19th of May 2011 was a special day to me (Lukas). Adobe hosted an event in Warsaw, Poland, promoting the new Creative Suite 5.5.

To do that  they have invited one of the greatest Evangelists and Teachers of all Adobe programs – Terry White !

Warsaw was one of the stops at the Adobe Evolution Tour CS 5.5. The event happened in a cinema, with a huge crowd of people, all hungry for the knowledge that Adobe Evangelists have to spread.

Who is Terry ?

Terry White – Worldwide Creative Suite Design Evangelist for Adobe Systems, Inc. Terry has been with Adobe for over a decade and has extensive knowledge of Adobe’s Creative Professional product line. To read more about Terry, please visit his blog: Terry White Blog.

Terry is one of my Photoshop idols, a man who knows how to use it well – after all, he participated in its creation. He showed many cool things about Photoshop, and In-design. I knew all the features he presented ( after all I am a Adobe Certified Expert ),but it was nice to see how he runs the show, and how in a very short time he was able to present all the fantastic features of the Adobe Suite. His enthusiasm and knowledge made the presentation very enjoyable.

Adobe Evolution Tour CS 5.5.

The show was about the new features in the refreshed Creative Suite. It was not another product show where people tell you how good it is. At this Event the software was shown live, with examples. Everything was done in a relaxing and funny way – almost like a rock concert.

Terry showed how to use iPad apps alongside Photoshop. He took his iPad, lunched Adobe Eazel app, and created a basic "artistic" background in a very intuitive multi touch interface. Then he wirelessly transferred the image to Photoshop, and used it to change the background of a photograph of a model. Terry’s demo  has encouraged me to use the iPad alongside my iMac when using Photoshop. I can have all my favourite tools on the iPad and only the image on the 27inch screen, which is a very good way to work.

I was able to see how a Flash app on an Android phone could control 3 devices at the same time, then Motorola Xoom, and Black Berry tablet. A simple game was presented. Paul Trani was playing canoe game, where a canoeist was swimming from one screen to another – the canoe was disappearing from the screen of one device, and was seamlessly appearing on the screen of a second device. The canoe was swimming from screen to screen.

I was really impressed about all the cool things that can be done in Flash CS 5.5. I see a lot of potential in using it.

The part about video editing was also interesting. I didn’t know that such movie magic can be done on a home computer. After Effects program looks very difficult, but results out of it are very professional and almost Hollywood. I learned that one whole season of House was completely recorded wth DSLR cameras, and then edited fully on Adobe software.

My impression about Terry White.

It was really nice to see Terry live, after so many ears following him on his blog, and watching his video classes. On a coffee break, I got a chance to approach Terry to be photographed with him, and talked to him a little bit – what a great and humble guy he is.

At one point he gave me his own Nikon D7000 camera, and asked me to take a photograph  of him and one other evangelist, Michael O’Neil. I was very happy to see the photograph I had taken for Terry on his blog ! He used it on his post about the whole event.

I was also happy, when Terry asked me to take a photograph of him with a big Adobe logo in behind on a cinema screen. He asked me to send it to his e-mail address – so I did, hoping that he will get it.

Also Terry was kind enough to sign my iPad in the  Adobe Ideas app:

Summarising.

It was a great day for a Photoshop geek like me. It was the best show I have been at for years. Meeting Terry White will stay in my memory for ever, hoping that one day I will be as good in Photoshop as he is !

More…

To see more photographs I taken from this event, please visit our Facebook gallery: Terry White – Adobe Guru & Evangelist in Warsaw, 19th May 2011

To read a short reportage from that day, tweeted live at the event, please visit my Twitter account: @morbiusz

To check out how Terry White described the event, please visit his post about the event on his blog.

You can also follow Terry White on Twitter, and Facebook.

One last thing…

During the Question and Answer session, one of the attendants asked Terry White, why iPad doesn’t support Flash. His reply was instant and very short: "Ask Steve Jobs".

Earlier this week, I was asked to photograph a unit in Westhill that is close to the the end of the construction stage. It was very difficult working around the diggers, workmen, and Portacabins. My angles were very restricted but at least the lighting was good. The client needed the images now before the building was finished so we were asked to remove railings etc. Lukas has done a great job on this very tricky task.

Apart from the obvious railings being removed and grass added, if you look closely,you will see the work he has done on the windows, the sign at the far right, and some of the drums etc. in front of the warehouse.

It would have been much easier to photograph it once it was complete but that was not an option so this is where having a Photoshop guru on the team is a great asset. I have to be careful showing this type of job as it not is not appropriate for some jobs, and can be expensive as it is charged on a time basis, but  in some situations it can be a great tool to have available.

David had a group of 7 girls in the studio a few weeks ago. Harley wanted a portrait of her friends before leaving for Spain. David had the music on and there was lots of laughter coming from the studio and the girls had great fun.

Our Studio is big enough for a group of 7 but on a 12 ft background, it can feel "claustrophobic" keeping a group contained to the background. Before the sitting, David and I spent some time chatting about the group shots and looked at the work of Babak, a photographer in Toronto. He had a nice group that we both liked but when we studied it, we realised that it had been created by combining individual shots. David tried this out with the girls and then combined the 7 shots using Photoshop to create a nice group with the advantage of choosing the best shot of each girl.

Click here to see the photographs taken at the sitting.

He used this technique again recently for a family and this is going to be a useful alternative way to tackle large groups in the studio.

This is an example of an everyday request. At Ted and Kathleen’s wedding on the 27th November, I took lots of requested group shots and all the ones listed by Ted and Kathleen, but not every option can always be covered. The couple who are either side of the Bride and Groom, in the larger group shot above above, wanted a shot of just themselves with Ted and Kathleen. It was relatively easy to crop the group of 4 as an upright shot and we could have just went close to the shoulders and "cloned" out anything noticeable. However by finding another similar shot where the fireplace can be seen, Lukas was able to "put back" the fireplace by combining the shot on the inset.

The end result is indistinguishable from a shot I might have taken. I often make the point that I like to do everything in the camera whenever possible but having Lukas, an exceptional Photoshop professional, as a key member of our team is a great asset. He is probably wondering why I am featuring such a "straightforward" task as he does this type of job and much more complicated ones everyday but I know this example will be useful to show clients what is involved.

The most important thing is that the client liked it – see the email received.

Thanks Neil,
That is absolutely brilliant. Be in touch after our holidays
Regards Ted & Kathy

Yesterday (Tuesday 25th January, 2011) I started on the photography for the Brentwood Hotel, a very popular and busy hotel on Crown Street, Aberdeen. A complete set of photographs are required to show the work done refurbishing the hotel, and the facilities the hotel can offer. The first shots taken were a conference room set up, private dining, the dining room, the lounge, and a selection of the different bedroom styles. For the conference set up shot, we added the hotel logo to the TV, and text to the whiteboard (better than my handwriting) using Photoshop – see the before and after above.

For the private dining shot, I added an image to the TV screen.

For this dining room shot, I framed it with the mirrors which "leads" you into the shot. This shot and most of them were taken using a Quantum Trio on the camera, and 1 or 2 radio triggered Quantum Qflash T5DR. This set up is superb as wherever you place the lights, they fire every time. Apart from a much better quality of light, and more power, the radio triggering is so much better than the infrared line of sight Nikon CLS system.

The Brentwood has 66 very nice and well equipped bedrooms and I photographed a few of the different bedrooms so guests can see the different sizes and layouts.

I am back tomorrow evening to take shots of the bar and restaurant areas while it is busy, and then again on Monday to photograph the reception, food, the chefs at work, and a range of detail shots.

The shots taken yesterday can be viewed by clicking here.

On the 4th December, David, Sandra, and I set off for Haddo House for Mairi and Martin’s wedding. With a lot of snow on the ground, I decided not to take my rear wheel drive BMW and instead we took Sandra’s Audi. We got stuck once but eventually got to Haddo on time only to find that the drive was blocked and cars in front of us were being towed by a 4 wheel drive vehicle. The service started late but everything went well and as Haddo is beautiful inside, we had plenty nice spots for the photography. 

Click here to see the formal images and here for the informal gallery.

Mairi and Martin were happy to go out into the snow for a few shots and I took some facing out to the grounds and some back towards the beautiful building.

The only problem is that the lights to the right of the door were off (see above). Mairi and Martin wanted to use one of these for their Thank You cards so Lukas used Photoshop to "light" the right hand side area which greatly improved the image – see below.

Last week I was photographing some of the new rooms just opened in the second phase of the Bauhaus Hotel. I have been involved with the Bauhaus hotel from the planning stage with Nick Garett (the owner) and the late Bob Fitzgerald (the architect). I supplied a building wrap used on the scaffolding during construction and then produced artwork for canvasses for the rooms, and other artwork for the public areas. Some of this has been featured in previous blog posts – click here for a post about Bob, here for the canvasses supplied, and here for the photography of phase 1.

Click here to see all the shots taken.

The new rooms and bathrooms are fantastic, high quality ipod music systems, LCD TV, double showers, large baths, TV screens in the bathrooms, and everything you could need from a hotel room, right in the city centre.

The beautiful bathrooms were very tricky to photograph. For the shot above, myself, camera, and tripod were very visible in the mirror. However by trying to have most of my reflection on the black door on the mirror made it easier for Lukas to re-touch although he still had to put back in the door frame etc. It is for things like this that it is great to have a Photoshop Expert on the team (see post)

In this shot you can see the large canvasses we supplied. For these we created the artwork in Photoshop to match the Bauhaus theme. These canvasses are up to 2.5m (8 ft) in width and as well as having a striking impact in the rooms, they greatly enhance the acoustics. This is the lounge off the bedroom in the shot below.

In the corridors there are lots of canvasses, all in the Bauhaus theme, but in the area below, we used three large perspex panels, two of them about famous architects that influenced Bob’s design for the hotel. Walter Gropius, the founder of the famous Staatliches Bauhaus school in Germany. Bauhaus, was a school that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. It operated from 1919 to 1933. The term  Bauhaus is German for "House of Building" or "Building School".  
Le Corbusier was a Swiss architect, designer, urbanist, writer and painter, famous for being one of the pioneers of what now is called Modern architecture or the International style. For the perspex display panels we used an image of the Architect and an image of something they were renowned for  - Gropius and the Bauhaus School, and Le Corbusier and The LC2 Petit Modele chair.

However the biggest influence on the Bauhaus Hotel in Aberdeen was Bob and we used a photograph of Bob and a photograph of the outside of the hotel to create a display panel featuring Bob. There is another set of these perspex displays in reception. This is a great tribute to Bob and it is appropriate to be featured in his last big project.

I have just finished a set of photographs for Nu-Style for a metal fabrication brochure. There was a long list of buildings and projects that used their products for eaves, soffits, ducting etc. There was also workshop shots and shots of the products taken in the yard.

For these, I took the shots in good lighting and then we created "cut-outs" of the items and replaced the background with a white background and used a drop shadow which made them look like shots taken in the studio. Click here to see examples of these or this link to see some of the workshop shots.  Most of the shots I was able to get in the right lighting but for one or two of them, we needed Lukas’s Photoshop skills to enhance skies and lighting. For the workshop shots I used 2 or 3 flashes (Nikon SB-900 and Quantum TD5) and used gels to add a bit of colour to the background. There were also one or 2 buildings where I took several upright shots and then "stitched" them together in Photoshop CS5. Click here to see a selection of the shots.

On Sunday 2oth June, I photographed Melissa and Ian's wedding at Ardoe House. They had seen a dusk shot taken by me at Ardoe and wanted something similar. The problem in June is that it is not dark until very late so we used a shot from another wedding at Ardoe and added the couple using Photoshop. This is not perfect but gives the effect they were looking for. This certainly confirms that "the camera can lie" or certainly with Photoshop it can.

Click here to see all the images taken at the wedding.

In March an agency contacted me to take photographs of a bus with advertising for Mecca bingo. This seemed like an easy job but after phoning First Bus, we found out there were only 4 buses with the advertising and only 3 were in service. The routes are not planned until morning and as we wanted to choose the backdrops this became difficult to arrange, especially with the weather problems in March. 

Eventually we got something arranged and I was waiting for the bus at the appropriate location on Union Street only to find that the advertising was only on one side of the bus, and it was the wrong side. The solution was to take a shot of the advertising and then use Photoshop to cut this and add it to shots of busses making it much easier to get the type of bus shot required. Click here to see the shots.