Digital Magic

Our latest project was a little photo maniplulation. Our client wished to make a large wall portrait of the image with her and her new husband standing in front of his race car outside the church. The problem was she wasn't crazy about the pose in that picture and asked if I could take the two of them out of an image we took earlier inside and exchange it with the their pose in the original image. I first cut out the two of them from the alter picture and cleaned up the edges so I had a good clean image to start with. I did run into a few snags with this image. First the groom was holding his grandmother's hand so his entire left arm an hand had to be re done and blended together. Then their heads didn't cover the original heads so I had to rebuild the background bushes behind the bride and groom. The gown needed to be rebuilt because her stance in each image is different and her gown flows in different patterens in both pictures. I didn't have another image in her wedding album to use that showed her complete gown and in that position so I cloned out the original and rebuilt the pavement underneath. I then copied the right half of the gown and reversed it and pasted and blended it to the left side. This action also required the reflection in the car door be addressed to make the the image look believable. Now I color corrected the layers to make the ambient light images from inside look like they were taken outside. I then added a double mat effect to the image to dress it up. Wahh-laaahhh..finished....just like magic. Our client was very pleased with the results. Her exact quote was: "IT IS AWESOME> THANKS SO MUCH> LOVE IT LOTS> GREAT WORK> WONDERFUL> SUPER> TERRIFIC> THANK YOU". When my clients are happy I am happy.

Click on image to enlarge.

Mark & Erika

Nevada Rocks

A slide show of some of my favorite images from our tour of Red Rock, Mt. Charleston and the Valley of Fire. Anyone who did'nt sign up for this workshop missed out big time.

Announcement

We'd like to give Mark & Erika a big congratulations on the announcement of their upcoming wedding this August 22. Mark and Erika stopped in on Monday and we shot some great engagement portraits for them. They are a wonderful couple to work with and we are so looking forward to shooting their wedding. You can see the complete set of images at our client events gallery.

Valley of Fire

We saved the Valley of Fire for last on our photo safari and I am glad we did. This place is so beautiful. The park is about 50 miles north east of Las Vegas and it is a quick drive up I- 15 to the entrance. The park drive is 15 miles of the most beautiful painted desert scenery ever. Around every curve Wendy and I gasped, " Wow, look at that! " It truly is a photographers paradise. We spent 6 hrs in the park shooting and we still needed more time. Here are a few favorites. The entire gallery of all these parks is at this link:

http://www.pbase.com/g_muth/nevada_rocks

Mt. Charleston, Nevada

Mt. Charleston is approximately 25 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The drive up is breath taking. The mountain has an inn and a ski resort at the top. We dined at the Mt. Charleston Inn for breakfast. We watched hummingbirds feed against the back drop of snow covered mountains from our window seat view along side a toasty fireplace inside the inn. The scenic drives of Nevada are well organized and easy to follow. Here are a few scenes from the mountain. I have a gallery of all our Nevada images at this link: http://www.pbase.com/g_muth/nevada_rocks

Spring Mountain Ranch State Park

Spring Mountain Ranch is about 15 miles out of Las Vegas. A great place for pictures and a picnic. The oasis in the desert was first owned by the Wilson Family and later purchased by a German movie star, Vera Krupp. The property was then bought by Howard Hughes and then made into a state park. The park features 6 natural springs and two lakes. Guides at the park take you on a detailed history of the ranch. Here are a couple of my favorite images from the ranch and surrounding area. Click images to enlarge.

Red Rock Canyon

Red Rock Canyon is approximately 13 miles west of Las Vegas. It is one of my favorite places to go for pictures. This trip we got an extra surprise as the weather was 63 and sunny when we got there. Shortly after entering the park the temperature dropped 25 degrees and the winds gusted up to 50 mph. and it then started snowing. We found ourselves in the middle of a desert snow storm. A bit odd for April in this area. As you can see above there was snow on our rental car. I got plenty of interesting images. The stormy skies provided lots of drama to some colorful images. These are some of my favorites from the trip. You can also click on this link http://www.pbase.com/g_muth/nevada to view our entire trip gallery which will also include images from Spring Mountain Ranch, Mt. Charleston, and the Valley of Fire. Click on images to enlarge.

Las Vegas

We just returned from a trip to Las Vegas, Nevada. What a spectacular time we had. There is something to interest everyone in Vegas. We walked through 22 casinos and probably have 22 more to view. We went to four National Parks, one nature preserve, and one community park. We saw free shows at downtown Las Vegas, Sam's town, Belagio's, Mirage, Venetian, Flamingo, MGM, and Paris Paris. I have posted a few images above of the volcano erupting in front of the Mirage, the Fremont Street Experience light show in the sky, the balloon in front of Paris Paris, and the dancing waters of Belagio's. I will be posting more pictures soon from Red Rock Canyon, Mt. Charleston and the Valley of Fire. Click on images to enlarge.