LADIG – LA Lightroom User Group

Today’s advertising photography has to build a visual identity for a brand, through believable moments of lived life, that tell a story that feels authentic and emotional!

Come meet Michael Dorman, an award-winning advertising lifestyle, automotive, and sports photographer!

Michael has built a strong reputation for capturing the beauty of fleeting moments. Specializing in documentary-style commercial and editorial work, he photographs with a strong emphasis on narratives, with a skill for capturing filmic moments that tell a story with quality and authenticity.

For Michael “…it’s all about creating and capturing those little unscripted instances. I don’t like to direct talent to pose or act out a specific action. Instead, we create the story and the narrative and then step back to let the scene develop organically into those spontaneous moments caught when everyone’s forgotten that a camera is there”.

Michael and his team are adept in large-scale productions, as well as small guerilla-style shoots.

Michael will discuss the constant challenge facing creative photographers: staying inspired and motivated! “Our brains are programed to build and repeat patterns. It helps streamline our days and simplify how we interact with the world and keep us safe – but how do we both avoid and utilize the daily distractions of life to help feed creativity?”

Showing his work, and discussing his approach to self-motivation and inspiration, Michael will encourage you to push your own boundaries, and make new, surprising images every day! 

Join us on Thursday evening June 20, in West Hollywood, to see Michael Dorman show us his images, and inspire us to create! We’ll start at 7pm, but come at 6:30 to socialize and snack, then stay for the lecture and to have all your questions answered. www.ladig.org

We have a new location, the Community Room in the 8000 Sunset Boulevard mall in West Hollywood. Parking is in the underground garage, and free validation is available in the Trader’s Joe or Starbuck’s!

Admission is free, but we’d appreciate a donation to help keep LADIG afloat. Every ticket bought (not the free ones….) enters you into our raffle drawing!

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The future is here! The seamless blending of CGI (computer generated imagery) and photography surrounds us in most high-end advertising – and it will grow exponentially in the next few years!!! As the entire imaging industry undergoes a revolution, the photographers who take charge of integrating CGI into their images, with awareness and ability to match perspective, lighting, resolution, contrast and color, will be the ones who succeed!

In this presentation Rick will provide a quick overview of his visual history, then deconstruct a couple of images, showing the incredible complexity of integrating CGI with image elements, and creating a believable composite! He will address the various issues involved, and walk through a few case studies, timeline to finish… In addition, he’ll show retouching notes and before-afters. Rick will also explain how to manage work flows, internally and with clients. Rick will show work samples done through traditional retouching as well as combined CGI, both in still images and in animations.

Rick Chou has had a long career in advertising photography, capturing everything from Apple products to Lexus cars, from Jessica Alba to Jennifer Lawrence, winning awards for his creative thinking and his artful lighting. In 2010 Rick co-founded BLUE SKY CGI, a CGI and creative retouching boutique. A response to years of seeing agencies integrate CGI into his photographic images, with not-always-successful believability. Today, Blue Sky is comprised of six CG/Retouching artists and a select roster on standby. Rick ensures quality by hiring exceptional talent that is both adept at rendering and knowledgeable about lighting. That Rick and his team have been able to come together and advance from chasing the trail of change to being change-makers is a testament to their creativity and ingenuity. Taking an active role in his career path, Rick has successfully created a niche by combining modern technology with photography expertise.

Join us on Thursday evening May 16, in West Hollywood, to see Rick Chou explain and demonstrate CGI! We’ll start at 7pm, but come at 6:30 to socialize and snack, then stay for the lecture and to have all your questions answered, and mind expanded!www.ladig.org!

We have a new location, the Community Room in the 8000 Sunset Boulevard mall in West Hollywood. Parking is in the underground garage, and free validation is available in the Trader’s Joe or Starbuck’s!

Admission is free, but we’d appreciate a donation to help keep LADIG afloat. Every ticket bought (not the free ones….) enters you into our raffle drawing!

Nothing ruins portrait images faster than bad skin retouching – see the vast majority of portraits on the photography enthusiasts sites with that “plastic doll/plastic wrap” skin that screams “fake”!!! Frequency Separation is the most common and flexible technique that retouchers use to smooth and cleanup skin, while still preserving fully-realistic texture – and it’s not that difficult to master, if implemented correctly, and used smartly (“… with great power comes great responsibility…”)

Lisa Carney has been a top Hollywood entertainment and beauty retoucher for more years than she looks! On top of her extreme work load (some weeks she’ll grip a Wacom pen for maybe 100 hours) she is also a renowned teacher and lecturer, from Adobe MAX to WPPI to APA seminars to private workshops! How does she do it all? It’s in her extraordinarily positive attitude and “isn’t-this-fun” approach to every challenge!

Join us on Thursday evening April 18, in West Hollywood, to see Lisa Carney explain and demonstrate Frequency Separation! We’ll start at 7pm, but come at 6:30 to socialize and snack, then stay for the lesson and to have all your questions answered, and mind expanded!www.ladig.org!

We have a new location, the Community Room in the 8000 Sunset Bouldevard mall in West Hollywood. Parking is in the underground garage, and free validation is available in the Trader’s Joe or Starbuck’s!

Admission is free, but we’d appreciate a donation to help keep LADIG afloat. Every ticket bought (not the free ones….) enters you into our raffle drawing!

Today’s advertising images are made by very high-end (and very highly-paid) professionals, who create a crafted narrative, with camera-captured and post-processing-manipulated elements, on the way to unique, cinematic, clean and striking images! 

Come meet CJ Burton, a top advertising photographer in LA, who pulls inspiration from the world of film to incorporate constructed environments in an engaging, visual-story-telling image! Rare among photographers, CJ can sketch his ideas and present them to the client for approval – then plan the execution, with a large team, capturing as much as possible in camera, before moving to the computer, to complete and finesse the envisioned image. By keeping control of the entire process, CJ can make images that most effectively illustrate the advertiser’s concept – something that’s recognized (and rewarded) by the ad agencies! His work has been featured for years in national editorial, advertising, and TV and theatrical marketing. A graduate of the Art Center College in Pasadena, he has been working in illustrative photography since 2001. Do visit his website – you will recognize some of the ads, and be amazed! CJ will present a variety of images and walk us through the process of their creation and production, before giving us an example of how he retouches an image in post! Don’t miss this very rare peak in how true high-end pros work!!!

We have a new location, the Community Room in the 8000 Sunset Mall! Parking is in the underground garage, and free validation is available in the Trader’s Joe or Starbuck’s!

Join us at 6:30PM for social time, and at 7PM for the presentation, with a longer time window, to allow unlimited questions and more socializing!

Admission is free, but we’d appreciate a donation to help keep LADIG afloat. Every ticket bought (not the free ones….) enters you into our raffle drawing! On March 14 you could win a 4TB RAID bus-powered rugged drive from LaCie, a $300 value!!! Please register on the form below:

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It’s a new year, and it’s time to backup and archive your 2018 shots (and maybe organize and store your entire library, if you haven’t done it yet!) 

What’s the best strategy: a pile of hard drives? A honkin’ NAS storage array?  On Dropbox? A cloud service like Backblaze? Or maybe just use the new Lightroom CC and let Adobe deal with it?

The best answer is different for each person, and the best answer is more than one of the above choices. We’ll talk about the pros and cons of each method and give some best practices, so you can make or update your backup strategy — you do have a backup strategy, right???

This meeting will be held at Plummer Park, 7377 Santa Monica Blvd. in West Hollywood. Doors open at 6pm for socializing, and the program wil get rolling at 7pm.

Admission is free but we’d appreciate a donation to pay for snacks and help keep LADIG afloat.

Register on the form below.

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