Monday, December 31, 2012

Year's End: overlooked images

Last winter
 As this year closes I wanted to review some old pictures that have been overlooked and maybe deserve a better place than mediocrity.

This year I reorganized my photos into three folders per year, and every four months I like to complete the sorting and editing on one folder and copy it into the portable hard drive and the other computer, starting a new folder on my laptop (that doesn't have enough space for all my photos put together - around 500 GB).

So these past couple of weeks I concentrated on wrapping up the edits for this year, and starting next year (rather, next folder) I will start working on new ideas. Also, I will need volunteers for some of this stuff. But all in good time.

So today I put together a few pictures that were good, but didn't fit into any post. Looking back at these I think they may have been overlooked.


Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Macro World

Today I have another collection of images, most of them very recent. I always loved macro photography. I got a macro lens about two years ago and fell in love with it. The fun part about macro photography is that everything becomes interesting... Hopefully these picture live up to the claim.




Friday, December 14, 2012

DOGS

Last week I went with a friend to visit a dog shelter, and take some photos for their website which might help them find new owners for some of the dogs.

I spent the morning running ahead of the dogs that the volunteers took out for a stroll,  trying to take wide angle shots from eye level (and sometimes below that) to get both the epic look, and get good shots of the sky (which was very good that day). Besides that I took a lot of shots up close with the 17mm end of the lens, to get the perspective for big heads and eyes filling the frame.

Although I sent them the pictures in color, and with substantially less dramatic air to them, I liked the way this edit worked for some of the more epic dog pictures.

I will link to their website with the color photos, but for now here is a sample in B&W:


Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Chocolate Shop

This week I have the last project I did for 2012, photographing a candy shop in Ramat Gan. The interior design is due to the talented Adi Erlich, and you can find these images as well as a few others on her website.



This was a rather small room so I had to work wide. Also, a couple of the images are actually panoramas (one of them is easy to detect, the other a bit more subtle). Besides, a few shots of the very artistic chocolates and a bit on how they were made, after the jump...




Monday, December 3, 2012

Cook Night

So this week I went out to photograph a friend's cook night. This was in the spirit of reality TV cooking shows, where the guys divide into two groups and have to cook as many tasty dishes as possible within the time limit.

So I ran around for a couple of hours trying to capture people  and all the cooking action going on, holding my camera in one hand and a flash on a short extension pole in the other.

In this kind of situation the 17-50 lens is invaluable, as it lets you take wide shots of everyone, and sometimes take interesting angles (for example, from the direction of the stove and up at the cook) or go to 50 mm for a portrait over the length of the table.

Anyway, here's a selection of the night's best shots:



Recent Work: November

This week I have decided to get back to basics, meaning the original reason I opened this blog: to share recent work. Although I haven't got a real theme like most of the post until now, some common threads may be found in the pictures to follow (hint: its cats).

Also, I have moved my camera to a new shoulder bag, this time one that doesn't look like a camera bag (i.e. not Lowe Pro) which makes it much less conspicuous when shooting on the street.

The idea is to be able to draw quickly but not look like I was there to spy on anyone. This works a lot better with a small 50mm prime but if I am quick enough, I can get away with larger lenses as well (large lens = longer focal length. Sometimes).


Saturday, November 24, 2012

Gadgets: Flash & Accessories




Today I want to recommend a few items for photographers. I know most people never bother getting anything more than a spare battery for their camera, but some of you must have already made their first steps towards a physical photography toolbox.
Most of these are relevant for DSLR users, and a lot of stuff is useful for people getting into the off-camera flash business.

Some of your gear will obviously be expensive: camera bodies, lenses and flashes are never cheap. But some of the peripheral stuff doesn't have to cost so much. A lot of it can cost way less than it does buying it from a retailer.

Remember, these are only recommendations I make based on my experience. You may be disappointed with some of these gadgets while I thought they were awesome.



Friday, November 9, 2012

Macarons

Besides the obvious benefits of going on photo shoots with models and make-up artists and other photographers, like I did a few weeks ago, there is also the advantage of meeting new people. This, like the many facebook groups for local photographers, opens up new opportunities to photograph things.

In this case I went to a friend I met at the above-mentioned photo shoot, to photograph a workshop on making `macarons': a kind of French dessert which is both tasty and colorful (two things I especially look out for when invited to photograph food...).

This workshop has a very casual atmosphere, and the food preparation is half-way between baking and playing... in a word: fun!


Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Look Back: Prague

 Last October I went with my family to Prague. This was good for several reasons. First of all travelling with parents is very inexpensive.
Also, Prague has some awesome architecture and interesting photographs appear all the time.
Perhaps most importantly: there's a lot of good beer and it is cheap.
Parents being the ones paying notwithstanding.

Lets say it costs less than coca cola (or water) so it makes absolutely no sense not to drink beer at every occasion.

I personally like 'Staropramen' but 'Kozel' and 'Pilsner Urquell' are also great.

But I digress. Some photos after the break.






Thursday, October 18, 2012

Exposure part III: Getting Creative


In the final part of the series I want to show a few examples of when we want to intentionally over/under expose.

As this is the 'most advanced' part of this tutorial I will not get too much into technical stuff. I will assume you all know how to change the exposure and how to make sure you have enough light for whatever you are planning.

The key here, is planning. Although it is easy to just look at the screen and see what came out (or even use a bracket set - as explained below), when you start to know what you are looking for in an image is when these over/under settings really become part of the creative process.






Sunday, September 30, 2012

Monthly Model

 Welcome to the first edition of "Opticks Magazine". This month featuring the aspiring model Keren, who is also my art director, girl friend, and occasional voice activated light stand.

After doing some experiments with my new white background and flashes I decided to upload a selection of the images from the day. I wanted to add a little interest to all that white space so here is the result. Also, I had just started working with Adobe Illustrator so forgive me if it is a little jumbled. I wanted to try everything.

Beyond these opening remarks I have surprisingly little to add. There is enough chit chat in the images themselves, and that too, is not to be taken too seriously...

Also, a link to additional photos is added at the end.






Saturday, September 22, 2012

BTS: Photo Shoot

In the third and last post about the photoshoot I went to a few weeks ago, I wanted to show a little bit of the "behind the scenes" of the event.

I always liked taking pictures of people taking pictures. Not surprising, when you have eight photographers and about the same amount of models, that even without trying too hard you get a lot of pictures of the photographers at work...

I tried to show both the look and feel of the day, and some of the process of the post production, giving a few images as they came out of camera.









Autumn Colors

Continuing with last week's photo shoot, I have another set of pictures, this time in the theme of Autumn colors (this was the original idea of the shoot though it kinda got lost on the way).

I had managed to get some alone time with today's model, Efrat, and posing on this tree I got some interesting shots.

Once more, the closed walls around this olive tree made control over the light really simple.

A few additional shots were made just before sunset when the light was softer and easier to balance with a small flash.

Model: Efrat Malachi

Makeup:  Eti Hazan



Film Star

This is Eden.

She is not yet a Hollywood film star but it seems very likely she will be.

I met Eden on a photo shoot arranged by some photographers / models / makeup artists through a local facebook group. Everything was voluntary, made for credits, and yet managed to look fairly professional. The whole thing took three hours last Friday afternoon, in a park in Ramat Gan.

I decided to go for themes in my editing of the images and their upload. This first upload features just one of the models from the photoshoot, in what I hope is a consistent look...

Don't worry, pictures of other models from the shoot will be arriving soon...

Model: Eden Bartov

Makeup: Kochi Yehezkeli

Monday, September 10, 2012

Look back: South America

It has been exactly five years since I came back from my trip around South America. Argentina, Chile, Bolivia and Peru, with a dash of Ecuador's amazing Galapagos islands.

It took me this long to find the time to organize, label, and edit my favorite images. Most of the time I had more important things to do than sit on Lightroom and edit photos from ages ago. I mean, I usually had more recent photos to edit so the backlog just kept getting bigger.

Considering that my trip to Nepal was two and a half months and took four months to edit, this seven month trip, edited on the back burner for five years isn't such a shock.






Thursday, September 6, 2012

BTS: AQUARIUM

Not so much a "behind the scenes" as it is a collection of "out takes" from the AQUARIUM shoot.

I try and go over all the pictures I have in a memory card before formatting it. This often makes for a hilarious stop motion video (the party at Aviram's house for example, was pretty amusing).

After the jump: the video of all the many-many shots we took to combine into the final products (not including the ones deleted in-camera...) and a couple of shots off my phone which I took while we were making the outside-looking-in picture with Aviram swimming on the top panel of the glass.

It's all rather self explanatory I think....







Saturday, September 1, 2012

Blue Moon


 Today's post is nothing special. It just occurred to me that I have been writing so much about photography that I didn't take the time to go out and take pictures.

That's really missing the big picture if you will.

So this Friday instead of writing another long and boring article about exposure I went with my tripod and a couple of lenses to make some nightshots around my house.

I didn't take any of the pictures I thought I would, but I did get a handful of interesting images I didn't expect.

Only when I came back I realized it was a blue moon, and I had actually photographed it. What is so special about a blue moon? well, see below...







Friday, August 24, 2012

Night Catalog

Last November I helped a friend make a catalog for a line of LED products for pubs and clubs.


I took this as an opportunity to learn more about product photography, although this project was very different than most product catalogs.


Since the whole point was to show the self-lit products, I wanted to make everything in a nocturnal environment. This made some things very easy (the backgrounds were easy to black out) but it also presented some problems. The main difficulty was that the LED lights are much weaker than my flash, and I had to go to very small apertures and very long exposures to get them at the same power.


So I had to resort to other lighting sources. Making sure the colors match and that the background stayed as dark as possible were also concerns that kept this shoot interesting.

The second part of the shoot was a month later at a pub, showing off the products at their intended surroundings.



Friday, August 17, 2012

Exposure part II: Know Your Limits




Today I will talk a little about unsharp pictures. Most people are happy with their camera and seem to get sharp, colorful images every time, even with a cheap point-and-shoot or a cell phone camera. At least, until they try to take a picture at a low light situation. This is usually when the blurriness starts.

Of course, buying a better (more expensive) camera might help. It might not (sometimes it's too dark). Maybe, just maybe, you just didn't make the right choice of aperture, shutter speed and ISO.

I don't intend to specify what the "correct exposure" for every situation is. For that we have a built in light meter, and a little screen on the back of the camera.


I do want to show some examples of what kinds of blurriness or noise we get from badly chosen exposure settings. Once you know what they look like, you might be able to get sharper images in the same situation, or at least know when too dark is just too dark.


Saturday, August 4, 2012

Exposure part I: Proper Exposure

Today I will try to answer the following questions:

What is 'exposure'?

How to determine what a proper exposure is?

What does my camera's light meter do and why should I care about it?

What is the difference between SLR and pocket cameras when it comes to determining exposure?

and why do I need P,S,A and M modes, really?

For expert photographers these questions are trivial, but for people trying to get into the field these concepts always seem to be scary. I aim this post at people who want to know more, and I will try to explain the how-to's for SLR owners that are just starting up, and to pocket camera enthusiasts who want to get more out of pictures.


Thursday, August 2, 2012

AQUARIUM

This one I am really excited about...

Not only did I work on this for two weeks but I really had people's support on this little project, and that makes it all worth while.

So first of all thanks to all my good friends at the aquarium for dressing up, shooting bubbles and holding stuff up while I took these. And for not telling me its a stupid idea (which crossed my mind several times).

I don't want to go into too many technical details, though I will say a few words on the color scheme for this shoot (after the jump).


It is a bit silly, I admit.

Silly, and Epic.


AQUARIUM!








Saturday, July 21, 2012

Freddie the Mantis

This week I have just a few pictures, which I have already uploaded (these were taken in September last year). I had shot these when I was travelling with National Geographic in the Amazon Rainforest of Brazil.

No, actually it was in my living room (on the basil plant, where it had really good camouflage). We named it Freddie (after the Elm street murderer) and I really wanted to keep it... only it turned out that mantises (mantii?) tend to get aggressive when you poke a lens and flash at them...

I did always want to take pictures of bugs with all the right equipment: macro lens, flash and tripod. I just never happen to have these things around when I see some interesting critters. Since Freddie was kind enough to come to my own living room, I made a few good shots before he started climbing the camera and jumping me (he was about half an inch tall, but really aggressive! ).




Friday, July 13, 2012

Non the WISer...?

This week was the last exam of the semester. Finishing my first year as graduate at Weizmann Institute of Science was long and tedious work, but I can honestly say I had learned a lot. Example: when to turn an image into monochrome. How to do star trails with other bright objects in the frame. Stuff like that. A little bit of physics too. No optics courses, thank god!
Those are remarkably boring, usually. The only time when I had actually liked optics is when I realized

Monday, July 2, 2012

Living Statues 2012



As I promised you (and even before exam season is over) here are the photos from this year's Living Statues Festival in Rehovot.

This year I worked with a wider lens and stepped up closer to get more of the scene in. Less tight portraits though. The real fun was my lighting setup which is shown below...




Sunday, July 1, 2012

Artist's Studio

I have yet another invitation for you. At least, for those of you living nearby. My brother is doing an art exhibition in Rishon LeZion this week, opening on Tuesday (3.7.12 at 20:30). You are all invited.

For the exhibition I came around to his studio to photograph the different paintings for the catalog. The artwork you can all come and see at the gallery, but I did grab a few shots of the studio as we were working.

The place used to be a diamond warehouse and it is fortified and yet falling apart at the same time. I love these old buildings.

A quick look into the artist's studio and the surrounding structure.


Saturday, June 23, 2012

DUMBFSA

Today I want to talk to all the people who have digital cameras but never bothered to read the manual. Or tried to read it but it was too complicated. For all my friends who 'just put it on automatic'.

I know the internet is full of guides to help out beginners who want to get more out of their pictures, but I always think it must be too long/boring/complicated for most people - fact is, most people I know (that aren't serious photographers) never did read any of that stuff, and quite a few times ask me basic questions about photography, most of the time about how to work their camera. This includes SLR owners (not just point-and-shoot moms).

So here is the most basic things you should know to get the best shots off your camera.

D.U.M.B.F.S.A - Didn't Understand the Manual, But Felt Silly to Ask.


Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Zeelim en Film

Today I have another short one for you.

Don't worry, next week's post will be really long...

I recently came back from 'miluim' in the desert. Knowing how dusty it can get I didn't take along my DSLR. Last time I had gone I took my old Sony H7 and got pretty decent pictures.

This time I wanted to challenge myself so I brought my film camera, with three rolls of film (thats 108 pics more or less).

This proved to be a good limitation, prevented me from taking loads of copies of the exact same thing and got me really thinking about each photo I took. The fact that each shot costs a few cents (in film and developing) also makes you stop and consider your frame and settings.

A sample of the best out of ~80 shots I took that week:



Saturday, June 16, 2012

Food and Flashes

Doing homework for Strobist instead of homework for school... Taking pictures while making food and trying for once to give my shots a real 'studio' quality. I must say this was a lot of fun...



Conceptions change. If you had asked me what my opinion was about photshopping images when I was just starting with my first digital camera I would be very much against it. "The photograph has to represent reality as it is" and all those opinions I still hear. Since then I have moved on to use Lightroom regularly and even when I was traveling I did some RAW format editing post-capture inside the D90. Today I have no doubt that making these adjustments to a photo is just another step in the process. Which brings me to another conception I had about photography: natural light, unposed subjects and pretty much no planning of pictures at all, for the "natural picture".



This works out pretty well when traveling, especially if you can't afford to stay in one place for three days just to catch the perfect light on the mountain top - which is what I should be doing if I want to "pose" the landscape for the picture. You take the mountains, villagers and wildlife as it comes along, which was just fine for everything I did in Nepal last year (examples: https://picasaweb.google.com/112701265842357765172).


However, things changed when I finally bought my first strobe. The SB700 is a small, easy to use and optically wireless flash (fully compatible with my D90). This and reading along Strobist lighting 101 and now 102, got me doing a lot of new stuff.