Photographing Star Trails from the backyard

In this video, I try long (really long) exposures with my Sony a6500, my first time doing this with a digital camera.

While film has reciprocity failure, digital has its own set of problems when it comes to long exposure photography.

In the end, though, I was satisfied with the results!

American Road Trip Journal #30: Zion National Park

The series American Road Trip is coming to an end: only 2 more episodes left!

This time we visit Zion National Park, in SW Utah.

I spent a few days in the area but I was only able to visit the park a couple times, due to a snowstorm that covered it with ice and snow. This ruined my plans of hiking to Angel's Landing, but gave me some more unique images in exchange.

The one image that inspires my photography

I've had this blog for a while, and I feel like I haven't written much about what drives and inspires my photography.

If I had to choose one, and just one photographer, that'd be Michael Kenna without a doubt. I am a fanboy, I own several of his books and absolutely love his photography.

But if I had to choose one, and just one image, it wouldn't be one of his.

View fullsize

Bill Brandt, Lord MacDonald's Forest, Skye, 1947

I saw this image made by Bill Brandt (Isle of Skye, 1947) for the first time a couple of years ago.

There was something about it.

This image moves me so much, more today than it did two years ago. It's really hard to write this post because I can't really explain it.

The composition, the choice of a vertical format, how he removed all details from the landscape (but the cabin on the bottom right), the long exposure, the mystery... yes, I think it is the mystery.

This image inspires me every time I look at it. This is what I aim for when I go out with my camera: to create something that moves someone in the same way Bill Brandt has moved me with this image.

What about you? If you had to choose one image, which one would it be?

Life update from Galicia: the adventure begins now

I didn't post anything on the blog yesterday. I think it was the first day that went by without new content in months!

There was a good reason, though: after waiting for 4 months, the new car is finally here!

Making images while traveling

This means that our time here in Galicia is about to end, as we'll start traveling as soon as this Sunday. Galicia will remain as our base camp, headquarters, whatever you want to call it, but we'll be on the move most of the time.

More trips means many new images and videos coming.

Film images will take a bit longer, though. I'm not planning on bringing the "darkroom" with me like I did in America, instead I'll develop all the rolls once I'm back at HQ.

Traveling also means I'll have less time to spend in front of the computer -the end of the summer will help with this as well- thus I will have to organize in a different way to keep the content coming, here and elsewhere.

Where I will be in the next few months

Where will we be going, you ask?

That's a good question. The answer is... not sure, yet.

I like to change plans a lot, so take this with a grain of salt, but as of right now: in the next few months and until next summer we'll be visiting and spending quite some time (one to three months in each place) in Portugal, France, the UK and the US.

Can't wait!

Photographers: it's 2018

If you make photographs for yourself and have zero interest in sharing your work with anyone, then skip this post.

If you are already sharing your work online, then skip this post.

For everyone else: you better start sharing your images online if you have any interest in doing something with your photography.

We can hate Instagram and Facebook as much as we want, but that won't change the facts: people spend a big part of their days online, on IG, FB, Twitter and the rest of the social media family. Yes, even LinkedIn.

Are you at a public place now? Look around. Not only are most people on their phones, you are too.

Want your photography to be seen? Stop waiting for people to get to you, you have to go to them.

It's 2018, after all.

Cinestill Df96, black and white film developing made easy?

Eduardo Pavez runs a great channel about film photography on YouTube. In his latest video he tries Cinestill Df96, a monobath solution that promises to make developing -black and white film- much easier.

Instead of dealing with multiple chemicals (developer, stop bath, fixer...), this solution does it all. Pour it in the tank and after 3 minutes your negatives will be ready to wash.

I can't wait to try it myself -I don't know of any place here in Europe that carries Df96 just yet.

I can see one gotcha with this new product: achieving the right temperature. The trick is to get the solution to the temperature indicated for your film stock and exposure.

If you've developed film before, you know that getting any solution to the right temperature can be the most challenging part of all! Surely, one of the most time consuming steps.

I have to hold off on giving my final opinion on this new monobath solution until I try it, but it looks like the savings in time from using just one chemical can be erased trying to get the solution to the right temperature.

For the love of square: it's #squaretember!

View fullsize

I love shooting square, so of course I had to talk about this new initiative by @andrewmcclees to promote the square format.

During this month of September, @squaretember will be featuring some of the images shared with the hashtag #squaretember.

The only requirement: the photographs have to be shot natively in square format, no cropping.

Go ahead and share your square images!

Fun photography ideas for the summer

I'm a winter person, I don't like much about the summer. The heat, the crowds, the hars light... none of them.

It's usually a bad time for me to go out and make images, so I spend most of the summer inside writing, editing and reading.

This year, I came up with 6 different photography ideas to try. From a homemade pinhole lens to use oil from a can of tuna to emulate the Holga look:

#1 Photographing the clouds
#2 Homemade pinhole lens
#3 Fireworks
#4 Night photography in a forest
#5 The Holga Look
#6 Infrared

It was fun and I learned a lot from every one of these projects. I hope at least one of them inspires you to try something different!

The dangers of night photography

The full moon is here. Last night was going to be my best chance to make a photograph of a moonlit landscape -clouds are coming for the rest of the week.

I wanted to make a long exposure of the full moon above a nearby canyon. I thought it'd be a cool image.

This place is not remote. Still, the closest town is a few kilometers away. I drove there and parked the car in the empty parking lot around 11pm. There's a viewpoint where I was planning to make this image from.

The moon was still rising above the walls of the canyon, so it was pretty dark outside. I grabbed my phone and turned on the flashlight, and opened the door.

As soon as I stepped out of the car, I heard it. It was a shot. I didn't know if it was a gun, or a shotgun, or something else. I didn't know in what direction. But it was close.

In retrospective, and having talked to some people, I believe it was a device used by locals to scare the wild boars from the vineyards that populate the landscape of the area. I'd never heard it before, but they say it sounds like a gun.

At that time, being alone in the dark in a place where I thought there was no one, it didn't feel that way.

I got out of there as fast as I could.

Probably a place I won't be visiting at night again.

My dream camera

Have you ever thought about what your dream camera would look like?

Mine would look something like this.

I want a mini Bronica SQ. Smaller and lighter, using a new type of film for 5x5 frames, 16 exposures per roll.

The viewfinder would stay the same, a little smaller due to the overall size reduction. You'd be able to switch to a fully electronic viewfinder (very much like the Fuji X100 series) with a live preview of the exposure and the film you have loaded in the back. This preview can simulate pushing and pulling as well.

If you run out of batteries, it should still work using the optical viewfinder.

I'd like to have just one lens, a zoom lens with a range of 20-300mm. f/4 would be more than enough.

When taking a long exposure, it should be able to show you the image as it's being "built". Of course, simulating the effect film will have on it. This way, you could stop it once it looks good and not before or after.

This would be the perfect camera for a hybrid shooter.

What would yours look like?

American Road Trip Journal #29: Monument Valley

There are few places that feel like the Old West the way Monument Valley, Arizona, does.

We missed sunrise and sunset due to the long drive to get there from Flagstaff, but still enjoyed our time at this beautiful Indian reservation.

See images of Monument Valley, Arizona.

Black and White first

Many people use monochrome to "fix" a bad photo. Others seem to have doubts about which version they prefer, so they post both: color and black and white.

While you can get good results every once in a while, this approach is wrong.

The tools you have available in black and white photography are very different from the ones you can use when shooting in color. The image should be in your mind first, then -and only then- we can choose whatever tools we need to create it.