FX Photo Studio – Page 7

sage francis knitting factory billboard — A recent shot by I Shoot Reno of Sage Francis' Dec. 2011 performance featured on a digital billboard on I-80...

Not a whole gallery or any fancy camera mumbo jumbo here today… Just a bit of news and explanation as to why I might be seen doing the happy dance around town this week. Say what? Drumroll please …. <insert drumroll> … the Knitting Factory has chosen a recent shot (Nikon D7000 w/Nikon 50mm f/1.8D lens) featured in I Shoot Reno’s photo gallery of Sage Francis’ headlining set during the World AIDS Day benefit show. Local hip-hop / blues / funk / soul group Status-FLO were among the opening acts and the evening was a total gas … magnum condoms and all.

I know I said there wouldn’t be any fancy camera mumbo jumbo, but I would like to note that I DID NOT TAKE THE PHOTO OF THE BILLBOARD ABOVE. That’s right, wifey hooked this one up on her iPhone 4S while out running errands this afternoon. I needed a photo to post on Instagram for the day and proceeded to import her shot into TiltShiftGen for the blur you see at the top / bottom thirds, continued on to add a white rectangular border and white vignette in FX Photo Studio followed by filling the square with white space (Instagram only) in Squaready.

If you’ve been following my recent posts, you have probably seen several ‘photographic firsts’ mentioned since mid-November, and I am proud to state that having my work published in plain view of the public eye, in the form of an advertisement on a digital billboard, is definitely another notch in the ‘ol I Shoot Reno headboard. Besides being one of my personal favorite venues in Reno, the Knit is proving itself more and more as time goes on to be the definitive concert venue of Northern Nevada. Interested in catching an upcoming show at the Knit? Check here and here for some suggestions.

Now if I can just get this picked up for some airplay in the stores / clubs here in town…

Reno Santa Pub Crawl 2011 Flyer

With 7000-8000 in expected attendance, I was on the fence as to whether or not I would be bringing my Nikon D7000 camera along for an evening of Ho Ho Ho’ing in downtown Reno for the 2011 Reno Santa Pub Crawl. Well, I decided against it, having recently picked up an iPhone 4S and not wanting to trust thousands of drunk Santas (myself not excluded) with the well-being of my relatively expensive gear. The iPhone 4S (fitted with Power Support USA anti-glare (front) / crystal (back) screen protectors) fit snugly in my front pocket and required a much less demanding schedule of maintenance on this alcohol-centered outing than the bulky DSLR would’ve any day of the week; and with the newly re-designed camera in-tow, I felt pretty darn confident with this as my go-to shooter of the evening … even if I wasn’t fitted with the freshest iPhone lenses from Photojojo.

For most (I believe all except for the screen capture of the map) of the shots seen in this post (and recently in my Instagram feed), I used iOS 5’s HDR setting when shooting the originals and began the editing process by combining the HDR image + the non-HDR (original) image in iCameraHDR. The process continues in either TiltShiftGen, FX Photo Studio or picfx before finishing color and style and importing to Camera+ for part one of the border creation (round edges on a landscape-shaped image). Part two of border creation (placing a non-square image neatly within the confines of a square) takes place in Squaready and the photos are (finally) uploaded to Instagram (no filter) in the format seen below. This process was beyond horrendous using my previous device (iPhone 3G) and took nearly 15 minutes per photo. With the iPhone 4S’ A5 processor stepping up to the plate here in late 2011, this process can now be completed in 5 minutes or less … which means more time for prancing around downtown Reno with our hypercolor plastic glasses and Santa hats!

Memorable Highlights: Santa’s Package Package at Strega Bar, Tortilla Toss under the Reno arch at midnight, BBQ + Hot Wings at Men Wielding Fire

In short, we had a blast … and will be back next year for more festive celebration!