Harbor West

I'M SUPER BUMMED I MISSED THE AWESOME SUNSET LAST NIGHT!!! So many great photos taken by phones of the amazing Seattle sunset! I was just a little too late! I did manage to get my ass down to alki with enough time to take this shot. Taken with a single exposure with detail and color brought out with some pixel massaging in lightroom and photoshop. www.nakean.com http://flic.kr/p/ojeYX7

Harbor West

Going back I found another image I really like mostly because of the foreground and warmer tones. This makes me only want to shoot at this time of day/night. I bet my portraits would be better! www.nakean.com http://flic.kr/p/ojeZ2L

Golden Gardens Stretch

For composites, lighting has to match your background. As a photographer it's funny how differently you see the world in terms of light, quantity of light and quality of it. When you start creating composites in which you need to capture backgrounds it ads a whole new element in which to view your surrounding through. Thanks Angela for being patient and bending over backward, literally, to make a cool image. Strobist info: Photographed in my West Seattle Studio Einstein through 60" Softlighter boomed above, b800's through gridded striplights for rim lights on either side. www.nakean.com http://flic.kr/p/nU22LK

Starburst

Quite possibly my next composite background! We'll just have to wait and see if it makes sense for the subject. This shot would have been impossible were it not for HDR (High Dynamic Range). Over the years I have learned to tone down post process of these images in favor of more realistic landscapes. This was created with three seperate imagas several stops apart. Here's a link to my process of HDR using Lightroom and Photomatix. www.nakeanworkshops.com/blog/new-love-for-hdr/ http://flic.kr/p/iNXsLB

True Arrow

This is one serious Bow with an equally serious arrow. The tip of this particular arrow is essentially 4 razor blades that are serrated on the back end! You do not want to be on the business end of one of these bad boys! I still don't think I can comprehend the amount sheer force behind an arrow on a bow of this kind. This particular composite took me quite sometime before it felt right. There are countless adjustment layers dealing with color, light and sharpness to name a few. If I had tried to create this 3 months ago, I would have posted it on day one even though it didn't quite feel complete. I couldn't bear to do that to this particular image. I slept on it at least a couple nights and made incremental changes as ideas came to me. Sometimes it's hard for me to give a project, I'm so excited about, some breathing room and time. It's like putting together an intricate puzzle. No one completes those in one sitting, and when your run into a brick wall the best thing you can do is walk away and come back later! Matt brought his bow into the studio here in West Seattle so as not to scare the bajesus out of passers by in public. The background was taken at Lincoln Park near the bluff overlooking Puget Sound. I posted a similar image on my facebook page with the fence located on the opposite side of the frame. Matt was lit with a large octa right behind me and the rims were b800's through medium sized stripboxes. http://flic.kr/p/ikskvM

Skate King

I've had the perfect background for a long time and just needed a skater with board! Enter Miles Tucker. Doesn't hurt that he's comfortable both in front of and behind the camera! The park is Jefferson Skate Park which is part of the 6th largest park in Seattle. And would you check out that view! Not talking about Miles, but he's not too hard on the eyes either. You've got the mountains to your left with the goreous seattle skyline just to the right of him. One of the best features of this park happens to be what makes this photo work so well. That would be the giant Tower of Lights for night skating! If you haven't checked it out, you owe it to yourself to swing by sometime! It has a huge playground for little ones with several things to keep the adults entertained as well! This particular shot of Miles was taken in the West Seattle Studio. Gridded beauty dish boomed above with a large softbox below for fill. Two strip lights on either side to emulate the large lights in the background that he was dropped in later. http://flic.kr/p/hsM6L9