First assignment

Two weeks ago I was called to my “first assignment”, shooting the spring party for my son’s kindergarten. I put the quotes because it’s not the first time I was asked to shoot something, I’ve done family parties before, but it’s the first time I have requirements on my pictures and I’m the solo or main shooter.

The goal of the shooting was to register the event, but also to sell prints to the parents and raise money to the parents board (or whatever this kind of council can be called). So, pictures should be something parents would buy and not only my ‘artistic’ view of it.

It was a very interesting situation.

Mostly the pictures were portrait of the kids playing, what I love to do with my son (several of him, of course).

Then I introduced some organizational elements into my workflow, which is based on Lightroom, and had to get used with the changes implemented in the new version. But the bottom line is that working on the 150 selected pictures, as fast as I had to do, was not as painful as I thought it would be.

Now it’s about to be presented to the parents, so let’s see how successful I was in this venture.

Back from Paris

Hey! Back from Paris!! After a rainy Easter and a rainy trip to Frankfurt … guess what … RAINY!!!! Grrrrr I’m not usually like that

Eiffel Tower in Paris at night (photo from www.fanpop.com).

Anyway it was good. Still have to process my pictures (remember last post, huge backlog? Well, 600 shots larger now ). By the way, picture above is not mine, it’s from the web (credit in the picture).

Could not visit the whole city, it was a family trip and my 4 years old son has a limit on how much he can support his father photo addiction But we managed to visit a good part of it. I can’t wait to sit and look at the pictures! I really don’t know what is there, since they were all taken handheld (though I took my tripod ) and mostly at harsh light (I’ll try some HDR thingy, Jeff Revell’s way).

I could not help noticing the amount of people using dSLRs (also a great share of people using point-and-shoots and phones). I already mentioned that in a previous post, but this really struck me in Paris!! First the sharing between point-and-shoots and phones, then the amount of dSLRs.

But one other thing also hit me. The amount of people that does not use the most basic advantages of a dSLR. No, I’m not that experienced, not that good, but please, don’t try to take a picture of a monument, meters away, with the pop-up flash.

Small tip. I read that at Scott Kelby’s Digital Photography book (I guess, or heard it in some NAPP show, or so). “Improve your photography 1000% … move your mode dial from fully automated mode, the green C (or green square) to PROGRAM mode, usually a P”.

dSLR Mode Dial set to auto -left- and set to program -right- (photo from www.aputure.com)

This will give you some level of control to your picture, with the ability to override the camera’s decisions. In case you don’t want to override them, at least it will not pop-up the flash because it’s darkish.

The next step would be read and watch part of the huge amount of information you can find in the internet on how to use your camera and move the dial to “Av” (on Canon) or “A” (on Nikon), which is aperture priority. You decide the aperture, based on light availability, desired depth of field or any other creative reason and the camera gives you the shutter speed.

So! Soon, pictures from Paris, Frankfurt or other things! First I have to fix my computer that is kind of broken …

Frankfurt Luminale 2012

Work brought me to Frankfurt for a week. The camera, of course, came with me. Not that I had big plans for it, but a walk around the town after the meetings of the day always happens. And specially now that days are longer.

Frankfurt downtown. Römerberg (photo from medievalnews.blogspot.com).

I never bring my tripod with me. I rarely use my tripod. I always take it around when I travel, but rarely use it. This time, since work was the travel’s driver, I was sure I’d not use it. So, it stayed in Munich.

Frankfurt Skyline (photo from icehockey.wikia.com)

Well, turns out that there would be an special use to it. I had just arrived in the hotel, called home, and my wife had seen on TV news about a “light festival” in Frankfurt. The Luminale 2012.

Luminale 2012 - Logo

Luminale in Frankfurt (photo from www.ffh.de)

It’s a bianual festival where the city center has special illumination. First thing that came to my mind … “hmmm shooting this must be great” … “$^#&$ my tripod is at home!!!!”. Well, in this moment my Cullmann CB2 (and ISO 6400) came to my rescue.

Cullman CB2.7 (photo from www.cullmann.de)

For the point-and-shoot I always carried a small tripod, but it’s not strong enough to hold a dSLR. Then I’ve seen RC Concepcion at D-Town TV commenting about a “mini-tripod”, small enough to carry it all the time and strong enough to hold a dSLR. A good idea, and I came back to my “always with me” tripod style (thanks RC).

Today it was very handy, together with the small remote that is always in the camera bag. I started to walk around for some end of day shots of the town (and dinner) and already noticed a high concentration of people with cameras and tripods walking along the river. When the night came, you would not believe it. A huge number of people with big tripods, big cameras, on each and every single lit point!!! No iPhone photographers around (well … there’s always some, but …), just people with dSLRs and big sturdy tripods!

Photographers at Römerberg in Frankfurt during Luminale 2012 (by Cris Da Rocha)

I managed to take some pictures, probably not as good as the ones I would have taken with my normal size tripod (seen the disclaimer there?), but I had my fun and took some pictures, some bracketing for HDR also. Still no time to look at them (and no monitor to do it also). Just the one of the photographers that I did some rough working to put it here. I hope to have some pictures ready soon … my back log is huge!!! Xmas is still waiting, and there are relatives very upset with it

Rainy holidays …

The idea for the Easter holidays was “let’s go to the lake”. So we found a nice place at Prien am Chiemsee. Close to the Alps, known for its great views and bike tracks around!

Prien am Chiemsee (photo from www.guide-to-bavaria.com)

Small flat, good price, nice place. So it would be a biking + photographing long weekend with the family. My favorite things!!

Well … the weather forecast in the beginning of the week was … sad, to say the least, so bikes were already taken out of the plan (there was no point just taking the bikes for a car ride).

Arriving there, there was constantly this light shower. In the few breaks we managed to walk a bit around and take a couple of pictures. Then comes Easter Sunday and it’s all white … yes … snow!!! A white Easter!

It was a bit scary, since the car already has its summer tires, but at the end of the day it was all already gone. But my son had A LOT of fun in this “post-winter” chance to play in the snow.

White Easter in Prien am Chiemsee (by Cris Da Rocha - Mobile Photo)

At the end of the day, despite the weather, we’ve quickly been to the Herreninsel, where the bavarian king Ludwig II had another of his palaces. A nice walk and some nice winter views. Pictures still to come, no time to process them yet

Palace at Herreninsel in the Chiemsee (photo from www.tourismus.prien.de)

Old x new

About one year ago I bought my first SLR. Before they were not actually mine, they were my parent’s, though I could use them as often as I wanted. After that I moved to point and shoot on film (carrying a SLR was too complicated and not exactly the safest thing in the world to do.

Then I move to digital point and shoot and never came back to my film point and shoot. I just came across it a couple of weeks ago I remember how long it took to finish this last film cartridge that was already loaded when I got the digital camera … AGES.

Now with the dSLR the point and shoot was left to the side, but not fully. Before, the difference was the media (film or digital), not there are more things involved. On the one hand image quality, control, and all that stuff that you get with a dSLR, on the other hand is quite a big volume to carry. The point and shoot keeps being used for trips and walk arounds where I can’t or don’t fill like taking the dSLR. For example, last month I had a work trip to Paris and I know before hand that the weather would be lousy and I would have no time to photowalk. Besides, walking with a dSLR in Paris requires a way larger amount of attention, because you really can be robbed! Then the point and shoot is a good option.

We (at home) have been using an old Canon Powershot, that gives you a lot of control, like aperture priority, ISO, … just don’t gives images in RAW, just JPG (unlike the more recent Powershot S95 or S100). A no-brainer camera, that gives some nice results. At least let’s me register the places with quality.

Now the new challenge will be to scan most of my old pictures, which I’m not even sure I still have the negatives, and then treat  them. Let’s see how it goes.

At the end you notice you have a lot of picture. I’m actually still trying to “merge” my archive of digital pictures from my point and shoot and the one of the dSLR. Then scanned pictures will come in this game.

I hope Lightroom can handle it well. Let’s see.

A little hint. Don’t let your pictures accumulate, neither unorganized, nor untreated. Shoot, archive them properly, treat them (retouch and stuff).

Another “lost thought”. Keyword your images properly and immediately.

Yet another lost thought. Make backups!! I personally get my raw files and save in two USB disks. Then I import them into Lightroom. Only then I format the card. Then, after I treated all my catalogue, I should save all of it into a third USB disk. Still figuring out if I should save the CR2′s or not. … And if I should make yet another copy of it hehehehe

Enough with lost thoughts, that’s mostly what this post has been.

Another last, but not lost, thought.

Help-Portrait! Nice initiative to join! This weekend. Look for one in your town!