the perfect online slideshow? Hit me in the comments with your suggestions!!!
