Erik Bishoff is a experienced Eugene Oregon Wedding Photographer, Commercial Photographer, Architecture Photographer and Freelance Photojournalist. He has covered over 85 weddings and NCAA sporting events, dozens of architecture and real estate projects, and hundreds lifestyle and portrait shoots since starting his business in 2005.

I’d like to point out that Erik has a formal education in Photography and Architectural Design. A rigorous seven years Erik holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography from the University of Oregon where he got his start in Photojournalism and Fine Art Photography. Then he went on to receive a Master of Architecture, also from the University of Oregon, in 2008. Since he has worked both as an Intern Architect and a Design and Planning Professional while working summers as a Wedding Photographer. Erik is now a full time photographer with an emphasis in event photography, architecture photography, photojournalism and commercial photography.

In the lecture I attended On the Lane Campus on November 13 @4pm in the Commons room in building 17. I was surprised to see that it was full room to see him and here him speak on his experiences in photography particularly architectural photography with the CANON 16MM tilt/shift lens. He spoke of his own experience with the lens and how he used it in his work mostly architectural. He also showed us a few Youtube videos about tilt shift lenses and their uses. One in particular was its use in making panoramas without having to move the camera and simply using the mechanical shift aspect function of the lens to achieve correct perspective panoramas without the need to correct perspective in Photoshop in post processing. This was of great interest since on of the detracting visual aspects of panoramas is the curved and distorted perspectives that are present in them. I like wide landscape shots and wouldn’t have thought of the tilt/shift lens as something to use for panoramas until Erik discussed it in his lecture.

I also appreciated his description of the photography industry and that it is not an easy field to make money in that you need to be versatile and a problem solver to really have consistent and good paying work. As well as explaining that it is time consuming that he often visits locations at different times of day and scouts it out just taking pictures with his iphone to get in his head what he wants to do when he takes his equipment to location. Also how a scene that he shoots for example of a hotel chain that didn’t work out or look right at he time of shooting. The time of day and glaring sun light made the shots he took look washed out and flat and the sky was devoid clouds also cars were parked in front of the hotel. He explains how he used HDR to had contrast and depth to the image as well Photoshoping in a puffy white cloud sky and editing out the cars in front of the hotel. This wasn’t new information that many advertisements are photoshopped and are not exactly true representations of the product, or place, or person. I like his real world experience and how he relayed that to us in a very real way no sugar coating and an emphasis on the work and challenges the exist when trying to  make a living in a competitive field.