Shock!...

Completely Shocked. 

Matt a good matte painter and talented designer sent me a message.  You've been linked.  Uh whats linked ?  So I followed the internet link  and ended up at smashing magazine.   A website for making life easier.  They had a list of top tutorials on adobe photoshop.  My Natural history Museum Matte paint was on there.  I did a video tut on youtube and forgot about it.  I have even been classed as a professional.  Woohoo! The link had generated 6000 views.  

I am completely shocked and excited,  Matt thank you for spotting it and letting me know.  This has even spurred me further.  I could not have got this far without Matt, Cliff, Dylan,Chris,Jaime and all the other more talented matte painters out there.  

Matte Painting II...

Latest matte paint, a work in progress done in Photoshop and After effects.  

Portrait Photographers Purgatory...

This happens when you are not looking at your subjects, 

Rich 

Matte Painting...

Hi Rich here, 

 

I am a digital photographer based in the UK working freelance.  I have been a photographing since I was a child.  My first camera was a Boots camera which had 110 film.  A long discontinued format.  When I was growing up I watched television and was hooked on A Team, Airwolf and Street hawk.  My father bought a VCR and he recorded Star Wars for me, I watched that film repeatedly and was awestruck by the Star Wars Universe.  I began making models and drawing characters from the film.  My Uncle bought me a book which changed my life for me, behind the scenes of Empire Strikes back.

I was hooked; models of anything and everything from the film were suddenly my passion.  I began watching behind the scenes of various films.  Then and now I knew I wanted to be a Special Effects Designer.   Whilst watching the late Derek Meddings preparing a model of Metropolis for superman 2 on a TV programme the three bad guys were on set and flown down by wires, looking down a street.  A technician walked on and repainted part of the street.  It was a painting that looked so real.   I could not get round my head on how it was prepared.

I became quite switched onto effects,  as I watched a TV programme or film my parents had to listen to me saying, model or blue screen or quoting stuntman’s or special artist that produced it. 

Looking back my parents were worried about me, no I was not smoking, doing drugs or sneaking cider to the local park.  I was a geek.

At school, I did drama and looked for an excuse to bring in a theatrical effect into any production.  Breakaway bottles and mechanical props would appear.  My drama teacher instead of discouraging me would help out by lending me books on prop making and make up.

Leaving school I had a dream of joining the BBC Special Effects Workshop, famous for its low budget effects.  The unit has since closed down and after writing to them they sent me a document for application to work as a intern during a summer period.  There was heavy emphasis on engineering and science qualifications.  Something which I did not have.  Disappointed I joined college and studied spatial design and foundation art.  There was another student on my course who helped me out with some very low budget effects, and this was when Terminator 2 had become released.

 

In-between lessons we built props did drawings and did basic prosthetic make up, the faculty would walk down the corridor to see another student festooned with blood and gouged limbs.  After a while they soon grew used to seeing this gore.  I would not know what would happen if anything serious had happened.  I had to leave college halfway through the course, I had to pay for myself as I could not get a grant and I had to do low paid jobs keeping my head above water.

 

I went into the administration business working for a legal firm as an administrator.  I had three jobs at the time.  I wanted to work outside of the office.  I also did not have a driving licence.  I became an apprentice for a large transport firm, and became a heavy goods driver, fuel driver.  I left there and went into telecoms.  The for twelve years was spent working in telecoms and driving. 

 

I was drawing at night and doing photography on a cheap canon SLR, I then moved onto a the Nikon F55.  Then after a bank loan bought the D70.   I was learning in my own time all I can about special effects. 

The one thing bothering me was that painting I saw in Superman 2, I just wanted to know how they did all the detail and perspective so that it sells as real on the camera. 

I had heard of matte painting before but it was my sister who helped.  She had arranged a trip into London with me; she had a surprise in store for me.  It was the Star Wars exhibition, on one part of the gallery was dedicated to storyboard art and a few matte paintings.  I must have gawped at those for hours.

After that I spent as much time as I could learning, the buzzword was digital.  I bought Photoshop to edit my photos and enrolled on a photography course.  After a lot of hard work I became a professional photographer. 

Digital art suddenly became very important to me, I joined Matte Painting Org, a forum for existing matte painters and up and coming talent.  Lots of support came into helping improve my art.  I didn’t realise it at the time but a lot of talented artists from Hollywood and from around the world were helping me. 

I then became a member of CG society where the same artists also hung out.  I am the beginning of my matte paint career.   Photoshop has become a big part of my life.  I am fast with Photoshop, but am always learning something new.  It is a really powerful programme.

My last working gig

My last freelance job was for a small firm, it was not for a film or TV spot but for a Christmas card.  There was a small Village called Stamford in Cambridgeshire it is often used for period dramas.  My clients wanted a winter’s scene of a street there that was important to them.

I scouted the location; it was a busy road with traffic lights and Lorries.  Lots of street furniture and TV aerials.  The clients wanted to see the Victorian slice of life.  We agreed to a early morning snow scene.

The shoot started of with a panoramic shot of the area of interest.  It was shot hand held several times by hand; the trick is to shoot it in portrait with big overlaps.  I would have used the tripod, but the legs would have took up the narrow path. There were a lot of elderly people ambling about, didn’t want them kicking over the tripod.

 

Once happy I went back home and had a cup of tea, downloaded the images via light room.  Whilst the computer was whirring away in photo merge, watched a few daytime soaps. 

Once the image had been blended together, I gave it a visual inspection.  I learnt a trick from Vincent Laforet and using a blank layer made a note of the areas by writing in areas of concern.

Keystone Crops

The most annoying part was the key stoning and vehicles that needed removing.  My key stoning removal technique is find a true vertical in the picture and using the rulers to introduce a line. On the outside edges of the picture I looked for lines in buildings.  Selected the whole area and using the transform tool and pulled the edges in.   This is not normally done for a film matte as I would pull a frame from the footage and keep the lens distortion in place. 

Once the layer map of the image had been done I clean the plate.  For matte painting an image or photo is referred to as a plate.  Cleaning the plate means removing anything you don’t require from the scene.  This meant removing the cars, people and anything modern like traffic lights.

Send in the Clones

The clone tool may have been used once or twice, but funny enough coming from a paint background I used the brush tool. Using the pick colour option on the fly I can paint in the areas of concern a matching colour over the offending item.  Just make sure the picker is set on 5x5 in the options box.  As the 1x1 setting will always pick a crazy colour that you do not want.   The patch tool is brought in on large areas to replace the texture.  I paint a large area with a matching colour, select patch tool and drag it over to a matching texture.  Sometimes you will get a burn mark or a highlight burn.  So some trial and error is done. 

For those of you interested the image was painted at 6000k at 300 dpi.  It was massive.  The reason why so much size is needed is that a small matte painting on your computer screen will appear as big as a bus on the cinema screen, detail counts.

Once modernity was fixed, the image was inspected again; some of the large plate glass windows would not have existed in so many shop windows.  Plate glass was very expensive and only the very rich merchants could afford them.  So I had to paint in the window frames. 

Hard Candy

One thing that was bothering me was the building on the far left.  So I did some research on that part of the street.  There was a shop there which was knocked down for reasons unknown and a modern outbuilding was built in place.  I rang the client and spoke to them about it, we reached a conclusion that it should be replaced by a sweetshop to fit in with the scene. 

I use a free program called sketchup which is free on Google, it s for spatial design and is the fastest 3d building program for artists that I have ever seen.  Using a system called photo match a perspective match was created on the scene.  Photo match exactly matches a photo and a model can be brought into the photo in true 3d.  I built a sweet shop and saved the image of the model as a jpeg and brought it into Photoshop and dropped it into the image.  As all the perspective work had been done beforehand it matches.  The jpeg was a clean drawing and I painted it with Photoshop green.  I had to work out how to fill the windows with sweet jars.

Luckily a couple of years ago I a couple of shots that I took at a attraction near Birmingham called Bliss Hill, this is a real Victorian village staffed with actors.  By chance I visited the sweet shop (don’t tell the gym!).   With the reference shots of the interior I created an interior in another file and brought it into the plate. 

One of the best ways of working is to have a main file that is closed, and all your component files are done as separate constructs.  Be kind to your RAM.   

 

Let it snow, let it snow

Once the shop had been completed I had to figure out how snow works.   Flickr is your best friend for research, do a search for snow and with a sketch pad look at individual files.  I made copious notes and sketches.  Main thing I worked out is that snow is not white, it is blue and grey and a combination of sky colour.  Snow has a real danger of looking like cotton wool when painted in Photoshop. 

Brushes varied on size and where the snow had stuck on the buildings, the dapple bush for fine work around windows at around 9px to the large chalk brush which was painted as cross hatches with dual colour off-white mixed with duck egg blue.  Use hard edge brush only.  Look for collection areas like the corners of lintels and gutter tops.  Depth and weight of the snow is defined by the collection areas of the picture. 

Opacity on the brush helps with icicles; I had to put in a post box which proved to be another trip in the car to find one that I liked.  I got some strange looks from passers bye.  On return it was dropped into the picture.  My mum bless had a look at the Matte and asked to zoom in to the picture. I had made a boo boo, mum had spotted something I had failed to do.  The post box had ER on it when it should have VR on it.  For anyone not British the Royal Mail is under decree of the throne, has the official letters of the sovereign in place. As it was Victoria on the throne it should have VR on it which means Victoria Regina. 

Red Sky at night

The sky was replaced by a stock image that I have on file, a night time dusk with pink tones.  Why pink do you ask?  Well the picture is heavily blue and drab; it pays to compliment the image with a warm colour such as pink.  It becomes a better balanced picture.  I used an alpha mask to make the selection. 

Once the plate was finished a good friend of mine noticed I failed to account for aerial perspective. I did not have a clue; anyone with windows program will find a cracking example of aerial perspective.  If you go into the sample images in my pictures you will find a image of blue mountain range.  The range drops in saturation and opacity the further it recedes into the horizon.  To cope with this I went into the layer stack and went to the uppermost layer and punch in my magic code as I call it.

Magic Code

Control, Alt, Shift, E, this makes the top layer the composite layer; it leaves the layer stack intact.  Underneath the uppermost layer I put in a blank layer filled with off-white with a hint of blue.  Aerial perspective goes into cooler colours.  The composite layer was converted into a layer mask. Using a large soft brush with opacity set to 15 a gentle paint through was carried out.

I used a adjustment layer to adjust to taste the colour balance. 

Now something which is a big no no on a plate is to include elementals, smoke, flame, wind, fog, mist and snow.  This is something done by a compositor.  The smoke from the chimney pot, snow fall was handled by After Effects, which is basically Photoshop for video. 

I saved the image as a jpeg which was used as a proof for the client.  Once satisfied I rendered out the snow and smoke as a alpha (PNG = Portable Network Graphic) and incorporated it into the plate.

One very happy client and lots of hard work.  How long did this matte take?  Four weeks work; there was a lot of detail incorporated. 

For me this is the first step into a new career in something I passionately enjoy, I am not good yet but I know I am on the way.  Normally you see posts from established artists,  I thought it would be great to hear from someone at the beginning of there career. 

Many thanks

Rich .

 

More polished snow matte from richard cave on Vimeo.

Worlds Biggest Panorama....

Check this out,  Obamas Inaugaration you can see everyones faces in detail,  everyone of the two million there,  this has got to be a record,  Link Here

Rich

Impact...

Sometimes you stumble upon a blog where the photos just blow you away.  That happened to me today.  I looked at a comment that a viewer left on my blog and found this wonderful site.  

The blog is called Wanken .  The first post I came to  were these wonderful shots all shot in black and white of the snow that settled around the area of Seattle.  The shots are very graphic showing the elemental force of nature.  The key to it is that they were done in black and white.  Remove colour and the viewer adds the emotion.  

I looked at these shots and sat back and enjoyed them. That is a rarity for me as I get all technical and picky over the lighting I turn into a right geek.  But here I simply enjoyed them. 

Today someone made me smile and for that I am grateful, cheers Shelby. 

Rich 

Ash...

Concept art is one of my other passions,  I done this in a hour on photoshop.  Sketched in with a Wacom tablet.   I have become a fan of "Crash Mcreery", a concept artist that worked at Stan Winston Studios.  Readers of my blog will remember my post about Stan Winston.  

I had a little inspiration for the design from another recent post. 

Ash is a juvenile Dragon, who has a habit of scorching things when bored hence the name Ash.  He has just one milk tooth and gets picked on by the other Dragons.  When he grows up he wants to be a battle Dragon.  Unfortunately he is afraid of heights so tends to walk everywhere,  the other dragons find great amusement by this.  He only flies on foggy days so he can not see how far the ground is.   

His favourite game is swimming around a scottish loch and playing pranks on Japanese tourists and visiting model villages where he can pretend to be godzilla.    He hates St Georges day  for obvious reasons and his favourite food is firelighters.  Sausage and Mash is his favourite treat. 

I have worked on concept art for other projects and you can look at my online portfolio here. 

Rich 

f10...

My blog by choice is a non political platform, however this important message from No 10 was 

recieved by the photographic community.  Read the response how you will.  

“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to clarify the laws surrounding photography in public places.”

Details of Petition:

“Through history, we have documented the world around us, whether through written word, art or photography. Photography in particular has provided fantastic insights into the past and 

present, and is a hobby enjoyed by millions of people worldwide. But today, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to take photos of our surroundings, particularly in cities like London. 

In recent years, the price divide between professional and consumer equipment has blurred, and it’s quite common these days to see amateurs and hobbyists carrying around tripods, SLR cameras and a backpack full of equipment. Yet, we are constantly harrassed by security guards and police officers in the name of preventing terrorism. They seem to be operating under a 

different interpretation of the law to the rest of us, believing that somehow the length of 

your lens, or size of your camera is relevant. We would like clarification by the goverment on 

the law regarding photography of buildings and landmarks from public locations.”

Read the Government’s response

Thank you for your e-petition asking for clarification of the law on photography in public 

places. There are no legal restrictions on photography in public places. However, the law applies to photographers as it does to anybody else in a public place. So there may be situations in which the taking of photographs may cause or lead to public order situations, inflame an already tense situation, or raise security considerations. Additionally, the police may require a 

person to move on in order to prevent a breach of the peace, to avoid a public order situation, 

or for the person’s own safety or welfare, or for the safety and welfare of others.

Each situation will be different and it would be an operational matter for the police officer 

concerned as to what action if any should be taken in respect of those taking photographs. 

Anybody with a concern about a specific incident should raise the matter with the Chief  Constable of the relevant force

I recently took part in a forum discussion about this,  I have come to some conclusions 

regarding the right of access for photographers. 

My findings are these:

Act responsibily if asked to move on, just move even the pro photographer will move.  The 

difference being that the pro will work round it. 

Amateur photographers you will not lose any money by being asked to move so just move. 

Why whinge and whine about your rights when approached by the police,  they do know the law, the public order act is designed to keep the streets peaceful, whereby members of the public can 

carry out there activities with out fear of harm or intimidation.  Take a note of the officers number, complain later.  If it is private security ask to see their SIA id card if they fail to provide they are commiting an offence.  Walk away and let the police know there is an infringement.

Dont take photos of sensitive subjects,  nice cars, nudes, babies, sunsets, architecture, are 

not to be found around sensitive sites.  So why are you shooting there?

Keep away from children, just not worth the hassle, if they are yours or relatives shoot away, 

if they are not yours dont bother.  

If stopped, be polite be respectful put the camera in your bag, you however have the right to 

keep the images on your card.  If you are a pro photographer immediately  ring the NUJ if you 

are a member which you should be.  If the officer gives you grief be polite and say that you 

are getting advice on the matter.  Be polite.  If forced however take the officers number and 

delete the offending image, remove card from camera.  You can recover the images later make a note of the time.  Contact the NUJ or SWPP on return to the studio and take legal advice. 

If you behave yourself, do as you are told and speak to a solicitor post incident, you will 

keep your camera, keep your liberty, please dont be the first photographer to get a ASBO.  

I have worked with the police at major events and found the majority to be normal people who 

understand your predicament.  There was the one who found out that on return to the station a 

complaint waiting.  Another police officer at the scene whispered in my ear that his colleague 

was a w****er and I would be doing them a favour if I did complain. 

In summary we live in difficult times,  we have sacrificed a lot, however we have to remember 

our responsiblities and act on them.  Some photographers act like spoilt children when told no,  well grow up.  A mature outlook will keep the police on our side, remember there are police 

officers that are photographers also. 

Tails of Taimen...

Not scared of water now.

Been a long day 

Mum and Dad

Chillin

Lawrence my wing man

You remember the story about Soggy  Paws now renamed Taimen well I received a fantastic email yesterday,

 

Hi Rich
 
My name is Lawrence Skinner and I am Taimen's owner (soggy paws) and I thought you might want to see some newer photos of our boy as he has grown over the las few months. He is a healthy and happy mountain dog who regularly sees Chris and his dogs who have become Taimen's best friends. We were very happy to finally see the rescue photos on your website that we became aware of by accident in a funny conversation over the holidays. Anyway, hope you enjoy the photos.
 
All the best
 
Lawrence

 

Well I was over the moon when I saw the photos, really over the moon.  The last I saw of Taimen was a little scared puppy shaking in fear.  I am so glad Chris managed to save him,  and the River didn’t take the pair of them.  Well Taimen has a new mum and dad, and what a lucky dog.  Just look at the beautiful scenery and just imagine the adventures he will have.  By kind permission of Lawrence I have included the photos he sent me.

My favourite photo of Taimen 

Its the worst thing in the world to hear a animal in distress, but what makes us human is our capacity to care and spread a little good throughout the world.   Chris did not have to jump into the icy water, but he did.   Taimen is now spreading his love in his little part of the world.  he has a great family now.  I wish them all the best.  

Rich 

©Copyright all photos in this blogpost Lawrence Skinner 2008/2009.

Winter sun..

I went and took my mum out today for a bit of a photo session. The Sun was getting low in the sky and I rattled off my camera. I like to shoot sometimes in uncontrolled environments. These are the shots I had taken that day.

There are two exclusive prints for sale if you click the thumbnail below.  Thank you. 

Rich 

http://www.photobox.co.uk/album/90105198

Photoshop Insider Apology...

Scott Kelby uncovered a fault with his site whereby users have been informed that there comments were tagged with users are awaiting confirmation/consideration. This was not Scott being awkward it was his blog settings and computer thinking comments were spam.

So if you did comment on Scotts blog at Photoshop Insider and had this problem, You was not being segregated, I had this problem the other day.

The big thing is that Scott spotted the problem and apologised immediately. Here are his comments.

http://www.scottkelby.com/blog/2009/archives/2757

Vicki

Vicki
Originally uploaded by rockhoppermedia

A off camera grab shot. Quickly done always look for interesting backgrounds. The blue fairy lights help balance out the warm colours in the face.

JPG Magazine No More...

JPG online photography magazine has gone under, here is the official statement from the site. Sad news as it was a pretty cool idea. This economic downturn is hitting hard.



Today is a particularly sad day for all of us at JPG and 8020 Media.

We've spent the last few months trying to make the business behind JPG sustain
itself, and we've reached the end of the line. We all deeply believe in
everything JPG represents, but we just weren't able to raise the money needed to
keep JPG alive in these extraordinary economic times. We sought out buyers,
spoke with numerous potential investors, and pitched several last-ditch creative
efforts, all without success. As a result, jpgmag.com will shut down on Monday,
January 5, 2009.

The one thing we've been the most proud of: your amazing talent. We feel honored
and humbled to have been able to share jpgmag.com with such a dynamic, warm, and
wonderful community of nearly 200,000 photographers. The photography on the
website and in the magazine was adored by many, leaving no doubt that this
community created work of the highest caliber. The kindness, generosity, and
support shared among members made it a community in the truest sense of the
word, and one that we have loved being a part of for these past two years.

We wish we could have found a way to leave the site running for the benefit of
the amazing folks who have made JPG what it is, and we have spent sleepless
nights trying to figure something out, all to no avail. Some things you may want
to do before the site closes:

- Download the PDFs of back issues, outtakes, and photo challenge selections.
We'll always have the memories! www.jpgmag.com/downloads/archives.html
- Make note of your favorite photographers. You may want to flip through your
favorites list and jot down names and URLs of some of the people you'd like to
stay in touch with. You may even want to cut and paste your contacts page into a
personal record.
- Catch up with your fellow members. Our roots are in this humble flickr forum
and we recommend going back to find fellow members, discuss the situation, or
participate in another great photo community. www.flickr.com/groups/jpgmag/
- Keep in touch. This has always been much more than just a job to each of us,
and we'll miss you guys! We'll be checking the account jpgletters@gmail.com in
our free time going forward. We can't promise to reply to every email (since
we'll be busy tuning up our resumes) but we'd love to hear from you.
- Stay posted. Although the magazine is ceasing publication, we'll be updating
you on what's happening with your subscription early next week.

We're soggy-eyed messes, but it is what it is. At that, JPGers, we bid you
goodbye, and good luck in 2009 and the future.

Laura Brunow Miner
Editor in Chief

Monkey Foto

As promised here is the after effects animation all the elements were designed in  photoshop.

Monkey Foto from richard cave on Vimeo.

Logo Design...

With a little help from friends on the web I have managed to design a logo for my sisters photography business.  Simplicity is the key and I think it is quite striking image.  I am now going to work on some motion graphics for this design.  

Rich