Black Diamond Productions

Are you, or do you dream about being, a photographer … amateur, semi-pro, or pro?

Have you ever wondered what it takes to shoot stunning photographs of beautiful women, or perhaps just wanted to improve your current shooting abilities?

Ever wanted to attend a photo workshop from one of the top glamour photographers in the world, but just couldn’t afford it or coordinate an opportunity to do so?

http://sirensmystique.c.topica.com/maam7XhabQDC2aQ8f1tbaeQCqs/

Mystique photographer Mark Daughn is now revealing his secrets and techniques in a new series of instructional DVDs. These DVDs are perfect for all levels of photographers, from someone who just began or is about to, to practicing professionals.

For the past eleven years, photographer Mark Daughn has been creating the unique look and feel of the images in Mystique Magazine. In addition to Mystique, he has published pictorials in Playboy, Penthouse and Hustler, as well as many of the top women’s fashion magazines. And top clothing companies have paid him mega bucks to create national ad campaigns for them.

Mark got his start in fashion photography, which gives him a unique perspective on how he approaches glamour photography.

Students pay thousands of dollars to take private lessons from him, some even flying to the United States from Europe and Australia just to attend one of his workshops.

But Mark understands not everyone can afford to attend a private workshop, so he is now sharing his decades of experience in a new series of affordable glamour photography DVDs.

Read more

I have not been a major user of Presets for Lightroom and i have to say that was a point of contention with me and Lightroom. I have a pretty decent amount of experience with Photoshop and both actions and plug-in applications yet I never investigated the world of presets for lightroom.

That all said I was given an opportunity to test the latest set of soon to be released presets from www.CameraDojo.com – The latest set is for B&W work and really produces some great results. Here are a couple examples:

Now you say – Wait a minute that’s a color photo – Well here is where presets become very interesting… Much like those plug-in’s and actions in Photoshop, presets can be combined or stacked to deliver literally 1000’s of combinations and the beauty of Lightroom is the History palette actually lets you understand what you have done and allows for immediate undo’s if you mess up your masterpiece.

I have also (because of the kindness of Kerry Garrison of CameraDojo.com) been provided their other set of presets to test out. You should see more shots and testing and impressions posted about those in the next few weeks.

Highly recommended for those that want to more easily experiment in B&W work in Adobe Lightroom.

Please feel free to post up or email me with any questions.

This is worth a watch with setup and behind the scenes pointers:

Part of the PhotoAssistant Series: http://www.profotoassistant.com

Nice work from these guys to help all of us improve our studio work.

Ok so I have looked and looked and now found with the help of Scott Bourne on TWIP.

Shape Collage 2.1

Download it here – Click

Automatic, fast, and easy

• Create picture collages in less than a minute with just a few mouse clicks
• Photos are automatically and intelligently placed using a machine learning algorithm
• Use photos on your computer or from the web to make collages

Any shape

• Make collages in any imaginable shape or form
• Rectangle, heart, circle, letters, or even draw your own shape!
• More examples

You’re in control

• Adjust the collage size, size of the photos, number of photos, and spacing between photos
• Change the background, the colour of the border, and more
• Save as JPEG, PNG, or Photoshop PSD
• If you don’t like the collage, save it as a PSD and edit it yourself in Adobe Photoshop or GIMP!

Free with no catches

• Cross-platform and free for personal use with no ads, viruses, spyware, stds, trial periods, or watermarks

Take a minute to download it and check it out….

I have been asked many time for a run down on the Alien Bees Ring Flash – Well I found a better source for the info on Studiolighting.net.

You can go to the page here: CLICK HERE

The above Podcast is well worth the listen for the interview with Paul Buff of Alien Bees.

I have one of these and I am very sad to say i have not devoted the time to even play with it as of yet so my first hand experience will come at a later date. From the word on the net many like the ability to be able to use this unit and Alien Bees bringing this to us on a more budget oriented basis is a great help to us more budget aware photographers.

The ABR800 AlienBees Ringflash

The ABR800 is a highly evolved, self-contained ringflash system designed to meet the challenges of the new-generation creative professional photographer. It is extremely compact, lightweight and easy to use with professional or semi-professional cameras with lenses up to 4 inches in diameter. A studio ringflash is an invaluable and instantly favorite tool of the professional photographer due to its ability to produce essentially shadow-free lighting, revealing unique catchlights in the eyes of subjects when used with fashion and portrait work.

Also a good real world review here on Chase Jarvis’s Blog – Click here