Living Statues 2015

Like every year I find myself coming back to the Rehovot living statues festival. Being my hometown it is convenient to come visit and go have a look at this year's statues with my folks.

So this festival was in July, and just like the last few times, I came ready with a flash pole, and got the most drama out of these nightshots as I could.

I like to compare the new innovations to the statues from previous years, particularly when I can recognize some of the performers and see how they come up with new costumes each year. I can maybe even see my own work improving from year to year... but I leave that for you to decide.

New York City 2015

This time around in New York City, I was going to focus mainly on the people. On my first trip to New York I was overwhelmed by the towering skyscrapers and parks and neighborhoods and I didn't really take many portraits. Two years later, I had already realized that travel (or landscape) photos are almost always more interesting with people in them... 

Very early in this four-day stay I had purchased a new 50 mm lens, this time at f/1.4 (refurbished or used I don't remember). That didn't seem like much of a step up from my older f/1.8 lens, on paper at least, but in reality, the quality gap was pretty big. This new lens gave stunning results, and could be opened up to f/2 before getting soft. My old $100 lens could barely stay sharp at 2.8, and at those apertures, every stop counts. I was also carrying around my trusty 105 macro and the Tokina 11-16 ultra-wide, a DX lens that's also FX "compatible" so that zoomed-in the dark corners were pretty small and could easily be cropped out. That's what you get for going to full-frame before having enough money to buy a full set of new lenses. 

Madison (why I love my new Nikon)

I haven't been uploading recently, and there's a ton of new stuff waiting to come up to this blog. I hope I will get it pretty much in order, and anyway, it's better late than never.

So, going back to May 2015 I had flown to Wisconsin for a conference and some work with the collaboration I was part of. Like every trip abroad this is a chance to see and photograph new sceneries and people, and to act like a tourist and take pictures of absolutely everything.

This was my first chance to try out my new Nikon D610, which performed beautifully and, even though I still love my old D90, did let me do some new things I couldn't get away with using the old technology and crop sensor...

So just a small selection of images from the lovely Madison, WI. If you like this kind of thing, I will link to a few facebook albums with some more images.

Rock and Roll Baby

Back from vacation and again trying to catch up on old photoshoots.

These images were taken back in February along with the mystery lady shoot.

We had three models and seven different looks and these two were particularly interesting.

The concept behind this production was masks, as it was just before Purim (the Jewish holiday for costumes) but we switched to a different styling after we felt the masks had done their part. The look we were going for was grungier, rock and roll club party girl look. More after the jump.

Model: Mishel Rabinkov | Styling: Jeni Ageev | Makeup: Iris Roizen Fainstein | Hair: Andrey Zukal | Dress: Natali Boychuck

End of the Dry Spell

After six months of being busy with work I've decided to get back to blogging. It has given me motivation to keep shooting, and I hope it will again. 

I do want to change the format a little bit, going into shorter posts with less text. Perhaps I will also dedicate posts to specific technical stuff. We'll see how it goes. Oh, and also, I am trying out this bilingual thing. 

אחרי חצי שנה של להיות עסוק בעבודה החלטתי לחזור לבלוג. בעבר הוא נתן לי מוטיבציה להמשיך לצלם, אני מקווה שגם עכשיו. 

אני גם רוצה לשנות קצת את הפורמט, לעבור לפוסטים קצרים יותר עם פחות טקסט. יכול להיות שגם אקדיש פוסטים לדברים יותר טכניים. נראה איך זה יילך. אה וגם אני מנסה לראות איך זה בשתי שפות. 

Fashion Shoot 3: Evening Gowns

This week is the last part of the photo shoot I did last month. Last time I wrote much about how having one-on-one time with the models, and how it improves the quality of photos (and the overall experience for everyone, I think). This week I decided to show work I did with one model, after all the formal sessions were done. 

It was already dusk by the time we got to shoot with Alona, and the pressure for getting shots from the one overlook where you could see the sunset was really getting uncomfortable. After a few minutes I took a step back and waited for a chance to shoot. The light was going out but at least I would have some time to think and work. 

I had not brought a tripod, and only had one flash with no modifiers (beyond the built-in dome), so I could only do so much, but despite getting less than technically-perfect shots, I got interesting light and good poses (the choice of model also helps a lot here!), and that is all that matters. 

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).

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.

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...

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.