Archive for March, 2008

THE BUI BROTHERS AT THE MADONNA INN

We went to San Luis Obispo yesterday to help a friend and aspiring wedding photographer, Bonnie Tsang, who was shooting her second wedding. We went mostly as support and to do a little second shooting… but we also took the opportunity to shoot a little video that we’ll be putting out in the next few weeks.

I’ll probably post a few shots from the wedding one of these days, but here are a few shots that Lan and I did in another room during the reception when everyone was pretty much stuffing their faces… typically not the best time for photographs.

Lan at The Madonna Inn

Vu at The Madonna Inn

Bui Brothers at The Madonna Inn

ADOBE PHOTOSHOP EXPRESS

This one is good for all my non-photographer friends who just like to take photos and maybe do some simple edits to them. I assume most of the photographers I know actually own a copy of Photoshop…Adobe has just released a beta of Photoshop Express… which is basically a scaled down FREE version of Photoshop that you can actually use on the web. There are no layers or filters or complex brushes… but the truth is that for 99% of the photos that are posted on the web you really don’t need any of that. It’s more than enough to take your decent photos and make them look great.

Photoshop Express

That being said there’s still a pretty impressive list of adjustments and tools for an online application.

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The Touchup feature works really simply… you choose the size of the spot you want, click the area in the image you want to touch up, then a red circle comes up which you can move to find the spot you want to use to blend into.

Photoshop Express Retouch

There are also liquify-type effects that you can use… for entertainment purposes only, of course.

Photoshop Express Liquify 2

I’m not going to do an in-depth feature review… but this is definitely a great tool for amateurs or those who just want to perform basic edits before posting their photos online or having them printed. Check it out.

NEW 5 SPOT

Kate and I were surprised to receive a strange looking 5 dollar bill as change at Rite Aid today. I guess it isn’t taking long to get the new bills into circulation.

I understand the need for better and more technologically advanced anti-counterfeit measures… but it seems as though our paper currency is looking more and more like what I expect to see in Singapore or Vietnam. At least they are retaining the same size for now, but the big purplish 5 on the back is just weird.

5 dollar bill front

5 dollar bill back

WPPI

I am deathly ill.

Ok that might be a slight exaggeration… but it does feel that way. I haven’t felt this sick since I had malaria… and that’s saying a lot.

Anyhow… besides the sickness it led to, WPPI was awesome. Shootsac did very well (which was the only true goal I had for the trip) and I met lots of great people. Ally Stepp was one of our volunteers and she turned out to be very cool. Lee was of course fun and great. Hanging out with Orbie Pullen, Rebecca Meredith and Aaron Dieppa was one of the highlights of the trip (oh and thanks to Orbie for teaching me to play craps). I met some great people at Becker’s party and tons more at the booth itself. Too bad I can’t remember half of them, but luckily I got business cards!

The craziest thing from the trip besides the blackout was that it was snowing on the drive to Vegas. Actually… snowing is an understatement… it was practically a mini-blizzard. I haven’t seen snow come down like that since I was but a wee lad in upstate New York. Crazy.

Joshua Tree in Snow

I didn’t really have much time to shoot anything while we were in Vegas outside of the video we did at Becker’s party… but I did snap off a few stills while we were testing the the new Arri fresnels I bought (they were brand new and I had only turned them on once) while we were still in our room the night before the big event (see below). I love these lights! I chose a 650W and two 300W. I got barndoors for each of them, a couple scrims and filters… and a really nice softbox that works perfectly with the 650W. You’ll get to see some examples of our final lighting setup on the B School Blog soon.

Lee Keller, Ally Stepp, Bonny Pierzina:

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Ally Stepp and Lan Bui:

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The drive home was uneventful and a little sad… there has been months of buildup to this event… I literally did nothing more than prepare for it for the week and a half preceding it… and then suddenly it was over. Keats had warned me it would be this way, but I didn’t believe her. It’s not that I don’t have anything to do… there’s lots to do with Shootsac, there’s lots to do on The Bui Brothers side of things… and I even have some Vu Bui photo shoots coming up. But I feel a bit lethargic despite all that… then again being deathly ill may have something to do with it.