Announcing our EXTRAORDINARY EXPOSURES PHOTOGRAPHY CONTEST

Extraordinary Exposures 2010 Photography Contest, $1000 Grand Prize to be Awarded - Presented by Aperture Academy Fine Art Photo Gallery and Digital Photography Instruction

Aperture Academy in Campbell, CA, offers outdoor workshops, in studio instruction, Photoshop and digital darkroom classes and now they are hosting-sponsoring an annual photography contest with four prize levels and great sponsor gifts.

Campbell, CA–April 23, 2010–Aperture Academy founder and master photographer, Stephen Oachs, announced Aperture Academy's first annual photography competition, Extraordinary Exposures 2010. There are three theme categories for entry: Natural Landscapes, Wildlife, and Urban Landscapes.

Submissions are being accepted until midnight on November 30, 2010, with the judging and prize award winners to be announced December 15, 2010. Grand prize is $1,000 cash, awarded by Aperture Academy, along with prizes by ThinkTank, BayPhoto.com, LowePro and Red River Paper. Along with the grand prize, there will also be cash and product awards for first, second and third places.

The contest rules, submission form and list of prizes and sponsors can be found at Aperture Academy's website, ApertureAcademy.com. Along with the contest, their website also offers a Photo of the Day gallery, articles to help improve your photography skills, free online photo galleries, classes, workshops and a virtual tour of the Campbell, CA gallery.

To learn more about Extraordinary Exposures 2010 Contest, and submit your entries, go online to http://www.apertureacademy.com/photography-contest-2010.php. For more about Aperture Academy, see course schedules, or to inquire about reserving the gallery for your function, visit http://www.ApertureAcademy.com or call 408-369-8585.

About Aperture Academy

Founded by award-winning photographer and entrepreneur, Stephen W. Oachs, the Aperture Academy is a unique combination of fine art photography gallery and state-of-the-art teaching facility featuring classroom and in-field workshop instruction. Established in 2009 by Stephen Oachs, the Academy is located in Campbell, California, in the Pruneyard Shopping Center. The Academy offers a fun, interactive environment for learning everything related to digital photography, providing the best hands-on instruction in the industry. The state-of-the-art facility has individual student workstations outfitted with the latest software and hardware for Mac and PC platforms. Professional, award-winning instructors guide students of any skill level from learning to shoot in the field to techniques for digital post-processing, in a relaxed, personalized environment. Also an event venue, the 4,000 square foot facility's open floor plan makes it perfectly suited for social receptions, business and fund-raising events, camera club meetings and much more. Visit http://www.ApertureAcademy.com or call (408) 369-8585 to learn more about the school, reserve the gallery, or to register for classes. 

About Stephen W. Oachs

Stephen Oachs is an award-winning photographer, successful entrepreneur and technology veteran who began his journey in photography the moment he picked up his first camera.

Stephen's unique and distinctive style has earned him recognition as one of today's finest nature photographers. He was recognized in 2007 as wildlife photographer of the year by the National Wildlife Federation and was awarded best nature photographer in 2008 by National Geographic for his work photographing the endangered snow leopard. In 2009, Stephen founded The Aperture Academy, a unique combination of fine art photography gallery and classroom.

His work has graced the pages of many notable worldwide publications, including National Geographic, Popular Photography, Outdoor Photographer, National Wildlife Magazine, among others. Stephen and his work have been profiled locally in Gentry Magazine, and The Mercury News, and he has made numerous appearances as a guest lecturer.

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Editorial Contact:

Kelly Baldwin

Aperture Academy Gallery Manager

info@apertureacademy.com

408-369-8585

Our Spring Open House party was a success!

What an event!! If you attended, thank you for coming and we hope you had a great time! If you missed it, you REALLY missed a fun evening! (Don't worry, we'll do it again!)

We have posted over 100 photos from the event, so click here to take a look at all the fun!

New Digital Photography How-To Articles at ApertureAcademy.com - Newest is on Composition

We are building a library of articles designed to provide a wealth of information to help any level of photographer improve his or her skills, techniques, or just think outside the box a bit. Our instructors are sharing their experience and knowledge, and it is available for everyone. We launched the page and have the first articles available. Following is a small portion of our newest article. Please let us know if you find these helpful, and if there are any subjects you'd like to read about!

What is Composition?

Composition is a tricky thing. There's no right and no wrong. Often a photographer's uniqueness, his or her style, is attributed largely to their approach and vision to composition. I'm going to share with you mine, and how I often teach it, and if you learn something from my approach you'll likely go on to develop your own eye for composition.

So what is it? To me, it's an ingredient, a balance and a flow. It is a means to tell the story, to pull the viewer into that single moment in time. It's a rock in the ocean that anchors the lower portion of the scene, tying the surf to the horizon and a warm, colorful sunset in the distance. It's the depth of field that isolates a subject from it's busy background. And sometimes, it's as simple as fresh perspective, the notion of conveying a common idea such as a road winding into the forest, but inches off the pavement where the freshly painted yellow stripe leads the eye out with great detail...you can almost feel the road, it's cold and rough.

Read the full article here: Tips for Better Photography Composition
Read more of the growing collection of articles at our How-To Better Your Photography article library.

Join the fun as Photoshop celebrates its 20th anniversary--today!

Hosted by the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP), and its founder, Scott Kelby, the Photoshop 20th anniversary celebration will be streamed LIVE and feature special appearances by John Loiacono, Adobe Senior Vice President and General Manager, Creative Solutions Business Unit; NAPP Photoshop gurus Dave Cross and Matt Kloskowski; Adobe Photoshop star Russell Brown; and other key members of the Adobe Photoshop team.

This historic night will feature a walk through Photoshop history, a glimpse into the future, and celebrate all things Photoshop. Better yet, gather your fellow Photoshop enthusiasts for live streaming--tonight!

Sign up at www.photoshopuser.com/photoshop20th for a reminder, or bookmark the page and come back on February 18th at 7:30 p.m. PST for a fun-filled, history-making night.


Jeanette Smith 
Instructor, Adobe Photoshop for Photography
Certified Adobe Photoshop Expert 
jeanette @ apertureacademy.com

Aperture Academy 
1875 S. Bascom, suite 600 
Campbell, CA 95008 
408-369-8585
www.apertureacademy.com

It's All About Light

Post written by Jeanette Smith, Creative Arts Instructor for Aperture Academy

We thought we’d share some of our Photoshop and image processing tips on the blog, so for this entry, I'm going to show you how to create a "Luminosity Mask" in Photoshop CS4. First, you should know what luminance is; it’s the amount of light passing through a particular area of an image. Measured in a range from zero to 255 in an 8-bit image, it is expressed as red, green and blue channels of light.

Adjusting the luminance, by taking a selection from the image itself, is great because it creates a natural gradation, based on the intrinsic brightness of the image. Why? Because every pixel is affected in exact proportion to its native brightness. This technique works nicely, for example, when the sky is overexposed or the foreground underexposed.

Load the luminosity as a selection in Photoshop CS4 in one of two ways:

• Option+Command+2, or 
• Command+Click the RGB thumbnail in the Channels palette. 

You may also inverse the selection, Select>Inverse, or type on your keyboard, Command+Shift+I, to apply an adjustment to the opposite areas of the image. Then travel to the Layers Palette and apply a Levels or Curves Adjustment Layer to the layer that needs correcting.

You can use this technique for color adjustments, too. Load the luminosity as a selection and copy the selection to a new layer in the Layers Palette, Layer>New Layer via Copy, or type on your keyboard Command+J. Then apply a Blend Mode, like Overlay or Multiply, to the new layer and adjust the opacity if necessary. Don't forget to name your layers and keep things organized.

Give this a try and make your images really POP! To learn more creative techniques in Photoshop CS4, enroll in one of our courses or workshops at Aperture Academy, or come in for some private tutoring. Hope to see you soon!

 

It's not easy getting "The Shot"

Post written by Brian Rueb, Photography Instructor for Aperture Academy

Often times, when we see an image in a magazine, online, or in a gallery, we’re impressed at the beauty, composition, or presentation of the shot. Most of the time we don’t stop to think of all that goes into actually getting "The Shot."

After completing seven days of photography in Southern Utah and Northern Nevada, I decided to give you a brief recap of exactly how hard photographers work to come away with a few images they can be proud of. 

The goal of any landscape and wildlife photographer is to be in a position that allows them to spend as much time during the day shooting as possible. This means putting in hours and hours of research ahead of time so that we have a general idea of the layout, sun position, weather and composition possibilities before we even get to a scene.

With a good 50 hours worth of research already under my belt, I set off for the Southwest United States on a Tuesday afternoon.  

Over the following days I endured:  

1. Six nights sleeping in the back of a Toyota Prius. Photographers need to adhere to a budget in order to maximize the time we spend in the field, and to save cost, and put myself closer to the areas I want to photograph I’ve chosen to sleep in my vehicle. This saves cash…but the rest I get isn’t the best.  



2. One shower. During the middle of the trip we broke down and got a proper hotel one night to clean and get a good night sleep. A shower does amazing things to rejuvenate you after five days of hiking grime has built up.



3. I hiked nearly 50 miles over the week. About half of that was in water that required special equipment to keep me warm, safe, and my gear dry.  



4. I watched as rain began to fall while I was in the middle of a slot canyon. Slot Canyons are amazing places for photography, but during a storm they can be deadly. Watching rain drops keep fallin’ on my head while I was in the middle of one of these canyons was quite nerve wracking. Luckily, the sun came back out, and I was treated to a canyon all to myself for photography. Which is rare.



5. I drove over 2300 miles in seven days. A lot of photography is being in the right place at the right time. This means constant watching of weather reports, and changing plans on the fly to give yourself the best opportunity to be where the photography is hopefully great. 



6. I was in a different location for sunrise and sunset every day….and spent the afternoons in still different areas. Being in the right place for sunrise photography requires that you get up at least an hour or two before, usually hike somewhere in the dark…and this is all before you really know whether or not you’re going to have conditions worthy of photographing. Over those seven days, I had only two sunsets that were worth photographing (one was amazing…which made up for the others).  I had only one sunrise that was even decent…the rest were bland, but still required that I get up, break down camp, and get to my location before there was light to see.

This is hard work for only a couple of images, but these trips serve another purpose, too. They allow us to get out and experience places firsthand…so that when we’re conducting a workshop, we know where to be and the time of day to be there. We’re familiar with the types of issues students are going to come in contact with, because we’ve lived through them ourselves.  

When you sign up for a workshop with us, you’re getting that experience and research working for you…so all you have to do is show up and shoot.  It’s just up to you whether you sleep in your car or not.

There was a party going on...and it was a great success!

Wow - what an event! We had over 500 people attend the grand open house celebration of the Aperture Academy.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words and we have over 200 photos from the event to share. FYI, in the gallery, we are offering 10% off prints and 15% off classes through the end of 2009...and we now have gift certificates! (Call 408-369-8585 to learn more.)

Take a look through the party photos (taken by our official event photographer, Steven Davis).

[To see the Old Crystal Mill larger, click here]
[Read about the party and see all the photos here]

The party was a great way for us to show the public what we're all about. Our in-field instructors, Brian Rueb and Jim Patterson, were available to talk to the public, answer questions about workshops, and share stories from their photographic experiences. Classroom instructors, Jeanette Smith and Scott Donschikowski, were there as well, offering some tips and tutorials on Photoshop and Lightroom. Stephen Oachs, the gallery founder and the gala's host, answered questions regarding his photographs and gave away over $5000 worth of prints and certificates as prizes in the raffle.

We sincerely wish to thank everyone who was able to attend; for those of you far away, thank you for all your kind wishes. Have a safe holiday and a new year!