This set of photos, taken on a hike a couple of weeks ago, is a practice run for a 2016 project. My goal is to hike once a month in Henry Coe State Park and take a series of photos in a consistent, evocative style that will make people wish they were there. I’ll be using a Hasselblad film camera with Portra 400, which gives soft warm pastel colors.

I’m not a fan of over-processed photos and am proud of the fact that I’ve never done HDR. But just to try something different, I revisited a few winter-scene pics from my trip to the Lakes earlier in the year and let rip with Lightroom. And did I really contemplate buying a Thomas Kinkade painting for a brief microsecond?

I had a request from Sachi to see the original of the first photo. Here it is.

As you see, it looks a lot different, but the core features are there. I took the photo early in the morning when all of the lights were on, and I used a tripod to get the picture nice and sharp with the long exposure in low light. The yellow color of the lights is mostly natural. I just used Lightroom to crop the photo and get the processed effect by maximizing the sliders for contrast, highlights, shadows, and clarity, and then lowering the vibrance a little. It’s really quick.

I’ve been doing a little product photography for some clients recently because there was no-one else to do it. It requires a lot of attention to detail and in small doses it’s fun. I wouldn’t want to do it for a living, though.

I created catalog-style images with a pure white background. This isn’t easy to achieve and requires a light table that allows you to light from below and above the object. Then, you have to meter separately for the object and the background so the object is lit 1-2 stops below the background. Then, you have to boost the background highlights in post-processing.

The last photo shows my setup. My camera is tethered to a computer, and I’m using two softboxes for the front lighting of the object and three flashes with umbrella diffusers below the light table. I decided not to buy a $20,000 light cabinet used by pros for taking photos for clothing catalogs.

I came across this photo of Cerys from a couple of years ago and like it more than I did at the time.