Archive for July, 2007

My shy post did that none of my other posts ever: it made it to the first position on the main page of photographyvoter.com. Well, with amazing 3 votes.

Anyway, celebrate with me.

Updated on the 1st of August
By today my post got to the 9th place and the number of its votes has increased to 6. Number of page views of this blog was 230 yesterday. That’s a lot for me.   Thank you guys, and thank you photographyvoter.com.  

I am reading various photography related forums with special attention to topics like I share my shot and Critique my shot. Viewing images shared on these forums – including my ones as well – I noticed something: we – beginner photographers – shoot portraits very rarely. Most of us start with shooting flowers, insects, buildings and landscapes, mainly our environment in our nearest neighbourhood, and only very few people. And even if we take photos of people those people are mainly members of our families.

What can be the reason for that?

It is clear that learning all the techniques of photography is much easier with motionless subject matters. You don’t have to convince a flower to wait till you adjust the aperture or other mystic settings of your camera. And you can spend hours to find the best angle to shoot a building. We might think that we cannot expect the same patience from a flash’n'blood human being and making not too good pictures at the end.

So, we are not confident, ye?

But then we proudly start uploading our images of our closest surroundings to the Internet and want instant praise for our unbelievable photographic skills and artistic approach and wait for immediate orders of creative agencies who noticed how talented we are. If the first critiques are not exactly what we expected then we say that people do not understand how good we are. Look at that wonderful bokeh of that petal. That bee is so detailed, dude.

So, we are not understood?

I showed my early pictures to my wife and she said most of the time that they are OK (OK?! Why not great or at least amazing?), but she would be much more interested in pictures of people. Sure, but whom should I photo then? I just cannot walk to people and take a picture of them.

Are we too shy?

Guys dealing with computers tended to be somewhat introverted in the old times. Well, maybe not only in the old times. Dealing with things that we understand closely gives us confidence. Inner workings of those geeky things are clear and easy to influence. Digital cameras are great example of those things. Communication over the Internet with fake identities is not very much different from that. But it is a hugely different thing to talk to real people.

What then?

I think it was mentioned in both books I read from the National Geographic Photography Field Guide series so far (Secrets to Making Great Pictures and People and Portraits) that the most important element of people photography is making a connection, building relationship between the photographer and her/his model. Approaching them friendly, telling them honestly what we are doing and what we would like to achieve, or just simply smiling at them in e.g. a noisy concert and asking for permission by showing the camera can solve the problem. If the answer is NO then walk away, there are so many other things to photograph. Making pictures of people is NOT A SIN. So don’t feel guilty about it.

Update: How I’ve thrown off my shyness:
Practicing portrait photography
An other portrait session
Photographing Belly Dancers

The family has been on a garden party last Sunday with many ex-colleagues of mine. Since I left my previous employer after 12 years about a month ago, it was a kind of unofficial farewell party for me and and an other guy.

Farewell party means farewell gift. How do people find out other’s desire these day? Reading his blog of course.

Two posts ago I wrote about my new lens and my old Lowepro Slingshot 100 AWthat became too small for the new piece of equipment. Apparently my old colleagues read my blog – well, maybe not that regularly – and surprised me with a Lowepro Slingshot 300 AW.

Sorry for the image quality, but my actual camera was sitting there as a model.

The brochure of the bag mentions specifically my new lens. So, it is really designed for me. My gear fits perfectly in the bag and I still have some free compartments for an extra lens or two. Carrying the bag in my hands reflects the professionalism of my lens , however on my back – as I tried it at home being hit by my wife’s laughing – it did not feel heavy at all.

Thank you very much, guys.

Popularity of my pictures on Flickr shows an interesting thing today: the portrait of my son taken with my new lens made it to the second place within less then a week. Good marketing or great photo?

Danube in the morning mist is still the first with 512 views.
My distracted Balázs is the second with 307 views today.
And the third one with 197 views is one of my HDR photos: Kelebia railway station

Last Friday I got my long desired AF-S VR Zoom-Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8G IF-ED.

Let me share my first experiences with this exceptional lens. However, don’t expect a professional review from me. For that matter I suggest referring to the links in my related post or directly to Björn Rorslett’s full review. I just put here the first series of my shots with this exceptional lens.

The lens is heavy and when attached to my Nikon D80 they do not really balance. I have to hold the lens rather than the body. I should buy at least a D200 for the balance I suppose . And a new bag of course, because my Lowepro Slingshot 100 AW suddenly became too small.

Read the rest of this entry »

Additionally to the previously discussed masters (Dave Black, David Berman- also known as Sitbonzo and Dave Hill) I must mention a photographer working in New Zealand. I found him through an article on Strobist – the blog that is about teaching the digital photography community how to use flashlights off the camera. The article is about Brent Williamson who is using one remotely controlled flash and the Sun as light sources and makes amazing portraits with this technique.
His blog is the Stateofthenation and this is his Flickr photo stream.

All these guys inspired me to take the photos below. Bear with me, these are my first shots of this kind.

My best and most patient models: my family.

I used my Nikon D80 and a still borrowed Nikon SB-800 speedlight. My wife was standing with her back to the Sun and I placed the flash on a tripod opposite to the Sun a bit above her head level. The D80 built-in flash was in commander mode where I disabled the built-in flash itself (it flashes though once for TTL, but not when taking the picture) and the SB-800 was in remote mode and manual. With this scenario I could adjust the output level of the remote flash from the camera. For this shot it was 1/2 or 1/4. I also used the diffuser dome from Nikon supplied with the SB-800 attached to the speedlight.

I did not have to use any transmitter-receiver devices other than the camera and the flash themselves.
I know that from artistic point of view the composition of these shots are far from perfect and the light could have been more ambient. The shadows are quite strong but I kind of like them this way. My purpose was to make eye-capturing portraits.

And a behind the scenes photo at the end with my lazy assistant