los angeles men's fashion and beauty photographer ronald n. tan

DNA Magazine is a first-rate gay magazine from Australia that outsells US magazines in Borders and Barnes and Nobles and “is distributed throughout Australia, the USA, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and Europe” (About DNA, http://www.dnamagazine.com.au/default.asp?section_id=436). I wish I could make it to the celebration being held in Sydney on the 8th of March, 2010. Details on this link: http://www.dnamagazine.com.au/default.asp?section_id=457.

I’ve always wanted to shoot a cover for DNA from being inspired by Mr. Lewis Payton–whom numerously contributed classy and regal visuals of the male beauty. My first cover #110 with Adam C. Phebus @ Vision LA was dedicated to Mr. Payton. Ten issues later in #120, January 2010, my muse Mr. Nathan J. Owens @ Wilhelmina LA was the first non-White cover model to appear on the cover. Nathan had to endure the summer heat in Palm Springs!

I am glad to be apart of DNA history for the first 10 years and I hope to be apart in the future! Happy birthday DNA Magazine. Wishing you good health and longevity.

I made a Facebook page for my pet portraiture, http://www.facebook.com/pages/Zaw-Zi-Chit-Chit-Pet-Portraiture-By-Ronald-N-Tan/339156796391.

Please join the page let me know if you need photographs of your pets!

How do we turn an ordinary backyard photo into a “WOW!” image?

Exposed so that highlight isn't lost. -1EV from the in-camera reading on Chit-Chit's dark fur. I've manually measured the white balance using a grey card. Processed in CaptureONE PRO 5.1.

I used BW Panchromatic as a start and additionally tweaked the whites and darks in the image all using CaptureOne PRO 5.1.

Since I am going through a “monochromatic” phase, when I set Chit-Chit up, I was imagining the final outcome of the image. Playing with dodging and burning, I’ve created drama, depth, and character to the plain ordinary backyard-lit photograph!

Try pre-visualizing the final photograph before pressing that shutter!

1. Phaseone CaptureONE PRO 5.1 gets a 4/5 rating from me, but deducting a point for:
2. Spot/Dust Tool “Clumsy”. Would like the ability to resample and pick a source similar to ACR. Keyboard control to increase/decrease the radius. Right-click delete instead of deleting it from the tool panel.
3. Sharpening in Web Contact Sheet. An option to disable sharpening or impede the effective sharpening proportional to the size of images generated. Example: Sharpening full resolution images at 1000, 1.0, 0 looks great, but when applied to Web Contact Sheet, the images are over-sharpened and grotesque. The workaround is making any RAW edits sans sharpening, create Web Contact Sheet, and finally apply capture sharpening globally.
4. Local adjustments or graduated filter. At version 5.1, C1 still lack a graduated filter.
5. Entering metadata and IPTC feels clumsy. When adding keywords, I’d like a streamlined keyboard navigation control, e.g. pressing Tabs to automatically move to a new keyword field. In the current version, you have to manually click on the “+” every time a new IPTC keyword wants to be added. When importing files, I’d like to add relevant global metadata to the files being imported or being tethered into the computer via a saved preset, e.g. website, contact email, studio address, etc.

Reprocessed w/ C1 5.1 PRO. Used Adv. NR. Used Spot Tool to remove blemishes and exported into PS CS4 for final retouching. I am VERY satisfied with the 5.1 updates.

My little birdy source was correct about the release of CaptureOne PRO 5.1. I bought into CaptureOne because of how “right off the bat” my RAWs looked w/o doing additional edits since their PRO 3.7.8.

Download: http://xchange.phaseone.com/Content/Downloads/CO5.aspx

Release Notes (What’s New in 5.1): http://69.64.47.32/330a3505-0085-4247-a029-d396cc74c3c8/33d2a340-5c70-4e46-81e6-58c3ea02ccdd/Capture%20One%205.1%20Release%20Notes.pdf

User Guide: http://69.64.47.32/330a3505-0085-4247-a029-d396cc74c3c8/22944442-4fe4-4bb0-93f3-2895fc8143d9/Capture%20One%20User%20Guide%20UK-US%20hi-res.pdf

I plan to write my own review on 5.1 later this week. For now, I *am* really satisfied with speed improvements and overall fixes and new features added to 5.1. If I have to rate 4/5 on this new update, I’ll revoke a point for:

Not fixing the sharpening on the Web Contact Sheets. Web sized images when applied with the sharpening settings I use for my full resolution RAWS look dreadful! I’d like to make final RAW edits (including capture sharpening) and create web contact sheets for client review. For now, I’ll make my final edits, web contact sheet, and then apply my capture sharpening settings prior to export into Photoshop CS4.

I’d like to have keyboard control to increase/decrease the dust and spot tool. In ACR/LR, pressing the “[" and "]” decrease/increase accordingly. The ability for the newly added Dust Spot to change the sampled source. The spot tool can be used to fix blemishes, pimples, and other minor skin problems. LR/ACR folks can do this well with their “Heal” and “Clone” function.

It has been a year since that I’ve been experiencing a “Black and White” phase. Searching on Google, there are many BW tutorials using Lightroom/ACR. Hopefully this post will teach CaptureOne users how to make great BW images using ICC profiles and the features we have in CaptureOne PRO. CaptureOne 4/5 has the following Monochromatic ICC profiles that’s located under the “Base Characteristics”:

High Contrast

Medium Contrast

Low Contrast

Panchromatic

Yellow Filter

Once I fix White Balance (WB) and Lens Correction (LC), sharpening, and noise reduction, I cycle through the monochromatic ICC profiles until I see something I like and work my way to the BW image I like. Emporio Armani images are high in contrast with some blacks clipped. Their male models are normally posed in classical masculine stance with subtle facial expression. We’ll start with this image of Kyler Willett now represented by Wilhelmina Models LA. When this image was taken, he was with the now defunct VUE Model Management.

June 18, 2008. Naturally lit. ISO 100 1/125 s f/9 28mm.

Starting with the above image, I increased the clarity to 100. The clarity tool (in both ACR and CaptureOne) is a variant of the local contrast enhancement (LCE) tool. It uses a combination of high radius low amount (Hiraloam) sharpening and deconvolution and/or USM sharpening. Don’t quote me on this. I am positive the Hiraloam is part of clarity!

Clarity @ 100. LCE. As a consequence, Kyler's chest pixels' are above 250 (not going to print well). We have to do additional edits to work around this.

Exposure -1 and assigning "Film Extra Shadow" to the curve dialog under "Base Characteristics."

Assigned "B&W" Panchromatic. For this particular naturally lit scene, Panchromatic appealed to me.

At this point, some might stop here, but I’d like to do additional tweaks and interesting things about CaptureOne PRO’s functions.

Saturation Slider

Saturation -100 lightens areas of skin or "reds."

Saturation +100. Opposite of -100. Darkens areas of skin.

Color Balance

Default position. Click anywhere on the wheel and look at your picture. When I click on the green at the edge, it darkens the image while clicking the edge (circumference) of the magentas brightens the image.

Color Editor

Result of edits in the Color Editor.

Levels and Curve

In CaptureOne 5, the individual R, G, and B can be tweaked. Here. I went into the B-curve and adjusted the midpoint to -0.45 to darken the background wall to create spatial distance adding depth. Remember that light things are closer to you and darker things are away.

Used the eye dropped tool on the lower right to define points on the image to be edited. I worked on the RGB composite. One can go into individual R, G, and B components and tweaked further.

Finished!

Personal Project has been helping me improve direction at eliciting erotic undertones. My mainstream work with agencies on my website, www.ronaldntan.com, is considered tame compared to the images from Personal Project.

I know Personal Project is in its infancy, but I am hoping it would evolve into a photographic anthology recording my progress and comfort levels.

I found Danny on ModelMayhem.com and he agreed to contribute to Personal Project. Teaser pics to follow.

I finally decided to affix and preface my “Personal Project” with an artist statement. Perhaps some of you are thinking, “What’s the big deal with nudity?” If you know me and how I was brought up, perhaps you’ll understand me.

I was born into an academic-centric and conservative family and our Burmese culture has restrictions and taboos on sexuality. As a gay man whom came out Jan 30, 2006, I find East-Indian men beautiful and enamored by their culture, entertainment, and cuisines. I love everything Indian–I considered myself at times “a Desi-at-heart.” Friends and family whom are aware of my fascination joked that if I visit India, I’d never want to leave. The Indian government would have to forcefully evict me from their grounds. I truly feel passionate towards East-Indian men and their greater culture.

The purpose of Personal Project (for now) is taking East-Indian male models whom are socially repressed because of their culture and mutually and regally explore sexuality by modeling for edgy photography that borderlines with our comfort levels. I’ve drawn a clear and unmistakable borderline to never cross and together we’ll help each other build confidence and trust while exploring the genre together.

Between trying to modestly survive in pursuit of my dreams, Personal Project is in its infancy and I hope it would ameliorate itself and grow into fruition. Between editorial shoots and trying to learn the business behind photography, I have faith and hopes in myself and abilities to study Personal Project regally with class. I am honored and felt privileged to receive the help from Freddy, Asher, Hasan, and Sukh.

If you have questions and comments, please feel free to send me an email directly.

Cheers and best in health!

People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered;
Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind,
people may accuse you of selfish ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.

If you are successful,
you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank,
people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building,
someone could destroy overnight.
Build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness,
they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.

The good you do today,
people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have,
and it may never be enough;
Give the best you’ve got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis
it is between you and God;
it was never between you and them anyway.