journal
I'm still alive! Not only that but also in the middle of a trip to Portugal, one of my favorite countries. Currently near Porto, I will be hitting Lisbon and Sintra in the next few days.
This is going to be a very short trip, a sort of preparation for the 4 months we will be spending in the US starting very soon!
Expect some videos and images from Portugal in the next few days.
There seems to be a lot of confusion when it comes to crop sensors and their equivalence to full-frame sensors.
Let's take the Sigma 30mm f/1.4 for Sony APS-C cameras as an example. The crop factor in these cameras is 1.5, which we can use to get the equivalent focal length of that lens: 30mm x 1.5 = 45mm.
The problem comes when we do the same with the aperture. Often, reviewers will apply the crop factor and say that a f/1.4 lens will behave as a f/2.1 lens on a full-frame sensor would. People get really offended because they think manufacturers are misleading the consumers with those numbers.
While that equivalence is true for the depth of field (smaller sensors have more depth of field, thus less bokeh), it is not true when it comes to light gathering.
A f/1.4 lens will gather the same amount of light (per inch) no matter the size of the sensor behind it.
In other words, you could share your exposure values of 1/50sec, f/1.4, ISO 100 with a smartphone shooter and someone using a large format camera. You all will get the same exposure.
Going through your photographs to select the best ones can be a very daunting task. Even harder if you take a lot of photos (like me).
Over time, I've developed a workflow that makes this process relatively fast and painless. The basic idea is to split the decision making process in a few steps to make it easier and ensure you are selecting only your best images.
I use Lightroom CC to organize my photos, but you could use any other software or even regular folders.
Read MoreMorning Mist is the Image of the Month for March.
I made this image on a beautiful and chilly summer morning at Trillium Lake, in the Mt Hood National Forest.
This is one of my favorite spots near Portland, and I'd drive over there many times before heading to work. It was a peaceful and unforgettable way to start my mornings (even though the drive was more than 2 hours round-trip).
This image is part of my work and current exhibition America Untitled.
A new image will be released every month and offered at a reduced price during that time. After 30 days, it will be sold at full price. They will never be on sale at any time in the future, the rate during the first month will be the lowest, ever.
You can find more information about how I create my images and all the details about pricing on The Art and Craft behind my prints.
It's probably just rain. That's what I thought when I first heard it. As I was putting my headphones on, something told me to pay closer attention to the noise coming from upstairs.
It's not rain. I knew something was off as soon as I started climbing the stairs. There's smoke up there. A lot of smoke, actually. Something was burning and I didn't know what to expect.
The room seemed fine at first sight. It took me a couple of seconds to see them through the holes they had created on the ceiling: flames. There was a fire in between the roof and the ceiling right where the chimney column goes through. The house is burning down.
Read MoreI made this image during a walk yesterday evening. I had passed by this field dozens of times before, but something caught my eye this time.
This image isn't supposed to work: there's no clear subject, no anchor, no leading lines. And still, there's something about it that I love.
It might be the emptiness of the field, or maybe the blackness of the pine trees. Perhaps the two bright cottonwoods on the very left edge of the frame.
Whatever it is, I think this image has many of the elements I seek with my photography. Many times, that means following your instinct and forgetting about everyone else's rules.
A few years ago, my most common camera setup was a Sony A7II with a 16-35mm f/4 lens (a combo worth more than $3k at the time). While that's not a lot of money when it comes to cameras, it was for me.
One day, I got caught in very heavy rain in the Olympic Peninsula, Washington. I was on a hike, my camera got extremely wet and I didn't get to a dry place for over 2 hours. As a result, the screen stopped working and I had to send it in for repair. The bill: $400.
That's exactly what my current camera (a Sony a6000) is worth today, brand new.
Over the years, I've found that using a cheap camera has actually a lot of benefits over a more expensive one.
Read MoreI've been testing out my iPad Pro 9.7" (2016) as my sole device for writing, photo editing and video editing. I will be talking about the whole experience in more depth soon, but today I wanted to share the easiest way I've found to copy video files from a Sony camera to the iPad.
Read MoreVery, very rarely you will see me recommending content from YouTube like this.
However, some of the movies that The Atlantic is putting out in their series The Atlantic Selects are brilliant pieces of filmmaking and storytelling. I think they are the best content I've ever watched on YouTube.
These are two of my favorites, but I really encourage you to take a look at the other videos of this series. You won't be disappointed.
A few days ago and while working on my YouTube channel, I came across some of the first videos I made.
They are just horrible.
I was partly aware of this when I published them, but at the time I was doing my best.
Today, I have better gear and I know more about video than I did back then. Most of this improvement happened because I started uploading videos and realized what was working and what could be improved.
If I had aimed for perfection I would have never published any video, post or image, ever.
We need to finish. A finisher gets better and better every time they put something out there. Only through practice can we improve.
I hope to come back to my current videos in a few years and see that, once again, they look horrible. That could only mean that my filmmaking skills improved.
Despite the lack of it, color is very important in Black and White Photography.
White Balance (or Color Balance) is one of most commonly used tools (it's actually two: temperature and tint) in color photography to modify the warmth and tint of an image.
It is overlooked by many when it comes to Black and White imagery, but we'll see why you might want to add this tool to your monochrome editing workflow.
Read MoreThese are some of the images I've made of some objects with my Bronica and Ilford FP4. Watch the video here.
In this day and age where AI is starting to take over photography (see: portraits of people that don't exist made by AI, one is tempted to think that photography is doomed.
I believe this might open new opportunities for (human) artists, actually.
Read MoreWhen we see something that catches our eye, it's very tempting to focus on that and start shooting from where we’re standing. This is a mistake.
A good subject is not enough to make a good image.
It's very important to stop and give the scene some time, see beyond the obvious and pay close attention to the background and the edges of our frame. They can make or break an image.
Even the most beautiful subject will make for a bad image with the wrong background.
Read MoreI'm spending some time in the country trying to reflect and getting to know myself a bit better. As I put aside all my cameras, this is the perfect excuse to convince my wife to let me use her Fujifilm X100T.
I've always loved this camera. It's already a bit old (it was released in 2014) but still working perfectly fine and creating stunning images.
These are some of my impressions.
Read MoreThere's a little living room on the second floor at my parent's house. It's home to ancient books, old radios, a TV from the 1950s, a big wooden desk, and even a display cabinet with some old phones and model trains.
In between a shelf and the frame of the door, there's a vertical and narrow bit of empty wall. You wouldn't even notice it, but my dad asked me to make a vertical panorama so they could hang it there and fill that barren space.
What's up with this aversion for empty spaces? Why do we need to fill everything with stuff?
Read MoreIt's an old trick that my mind likes to play on me. Whatever I do, even if I feel like I did a good job, it always comes to whisper: "you could have done much better than that".
I'm taking a break. Not because I'm burnt out but because I want to listen to that whisper. I want to know if I can do better, I want to find my limits, I want to know myself better.
For the next 16 days -when I have my next photography trip- I will be focusing on those areas that I've been neglecting: self-care, reflection and study.
Read MoreI am a photographer, and I need my images to be seen.
Years ago, that would mean I'd have to persuade magazines, chase publishers or convince galleries. And even then, not having the right contacts would pretty much seal my fate as a photographer.
Today, the attention has shifted and very few people buy photography magazines or books anymore. A big chunk of people's lives is spent online, and for most of that time they are where everyone else is: social media.
Read MoreThey say film photography forces you to think more because every shot costs you money. Digital is "free".
I disagree. In fact, I believe digital photography can be very, very expensive.
Read More
