A bit of Paris

Sorry for my disappearance, can I blame a really busy January for it?

Anyway. since last post I really only did 2 interesting photographic excursions; One day roaming around Paris and winter (summer) holidays in Buenos Aires.
I shot a lot of film in Bs As, film that I haven't scanned yet, so I'm gonna share some Paris shots today. Plus, I think they actually turned out better than the ones from my hometown. I always have problems taking pictures in Bs As. I think it has something to do with being so overly familiar with the people and places that turns me into an even more self conscious person, consequently taking less chances to get the great shots that are there.

But enough of that. Some Paris. December 18th 2010, between 10am and 4pm. I'll share four -very- flawed pics and one shot of the eiffel tower. Cause you can't go to Paris and not take a shot of the eiffel tower, right?
We start at the Luxembourg gardens. Beautiful place. I got there when the police was just opening the doors, so it was essentially empty when I entered.


I like this pic. I think the man sitting down by himself, being so tiny in the frame makes for a great composition. But I cannot look at it without thinking it could be so much better. The statue kills it, it takes away the symmetry that makes a picture like this one work. I could have framed it leaving out the statue, but then the guy wouldn't be in the middle of the frame. And the guy NEEDS to be in the middle of the frame in this picture. I could have walked up to where the statue is and then snapped a perfectly centered picture, but then the guy would occupy much of the frame and the aspect of loneliness in the composition works because of his tinniness...
I did what I could, I guess. I still like the shot, just think it could've been better.


This one I really like, and I think the flaws it has are more of a post-processing nature than photographical. I processed this one more than a month ago, so I really don't remember what I was thinking! but three things about this image jump right at me: the failure to center the statue, the tree on the right and the ever so slight slant in the horizon.

The tree and the centering I guess are correlated. Moving one would have moved the other, but it is a framing problem and not a post processing one. I could not crop this image because I needed the vignetting for the image to work. And yes, you can add vignetting in post, BUT real lens vignetting is just impossible to really capture in software. And the vignetting I get with this lens shot wide open is magical. So, I blame the bad framing on a number of factors: I'm using a fixed focal length and shooting from a distance I cannot change (The access to the inner yard you see in the picture was closed) plus it was freezing and I was kneeling in the snow, I didn't really have the patience to nail the framing there. That said, there is no excuse for the non-horizontal horizon. I dunno what I was thinking!!! That's stupidly easy to correct in post. I won't do it now, because this is how the picture turned out. Flaws and all. BTW, in case you didn't notice, it IS a color picture :)

This is the last one from the gardens. It's pretty much from the same spot as the previous one (you can see the castle on the background). I dunno why I like this one. It feels like a test picture I took while waiting for my subject to come and get his/her portrait done. How cool would that have been, huh? But yeah. I was by myself. I had no subject, thus, the chair is empty. It does represent a lot of what was going on inside my head that day, too. Going back to Bs As always screws with my head. Going back to see everyone you shared so much of our life with, only to get there and feel ever more lonely the more people you surround yourself with. Plus, the gardens in winter, with almost no visitors, me alone in Paris. Ha. The perfect metaphor, a perfect picture in the perfect surroundings, just waiting for the subject to sit in the chair and be really complete. The dream life i'm living, in the perfect place, just waiting for the right one to come in and finally complete it all. But I digress.

Let's go to a typical picture from me:



The subject is out of focus and shows a bit of movement. And you know what? I don't really care. Well, actually it would have been nice to have her a bit sharper, but it doesn't ruin the picture at least. I nailed the framing I think.
I usually take these pictures without looking through the viewfinder, just shooting from the hip and eyeballing focus and framing (It's an interesting technique to develop when you are shy and have a camera that makes a loud noise every time you press the shutter) But if I remember correctly I was actually sort of framing this one. It's on a street corner, so I was sort of out of the lady's way until she was right beside me. In fact now that I look at it, her shoulder is tack sharp, so if I fucked up it was because I waited a split second too long before I pressed the shutter. Since this one is wide open at f1.4 the depth of field is razor thin. I still like this one, though. It somehow screams Paris, without actually showing Paris.

And finally!



The eiffel tower. How the hell do you take a picture of the eiffel tower that is somewhat interesting? We all saw so many of those. All perfectly exposed, perfectly composed.... Again, I guess this one picture kind of reflects my mood that day. But I still think it's pretty.

Until next time. With Bs As. Or a Dutch wood. Or more Paris. Or who knows what.

Ólafur Arnalds

I'm bitter today. And freezing cold.
It's -5 degrees outside and I just spent the past 4 hours standing outside, on a train station. I was literally hurting cause of the cold. I'm much better now, I managed to get into a train and am now happily sitting on the floor.
As is normal every time I have to travel back home, snow wreaked havoc on the european transportation system and everything paralyzed. Being a wise man, I planned ahead this year and got a train ticket to Paris one day before my flight. Lucky me, I would have lost the flight otherwise. Still, I don't wanna count my eggs before they hatch. There's so much than can (and probably will) go wrong between now and tomorrow's flight :)
Anyway. this is about photography, so let's get onto that.

The topic at hand today is Ólafur Arnalds.



That's him up there, "Oli" playing his piano. If you are not familiar with his music, I couldn't recommend it enough. Whatever your musical tastes are, I believe no one can fail to appreciate his music. It's not easy to classify him though. He's from Iceland, so he definitely has some of that "icelandic sound" going for him... but you'd be mistaken if you thought he is just another Sigur Ros clone. What he does would be best described as "modern classical" with a touch of electro.
Bottom-line is he produces some of the most beautiful melodies you'll ever hear, using a piano, a quartet of strings and a computer.
With music, it's easier to just listen and form your own opinions though. His myspace is: http://www.myspace.com/olafurarnalds

His concert was absolutely beautiful. Magical. They had spread carpets and pillows over the floor, so everyone could sit comfortably and just enjoy the music.
And enjoy we did!!.

Photographically, though, it was hell for a photographer. On the one hand, you had to deal with the fact that everyone was just lying on the floor, so moving around was not an option. I had to shoot everything from the spot I was sitting in. That was not all! to make it worse, his music is so dynamic, that when it's soft, it's really soft. Soft enough for a camera going off to be a problem. I could only take pictures in the "heavy" parts of the set. The added complication of that being that since the light show was synced to the music, I just got pictures of the "crazier" parts. The mellow parts were awesome too. Believe me :)


Some of the girls from the string quartet.




The rest of the quartet.


I don't think there's much else to say about this concert. Just go and become a fan of his music. It's really worth it.

Oh, yeah. I have a thing with musicians. It's REALLY easy for me to see a girl playing an instrument and not fall for her.
This was not the exception. I fell in love with the cello player at first sight.
Of course, my favorite picture of the set is one of her.
Here it is:


 

Until next time, hopefully from sunny Buenos Aires.

G L O W pt2

So, I promised more G L O W pics on my last post. I'm -as usual- a bit late, but here it finally is; GLOW Pt2. As anyone who has seen my pictures knows, I am:
(a) More interested in shooting people than stuff (shooting in a photographical sense, of course) and,
(b) Super shy. Which kind of goes against (a).

So, events like G L O W, where everyone is carrying a camera around AND is really into the exhibition are a blessing for me. I'm essentially invisible there. I have the freedom to shoot away with nobody really noticing AND because everybody is so busy observing the art, they let their true selves shine trough.
When you want to take a really good picture of someone, just make sure he/she is not thinking about it. Henry Cartier Bresson was a master at that; striking conversations with his sitters for hours until they forgot about it all. He just waited, and then, at the precise instant when the true self of his subject shone through -via a certain sparkle in the eye or a minuscule gesture- click! He got the pic he was waiting for.

I'm not trying to compare myself with HCB, I'm pretty rubbish at portraits still. So I take advantage of these situations where I can still find people in a rather natural habitat of sorts, where I'm just not there.

So, enough with the boring intro. On to some pictures.


I love this one. There's nothing particularly fancy about it but as soon as I saw that wall near the exit of one of the exhibition halls, I knew what to do. I just went out of the way, sat down in the dark and waited for people to pass by.
Then, it was just a matter of timing the shots. I got all sort of variations of this pic: Families together, people opening umbrellas, playing with cameras, tall people, short people... you get the idea. Of course, I'm not showing those alternate shots. I know better :)


The guys overseeing one of the installations. Their stance is more interesting than the actual thing, I guess.

Click the read more thingy for more pics.

GLOW

What is glow you say?
Well... glow is a free, yearly festival organized by the government of Eindhoven. Since Eindhoven is -after all- the city of light, it kinda makes sense for a light-related event (or three) to take place here.
So, in short, GLOW is all about light. How to create art with light.

The thing took place over the course of a week, all over the city. You would find weird sculptures scattered around town, buildings transformed into huge canvasses for artists to show they audiovisual creations and an all around festive mood that could be felt in the air. The damp, freezing air.
The downside to a light festival in the street is that you actually need darkness to appreciate it. And darkness means November. And November -here- means cold and rain. Lots of rain.
To be fair, it didn't rain on sunday... but it did the other 6 days of the festival.

Anyway, I'm not here to complain about the shitty weather (though, for the record, I maintain it did make a difference in the quality of my pictures... I was just to busy freezing, getting wet and trying to keep the camera somewhat dry to actually think about taking nice pics), so without further ado here's some of my favorite shots from GLOW.


Laser bed, Philips light museum.


Totally trippy wall from the Philips museum.
This image is not really "real" though, cause it was just a laser randomly moving around, creating cool designs. The unreal aspect of the image comes from me using a long exposure for the shot, freezing -in a sense- the movement of the light.

Click on the read more link for more "glowy" images.

Another kiss

Don't you worry, I'm not turning into a hopeless romantic only shooting people in love, silently judging their happiness. At least that's what I tell myself :)
But seriously, this is an old picture that I remembered after posting the Stockholm kiss.
You can tell it's an old one cause it's in color, I don't really shoot much color anymore. That, and the fact that it's a wideangle pic. I don't really shoot wideangle anymore. At least not in the street.

So, here's this week's picture:

That's a random street in Strasbourg, France. June 2008 I think.

I usually hate these "fake color" pictures, where you desaturate the image and just leave something in color. It strikes me as fake, and well... just not my cup of tea. But having said that, what I adore about this shot is the splash of color from the red light, specially on the wet street. It's 100% luck and I think it looks wonderful.
No "artificial" post processing was done to the image, that was the way that night particular street looked like that night. Also, that kiss is fantastic. I love how it's pretty hidden in the image, but once you see it, you cannot stop looking at it.

THE KISS

Not much to say here.

This happened somewhere in Stockholm, a couple of weeks ago.

(I wonder if they remember that kiss).

INCUBATE

I love music. I love concerts. I love photography.
So, it shouldn't be much of a surprise to see that I love taking pictures at any gig I go to.

A couple of weeks ago, there was a pretty interesting festival going on near my place: Incubate. It took place all around Tilburg and lasted for a whole week.
The idea behind Incubate was of having all these different artistic endeavors going on simultaneously around town. So, it was not a huge festival where you have one or two stages in a stupidly large park (as most euro festivals are) but the festival itself took place within the city, everything could become a venue; record stores, bars, actual venues and -of course- the street itself.

I regret a bit that I was there for just one saturday. The things I saw and heard were so good that I promised myself I'll go there for the whole duration next year.
So... without further ado, here's some pictures from Incubate 2010.

As for the images, I think they do speak for themselves in the sense that I like to treat my concert photography in the same way I treat all my photography. I'm not there to show you how it was, I'm there to show you how I see it. I usually find concert pics boring because they attempt to show something that cannot be shown.
The visuals of a live show are extremely difficult to capture. Lighting conditions are usually crap (for photography, that is) and in any case, visuals without the music and vibe just don't convey much.
So you can easily end up with sterile shots that are technically good but transmit nothing or with complete nonsense, shots that are out of focus, over exposed and under exposed all at the same time.
My way out of that? Just shoot like crazy. The more shots you get, the bigger the chances you get at least a useable picture. And focus on the details. Shoot whatever it is that sparks your interest. It can be the lead singer, but it can also often be something as simple as the symmetry of a cable running the length of the stage.

EKLIN. http://www.myspace.com/eklin Dutch psychedelic trip-hop. They played in almost total darkness to a backdrop of bizarre public domain dutch footage.

THIS WILL DESTROY YOU. http://www.myspace.com/thiswilldestroyyou

American post-rock. Think Godspeed you! black emperor or mono.

PSYCHOFAGIST.http://www.myspace.com/psychofagist
Craziest shit I've ever seen. Brutal death metal jazz thingy. Like Mr. Bungle, UneXpect and Secret chiefs 3 all rolled into one with the aggression turned up to 11.

Well... That's it for today. See you next time.