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Murphy’s Law: Self-Publishing Edition

Posted on by bfrankphoto in Photography
Layout showing my need to find and update images
Layout showing my need to find and update images

A couple of years ago, I self-published a photography book about small-time mixed martial arts in Iowa. The process of getting there was fraught with unseen issues. One of which was achieving deep blacks while keeping the greys neutral (See: 50 Unwanted Shades of Grey).

Once it was ready to be released and shared with the world, I was ecstatic. More than five years of photography, editing, worrying about layout, and sequencing was over. I had created something substantial, and that would never change. Over the past year, the full understanding of what that meant became a bit more clear.

The forward was written by National Geographic photographer David Alan Harvey. Harvey also runs a photography blog called Burn Magazine, and he was the first to publish selections from early on in my project. In April, I pulled Fight Night off Amazon and removed references from my website after disturbing allegations against Harvey forced him to resign from Magnum photo agency.

I decided to re-release the book without the Harvey forward. I would simply replace the page of text with an additional photo. Unfortunately, the drive that stored the final edited photos and the book layout died. For the last several months, I have been searching for the original versions of the images, re-toning them, running the photoshop action to neutralise the greys, and re-linking the image into the layout. The process is almost complete, and it cannot come soon enough.

A brief statement on Fight Night forward by David Alan Harvey

Posted on by bfrankphoto in Uncategorized

Over the past several months, I have grown increasingly disturbed by the allegations against David Alan Harvey.

Because of the allegations, I have concluded I cannot continue to sell my book Fight Night with the Harvey forward included. Because of the book’s limited reach as a print-on-demand publication, I initially thought leaving it as it was would be fine. I can no longer follow that flawed logic.

David has been incredibly good to me over the past decade. He was the first to publish excerpts from Fight Night from the early stages of the project. He has given me advice and guidance. I can never adequately thank him. This was not an easy decision, but principles are only principles if one stands by them.

I will re-issue the book without the Harvey forward at some time in the near future.

When Photo Retouching Saves the day

Posted on by bfrankphoto in Photoshop

The day before a scheduled photoshoot for the Illinois Travel Guide summer issue, Six Flags amusement park decorated their signature entrance for Halloween. This was quite the shock for the art director, photographer, and models that arrived for a shoot that was supposed to showcase summer fun. Since everyone had traveled to the location and was on the clock, the photoshoot when forward as best it could.

I still remember the opening line of the email reading, “We have a little challenge for you.” Always loving a fresh challenge, I took a look and laughed out loud. This wasn’t just a challenge, but a test of all my retouching and problem-solving skills.

The first step would be to plan the attack. Retouching always takes some mental planning, but that is usually something that can be done in the back of your mind on-the-fly. With this situation, I needed to spend some time t think out all that needed to be done. Additionally, think about how to work in a manner that would allow for adjustments to be made later.

First, I needed to replace the water. I was able to use bits of a scouting shoot for the park since the water didn’t need to be the focal point, and the scouting images were shot at about the same angle and had the right amount of ripples and waves. Next, I needed to recreate the merry-go-round structure, bushes, and pool edges. Then cloned out signage, extended the background to the left and right to fit the magazine cover layout, and clean up the sidewalk, followed by adding some sky. Finally, I did some color correcting to brighten and warm the image, adjusted skin tones, and smoothed out some clothing.

How I Work – Magazine Cover

Posted on by bfrankphoto in Uncategorized

For this cover of Do It Yourself magazine, I needed to move the dog into the shed, including making a new shadow. Additionally, I needed to add extra image all around to fit the magazine size and design requirements. There were also several other image alteration requests as you can see.

Photoshop work by Brian C Frank. www.bfrankphoto.com

How I Work, Video 1

Posted on by bfrankphoto in Photoshop
Photoshop work by Brian C Frank. www.bfrankphoto.com Music: Jazzy French from Bensound.com

How I Work: Video 1

This is the first of several videos I am putting together, showing how I work on real-world images, to give my clients the final image they want. This first video is of a pretty simple request.

This image required to be transformed from a fall scene to summer for the client’s travel guide. This meant removing the dead branches, adding some extra greenery, and convert the fall colors to a sunny green. A little over 30 minutes of work reduced to less than two for this video. This idea for demonstration videos is not mine. Credit goes to the very talented Viktor Fejes for the idea. Enjoy!