Garage Project

 So recently I started to clean out my garage, this small undertaking was mainly done so I would stop getting parking tickets for being in my own driveway and it turned out into something a little bit cooler than that. For the readers who don't know I live in a condo in San Francisco which has been around for ages. The garage has essentially just been a storage place for things for probably the past fifty or so years easy. So there is just tons of stuff and a lot of garbage in it. Which will be recycled, thrown away and possibly sold.

Which is all good and dandy but before that I wanted to catalog some of the items and play around with lighting a little bit since I haven't been able to use my alien bee strobe as much as I have been wanting to. All the images were shot at f/22 as well which I have been on the total opposite side of the spectrum playing with f/1.4 - f/2 for the past 4 months or so. I figured this would be a good exercise as well to remind me to not niche myself so frequently just because I like a certain look.

Which since I did that I am happy with how these have turned out so far. I am still going to do more when I have more space for some larger items but the surroundings of these with the straight clarity but still looking like there is a small bit of depth of field is pretty awesome in my opinion. These aren't super refined though as the horizons could be a level and there are some hot spots on the paint brush but beyond minor refinement and looking at just the ascetic I really appreciate the look this has brought.

So beyond expanding on this project I will also be applying this to portraits as well and I might be going to an extreme with it. I am not too sure since the idea flow for portraits is a lot different than going with something as simple as looking at some forgotten tools and cleaning supplies from my garage. I do have more access to some more models now, which the next one might be used in an upcoming shoot soon. It will probably be something silly but I need to go to the idea book and figure out some stuff before badgering them to do it.

From Mesa to San Francisco

So recently I went down to Mesa, Arizona to pick up my car from my mother since I haven't had a place to park it up here in San Francisco. So naturally I brought my trusty old 50d along for the ride. After a couple hours on an airplane and a short drive I was in Arizona again after being out of the state for about a year. Since I just got my brand spankin' new 50mm 1.4 I couldn't resist the urge to use it constantly as my kit lens for the journey. Now I started using the lens just recently for a concert in my last post featuring Critical Bliss but this si the first time I got to use the lens with a decent lighting situation, and honestly it preformed with an amazing ease that I was not expecting for a lens of it's price. The first image here is of Mahkayla in a book store on Venice Beach, which to me the depth of field is spot on and there are a few small things I would fix if it was a studio shot or not so much as a snap shot like the hair leading to her eye on the right and the small hot spot in the lower left hand corner but other than that which are my fault really the quality of the image is stunning.

Soon I am going to be starting on a small project called "In my Garage" where I will be photographing items under a studio light set up of what items I have found in my garage that I am cleaning in my new place here in San Francisco. I think it has the potential to be really cool, I am starting to figure out how I am going to be shooting the project but I am probably just going to clear a space in the garage and shoot it from top down or eye level to the items. Since it will be a small series on still lives it should be a pretty interesting shoot.

Critical Bliss

Here are a couple of images from the Critical Bliss concert last night at Martuni's martini bar. It was a great night out and one of the few reasons I still venture to downtown San Francisco. I probably should get out more than just work and random excursions but I am very happy where I am currently and until I pick up my car from Arizona next Tuesday I will probably just be day dreaming about a warm beach. Anyway this post specifically will be about the 50mm 1.4 Canon lens.

If I had to give it a rating it would be game of the year. The lens itself is solid, unlike the f/1.8 which makes it a good deal heavier but at triple the cost it damn well better be. The lens performance is also a lot higher than the f/1.8 and since it has eight leafs in its aperture the backgrounds are a lot creamier looking. That sounds crazy, it looks like a more realistic blur. Anyway the blur looks a lot better. It is one of the things that you wouldn't expect to make a big difference but it really does. It is easily seen in the out of focus highlights though. Crazy lens though, it will become my kit lens on the 5d Mark 3 to replace the 35mm lens I use all the time now.

A more "Vintage" feel

So I been playing around more with editing now that I cut back my hours at work and I been having this horrendous photo bug which makes me want to shoot all the time and it has been helping me develop my style even further. Which is good and bad because now I am becoming ultra finicky about certain dumb things but these were on my 35mm f/2.  I have just ordered my 50mm f/1.4 which I am extremely excited for. This will be my fastest lens to date which is pretty cool. Once I have gotten the 5d Mark 3 it will become my base lens as well. So for something that fast as my kit lens will be pretty awesome.

"iPhoneography" and New Years Resolutions

Well the first post of the new year is going to be about photography using the iPhone, nifty. Anyway the images here are all done with the the iPhone 4s and honestly it is a solid device. As a camera it is piss poor in a lot of situations but it can get the job done. One of the nice things about it are the stupid filter effects you can add like in all the these images.
It is hard trying to be positive about something I don't really care about. The iPhone is a great phone but a mediocre camera at best it has a ton of limitations but is discrete enough where people have no idea what the fuck you are doing since so many games and things are done on the device. There are neat things like lenses you can get for the iPhone but they look dumb as hell and really if you are going to put lenses on your phone just buy any compact system camera. Keep in mind the camera is made for small media viewing, like the phone screen or a 1080p computer screen. It isn't a device made for print in mind. It is true you can print small images with it but they still aren't to the quality of a crappy 80 dollar camera.

Also these images were taken within the last year as well. I am working on some new stuff at the moment but I wanted to update with and tell everyone that can read my new years resolutions for this blog. I am going to update twice a month. I am going to attempt for once a week like I had in the first year of the blog but we will see. When the blog was born I had no real responsibilities until I got into school then from there it was work almost full time with school almost full time and it just kept stacking where I had no real time for myself. Thankfully since my move I don't have to work as hard anymore and can focus more on school and editing so everything should move at a much faster pace in a more positive direction for my work as a whole. Hopefully this will provide with some really cool stuff and I will also be doing lighting diagrams as well on the blog as well for some of my studio or location lighting stuff.

Also I have recently purchased an infrared filter to use along side the photoshop tutorial I been working on for ages now. If everything goes well I will have a tutorial for the effect, images of the actual effect and a review of just the filter for the effect. The images I will use will most likely be from my buddy Miles Nitz. For what the real film looks like in comparison to the digital effects that are available now.

Anyway Happy New Year!