Being married with 3 daughters, it’s safe to assume that when we all gather to watch a movie, it’s not going to be an action blockbuster. Not even a foreign film with subtitles or anything that requires more than an emotional investment. I’m not complaining. I’m more well-rounded and can always blame the girls when…
Yearly Archives: 2010
Meet Dean. Art director for a commercial advertising client. We were scouting a location for an upcoming photo shoot. As we were talking, I turned around and saw this image. Behind Dean was the paint bay for a city transit bus (if that gives you any idea of it’s size). A visual scene taken straight…
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Love the portrait, the location and your post processing. I think I’d also eliminate the hoses and smudges on the side walls.
Thanks Colleen!
It’s funny you mention that! I was actually going to eliminate the hoses and smudges and decided that it would make it too clinical. May have to revisit that.
Hmmm…
Nice! Can you talk more about your RAW conversion process? How do you do it exactly? I’ve been importing with LR and just going from there. Do you import with CPP?
Thanks man
Please keep the smudges and the hoses… they keep this fabulous face grounded in what might otherwise become clinical verging into Star Trekkkish… I like this very, very much Mr. Kepple!
Jamie… thank you! I really went back and forth with the hoses and smudges. I may do it and post just to see what you guys think. But I like the organic untidiness of it all. I was beginning to feel I’d gone too far already. Definitely thinking of the sterile world of Star Wars…
Jon… Not exactly sure what you’re asking, but if you’d clarify, I’d be happy to share with you any information.
Yes, I do import my RAW files into DPP (Canon Digital Photo Professional). There is obviously some proprietary conversion algorithm happening. As wonderful as Lightroom and ACR are with RAW conversions, when it comes to skin tones, the Canon software seems to nail it perfectly with Canon files.
I was thinking of writing a post on a typical post process workflow. From ingesting the card to final delivery to the client. Is that what you’re interested in hearing?
I use Photo Mechanic to ingest my cards after a shoot and import them into DPP. For most jobs however, I’ve been using LR3 as it’s the best production workflow solution. There are so many tools in LR3 that just don’t exist with the manufacturers software. If they’d actually listen to the photographers who purchase and support their business, they’d take the time to retool their software. I’d even be willing to pay for it. 
My whole workflow is in LR right now. Would love to see your end to end workflow. Always looking for ways to improve.
Something like?
1. Import from card to computer using DPP
2. Add to LR catalog
3. Export to JPEG?
Killer, great example of taking a good image and making it that much better. I’m particularly amazed at how you were able to pull all those top-of-head-hairs out of the highlight/blur spectrum and burn and sharpen them into the visible one. You might not be giving him a Cover Girl complexion, but at least he got some Hair Club love.
About the workflow, I’m so curious. As a Nikon shooter, I’ve been reluctant to add their proprietary Capture NX2 to the flow, since batching appears to be a pain and it’s a whole other big step, but I see the problems with skin tones in LR2 (I know, there’s a 3). I end up using downloaded profiles for my camera and also boosting orange luminance while dropping saturation on orange, red and magenta. It’s like everybody defaults to “spray tan sunburn” or something. Steve Z out in Colorado wrote a good blog post about the same thing, so I took a similar approach that’s been good enough to get me to PS with a workable image. Is it really impossible for The Camera Companies to play nice with Adobe? I mean seriously, I have a hard time imagining that their software realm could even pay for itself given the R&D it must take vs. the market share.
Thanks for sharing your techniques and thought process. Keep the smudges and hoses, hoseur!
Jon… After the holidays have passed and I’m sitting here with nothing to do… I am planning to share my entire workflow. I hosted a “Production Summit” a couple of years ago for a group of local professional photographers. I discovered that nearly everyone is struggling with the technology and managing their post production time more efficiently. My workflow is a bit more involved than yours!
Brian… I agree. I wish I could talk to someone deep inside Canon and find out what the real issues are. I keep hoping that change will happen, but it always ends up being about corporate issues and making money. I guess the professional photography market is a small part of the overall machine at Canon and Nikon. From our perspective, it seems huge, but it’s not. More on that later. Thanks for the comments! Back at ya hoseur!
Love it!
Actually, I’ve discovered your secret ingredient Randy – it was the Cabernet all along!
“I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.” —Albert Einstein The only thing more fleeting than your 15 minutes of fame is your 3 nano seconds of E-fame. When I posted my article on creativity, 8 Bad Habits…
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Nice post, needed sustenance —
“There are no days in life so memorable as those which vibrated to some stroke of the imagination.”— Ralph Waldo Emerson Standing in front of this massive banyan tree on Maui, I was inspired to try something new. I had a vision in my mind’s eye of this tree. And Maui will definitely vibrate the…
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Hey Randy, cool shot of the tree – very creative! If you like that sort of writing you’d really enjoy some books by David duChemin – another Canadian! I’ve got two of his books and he has got me thinking about WHY I take an image, not just HOW. Makes a huge difference if you think about the message before you click the shutter – not just composition and lighting. What do you want to say with your image?
He’s got actual books and ebooks – check them out, I think you’ll relate to his writing. He also talks about how to find creativity and keep it going. That’s in his ebook The Inspired Eye – it’s only $5.
His books—I have Within the Frame, and Vision Mongers – love them!
Thanks Randy, enjoyed the article.
I’ve come across many of your suggested stifling points before. I have trouble creating focused time to pull things together. It takes me a few hours of relaxed browsing and reading before I dig in and work some new code together. Blogging I find comes naturally while I’m out walking, but is almost painful if I’m sitting in front of my computer. This lead to the last 500 or so posts made while out walking.
Hi Randy! I loved the post and the pictures are fantastic!
Love the one of the Banyan Tree. It reminds me of the beautifully
fantastic tree in Avatar.
Thanks and blessings to you in your work,
Helen
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Great post. And good timing for me.
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That was very well said. I have now snapped out of “analysis paralysis”, thanks for sharing.
Seems like these are the 8 things the educational system is designed to teach.
Creativity is a slippery slope to stay on. Some times you can into the zone on purpose. Most of the time when working on a problem I get hit out of the blue in the middle of conversation on completely different subject by ideas. The hardest thing then is to blurt the idea immediately before it gets lost. As you say don’t prejudge the idea just let it flow out.
Sometimes dumb ideas aren’t dumb. It is easy to discard half baked ideas without thinking them through.Sometimes within the basis of the dumb idea lies a real gem. It may be an offshoot of the original idea that would never get explored unless you start from the core idea.
Ideas in the rough are very fragile things. They can be extinguished by a small distraction never to reappear.
Excellent. I am very guilty of the creating/editing at once syndrome.
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Wow… thanks for the comments and show of support!
Darlene… thanks for the links! I am downloading Volume I and II as I type.
Mark… I’m the same way. Especially when it comes to blogging which requires great effort on my part. Many times, I know what I want to write about but it takes me another week or longer to formulate the ideas and flesh them out. Then when I start to write it all comes together, mainly because I’ve let my brain work on it for a while.
Helen… that’s what I thought when I was standing there. I’d love to see a tree like the one in Avatar. Now THAT would be a challenge to capture!
Roger… slippery slope indeed! One of my favorite thoughts on nurturing creativity come from a 2009 Ted Talks presentation by Elizabeth Gilbert. If you have not seen this, go watch it right now!
It’s amazing that we all struggle so much with creativity.
Thanks for your support and comments!
I love the idea that creativity is only limited by how creative you allow yourself to be. For example, it is absolutely impossible to be creative when you are worried about what people will think of it. Creativity can only be from your heart.
SJ DUI Lawyer…
That was a point I wanted to make, but felt my post was getting a bit long winded. We are only limited by ourselves. So many times, we look around us to see what others are doing. We use their success to determine our limits. Many times, NOT knowing where the boundaries are allows you unlimited success. There is nothing to stop you but yourself!
[...] 8 Bad Habits that Crush Your Creativity and Stifle Your Success – Randy Kepple [...]
These are amazing and so very NEEDED today! Thanks.
excellent article. to sum it in one word i would say that to be creative think with a free mind. freedom breeds creativity….
Let me know what you think after you’ve read them. I know you’ll be getting his printed books too. This is his site BTW http://www.pixelatedimage.com/fluid2/
and blog http://www.pixelatedimage.com/blog/ – I follow it often but I’m adding yours to my list too!
Great post you have here, Randy. As a graphic designer, I really value the points you’ve stated because a lot of us could be guilty of all these bad habits that inhibit our creativity at one time or another. It is great to have your post as an eye-opener. Thanks!
[...] 8 Bad Habits that Crush Your Creativity and Stifle Your Success – Randy Kepple [...]
This is very brave approach from your side and i really enjoyed reading it.
I just don’t know if there are any limits ever, except those that we define ourselves.
I intend to turn every bad thing into motivation more, it’s a good practice and the result is very good, but i also find motivation into something nice too.
The important thing is to be very honest with yourself, even when it’s hard to admit it.
Thanks for the post!
Zoran… I don’t know about being brave. I just resonated with the article and felt my readers would too. I’m glad it’s hit a nerve.
I agree that the only limits we face are self-imposed. By constantly looking around at what others are doing, it’s easy to never reach further.
Being creative is frustrating on those days when you want so badly to express an idea you have and feel like you hit a brick wall. It doesn’t turn out the way you wanted or it just feels lackluster.
However, I feel that the discipline of showing up puts you in a much better position to be creative than being paralyzed by your fear of NOT being creative. We need to give ourselves permission to fail. Creativity and art are a journey, not a destination.
At least for me… it’s a constantly changing, shifting and oft times elusive journey.
It’s definitely a hit nerve, talking about human psychology with so much certainty, field that brings out so many questions, since different people feel different way about this, but that’s why I like your post.
I like your approach about being flexible with own self and allow to ourselves a failure and learn from it.
I am very good web developer and decided to learn web design as well, learned all the photoshop tools, but when it comes to draw something nice, I just feel stuck with ideas, mostly cause I have drawn a straight line in my brain that good designers were born like that and they don’t become that good with just work.
It’s not an easy fight to win, cause the opponent is myself from the other side, strongly determined that I cannot be good web designer. It’s also about being strong enough to recover from a big lose or disappointment, which is also not so easy. After all, I agree with your statement that creativity and art are a journey and not destination.
Thanks for the answer Randy and I am glad I found your website.
Love it! This article is spot on. Thanks for the words of wisdom, I’ll try and keep working on improving these areas. You keep writing and I’ll keep reading.
All of this is true. I’ve read tons of self-development and success materials, and this list, especially for creatives, is what it is about. As I said in my tweet about this post: read, print & hang it up on your wall…
A tweet made me come here to see what were you talking about and I have to say it’s so true to me. The 7th item completes my “thinking way” and I really have to improve this aspects on my working routine.
Thank you.
Love the banyan tree. Don’t agree with some of the points. I don’t think creativity means coming up with something original even though I’ll bet most readers will agree that it does. To me artistic creativity is what you use to solve the problems of communicating your message.
The “message” doesn’t have to be metaphorical or profound or even anything big. It could just be “look how yellow these flowers are”. But without a message what do you have to be creative about?
You don’t have to be original. Look at popular music. There is very little originality. That isn’t a criticism. If you are too original you run the risk of not being understood because you are too far out. I ponder some the same kinds of questions on my own blog.
HOLY CR*P that tree photo is amazing!!
As you know, my parents lived on Maui for several years, and I have been there many, many times… but I’ve never seen a banyan tree in “randyvision” before today when I checked your blog.
Stunning.
As always.
Loved this post, the photo and the article…
As always.
Hi Randy,
I love your work! That tree image is beautiful, and I totally agree with the article. I’m not yet engaged, but searching out photographers to be prepared. 
This is great Randy! I absolutely LOVE the image of that tree! I was trying to figure out how to shoot it but ended up giving up because too many people were around and I didn’t think I’d ever be able to do it any justice. Thanks for the inspiration!
Jessica,
Thanks! As you very well know, that tree was massive! And there were a LOT of people hiking and climbing on the tree. The most difficult part was finding a spot to capture the mood and feeling of standing there in front of that masterpiece. Once I did that, it was frustrating to sit there for 10 minutes and wait for people to get out of the tree or stay out of the frame long enough for me to capture a few exposures!
On top of that, it’s beyond frustrating that Canon cameras only allow you to capture an exposure bracket of three images at a time, while Nikon cameras allow you to capture a 9 exposure bracket! Trying to set up my camera to shoot a 9 exposure spread, wait for people to clear and just let go of the fact that the wind was blowing the leaves around and there was no way to fix that in post when layering 9 images…
The ghost removal capability in CS5 HDR PRO needs to be worked on a bit. It was less than desirable on the final image, but works for web. Your Hawaiian images are stunning Jessica!
Thanks for a good article and some great pointers to avoid to be more creative.
I also like the image of the Banyan tree a lot! Very distinct look to it.
It reminds me a little of some digital art I have seen, or even a drawing.
Looking forward to browsing more of your blog.
Thank you Berit! That banyan tree does have an illustrative feel to it. I appreciate you taking the time to leave a comment and stopping by. Look around, enjoy!
I love reading up about all of this kind of stuff because it fills you with the drive, confidence and self-belief that you CAN actually accomplish things from within, just by believing in yourself anf shifting your emotions and trusting yourself.
Every day I think of what E.M. Forster wrote: “Only connect.” And every time it happens, every single time, I am amazed all over again. That what one person says can angle out onto a slender thread, the other end of which is inside another mind. Thank you for taking the time to write this. I really needed to read it tonight.
Erin… that is absolutely beautiful! Thanks for sharing that and taking the time to share your thoughts. Your comment completely made my day!
I love this post Randy. It has helped me and the team I lead as much as anything we have read this year thanks.
Very inspirational. Thank you for sharing.
This is awesome! I’m gonna make a nice poster out of these points
Thanks a lot for sharing.
[...] pasted from Prabhupada Books Photo from http://randykepple.com/photoblog/2010/10/8-bad-habits-that-crush-your-creativity-and-stifle-your-suc… ; [...]
I get it. A self-employed photographer wears many hats. There is no marketing, accounting or human resources department. It’s an army of one. If you don’t tell the world how great you are, who will? (maybe your clients, but thus I digress) There is no denying the power of social media in advertising. Why do…
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I dunno, sometimes it’s time to blog the latest shoot and are at a loss of what to say. I never go so vanilla to say amazing. I just say it was marvelrificlious.
Whatever you do, just don’t call it EPIC.
Steve… I concur! The overuse of adjectives is not so much about blogging, but Facebook status updates. Our lives have been reduced to 140 characters of adjectives. EPIC never fails!
The problem is, we can’t post anything negative about our clients, which sometimes is a little limiting, isn’t it? One can’t say, “Dude! I just had the most amazing bridezilla ever and she was awesomely horrible!”
Well, you could CHOOSE to say something negative, but that would probably be a bad choice in so many ways. On the other hand, my point was letting the photos speak for themselves and again, we’re not talking about blogs. I’m talking about jumping on Facebook or Twitter and telling everyone you just “rocked” a high school senior portrait session or just got back from the most “amazing” wedding. The couple totally “rocked”! It’s our job to find the story and not get hung up on the bridezillas. Either that or we could just start a Facebook page about what NOT to wear to a wedding… or perhaps talk about the horrible tyranny of strapless dresses…
Randy,
I love reading your posts and reflecting on the ways photography and writing are the same and different. We writers fall in love with our stories (but also in hate until we wrangle them). I think with a picture you can look at it and know if it is amazing but a writer doesn’t always have that kind of perspective about her story. I may have confidence, but someone else has to read it, or when I read it outloud to someone else, I realize what’s not working (and I get to re-write, not so possible with photography). And for sure writers have to let our work stand on it’s own without too much “it’s amazing” going on.
Your work stands on it’s own for sure. But the one time I had professional head shots done, I liked it when the photographer told me which ones he loved.
I love this! This is something that bothers me a lot, yet as photographers it can be difficult to blog about a session, find adjectives to use and still make it real and sincere. I am doing my best, but your blog has made me remember why I need to do it more.
Randy, what a thought provoking post. It was a very refreshing to read a photog blog post that differed from the usual modus operandi of many other photography blogs. In the last few years it seems like one of the big catchphrases used by us photographers in our posts, tweets and Facebook status updates is “so-and-so totally rocked it in front of the camera” or “I love rocking it out with my camera”. All I can visualize is some photographer who has worked him/herself up into some other realm of consciousness, doing nothing but rocking back and forth with their camera, silly grin and all, while their clients look at them completely bewildered. =) Going forward I’ll be mindful to avoid abusing adjectives and maybe blogging my images without an accompanying write-up.
Thank you Joel. I think it’s great when photographers share the process of creativity, especially about their shoots. I get tired of every photographer expressing how amazing their clients are. Try to find the things that are different and unique about the couples you work with. Share that in your blog posts. I enjoy reading the things that you would not know from looking at photos alone. The things that show you really connected with your couple and appreciate their unique personalities.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I sincerely appreciate it!
Randy, your blog is great… I’m glad I stumbled upon it.
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Ok, 3 women in this house and we like action blockbusters – Ironman, Transformers, that Jason Statham bank heist movie – bring it on. As well as a good romantic comedy.
Gorgeous photo, where?
Colleen… just my luck I suppose. XBox 360 in ‘da house and no one is interested in hunting down terrorists with me!
My youngest is my SciFi buddy. Got her hooked on Fringe and she really likes the SciFi action movies… there is hope yet that I’ll be able to watch more action blockbusters during prime time! Oh, Tammy likes any Jason Statham movie, but I don’t think it’s because of the movie, if you know what I mean!
I forgot to add that this photo was taken on Maui. I’m planning to post a bunch more, but the post production takes a while and I’ve been trying to stay on top of paying gigs… money trumps personal art these days. Sadly.
Thanks for stopping by Colleen!
Oh, do tell – pp on this? If you don’t mind sharing.
Colleen,
Happy to share PP on this image. It’s actually deceptively simple! It’s basically a tripod mounted camera (16mm) of this beach scene in Hawaii. I captured three exposures. (-2/0/+2) set up the conversion information in Adobe Camera Raw and created a single HDR image using Photoshop CS5, HDR Pro. Unfortunately, Adobe HDR Pro does not handle highlight processing or ghosting very well, so I created another HDR composite using Photomatix Pro. Then, using layer masking in CS5, I combined the two images to retain the best of both. That’s basically all I did, aside from some minor dodging and burning and color enhancements (a little desaturation to lessen the cartoon feel). If you are interested in learning more of this technique, I’d highly recommend purchasing the e-book from http://www.stuckincustoms.com/. Best $10 you’ll spend. Hope that helps!
That’s a great quote. Facing the truth about yourself is always a tough proposition, as I grow older I find I don’t know myself as well as I’d like, I’ve been on my own quest for quite a while.
Thanks for sharing that.
I LOVE this image. I love your writing. Really looking forward to following your blog!
Randy, these are great images – it’s great to see such a wide range of work and interests – fabulous work!
Love the quote. I loved the book once I was in the “right place” to read it. Is the quote from the book or movie?
The quote is from the movie. I think I mentioned that in my post. Kara, who’s read the book (her favorite) told me that quote was NOT in the book!