LUMIPro Spotlight Time!

Written by Stefan Buscaylet

LUMIPro's public Flickr group was created back in May 2011 by Colleen and since then it now has over 400 followers and close to pushing 10,000 photos.  It is a beautiful thing seeing the range of talent and styles in the Flickr group.  (click here and follow it and post to it!).

For the most part I've let my business manager periodically pick photos from the Flickr group, and give them recognition as standing out.  I'd love to do it all the time but between high stress job demands and the fact i want to keep doing my own photography, I decided this time I wanted to pick the photos myself.   I'll add a few of my own comments to each photo and hopefully I'm not too far off.

Bucky Barkley's photo "Bucky_DerailedBar" is a great example of the ambient light matching the face light. Right color and position.  Even to a not trained eye, of the avatar's light seems like it is coming from a totally different direction and color it just "feels wrong".  This just "feels right".

Snoob Johnson's "Down To Earth" - What impresses me is how the scene lighting matches the avatar lighting, even the color matches. Love it!

Addison Summerwind's - "Jacen".  How the scene and model lighting match and make sense.  The facial light accent light on the chin and nose create the required separation or the face would be lost in the scene.

Gala Caproni's - self portrait has a great facial light as well as one that helps outline her body.  The avatar is super well put together. 

 Strawberry Singh - "Tis The Season For A Jacket".  Strawberry has been a force of nature on Second Life.  This is a great example of well lit commercial photography not having to always be in a studio. This is my dream that more commercial/blogger photographers will unleash themselves from their flat backdrops and show their product in the big beautiful Second Life world.

Zach Larsen's "Azra 2" - I've been a fan of Zack for a very long time.  His instincts in lighting and composition very much align with my own and thus his work resonates with me, A LOT.  The high key look of this through a strong accent off to her right that lights only part of her face leaving a sense of 3D and yet remaining soft.  Love it dude!

Oh and not like you have not already seen it, but I did enjoy this project I shot with Sammie This was shot with a single projector high. The red primary light was set to keep the face from being completely lost into the car. The blue light kePT her left leg and heel also from not getting lost in the photo.  It was my first green screen ever, lol.  (Yes, sometimes I do shoot in my workshop).

What's the old quote about "You may like sausage, but you don't want to know how its made."  Well tough, here is my poor little workshop covered in crap to get the photo above.  Since this was my very first croma-key attempt ever using Photoshop, it took a little longer reading how to do it, but it wasn't as bad as i thought.