I’ve come back from Habana with a bit of a sour taste in my mouth.
Walking the streets in the various districts, sometimes I felt too embarrassed to even take the camera out.
Dozens of photographers looking like a hunting party were inspecting every corner of the streets, every face, every shadow, no stone left unturned.
In some culture, people don’t mind this. They welcome you with open arms and you can have a field day walking around with your big and obtrusive SLR with a huge zoom on top of it, making a Kalashnikov noise every time the shutter closes, nobody would mind.
But in some other cultures, people are more sensitive. Especially in those places where privacy is on of the few things left and where taking an unwanted photo can be seen as not respecting someone’s dignity.
A kid on a street was paying baseball with his friends. When a group of foreigners approached, he started screaming “no quiero foto” and covered his face with the baseball glove.
My camera was in the bag at that time but I felt his screamed acusation directed at me and at what photography has started to represent in some areas: intrusion, lack of respect, agression.
I like candid photography and I realize that it requires observing and photographing an unaware subject. But I feel is a big difference between being invisible to an environment, getting people used to you as being there, be part of the scenery so they don’t realize/care you’re taking a photo, and just showing up and start marching in uninvited in their lives, metaphorically speaking.
I’m not saying we should aim for getting Releas Forms from all the people we photograph, but sometimes just a look, a question, a gesture is enough to create a relation, get accepted, and gain trust.
Keep your camera out. Aproach first, ask, show understanding and respect. If they want to be photographed, they’ll wait for you, you’ll be able to put them in the right light, select your composition, do your work. At least show them the picture you’ve taken of them, before showing it to th world on www. IN the end, you may even part as friends.
Just when you think you finally understand what’s going on with all this stuff that’s supposed to help you with your work, it manages to surprise you yet again!
So, lesson for today:
Web templates created in Lightroom are not saved with the catalog. Everything else seems to be, but the web templates are located in an obscure file somwhere on the C: drive in Windows. I have no idea where since all my photo files including Lightroom folder are on external hard drive and it never occurred to me (duh!) to think that in their ultimate wisdom, Adobe have spread important files all over the place. Given that my old PC (over two years now, who thought it would last that long??) can’t even load the BIOS anymore, there’s no chance I’ll get those back very soon.
So it will be a while longer until I get to post them on the website.
The photo is not really related to anything above. Taken on Malecon at sunset.
I know I didn’t write in a long time, I just got back from a photo trip to Habana. Photos will be on the site soon, but, while the feeling is fresh, just wanted to say what a great experience this has been for me.
I’m always interested in human emotion and it’s been a really long time since I’ve experienced such a mix of sorrow, joy, hope, sadness and melancholy, on such a huge scale.
I intended to write about it while I was there, but Internet is rather a strange curiosity so will post my thoughts over the next few days.
I’m fed up with magazines that call themselves “photo” and then go on and on about what type of stuff you should be buying. They should be called “Buy everything” magazines. I feel like I’m paying for advertisement. Shouldn’t be the other way around? Take Outdoor Photographer for instance, a respectable magazine, long history, good reputation etc… now is like going through a Wall Mart catalog. Most times I lose track of the article, that’s how much pub they have in it. And it never stops, it’s just gets bigger and bigger. The content is disappearing, quality is disappearing, and I end up preferring spending my time on photo.net and luminous-landscapes.com rather than reading those type of publications. I renounced my subscription to OP because of this.
To me, it’s a mystery. I understand what can be suspected as the “business logic” behind it, the revenue must come from somewhere, but photography was never a cheap hobby to begin with. All these toys cost money, lots of them. So I don’t understand the need to cut down prices as much as possible on print publications at the expense of the content, replacing it with advertising. Would 5$ extra make that much of a difference? If I buy a magazine, I buy it for the content, for the article, for the photos inside, for the knowledge. If if want a compare between a Canon and a Nikon sensor, or want to know which is the latest bag Lowepro has on sale, I just go online! I feel that if the content goes away, or if it gets suffocated by big commercials on Canon and Gitzo, there isn’t much interest about the publication anyways, regardless how cheap it is. Not for serious photography magazines, anyway. If one wants to get reviews on shiny toys, there are plenty of resources around. Most of them free!
Considering this general trend, I was amazed when I stumbled across some high quality photo publications, almost publicity free!
One of them is Azart Photographie (website here ). La Vitrine Internationale De La Photographie Contemporaine, French high quality photo publication, issued quarterly, now on number 6. Really wish them good luck and hope they sort out their website that looks lousy and doesn’t do the magazine much justice. Sure it costs a lot (paid 17 CAD here in Montreal), but I’d much rather do that than pay 5$ and get a bunch of advertisement packaged nicely inside so the content only occupies 40% of the space.
The other nice surprise I had is Aperture – click here for the website. Old and established magazine with a very professional look and high quality material. Again, advertisement content is barely noticeable. What a joy to read! Again, the price is high – 15 CAD but the content makes it worth it.
I am by no means associated with these companies, or publishers, or whatever they are, just feel we need to support high quality photo publications. So if you stumble across them, have a read, you’ll enjoy them.
I work as a consultant. Usually abroad, lots of traveling, pressure, deadlines, all that. I like what I do and as long as I am able to do it well, I’ll keep on doing it.
When pressure is on, I think of little Serghei. For those of you who are not familiar with him, take a look:
(edited from the Compare the meerkat commercials, you can see the official version here )
I was in a sort of a pseudo-philosophic mood these past days and since I’ve always had trouble tackling the BIG questions (who we are, where we are going, what is the nature of man, is Microsoft better than Apple, etc you get the picture), I thought I’d take on a simpler one and determine why do I travel.
For one, it’s the job I do, but that’s not really the point, what I wanted to understand is why I travel volontarily, and then I was just curious to know why people travel in general.
For me is harder and harder to find significant differences in the places I go to. Sure, there are always the cultural differences, different food, different climate, different races and so on, but when it comes down to it, we are all pretty much alike. We all want the same basic things and to a certain extent, we all have the same basic values.
Still, apart from being a deterrent for travelling, for me is actually an incentive. I love the humanity, the bond that I feel ties us all in, and the limitless possibilities for communicating. I also manage to feel “at home” in most places I go to, and I take them for what they are. Of course, these are all additions, and the main reason for travelling, for me, is to see, and experience.
See and experience what?
Well, there are beautiful landscapes, great food, beautiful cities, historic sites, beautiful wildlife etc. Sometimes, there are difficult conditions that must be overpassed in order to get to experience these beautiful things – lack of roads, wars, malaria, political conditions, etc But still, it’s just great to see how beautiful this world is. So basically is about enjoying something special. Special or beautiful? Hm.
So with this kind of hippie-makelovenotwar-singkumbaya attitude I was browsing the net looking at info about places that i would love to go to. Then I found this:
Simply to see a country where the Cold War is still being fought, where mobile phones and the internet are unknown, and where total obedience to the state is universally unquestioned is, for many, reason enough to visit.
That’s a really long way from any reason I thought anyone would have for wanting to travel to a country, but maybe I was completely wrong. Is the social voyeurism the ultimate travel rush? Go all this way to see how some people live under dictatorship? I mean, not go there in spite of the dictatorship, but because of it? And I’m not talking about undercover reporters or human rights activists, but about regular people? Apparently so, since the quote is from Lonely Planet and they have a reputation for knowing pretty well what people want.
Ok, I grew up in a communist country so maybe this thing just pressed the wrong buttons. But certainly made me wonder where exactly the whole “travel” concept is going.
Back home now after a long journey, looking forward to getting some rest. I recently saw a movie called L’amour Tout Court, done by Raphael O’Bryne in 2001 – an interview with Henri Cartier Bresson. Simply wonderful. You can see it below. He is so modest in his approach, so humble. Couldn’t agree more on the idea of being open and get the “ego” out of they way when approaching photography. Although is easier said than done.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
I am off to the airport in a couple of hours so I will be pretty quiet for the next week or so. I thought I’d post an old image before I leave, of a truly special place.
Is hard to define what I love about Cairo. Apart from all the mayhem and dust, is truly a beautiful city, so full of life. Legend says that whoever drinks from the Nile (to a certain extent, that’s whoever drinks tap water 
) will be back. Don’t know if that’s true, but after almost 2 years here I am, on my way back to Cairo, even if it is for a short time.
I wish I could be able to use only film. I really do. I’ve done some landscape photography using film, but I am still on a learning curve (a steep one) and my main workhorse remains a digital body – Canon 5D.
However, aesthetics alone and the lovely look of film are not the only reasons I would love to give up digital for good.
No,the main reason to be honest is that I am pretty convinced that if I did, I would get rid of that question “did you photoshop that image?” Now how cool is for Adobe that their product is now a verb?
For some reason, some people believe that image manipulation is proprietary to digital medium, and that film has a “pure” part – once the shutter is clicked, whatever is captured on film is going to be transferred on paper as print.
While a large number of famous photographers tried to disperse this idea it seems that the question doesn’t get old, so I’ll try to give my views on it as quickly and coherently as I can, especially since I’ve had this question asked a few times since I launched the new site.
The type of photography I do is highly subjective. As a matter of fact, photography in general (apart from specific area such as photojournalism) is highly subjective. Nothing to do with “reality”. You can even call it lying if you want. Just the fact that I am capturing a scene as opposed to another scene, it means that I am giving my personal view on the subject. This part most people agree on.
Cameras do not see as the human eye sees, therefore some kind of compromise needs to happen. Try and photograph a sunset and you’ll understand what I mean – in order to get the colours, most of the foreground will be black (HDR is not the subject of this post).
In order for that to happen, a “visualisation” of the scene must take place so that I know what I am try to say through my photograph: a longer shutter speed to get a continuous flow of water, underexposure to get the colours of the sunrise, etc It seems that these are ok, as long as they happen BEFORE the shutter is clicked. So as long as all the settings happen inside the camera, there is no problem.
The fact of the matter is that when the shutter is pressed, the digital sensor, or film, captures data according to the ideas of the photographer, in order to best express his personal view on the subject. But it doesn’t stop here, not for digital and most certainly not for film. In the case of film, the developing process that takes place into the lab, does the exact same things as the digital processing – manipulating brightness, contrast, cropping, manipulating grain, increase/decrease colour saturation, etc
Actually, one of the TOP priorities for a photographer when he/she presses the shutter, is to capture as much information as possible, from the shadows up to the highlights. Of course this depends on the subject but largely this is the best practice to ensure enough information is available. Then, during the development process – either digital or film, the “personal” view of the photographer is applied to the image – and this is a different skill, but part of the photographic process nonetheless.
To me, photo post processing is pretty much like mixing in the audio industry. The artist makes the performance, then the audio is transferred into post production and the final product is burned onto a CD. Post production will alter the sound to a certain extent, but there is by no means a replacement for the performance. With all the post processing skills and effort, without a good composition, good light, good subject, one can never create a good photograph.
That being said, the type of post processing I do 99% of time is:
- cropping
- adjust brightness
- contrast adjustments
Uf, glad I’ve got this out of the way
Welcome to this blog
For those of you who are familiar with my website, you’ll notice some changes.
Initial main reason for the change was that I was not happy on how the old version of the site rendered photographs shot in Portrait mode. However, after a few clicks I’ve decided that it was time to reconsider more aspects of the website, and my photography in general.
2009 was a special year for me. Photography wise, it allowed me time to familiarise myself with the work of fantastic photographers, (I’m still amazed when I look at Michael Kenna’s absolutely gorgeous work, and feel continuously inspired by Bruce Percy’s landscapes) to read, to practice but most of all to think a bit more about what I try to say through my photographs.
All these things got me to a point when I had no other choice than to review most of the photographs I’ve taken and re-work them. I’ve looked at some old images and surprisingly enough, some of them have “spoken” to me so I have included them here.
I’ve tried to put them into a more logical order, based on locations where they were shot and I am pretty much happy with how they’ve turned out.
So thanks for visiting, hope you enjoy the images, and feel free to drop me a line.
Dumitru