Elements of Dance

I finally find the time to tell you about my personal project that lately kept me pretty busy.
Not long ago, Deborah, whose photos we are about to take tonight, told me about the Pasadena Art Walk and suggested me that I should try participating. Essentially you need to submit your art work, whatever it is, to the Art Walk Committee and if you pass their screening then you get a 10'x10' booth where you can show and sell your art pieces to the public during the Art Walk weekend. Incidentally they also have a photography category so, I said, why not! I just needed a topic or a theme or... something!

I thought I could send them something I shot in the past. But then, this was an occasion to try something new too good to pass.

So, talking with Marta we came up with this idea...Elements of Dance...sounds nice, doesn't it?!

We thought about the fact that I love taking photos of dancers while they perform, that's how this whole thing started. Then I thought it would be nice to put a dancer where...it doesn't belong to, meaning outside the dance floor/theater/studio/whatever. Then, since all the dancers we know have different styles, we thought about highlighting the specific character of each one of them and that's how we came up with..."Elements of Dance". Think about four elements: Earth, Fire, Water and Air. Think about four dancers (that kindly volunteered for this): Cesar, Caitlyn, Bradley and Deborah. Four elements, four styles, one goal: perform and express their vision... dancing.

So, on my side, I needed to find a proper location for each one of them. Think about a lighting scheme (because I wanted to experiment some lighting techniques I had been reading about) and finally get the shots!

So far, I must say, I'm pretty satisfied with what we have achieved. Some times I made some mistakes, some other times something didn't work properly, but after all... I like those shots a lot!

On the other side, you are here to tell me what you think, right?
So, let me work a little more about this and then I'll present you the official entries that I will submit to the Pasadena Art Walk committee.

In the next few days I will prepare a new post for each dancer with the two photos I have chosen to submit.

I look forward to hearing your comments!

New stuff coming out...

Just a quick note to let you know that yesterday I went back to the spot overlooking LA and the Dodger Stadium with Bradley. We took some shots that will be part of my personal project of which you will see the results very soon.

Tonight I'm going out with Deborah to take some more photos and then I'm done, I have all of the four elements I need for my project...hopefully!

Then, I wanted to explain my friend Erika from Italy the reason why her photo shot at night in Florence looks green. It's the lamp post in your photo that makes it green. The light emitted by those lamps have a lot of green in it and even though our eyes "filter" it and they appear yellow-ish, in reality they are more green than yellow and your slide film saw that. To compensate for this in your slide you either need to put a filter in front of your lens...or go digital and simply adjust your WB.

Erika, if you need more details about this, just leave me a comment on this blog and I'll try to explain it better.

By the way, Erika, if you send me your best shots, I'll post them on my blog for everybody to see!

Stay tuned, hopefully I'll post my latest shots soon...

I love LA!

What can I do. I mean, I love the skyline and finding new spots all the times. I never get tired of it. To me is like looking at the waves of the ocean or the flames of the fire place, I can do it for hours. So, lately I've been browsing around searching for locations for my personal project about dance and I found a few nice spots that I've never seen before.

The photos down here aren't anything special, I know, but if you put together a good subject with a nice background and a good sunset, well, there is the potential for a good shot. Here I'm just missing the subject...and the nice sunset!

This one was taken from the top of a hill off the I-110 close to Ave 26th. I ended up there just to see how the view looked like. I liked it but wasn't impressed. So I moved on and went up the hill above the Police Academy, behind the Dodger Stadium and from there it looked a lot better, I think.

Finally I went downtown and found the spot where eventually I shot Caitlyn. I really like those fountains and that's so far one of the best views of downtown LA I ever seen.

I'm planning to use one of these spots soon for another shoot. Hopefully, I'll be showing something here pretty soon.

First time here?

Ok, so, you ended up on this blog and maybe you are wondering why? Well, to see some cool photos, that's why, right?! I mean....right?!

So, I'm a photographer, actually I'm learning, but let's assume I really am a photographer. What you'll find on my blog in a nutshell are some good photos, I hope, with a description of how I got them and the story behind those photos. Some will come from my professional work, some others from shooting my family and friends, it doesn't really matter. What matters to me is Photography as a medium to tell a story, strong stories, but even funny stories, anything that one way or another ends up in front of my lens. And beware, I can spend hours shooting lichens on the bark of a tree!

I started casually with a digital point and shoot camera and eventually I moved to professional digital SLR's bodies. I always loved the capability of capturing the moment with a still frame and yet let it live forever.

Marta and I were fortunate enough to attend once a class about street photography held by John Free and his son Scott. They eventually became our friends and even shot our wedding. They taught me about seeing, not just looking, and that's really important for ... a photographer.

Since my background is in electronic engineering (I'm a geek, I know) then I started experimenting with anything I could (photographically) until I found out the power of light. Just give a look at what Joe McNally and the Strobist are capable of doing with a few (read bunch of...) speedlights to understand what I mean. To me it's just outstanding. Oh, and no, they don't pay me for this, I just admire them, really!

The very same idea that with just a few speedlights you can light essentially anything you want and, most of all, remotely, to me is just great. Then, you know, between doing a great job and just wasting your time...it takes some skills. But the fact that you don't need super expensive professional gear to do this...it's priceless.

So, to cut the story short, the purpose of this blog is to show what you can do with some basic gear and a little bit of patience...

Enjoy, and I look forward to hearing your comments about how I wast... hem... invest my spare time!

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What's going on?

Just a quick "picture-less" post today to let you know that, I know, I'm messing around with this blog since I'm changing it every other minute.

I'm working on it, in my spare time, and I promise it will be presentable and little more complete soon. I'm also involved in a few things that will generate some good shots, I hope. So, stick around and check me out in the next few days for some "stability" and some news!!

Thank you!!

Forza Vale!!

In congratulating Valentino Rossi for his second spot at the MotoGP in Spain today I want to post a photo of Cesar Cazares dancing under the moon light. We took these photos some time ago and probably you saw them on-line on my flickr page already but since now I have a blog...why not!
Here I used the lamp post as key, a snooted and gelled strobe camera left as fill and another gelled strobe behind the post to "kick" the moon light on the ground. I think it turned out nice. Maybe I should have shot this image when there was still some light in the sky but unfortunately Cesar wasn't available at that time and maybe the background would have distracted the viewer. After all I think it's a good image, what do you think?
You can see some other photos from the same set here.
After a few photos we changed the lights' set-up and we moved the back light to camera right to cross light Cesar. They also turned out ok I think but then the floor was drying out and ... the guard told us it was time for us to get lost...
Next time you go buy grocery at your local Trader Joe's in Pasadena (Del Mar and Lake), check this spot out, it's right beside the entrance.

Oh, by the way, using water on the ground it's a trick I freely took from Joe McNally. His work is of inspiration to me as to many other photographers that like to play with small strobes and make them look like big ones (and here I just quoted him). I'm obviously not anywhere close to his results here but I'm learning and surely having fun doing it. Check out his blog for his latest adventures.

Here it is!

Welcome to my blog!

Marta was right, I needed a blog more than a website so let's put it to good use right away! I want to start my blog with this image, Caitlyn dancing in downtown LA.



This is one of a series of photos I recently took with her and they are meant to be part of a personal project of which I will tell you later. Here, she's dancing on the edge of the pool that surrounds the DWP building here in LA. Besides the view is astonishing, those fountain are just amazing and look like lava flowing out of the water. You can see some other images from the same location shoot here or watch directly the slide show here.

After, we moved to another fountain close by and there we took a few more photos always with the help of my two little SB-600. I'd like to tell you everything about the set-up but...I've gotta go now so, I'll get back to you with a new post and a few more details.