So there I was. I know I start out a lot of my stories that way but truth being told, typically whenever something substantial happens in my life it usually occurs when I’m just minding my own business. When I’m just there. In any case this time I happen to be at the neighborhood grocery store picking up a few things for what we lovingly refer to as “Thursday Night Gravy.”  In other words, spaghetti and meatballs. Somewhere between the milk and cheese I noticed a young couple beside me. Late twenties to early thirties. They seemed happy. In love. Seriously, he nibbled her ear while she read aloud the nutritional content of a package of Oscar Meyer Wieners. Now that’s love. (For the record I’ll forgo the wisecrack he made about his own Oscar Meyer Wiener but trust me, it was fuuuny). He pulled her closer and just then…

beep beep

He pulled the iPhone from his pocket and read the message.

“Who is that?” She asked curiously.

“No one.” he replied nonchalantly, slipping the phone back into his pocket. (obviously funny does not equate wisdom with some people)

Well, she wasn’t having it.

“Um..obviously it was someone” She said and pulled away from his hug. “It was her, wasn’t it” More of a statement than a question.

He let her go with a sigh. “Are we really going to do this again?” he asked with an air of resignation.

She threw the wieners in the cart and was just about to storm off when he took her by the hand.

“Please don’t.” he pleaded.

Pause.

“Do you still love her?” She asked. This time more of a question than a statement.

He hesitated.

She crossed her arms as her eyes began to fill with salty sadness.

“Do you still love her” she whispered.

Wait for it…

Wait for it…

“Yes. I still love her.

I squeezed the string cheese in my hand. This was better than Jersey Shore. And much to my surprise she didn’t react. Stone cold. Nothing.

He continued. “Yes I still love her. She is the mother of my children Kelly. (her real name was Megan but I decided to change it in order to protect her identity) We were married for 7 years…

She turned away from him and still he held her hand.

“Do I love her? Yes. Yes I love her.”

 And here’s the kicker.

“But I love you too. I have loved YOU the most…”

Best. line. ever.

The rest of the scenario unfolded farther down near the milk and yogurts but I had heard enough. With a line like that I have no doubt that they will be just fine. In fact I later saw them making out in the bread and cereal aisle. Good for them. Bad for the soccer mom standing directly behind them…

 I know that I learned something today because I feel it in my bones. Afterall I had just witnessed something truly amazing. A miracle of sorts. It was like this dark ugly cloud had hovered over their relationship for so long, and all of a sudden vanished right there in aisle twelve.  Questions were asked and answers were given and as a result, a new day was upon them. Good for them. Good for me. In fact, I am naming my new action ”Aisle Twelve” as a constant reminder to first be honest with myself and truthful to everyone else. My life will be better for it. And because every post is better with a picture, here is a sneak peak of some Goodness courtesy of Aisle Twelve.

Sarah T asks: “Clayton I am so in love with your images. The colors are just beautiful. Would you please share some of your processing tips and tricks? Pretty please?”

Well, Sarah T, only because you said pretty please. And for the record I’ll have you know that my very first date was a Sarah T. Her name was Sarah Thomas but because we also had a Sarah Matthews we simply referred to them as Sarah T and Sarah M. Anyway, we were in the 6th grade and our first date was to the roller rink. To this day I remember how smitten I was when I discovered I was on a date with the only girl in our entire class that could not only skate backwards, but could also do the formentioned while singing along to every word of Bon Jovi’s “Living on a prayer”….

Okay, so now that I got that out of the way most would be surprised at how little work really goes into my images. When broken down there are indeed quite a few individual steps, however because I have my mastered my workflow by incorporating actions and F Key functions things move along quite quickly. The key is actually setting up the shot in camera. Typically I will usually over expose by a full stop in camera in order to blow out the sky completely. Especially if I am aiming to catch a bit of sun flare. I do this because the color shifting and tone adjustments I use on my images work best on a white sky or blown out flare. Of course, the negative side to this is losing a bit of the contrast in the shadows but thankfully that can easily be corrected in photoshop.

So lets get to it.

The following image was taken on a Canon 5D Mark II with a 45mm 2.8 tilt shift. This my absolute favorite lens and is permanently attached to one of my 5D bodies. It was shot in Manual at ISO 160, 1/80, @ f/3.5

This is the image straight out of camera.

The first thing I do on ALL of my images is “Match the Mountains”. That is to say I do a Levels Adjustment. The reason that Levels makes it so easy to understand what the histogram is telling us is because the Levels dialog box includes a horizontal gradient bar directly below the histogram. The gradient starts from pure black on the far left and gradually gets brighter until it reaches pure white on the far right. In most cases you want to be sure that your “sliders” are matching up with where the “mountains” begin and end. Why? Well, that’s a whole other post. But just trust me for now.

The next thing that I did was throw a little “Fill Flash” from Kubota Actions set onto Tahni’s face. This particular action gets used quite a bit therefor it has been assigned my F6 function key. In this case 50% opacity did the trick.I also sharpened Tahni’s face using TRA’s “Selective Sharpening” action which has also been assigned an F key function.

As I mentioned in my For Photographers section I now use a majority of my own customized color toning actions. They have all been named after my favorite movies and one of my go-to actions is called Lars and the Real Girl. Fantastic flick by the way…

Lastly I burned the edges for interest but more importantly because I can dammit.

And there you have it. As I said earlier, very basic stuff. Nothing to write home to mom about but did just the trick. Don’t you think?

People often ask me how I was able to build such a successful business in a short amount of time. The answer: Attention to detail (and many a long night I might add). I wanted to be sure that EVERY image my client received was the very best it could be. Not just the ones on the blog or in their album. But every. single. image. Of course in the beginning this proved to be quite the daunting task. Thankfully I focused on becoming as efficient as possible with my post processing early on which now allows me the opportunity to provide my clients with 400 hand edited images AND still have time to watch Private Practice on the couch with my sweetheart.

We took a drive today. The windows rolled down, my bare feet hanging out of the passenger side window, Ingrid Michaelson blaring on the radio. It was a good day. We took a left at Miller’s Crossing when we would normally turn right and drove for 20 minutes. Somewhere between “Men of snow” and “So Long” I said I love you babe. Then we drove for another 10 minutes passing field after field of Blue Bonnets.  In some places the horizon was like the ocean, blue and purple as far as the eye can see. So. Stinking. Beautiful. Funny thing is that even after all that Goodness, it wasn’t the sprawling acres of endless blooms that stopped me dead in my tracks. No, it was but a single flower. There growing in front of my home. Not in a garden or under a tree. Not in a clay pot or hanging from our front porch. But sprouting up from a crack in the curb like a hand raised to the sky. Alone yet determined. Alive in the place where it was planted by the universe. Not just making due with the hand it was dealt but thriving in its individualism.

Thank you Goodness for that little reminder.

 It seems to me that these days there are only a handful of photographers who despite the draw to the masses have set themselves apart, not in a field of flowers but alone in the gutter on a shady little street.  How many times have we said to ourselves, “I would love to be that type of photographer but I’m afraid that people wont get it.” Or even worse, “If only I could but what if no one books me?” There comes a time when you have to stand up and shout: This is me damn it! I look the way I look, think the way I think, feel the way I feel, I see the world the way I see it! I am a whole complex package. Take me… or leave me. Accept me – or walk away! Do not try to make me feel like less of an artist, just because I don’t fit your idea of who I should be and don’t try to change me to fit your mold. If I need to change, I alone will make that decision. Truth is, when you are strong enough to be the person you see yourself as, good and bad – you will be amazed at the opportunities that life presents you. Don’t ask what the world wants. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who despite being planted in a crack in the pavement have not just survived but have come alive. Really, really alive…

“YOU THINK YOU’RE BETTER THAN ME PRIVATE AUSTIN?!?!” the red face irate man spat at me just inches from my face. “NO SIR!” I fired back. I had been at attention for a little over an hour now and even though my left leg continued to cramp up and burn like fire I stood solid as a rock. A rock that was about to pee himself that is.  “NO SIR?? DO I LOOK LIKE MY &#*$ FATHER TO YOU BOY?? YOU WILL REFER TO ME AS DRILL SERGEANT. YOU GOT THAT PRIVATE?!” I clenched my fist as the sweltering Missouri summer sun baked down on me. It had only been a little more than an hour since I had arrived at my first day of book camp at Ft. Leonard Wood…also referred by many as Ft. Lost-in-the-woods. What was I doing here? Had I lost my mind?  Um..excuse me Mr. Drill Sergeant…but I think there has been a terrible mistake. I assumed that the army had adopted a more ’sensitive’ training program. Obviously I had been misinformed so if you would be so kind as to show me the way out I won’t waste any more of your time… He was so close I could smell his breathe. It reeked of fish sticks and cigarettes, menthol ironically. If anything I took him more for a Marlboro man. But Newports? Seriously? “I SAID, DO YOU GOT THAT PRIVATE?!” Despite the lump in my throat I managed a somewhat less than convincing ”YES DRILL SERGEANT!” Then in a moment of weakness…”SORRY DRILL SERGEANT!”

Big. Mistake.

“WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME???

i said…

” YOU THINK I’M A SORRY DRILL SERGEANT PRIVATE?? IS THAT IT??!”

no dr…

“FRONT LEANING REST POSITION….MOVE!”

I dropped to the ground, legs extended out, the weight of my entire body resting on my arms. Similar to what you would see right before completing a push-up. Within seconds my shoulders and forearms were on fire. I glanced to my right and saw a kid barely 18, bottom lip quivering, tears in his eyes. I gave him a “yeah, tell me about it” look.

“WELCOME TO THE FIRST DAY OF THE REST OF YOUR LIVES SOLDIERS. WELCOME TO MANHOOD….”

_________________

That day, burned like a scratchy eight track in my mind went down over seven years ago and would become the most defining four years of my life. It wasn’t easy but I survived and I’m a better man for it. A few months ago I just happen to come across an organization called OpLove that provides military families with the opportunity to have their deployment or homecoming documented by a professional photographer. Tomorrow I will be volunteering my services for a military family experiencing a deployment and I am so honored and humbled to be a part of this important time of their lives. Wish us Goodness during our session!

And in honor memory lane here is a very important (and emotional) image of me and my boys from Medic Platoon, 3rd Infintry Division, 2004 (Im holding the M16)