Contact
- Email: gregory@cowleystudios.com
- Call: (415) 373-6527
- Visit: 2325 3rd Street, Studio 224
- San Francisco, CA 94107
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San Francisco Portrait Photographer
Photo Blog
Inspiration and musings on photography.
Kristen in the studio
Cowley Studios - San Francisco Photography
Cowley Studios - San Francisco Photography
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Bride for a day
I’ve photographed dozens of weddings at this point and have ten more to shoot this year alone. So what’s the deal? I’m a second shooter for Debra, and I love it that way. I’m basically free to roam the wedding and shoot to my hearts content while Deb focuses on client relations and formals. For me wedding photography is an adventure sport.
Here is a selection of images from a bridal shoot. Ahhh… portraiture… this is my real passion.
Five Poses
Five Poses, originally uploaded by gregorycowley.
I’ve neglected this blog for about 8 months now and I’m anxious to get some new posts up. These images of Chris displaying competitive body building poses was taken in my studio earlier this year. Enjoy and I’ll have a post of a recent trip to Guatemala up this week.
Watch a short video podcast
Video podcasts seem all the rage. So I had to go through the steps of creating one of my own using my photography. Look out Eadweard Muybridge!
My background is in motion graphics and graphic design and I ran a video production company for a number of years. So I’ve had plenty of training in this area. What I didn’t have before is the access to distribution. There is a world of possibilities for photographers to promote their work this way. It’s like making a TV commercial without all the expense.
These are shots that I took in my studio over the last year, except for the interior of the Ferry Building.
Matt Lutz of The Herms created the music.
[flashvideo filename=videoplayer/vid/GregoryPodcast_4.flv /]
Adding texure effects to images
I’ve been following the work of Nate Kaiser and Jesh De Rox for a little while now. Their texture effects for images take on a very illustrated and antiqued look.
I come from both a photojournalism and a painting background. While I think that altering photos to this extreme is borderline on a “cheap effect”, I also appreciate how the new illustrations have more depth and meaning after being treated. Illustration has a long history, even in photography, so I was intrigued by these effects and wanted to try it for myself.
On Jesh’s site he states about his textures that “You are welcome to make your own, and in fact, this is highly encouraged.” I took up the challenge and these are my first attempt.
The great outdoors…
One of the best aspects of living in San Francisco is the quality of life here. I headed out with Ninno to cover just a few of the activities to be found in the bay area. We decided to focus on Mountain Biking for round one.
“Go East Young Man…”
I usually make it out of the country at least a couple of times a year. This year been so consumed with building up the studio that I haven’t taken any significant trips. I did get out of town for the last week however. It was a welcome relief and a very productive journey.
I scheduled 4 shoots with various models and will be posting the results shortly. The premise of the shoots were simple, my assistant Maria and I would meet the model at a location somewhere in Manhattan and we would shoot as many scenes as possible in a 4 hour session. I haven’t walked so much in years. I actually lost a few pounds on the trip.
The main excuse for going to New York was to attend the PDN PhotoPlusExpo. I spent Thursday and Friday at the convention and attended a number of enlightening seminars. Stewart Cohen gave the first about producing stock film. I have a video production background and have given some thought to producing motion clips.
The second seminar was a very enlightening presentation by Michael Grecco. One of the enjoyable parts of the presentation where time lapse videos of his shoots. He has these posted on his my space page and I recommend having a look at http://www.myspace.com/michaelgrecco look for the “behind the scenes” links.
Along with the seminars there was also the trade show floor. Here there were all the latest gadgets and gizmos to drool over and wonder about. This was the part of the event that I had to careful of since my wish list is already pretty long. I was entertained and informed by the Canon booth with had a stage setup and live shoots were taking place. I had the pleasure of watching Douglas Kirkland in action. I bought his book afterwards that documents a 50-year career shooting pretty much every celebrity you can think of.
Photographers gathering around a shoot at 2007 Photoexpo Plus event.
Color management
Ever wondered why your digital prints don’t look like what you see on your screen? I’ve prepared a tutorial to help demystify the practice of color management. Included are a brief introduction to color spaces and device profiles, the basics on color calibrating your monitor and printer, and step-by-step instructions to get the best results.
The PDF is available for free download by clicking: GCS-ColorManagement.pdf.