Behind the Scenes

25 Jul

July 25, 2017 | By Steve Fogarty | One Comment

So, I’m watching Hawaii Five-O on Netflix with my family (a show we can all get behind … mommy likes McGarrett’s abs, I like *all* the different scenery, who doesn’t love Dano’s & McGarrett’s bromance and we all love the explosions.) And I get this email congratulating me that STEVEN JOSEPH PHOTOGRAPHY has just been voted one of the Top 200 Las Vegas Blogs on the web.

Well hidey ho, I had no idea. I read through the email, looking for the ask, where the sender invites me to sign up for some group or hire him for SEO, or whatever. But no ask. Just a sincere congratulations on being the 104th most popular blog on Las Vegas in the whole world. Heh. And I wasn’t even trying! I’m just over here making pretty pictures and making blog posts about the pretty pictures and the people I meet for whom I make pretty pictures.

So there you have it. 104th most popular blog in the world about Vegas. You read it here first.

I think I’ve got some photos to edit, so see you later …

But if you click through below there are some pretty cool blogs there I hadn’t known about, about food and mid-century furniture and vintage Vegas photos and Vegas sports and Harley Davidsons and even Affordable Fashion and Baking. Who knew?

22 Feb

By Administrator

2 Comments

Behind the Scenes Commercial Photography Corporate Event Photography

Commercial Portraits for Reality TV Show “The Big Gun II – Sin City” on the Sportsman Channel

February 22, 2017 | By Administrator | 2 Comments

Recently I was asked to make professional portraits for the world-class athletes and competitors of The Big Gun II – Sin City, a reality TV show on the Sportsman Channel.

Brian Speciale, Producer and Creator of the show, wanted some professional portraits of the 12 athletes competing in “Shooting’s Ultimate Competition – The Big Gun II – Sin City” that he could use within the show and to promote it on social media.

Shooters are very familiar with the names of these world-class athletes, including world famous “fastest shooter of all time” Jerry Miculek and his daughter Lina Miculek. JJ Racaza, Tim Yackley, Max Michel, Ryan Muller, Becky Yackley, Shane Coley, Jesse Tischauser, Hunter “Nubbs” Cayll, Wyatt Gibson, Michael Whitesides.

Brian had me come by the day before the actual contest started, and we spent the day dodging the rain making cool portraits and doing video interviews in anticipation of the contest. All of these folks were salt-of-the-earth great people, super safe and ridiculously aware of gun safety, and lots of fun to be around.

The shootout took place at the Pro Gun Club Las Vegas

The Big Gun II: Sin City

Looking for gorgeous las vegas commercial portraits for your event or company? We’re light on our feet, fully equipped, and we love working with the best!

29 Dec

By Administrator

One Comment

Behind the Scenes Editorial Elopements

Before and After – How We Love Your Images – Let Me Count The Ways

December 29, 2016 | By Administrator | One Comment

To see many Before & After images, keep scrolling.

LIGHT EDITING: Neon Museum - Las Vegas Gay Wedding - toning, bump exposure

LIGHT EDITING: Commercial Portrait: The Big Gun II Reality TV Show: Brightened exposure, opened shadows, vignette

DEEP EDITING: Commercial Portrait: The Big Gun II Reality TV Show: remove lighting structures, toning, exposure, vignette.

DEEP EDITING RETOUCHING: Headshot: fixed suit coat, brightened eyes and teeth, softened wisdom lines, softened hot spots, removed blemishes

DEEP EDITING RETOUCHING: Headshot: brightened eyes + teeth, tooth gap, hair flyaways, softened wisdom lines, removed blemishes, removed lighting reflectors

DEEP EDITING RETOUCHING: Headshot of Bob Nardelli: brightened eyes + teeth, softened wisdom lines, removed blemishes, removed lighting reflectors

DEEP EDITING: Aussie Elopement on Dry Lake Bed / Playa - nailed exposure, remove assistant and distracting rocks and dirt smudges, toning

LIGHT EDITING: Groomsmen at Rhodes Ranch Wedding - toning, bring up exposure, bring down highlights, bring up blacks, bump vibrance, vignette

DEEP EDITING: Commercial Portrait - The Big Gun II Reality TV Show at Pro Gun Club Las Vegas. removed lighting structures, toning, vignette

LIGHT EDITING: Floyd Lamb Park Elopement - dampen highlights, bring back sky, toning

I have a confession to make.

I love your images. Possibly too much.

Even though I’m known for professionally lit, clean, poppy, magazine style images with no Photoshop Sauce™ I still spend a lot of time making them perfect. Probably too much time. Which means sometimes my clients don’t get their images as fast as they’d like. Here’s how much I love your images.

To see many Before & After images, keep scrolling.

THE MANY WAYS I SHOW LOVE TO YOUR IMAGES

I deliver your photos to you only after each one has been carefully, lovingly hand-tweaked by the photographer or by a skilled digital artist to look their very best. Like a mom who won’t let the little ones leave the house with shirt un-tucked and a dirty face, I do not release my (your) photos until I’ve given them LIGHT EDITING in Adobe Lightroom. Each photo is hand adjusted in some or all of the following settings before I gently hand my babies over to you:

Color Temperature
Exposure
Contrast
Highlights
Shadows
Whites
Blacks
Clarity
Vibrance
Tone Curve
Luminance
Noise Reduction
Vignetting
Spot Removal

Sometimes, I even take your images into Photoshop for DEEP EDITING, like removing lighting structures and distractions.

Another confession: I don’t always make perfect images right in camera. Usually I get very close. Sometimes complexions etc require intervention. Sometimes I intentionally shoot with stuff in the frame that I plan to remove later. And sometimes, I kind of blow it and a great image is over- or under-exposed, hidden in my mediocrity and needs to be resurrected in post. But that’s seriously uncommon.

In the examples below I show editing differences that are quite small (the ones I pretty much nailed in-camera), all the way to ones intentionally cluttered or even oddly exposed with the vision of the end-photo in mind. I’m even including images from some of the outstanding Associate Photographers who shoot for STEVEN JOSEPH PHOTOGRAPHY, who also shoot deliberately and with intention, and give each of your babies the TLC they deserve (Toning, Lightroom, and Cropping). 🙂

To see many Before & After images, keep scrolling.

EXAMPLES OF IMAGES BEFORE AND AFTER

LIGHT EDITING: Bride & Groom at Rhodes Ranch Wedding - remove distractions in the grass, bump exposure, toning, bring down highlights, bring up blacks, bump vibrance

LIGHT EDITING: Bride at Rhodes Ranch Wedding - remove distractions in the grass, toning, bump exposure, bring down highlights, bring up blacks, bump vibrance

LIGHT EDITING: Bride at Rhodes Ranch Wedding - underexposed, toning, bring up shadows

DEEP EDITING: Commercial Portraits Big Guns Reality Show at Pro Gun Club Las Vegas: remove objects (sign, light & light stand), toning

LIGHT EDITING: Neon Museum - Las Vegas Gay Wedding - graduated filter, toning

DEEP EDITING: DTLV Graffiti Las Vegas Elopement - bump exposure, paint out sky

LIGHT EDITING: DTLV Neon Las Vegas Elopement - bump exposure, bring up shadows

LIGHT EDITING: Bride at Neon Museum Smokin' a Cig - straigthen, crop, bump exposure, vignette

LIGHT EDITING: Headshot on-location - Simple Editing, Blemishes, Hair

LIGHT EDITING: Green Valley Ranch GVR Wedding - level, toning, vignette

DEEP EDITING: Elopement DTLV Graffiti - paint over sky with building artwork graffiti, toning

LIGHT EDITING: Elopement DTLV - nailed it - simple vignette

LIGHT EDITING: Bride at Rhodes Ranch - black & white, exposure, highlights

LIGHT EDITING: Associate Photographer Wedding at Rhodes Ranch - notice how Associate exposed for the sky, and by bringing up exposure and cropping he transformed this epic shot, all with intention

LIGHT EDITING: Aussies Nelson Ghost Town - bumped up exposure, vignette

LIGHT EDITING: DTLV Elopement East Fremont Neon - nailed it - exposure tweak and vignette

LIGHT EDITING: Elopement DTLV - nailed it - bumped exposure,

LIGHT EDITING: GVR Green Valley Ranch Wedding - color corrected, too warm, lens distortion correction, vignette

DEEP EDITING: Elopement Welcome to Las Vegas Sign - removed background distractions

High Quality Headshots for your Las Vegas Convention clients and employees

25 Apr

By Steve Fogarty

No Comments

Behind the Scenes Headshots

High Quality Headshots for your Las Vegas Convention clients and employees

April 25, 2016 | By Steve Fogarty | No Comments

Are you bringing a lot of your people to your Las Vegas Convention, for training, or celebration, or recognition? What a perfect time to get high-quality headshots for all of your key people, while you’ve got them all in the same place. Or what a great way to reward your contractors or members who are out in the trenches with the opportunity to get a top-notch headshot for their website, their Linked-In profile, or other social media avatars like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.

We come to your location, to the hotel where your conference is being held, where we set up studio lighting in a surprisingly small space – we need about 8 feet wide by about 10 feet deep.

We can set up as many bays as necessary to comfortably accommodate as many people as you want. Figure on about 75 – 100 people’s headshots created per photo bay in a non-stop, all-day scheduled approach. Fewer per bay in a less structured format (e.g., people popping in at their convenience).

We produce between 5 and 15 photos per person in about 3.5 minutes, assuring we’ve gotten their best side, best look, best expression.

We can even live-stream the photos as they are being made to tablets and iPads where people can select their favorite right after it is created, streamlining the post-processing edit. All photos are lightly edited before upload. Advanced professional re-touching is an available add-on.

Want to get really good headshots for 400 people over the course of your Las Vegas Convention? We can do that.

Headshots for AVVO Lawyernomics 2016 on location at The Wynn in Las Vegas
#LasVegasHeadshots
#VegasHeadshots
#LawyerHeadshots
#LinkedInHeadshots
#SocialMedaHeadshots
#AVVOProfileHeadshots
– http://www.StevenJosephPhotography.com

Payment can be structured many different ways.

You can pre-pay for a certain number of your clients / employees to get their professional headshot with us. They just need to show up and we’ll take care of the rest.

Or you can pre-pay and ask your guests to pay a small fee to download from your online gallery like this.

You can pre-pay for professional re-touching for everyone, or make that an option for your guests to select from the online gallery.

High quality. High speed. At your event. What’s not to love!?