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Introduction to Darrin Ashoka Imagery

A Bit of My Own History: My name is David Rich. Born in Sacramento California. Raised in the bowes of Utah. Relocated to my Parent's hometown of Portland Oregon while in High School and have called it 'home' ever since. I have moved around the PDX metro area: SE, NE, Tualatin, NW, Clackamas, West Linn, Lake Oswego, Eagle Creek, SW, and now in Sherwood. I've had a passion for photography since 1985. I was using a film SLR camera, before there was digital still photography. I tried to make a business in photography back then. Yet, I found it to be a difficult market to break into with a lot of competition, so I ventured into sheet metal construction work instead. Using better than average photography to help promote my craft on-line, to building up the most comprehensive website for rain managagement you will find on the web, under the handle: DMR-Gutters & Copper-By-Design. Going Digital: I needed to embraced digital photography in the late '90s, since I used it to help promote my sheet metal business on my business website, which I had first established back then in 1996. Well before it was commonplace for small businesses had a web presence. Since then, I've published over 40,000 digital images on-line for business and personal passion projects. In the early 2000's digital photography had remained very low resolution, but that was all I needed for web-based images. I now manage over 300 web pages and hundreds of photo albums on social media, where I host over 10,000 photos with detailed descriptions of my sheet metal work projects. Now that digital photography has surpass standard 35mm film quality, I have embraced studio lighting and more high-end photo equipment to take this to higher levels of quality for even large print images. My Equipment: Shown here is my latest toy. This is a 2023 model 45-megapixel Nikon Z8 camera, sporting a 24-120mm f/4 zoom lens. I have used my Nikon D850 camera since 2018, which I can still use as a back-up. I also have my Nikon D810 since 2014 and it's still in good working order. Each of these cameras with a lens and memory cards cost me around $5k. I also have 7 high-power studio strobe lights to use set on stands with light-modifiers. Out of these lights, 4 of them are portable. Lighting make a bigger difference than the camera used. Expertice: Beside my efforts and experience as a photographer, I am also well versed in digital image editing work. I have experience editing over a million digital images over the last 3-decades. Regardless of the quality of the original photo; it seems almost every digital image I see could benefit from some minor alterations. This consists of fixing details like contrast, color correction, rotation, lens distortion, perspective correction, eracing flaws, and such to enhance the overall appearance before I add my logo watermark. I try not to alter an image so much that the subject no longer resembles the person who posed before my lens, but I do often remove a few blemishes, scabs, scars, and distracting moles.

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Why I do this?

I had invested a lot in my photo equipment, and feel I should use it for more than just my sheet metal business alone. I especially love capturing images of non-muggles (LOL), and most anything that catches my eye. I find capturing creative people far more interesting than nature or still life, and want to share those images with those who graced my lens, and whom are likely to appreciate them most. I'd like to keep my photography as a fun passion, so I am not looking to make a stressful career of it. What is a photographer without a good subject, right? I love to collaborate with my subjects, whom are the art within my images. I am more of a Photo-journalist, srambling to capture such magikal creatures flitting around me. I am very busy with my sheet metal business, but for the right group, I can be hired to shoot and edit a set of images for you, but I would like to keep things as light and casual as possible for a low-stress interaction, while still being quite professional. I have a good understanding of the technical aspects of photography. Perhaps more than many who claim to be a 'professional photographer'. Anybody can claim to be a professional phtographer, and it is far too easy to scab images off the web to claim as your own. Frauds like that would not know the technical details of how photography works and why. A clear example to look for is how their images should look just as clear and sharp when viewed at full resolution, as they would seem to look reduced down to just screen size. If they are not willing to show you their full-rez images, that's highly suspect, as most images copied off other websites are not going to be full-resolution. Also, ask what ISO setting they tend to shoot at. They should always be shootingat the lowest ISO of 100 or lower, with an aperture of f/9 or higher. If not, they are not lighting their subjects and utilizing the potential of their equipment. Those images will turn out rather pail and not very in-focus. A strong sign is when they are just too lazy to light their subject properly, or utilize a tripod for a long exposure capture of still life. Anything less will not make for a decent print. I have several battery powered studio strobe lights with battery packs, and more battery packs to provide 110-volts of AC power on the go, so I can shoot with my portable studio strobe lights pretty much anywhere, without the need for a place to plug in. Nor need to use blinding reflectors on the subject. I even have a strong battery-powered fan to use. I am merely the technician. My subjects are the art-form.

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Where do I get to see your images, and how do I contact you?

You most likely have seen some of my images and logo posted around the web. You can check out several dozen photo albums of mine posted to my Facebook business profile: (active since March of 2015) https://www.facebook.com/darrianashokaimagery/photos_albums I've also posted some 15,000 images on my Deviand Art profile since 2008. Most of which are in full-resolution: https://www.deviantart.com/darrianashoka If you would like to learn more about this craft, I have also written several articles on photography there on DA.

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What makes the difference between pro & amature photos?

Sure, I can take pics without special lighting, just like anyone, but here is a good example to demonstrate the difference. Taken in daylight when my flash had misfired (lights fell into inactive-power-save mode) I then quickly retook the shot before this group of gals departed, after my lights were ready. On the right is a cropped image from the same original image to the left, to show more detail, which I am able to do with such hi-rez image files. (remember, you can click on any of these images to see a larger version) You can see here how the shadows are less harsh and the colors are more vibrant. The type of lighting I used is shown in the reflection on their eyes; with a pair of bright dots to the sides of their puples. A center on-camera strobe would show a single dot in the center of their puple, and is what causes that red-eye problem you see in so many amature photos.

Here are a few examples of my portable studio lighting, that I can set up anywhere, without need for a place to plug-in. This pair of strobe lights have 1200Ws of balanced white light that flash for a brief split-second, while my shutter is exposing the camera's sensor, which is about 10X more than indoor lighting. This is what it takes to get a noticeably better image than you could get from your cell-phone. The lighting is even more important than the camera and lens I'm using.

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Image Editing Work

I also invest a lot more time than many Togs, to carefully edit most of my images before posting them on-line. This is an example. Most images seem to need some level of editing work, but that can be quite tedious and time-consuming. Way more time-consuming than what it takes to set up and capture these images. I also need to have several large hard-drives to store all those images and have back-up drives.

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Finacial Arrangements

For just $1k, I'm willing to set up a portable covered photo-booth at your event or location within the general Portland Metro area. This also provides your event with my studio-quality lighting and friendly photography to capture all your willing guests for up to a 4-hour span at that one flat-rate price. This includes; providing you with all those well exposed unedited full-resolution images on a SD card or flash-drive at no added cost, which is usually around 600 to 900 images, so that is less than $2 an image. You can then resize them to post and share with your guests as you like by the very next day. These hi-rez digital images are suitable for making large prints with. Very few Photographers would offer this. If more is needed, we can certainly negotiate a reasonable cost to suit your specific requirements and location set-up. My image editing service time is $100 and hour, or $5 an image for those few select images that you may want processed properly. Propper editing work is very time-consuming. It usually can improve the look of an image with software editing tools such as: Rotation, Crop, Contrast, Lens Distortion, Perspective Adjustment, Blemish Removal, and such. For software used on a PC, I recommend using 'ACDSee Pro' for editing digital images. It is easy to use and not nearly as expensive as Photoshop. I do not know any good programs for use on a Mac (I really did try).

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https://darrian-ashoka-imagery.com/