Tag Archives: Kenya

A quick update and a quicky

Photographic journey, , , , , , ,

Dear all,

It still being January, I allow myself to reflect a little on 2012. It has been quite a ride, with a Wild Eye competition mention, a picture on 1x (which also made it into their limited edition yearbook No Words), getting some good air in online Newspaper articles as well as Belgian print versions and getting a shot into the high level Geographic Expeditions catalog. In short, nice things happening (you can check out the concerned shots on my newly created Awards page), yet even more things to improve upon. With Ronja joining our ranks, I havn’t been out in the field as much as I would have liked, nevertheless, besides my non photography related day job, I am enjoying photography through the NYIP course, with now 2 out of the 6 units finalized. I just submitted my projects, consisting of 6 photo assignments (only prints are accepted, which is really nice thing, since it forces you to go the extra mile in delivering a finalized product):

  1. using shutter speed to express a sense of motion/speed by panning, stopping the action or using a slow shutter speed to capture motion in your frame;
  2. use selctive focus to make the subject stand out;
  3. create a feeling of distance by using a great DoF;
  4. emphasize a sbuject by its size and off center placement;
  5. use framing to focus attention on your subject;
  6. use leading lines to draw attention to your subject.

Meanwhile, you may have noticed I finally found a way that works for me in creating nice looking galleries in my WordPress blog, being the NextGen galleries whom blow me away for their actual simplicity amongst a whole bunch of way less user friendly plugins which do the same thing, only worse and without nice widgets, such as the random shots you can see to the right of this post now. And I can tell you that I’ve been trying quite a few of them over the past few months, none of them pleasing me, finally I found something that did please me. Have a look here, I would be happy getting your opinion.

Leaving you with one of my personal 2012 favorites.

Canon 7D, Canon 300mm f/4 L IS USM, 1/8000, f/4, ISO 800
Canon 7D, Canon 300mm f/4 L IS USM, 1/8000, f/4, ISO 800

As for 2013: it promises to be quite a ride for us, yet more about that in my next blog post, which will be up later this week, along with a first guest post for the year (one which I’m really excited about), so keep an eye on this space and my related social media, you can find the relevant links on the right of this screen.

For now, HAVE A FANTASTIC 2013, GREAT LIGHT and PLEASURE in doing what you do!!!

Warm regards,

Guy

 

Blown away

Photographic journey, , , , , , , , , ,

How long has it been since you were blown away by something: a view, a picture, an act of cheer genius by somebody, … It doesn’t happen too often, does it? When thinking of photography, these days everybody is a photographer with a platform to show his or her work. This means you come across a lot of shots, yet only every so often do you come across some work that literally blows you away, because it’s different, because somebody clearly had a vision and has put a lot of work into shaping that vision. In the recent past, to me that has been the work of Mate Bence, check it out here and decide for yourself.

More often than not, you have to prepare and do some effort in looking for things that can blow you away, such as the volcano which Sietske and myself climbed and which has gotten some air in the press last week (Burning love, man proposes to his girlfriend 11000 ft up an active volcano). Very often though you don’t have to go far to be blown away, yet you have to create the opportunity to make it happen, something that is highly unlikely to happen by getting stuck behind your computer. You have to go out there and be ready when the moment presents itself, either because you created it or out of simple luck (every so often it happens you are in the right place at the right time without having planned for it, yet even then, you went out, so you definitely had your part in allowing luck to get to you)! To bring this point home, please find this shot by my mother in law, she went out, always has her eyes open and always carries a camera and this shot is a result of that, I love the color and the pose.

Canon Powershot G7, 1/800, f/4
To end with, I also want to share these two shots, a sky that blew me away during a work visit, and boy, was I happy I carried my camera.
Canon 7D, Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM
Canon 7D, Canon EF 24-105mm L IS USM @ 24 mm, 1/80, f/11, ISO 200
All this being said, I guess the point I wanted to make is the following: be ready to blown away, create the opportunity and when it presents itself, let it happen. By doing so, chances become much higher that you’ll move from a happy snap shooter who gets the occasional shot towards somebody who creates work that blows people of their feet.
All the best,
Guy