My new hobbie - Photography

Some street portraits

2010-06-02T11:53:00.000-03:00

These are just three pictures which i am really happy with.

I went to salta, and when we went up to the top of the entreance to salta(it is a hill type thing) you can see the whole of the city - i bumped into this old traditional guy carving away at a piece of wood.

I am usually shy or better yet hesitant to ask people if they mind me taking their picture - but i have let far too many faces which i would love to have captured walk on by with no record or photop. So i decided i would offer the guy ten bucks if he would let me sit there and take photos to my hearts content.

I ended up taking close on 50 - and these are the three which i most liked.

SO here goes:

Its been a long while

2010-05-16T11:47:00.000-03:00

just thought I would post this little photo until i finish a couple more to add to teh post......

Naked black and white (there are naked pictures in here)

2009-06-17T22:23:00.000-03:00

So a while ago i attended one of those art classes that you always see int he movies and go, wait that never actually happens in real life, or it makes you envy the artier fartier type. yes by now you have guessed that i am talking about nudes!!

Well I must say that i was apprehensive at first, but after a while of thinking about the photos and getting over the fact that their were nto one but two naked women in front of me I was more comfortable.

I didnt really get the wow shots i was hoping for but i must say i really enjoyed it and learnt a lot about taking nudes, so there will be more to come!

We were about 13 people crowded into a tiny studio/room on a very cold winters night so the heating was on. But i guess the subjects had to be made as comfortable as possible!!

I tried stuff from full body shots to just parts and well i defintiely found that i prefer the photo that you ask what else was there than "what else could he put in their".

So here goes.....

Really like the way the the breast is framed and you almost don't realize what is framing it(another human being)

Another shot that i really liked as the pose is very chilled and once again i like how the attention is drawn by the areola

One of the fuller shots

The same as before but cropped and slightly reframed

A semi silhouette of the two models

an Interesting piece of the puzzle

Just one i really liked (the colours and the sense of motion of the umbrella really came out nicely)

Update

2009-05-28T01:59:00.000-03:00

Well, well, well,

It has been a long time since i put anything up here - basically i just haven't had the time to post the photos that i have taken so i am a little bit behind but i will, try and catch up over the next few days...

So a little while ago, well actually quite a while ago i went on a day long field trip with my photography course which was good fun.... a whole day and some of the night taking photos.

so i will post a couple up here, some of them are still works in progress(and will prob never be finished as i have many more to play with)

So it is a bit of a random collection ranging from photos taken to illustrate the freezing cold afternoon, some taken with flashes, long exposures to capture night shots with colour, zoom motion photos to some pretty standard black and white photos.

Well as always the following is my favourite of the day...i hope you enjoy it...

A colourful trip

2009-03-24T22:47:00.019-03:00

You got me,

I haven't posted anything of the weekend up in jujuy cause well it has been a hectic week since i got back with varsity and everything!

I managed to get some beautiful( i wouldn't say artistic) photos, i did not however manage to get to the salt pans - whihc i really was looking forward to seeing and allowing you to see...

Well i am gonna put some of the photos up from the trip in this post and then i will follow it up with some of the other weird photos that i have been takeing recently...

Well to start off the actually trip was very chilled and i managed to get us there safely(haha)

About 2.30hrs into the trip we decided to make a stop over a river which had some pretty interesting train tracks(you will see shortly).

Well this is the valley

These would be the first half of the traint racks

This would be the other side of the tracks

Where we came from - look how blue the damn sky is

This is just one of vero while we were visiting an old pre-inca village(the sign says that it is prohibited to stop in the road, plus im pretty sure you were not allowed to have booze - but hey who speaks spanish?)

View from the top(the view across from the village)

A cool little shot from inside one of the reconstructed houses(managed to squeeze through the doorways - MAX height 0f 1.50m)

After the reconstructed village we went to the devils throat - it was a gorge witha twenty minute walk to a small waterfall(we made it a 40 min walk with all the sstops i was making lying down in the water to take a picture of this or that)

So i played with the river trying to get some cool shots and got a few....

This is one of valeria next to the river

This next one i quite enjoy as it isnt just of the water but the rocks were very interesting as well

And i still haven't finished with the photos of the first day...

I caught sight of this little bad boy on the way back to the car...

Now onto day two - we decided to head to purmamarca - the home of the hills of seven colours - absolutely beautiful.....

This last one is of a window (kind of looked like a torso trying to break through when i first saw it - trippy), and then i placed a pattern over the actual picture which is very similar to the lines that one would see while watching tv....I quite like the feel of the actual photo and with the added lines i really enjoy it.

Well those are the ones for now - i will put some of the other night photography shots up soon..

Hope you enjoy them..

chau

Just a genreal update

2009-03-12T11:19:00.016-02:00

So i guess you could say that i have been fling below the radar for a while or better yet i could have been out there in the wilderness that is The argentinian outback - no seriously i went to my girlfriends house for a couple of days and had some time to take some pictures which in the end i have found to be rather good....Nothing like blowing my own....whistle or is it horn.

So i will start off with some nice river shots that i managed to get, meandered my way into the dwelling of trolls( underneath a bridge for those of you who don't or didn't read childrens stories: the trolls always lived under bridges)

So here goes:
River shots:
Just played with the shutter speed in the different shots to get more or less blur and exaggerate the flow

The next(Slower shutter speed smoother, moving water)

Just tried to capture a rain drop falling into a puddle, but as i underexposed the picture, when i brightened it these two awesome pics came out:

These are just some pics of some greenery while i was messing around

While i was trying to take a nice flowing picture of a line of fence posts i came across the one post which was just awesome:

This next one is still a work in progress as i havent quite figured if i should or how to crop the photo....

These next two were taken trying to capture the swishing of the tree, i got a bit bored so i played with the vibrancy and saturation of the colours in aperture:

This next one i was trying to find rhythm in photography and i thought that a forest was pretty rhythmic so this is what came out:

And just to top it off i had a day that was semi stormy while i was in metan, so i decided to snap a few pics of the clouds.

the one i most enjoyed

And now for the end of the weeks worth of goodies - this next photo has joined two of my other photos in my best album(the one of the dam with the eerie colours and the one of the two feet crossed)

This next one is simple yet awesome, i think that it really is a very cool photograph.so here goes

The....(cant think of a name)

So there you have it that is a round up of my latest pics.

This weekend i am on my way to the hills and salt pans so i am hoping to get some beautiful shots up there, if it isnt raining)

Chau

New Stuff

2009-03-01T21:28:00.005-02:00

So i have been reading quite a bit on different vibes of photography on the internet, just to see and play...So i read quite a lot about portraits and nude photography - how it can easily become tacky and tasteless as well as extremely difficult...

I have to agree with this..anyway i gave some of the portrait photography a shot - but i am not very good at taking pictures of people...

I spent round an hour trying to get something i liked...

Eventually I got the following picture:

After importing it into Aperture i played around with the colours first and got the following result:

Got to be one of my favourite photos that i have taken.....I really enjoy the intimacy of the feet....

And as i was actually taking them in RAW format and applying a monochrome filter in the camera this is what the original photo as i took it was like:

Even thought there are a few ore photos that I am proud of i am not inclined to show them off....

Enjoy

Playing with Light in the night time...

2009-02-27T09:11:00.005-02:00

So I know that this is a fairly simple technique, but i love it for that reason - you can do so much with so little(light that is) that i really enjoy it.

Now obviously there have been the odd occasions where i have gone over board with the blur and movement but then some of them have come out really nicely...

Here we go.......

I know, I know...what am i looking at? Well if you look carefully you can see a red and yellow streak in the midddle of the road...This would be the lights of a car passign through the frame...

Will def need to perfect it but could be very cool if i manage to get a busy street at night...

Now i was reading an article about some good uses of over exposure - so i decided to try it out myself...with mixed results....

Just one of my doorbell - quite like the unclutteredness of it

Never knew a simple foot fan could cool - but to me it sure does....

Well thats for now once there are some new photos ill post them up...

chau

Early mission to the Dam

2009-02-26T17:03:00.009-02:00

I'd been playing with the idea of going to the dam at the crack of dawn to try and play with light of the sunrise over the water and the reflection of the mountain on the dam as the sunrise lit it up.

So i eventually woke up at 5.15 on one of my last mornings and packed my little camera bag and my new tripod into the VW silver bullet(camping chair included by the way).

Really like the feel of this one, especially the colour of the rocks.

The mountains and a bit of the dam

Probably my favourite of the day - just a slow shutter speed, managed to make the water look like mist - AWESOME

I like the effect of the water on the small stones

One of the ones i waited for - the colours of this one really jumped out at me, and i love the reflection

Playing with the zoom as i was snapping the picture

These are only a few of the photos that i managed to get - but i was happy with the overall result of the morning and i must say that misty photo is def my favourite of the day.

My 75-300mm little friend

2009-02-26T14:46:00.007-02:00

After i finished my course i decided to treat myself to a little spoil for the camera - a 75-300mm canon intermediate zoom lens with an ultrasonic motor on the autofocus (quieter and faster)

Off i went to cape town to get myself the lens, and witht he awesom price i was given at ORMS in cape town i managed to buy myself a lightweight tripod and the lens for the original price of the lens - super stoked.

so as you can imagine i spent the whole afternoon and night playing with the bad boy!

I am only goign to include a few of the weird shots as i i really did take a lot...you might get bored of what i am enjoying...haha

SO here goes

The same photo, just played with the temparature - not sure if the something is coming out of me or what - but really enjoyed this photo!

Just playing with the camera and moving after the shutter opens(very slow shutter speed used)
Not the most interesting subject but a cool effect

And well the next post will have to include some of the many photos i took at the fHoek dam on an early morning mission.

Chau

Playing with my new hobbie

2009-02-26T14:22:00.005-02:00

So, seeing as this is going to be my first write on my new hobbie - photography, i thought i would start off by something quite profound and deep,: " In my own words...", well that didnt go very far!

No, really i have had a desire to learn a little bit of photography for quite a few years now and when my mother finally got herself the canon 400d slr i decided it was time to take myself off and learn a little about the bloody thing as all i could do at this stage in time was point and shoot, even though i knew that boht i and the camera were capable of more.

SO i got hold of a guy in stellenbosch's number, Eric Palmer, a very chilled guy who is doing different things with his camera.

Both him and his mother have a love of photography that exuberates whenever they get onto the subject.

S i first learnt about hte apperture, shutter speed and exposure - and all those mundane little things that appear in the manual but are much more interesting when related by someone with a passion.

in this first post i am going to include some of my shots while learning a couple of things and then some as i carried on learning and playing.

I won't feel hurt if you dont enjoy them, and i will feel overjoyed if you do, but at the end of the day they are by me for me.

So i have loved taking them and enjoy looking at them.

well i hope you enjoy.

This is just one i took in arniston on gleens 21st weekend - nothing special but a peek of the sea.

Another one in arniston - just a beautiful little rock in the water

Now i learnt to show the effect of water moving...

Well i will leave it their for the first entry and on the next one i will include some of the ones where i have been playing with low light, at night and just some random pics...

chau