times are changing and so are the templates on my blog

I keep changing the templates and the backgrounds of the blog. Transparency seems like a good idea... for now!

I'm still trying to come up with a nice design for the background... this shot of a Dacia I took a few years ago will  have to do until I have a better idea.

Hey!... is anyone out there willing to lend me some lights for a couple of hours? I know this is a long shot, but still... I have this idea for a photo and nobody seems to have any equipment available. An sb-600 with some kind of off-camera sync would do just fine. Leave a comment if you are willing to help.

R

sheep

Remorse for not writing anything in a while? yep...

Hoping for things to change? yep...

Will things actually change? probably not... (but still... one can hope...)

R

on my own... first entry: Aunts are Lovable Creatures

Living alone is not easy. Maybe this isn't any news to you and it certainly wasn't any news to me when my mother left to live with my sister for a couple of weeks, but that doesn't make the process any easier.

Anyway... I've decided to document the process of living alone... with the problems and advantages it brings.

What I love about this living alone thing is that there's really no one to blame beside yourself... it really makes things easier when it comes to finding a scapegoat to place the blame on. Whatever didn't get done.. you're the ONLY one to blame.

What I hate about it is that you have no one to talk to. Loneliness is a bitter thing... believe me! And the Interned doesn't always do the trick.

This series of posts will be mostly related to cooking, mainly because this is something I don't get to do when my mother's at home. And I really like to wear the apron from time to time. I'm not going to document everything I eat or cook. The purpose of this is to reveal the things I discover on this journey of staying at home.

First thing: Aunts are lovable creatures. Since mother's out of town, my aunts have taken an interest in what I eat and have taken turns in inviting me over for lunch or dinner. The best thing about it is that they also make me take some food with me.. here's a 1,7 litre jar of beans soup and a slice of home-made bread (yum!):

And here's the spaghetti with seafood cocktail I made the other day:

Yup!.... Yum!

R

Burn the streets.. shots and thoughts

Our fair city hosted a snowboarding competition today... didn't enter the photography contest because... well... because I'm rather lazy and I really have to focus on school these days.. I can only be productive for so much. I did take a few shots, though. Yeah.. great times. The energy drink company Burn was the main sponsor. And they did a really nice job of it... I got my free energy drink and my then warm slice of pizza, which I am enjoying as I'm writing this.

The riders provided a great show which made me stay with them until the end (despite the fact that my fingers were literally sticking to the lens of my camera.. yep... it was that cold) and I really hope the organizers do something like this again... I doesn't have to be snowboarding... I mean... other sports can be just as fun. How 'bout a golf tournament, eh?
Yeah... I'm joking about the golf part. But I do hope something like this happens again. Oh well... 'nuff said!

Some shots:

I'm also thinking of starting a new little project regarding the blog... more to follow.

R

red ink + desk lamp = love ? you tell me...

"Have you ever seen blood in the moonlight, Will? It appears quite black." - Hannibal Lecter

Oh, relax! It's just ink. I did a little bit of experimenting with the desk lamp, some lenses, ink, a syringe and a few other things.
Oh... and I discovered that some of my red ink cartridges have numbers carved inside them.. like this one. I wonder why. Any ideas?

Yep... still reversing lens... Shut up! It's fun.


R

One shot one kill... things I've learned

There have been 7 interesting days, I'll tell you that (there were 7 shots taken). And I did learn a lot from the project... about things I can do and, most importantly, things I can't do. So... here they are.

1. I can shoot everyday. It wasn't as hard as I had previously imagined... grabbing the camera, making sure I had the card inside, preparing the set, thinking about the light... everything seemed so natural.
2. Finding something to shoot is hard. The hardest part of the project was finding something worth shooting. I really wanted to get something out of this project... I mean... more than experience. I would try to find ideas all day... think about things I had always wanted to shoot and then discard the ideas because of the limited amount of time I had, the limited number of shots I had... you know... mostly because I wanted to play this safe. And I did... most of the time. The most risky shot I took was on day six of the project, when I went outside, calculated my exposure, went to the middle of the road, focused and shot. The image is pretty much out of focus, as you can see, and the framing didn't turn out so well either. I was able to somewhat fix that in the post-processing.
3. I'm not a one-shot kind of guy. Which is good. The purpose of the project was not to make me a guy who only takes one shot in one location. It was to help me improve my skills and to help me start shooting something. God knows I needed that. I really enjoy having the possibility of taking another photograph of the subject, of changing the perspective or the composition and being able to make my choice later, in the post-processing phase. I feel I learn more about the subject as I keep photographing it. Of course it's more efficient to take one shot and just use that one, but, as far as I'm concerned, it doesn't yield the best results.
4. I should focus less on the technical side of things. Whenever I try to come up with an idea, I start from a technique or a certain lens I want to use, from technical elements such as bokeh or shallow dof, which is not entirely bad, but when creating a photograph (I'm not really sure I can even use that word when talking about my work, but hey!... thank God there's no Blogger Police), I think I should start from the main idea or the feeling I want it to convey or hey!... even from the subject and then work my way down to equipment and types of light I want to use and the rest of the stuff.
5. DON'T BE AFRAID!!!!! Whenever photographing something or experimenting or taking a photowalk, your courage will always be rewarded. The courage to whip out you camera, even though it might make people uncomfortable or it might get wet or broken, the courage to keep shooting, although you're not really sure about how it will turn out. But, most important, the courage to say... 'Hey! I'm shooting something today'.

Yeah... that's pretty much what I've learned from the project... hope it sticks with me long enough...

More shots to come...

R

One shot, one kill.... day eight (final day.. one day late)

I took this one yesterday, but couldn't upload it... my Internet connection was down for most of the night.

Emergence of darkness

Original exposure

I just couldn't let the series pass without a bit of reverse lens fun...

My thoughts of the project... to follow...

R