Jimmy's blog

Jimmy Sastra's personal website

blog / subscribe / twitter / dopplr

kids always steal the show

December 7th, 2009

The great things about kids is that they are so expressive. They seem to be in their own little world. Unlike grownups they don’t mind getting their picture taken. They’re not so self conscious and they’re usually not that shy. I like to get down on one knee when I photograph them to make myself […]

2,288 Comments »

Slow and steady sunset

November 24th, 2009

About two weeks ago I went to PDMA, a conference about innovation and I saw Guy Kawasaki speak about curve jumping: adopting the latest and greatest piece of technology to stay ahead of the competition. The analogy in photography is to find the newest piece of hardware, whether it’s a lens baby, some new light […]

95 Comments »

Mechanical Volleyball

November 12th, 2009

The Intergrated Product Design (IPD) program at my school is one thirds School of Engineering, one thirds School of Design and one thirds Wharton business school. To quote their website: “… an opportunity to manifest a synthesis of art and technology and to push the envelope of design …” Sounds like fun! Pictured above are […]

No Comments »

Pain for Gain

October 20th, 2009

A very eclectic group of friends stayed at my house this past weekend. My friend Andreas was visiting from Denmark and my roommate Neil had a bunch of friends over from all kinds of different backgrounds: Ireland, Australia, Panama, etc. Neil’s friend Simon Davis runs a non-profit group called Pain for Gain, formerly known as […]

2 Comments »

Snoot Portrait

October 8th, 2009

Andrew Rosenthal lately has me shooting for happier.com. It’s really nice to have shoots coming in regularly. They say the only way to get good at photography is practice, practice, practice and having someone call me on a regular basis holds me accountable to keep pushing that button with my finger. Thanks Andrew! This time […]

No Comments »

makin’ it

August 26th, 2009

I’ve been wondering lately what it takes to become a great photographer. I’m not talking about what it takes to do good photography. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with ordinary good photography and there are plenty of good stock, wedding, nightlife photographers out there, but I’m talking about great photography. Work that is significant. […]

4 Comments »

Paul Vernaza

August 22nd, 2009

Today I single-handedly started Paul’s professional photography career. Okay, maybe not really. All I did was buy a print of one of his photos see below. But technically this is the start of his professional photography career. Here’s a link to his flickr feed. I like the composition as well as the way the light […]

No Comments »

Saturation Mask

August 19th, 2009

In this one I created a separate layer and used a mask to selectively saturate the colors of the jewelry and the colors around Dijana’s eyes. Using a mask allows me to alter the jewelry without modifying the other parts of the image. I also used a screen layer to lighten those parts as well.

No Comments »

Lens Flare

August 17th, 2009

I know lens flare is cheesy, but I couldn’t resist. In Photoshop look under Filter -> Render -> Lens Flare -> awesomeness. Note the vignetting in this picture is not a lens artifact or photoshop magic, rather it is caused by the flash, a one point light source coming from the top right. Since there […]

1 Comment »

Smooth Creamy Skin

August 16th, 2009

This picture is one of the first where I really went all out on every step in the hierarchy of making a professional photo from two point lighting to lots of photoshop. In addition Karen added to this hierarchy with her jewelry, selecting the clothes and William for make up (hence those crazy eye lashes). […]

10 Comments »