I’ve been wanting to update my website since quite a bit of time now. Since I didn’t find anything on the web that could fit my need (wasn’t convinced by Carbonmade or The BigBlackBag), I decided to do it myself, a chance I was searching for something simple and efficient !
The fact is that I wasn’t very happy with the way my photographs were presented. Indeed, showing photographs by “category” does not make any kind of sense, it creates absurd situation like having a bald eagle next to an otter (and I can find worst). Anyway, images are now presented by projects, it will give you a much better sense of the place, combining wildlife and landscape. This presentation actually changes the subject itself, now it’s not so much about one particular photograph, it’s about a place, an ambiance.
Top 5 new features:
Images organized by projects.
Images shown as the ones in top of the others, a kind of “Boston big picture style”, allowing user to quickly go through the pictures.
Equipment page. A draft for now, I’ll be posting soon a “what’s in my bag” video.
Print page, in construction for now, this will requires a bit of work.
While viewing images, a click on one of them will give you the EXIF data.
Please note that this is still a BETA, I just started working on it 4 days ago. I’ll be fixing and adding (A LOT) stuff for the next 2 months. Please don’t hesitate to let me know how was your experience on the website, on this blog or via email.
Sunday I went into Downtown Lyon (France) to relax and act like a tourist in my home town, something I happen to enjoy a lot. Lyon is a place with tons of hidden places and secrets. A tiny street through a building can lead you to another one, that connects to a square which leads you to an interesting monument (got it ?).
I’m not playing around with digital processing with my nature photography work, everything has to be achieve with the camera. However, I happen to play a lot with it when it comes to portrait or street/architecture photography. These examples taken from my yesterday’s session are just that, examples.
Here is some thoughts:
Sometime, an advanced processing is just a way to “add” something to a photograph that hasn’t any particular interest without it. I’m particularly watchful on this.
With all those tools all around, the temptations has never been so strong for the public to play around with their digital photographs.
In the same time, it can be a playground for creativity.
I guess it has to add something to the story/feeling you’re telling with your photograph.
It’s also a matter of style and personal choice. I’m personally not that much into digital processing, I think it has to be done with parsimony and a lot of care.
Some photographers are particularly gifted with digital tools, however I think we’re here getting closer to “Digital Art” than “Photography”.
Those Monday nights’ thoughts are pretty far from being engraved on marble, they’re here for you to discuss.
3 days, almost 6000 ft (1800m) incline from the start, only freeze-dried food, a heavy duty sleeping bag, a super light tent and a 5D Mark II, these 3 days of hike in the Alps were magic. Hiking among the ibex is a pretty cool feeling, those guys are really curious about what’s going on, especially for dinner. For this trip, I only took the Canon 70-200 f/4 IS (so light and sharp!) and the Canon 17-40 f/4. The problem I had is the dust that’s jumping on the sensor each time I was changing the lens. I wasn’t having this problem with small sensor cameras but the Full Frame of the Mark II is really attracting every possible dust around it. I guess next time I will take the 5D Mark II + 17-40 and the 7D + 70-200, so that I won’t have to move the lens.
#1, #2 : the hight point of the trip, 7000 ft.
#3, #4: Ibex in their breath taking environment.
#7, #8: 5:30 in the morning, time to wake up for the ibex.
#11: Mountain chain of the Mont Blanc (Mount White), Europe’s highest point.
Point Reyes was hot and clear this weekend, almost no fog and a very few clouds in the sky. I thought it was a good time for hiking the Estero Trail (8 miles round trip) but it was actually a pretty bad idea, I almost get eaten by mosquitoes. I had never seen mosquitoes like that, big and in huge number. I ended up with something like 10 bites (not so bad) and a lot of aches because I couldn’t stop during the trail. The good thing is that I realized that 8 miles with my full backpack (20 pounds) without any stop is not very far from my body limit. Technically, the biggest challenge wasn’t in the field but in front of the computer, my Laptop had a lot of trouble making the image #12, a panorama of 4 Canon 5D II images, I will be curious to see how a Mac Pro handle this job. As usual, I hope you will enjoy and be excited by the pictures below, they required, even more than usual, a big amount of work and sweat.
I was again on the road this weekend, heading for Point Reyes for another time. This place is truly inspiring to me. Everything makes a lot of sense in this place, the landscapes, the colors, the sounds, everything. During this trip, I had a chance to see 2 bobcats (lynx) but never got a chance to photograph anyone of them because everything happened too fast. I’ve also been seriously working on Northern Harrier (“Busard Saint Martin” in French, picture #1). I spotted a couple of nests and I spent a bit of time in a hide waiting for them to show up. As usually, I truly hope you will like the pictures, they, especially this time, required a lot of work and sweating.
This past weeks, I have been seriously thinking about Camera Trap Photography. If your not familiar with it, it is basically a system that allows you to take picture while you’re not there. It uses most of the time infrared beam to detect motion and then trigger the camera accordingly. Several companies are doing such tools but most of the time they are intended for scientists and statistics uses, which means that the quality of the pictures taken with these devices is very poor. However, some company are making tool that allows you to use your own DSLR system, the most famous one is TrailMaster (http://www.trailmaster.com/index.php). The TraiMaster 1550PS device had been use by Photographers like Mike Nichols or Steve Winter for years and seems to be the perfect solution for Photographers. However, to get results, these national geographic guys are using a LOT of these units (14 in the Steve Winter’s snow leopard quest) over a very long period of time.
Schema of a Camera Trap
That’s been said, I think that by focusing on more common species (example: Bobcats in North California) and by working with Rangers and spending a lot of time in the field locating wildlife spots, it is possible to get results, even if nothing is guaranteed. An obvious anf air question that you may have (and that I’ve been asked) is why spending so much time and money for doing Camera trap for species that you can get close to by hiking or even using Photographic Blinds ? Well, the biggest reason is trying to get something different, seing the animal on a different angle, something that I couldn’t do by staying behind the lens, even in a Photographic Blind. I think there is artistically something to do on this side of the Photographic world. Camera trap can help to be creative, that’s all matters to me. Avices ? questions ? critiques ? just go ahead.
No much news on this blog from a long time, so sorry about that. I actual moved back to California and in the same time I’m under the process of renewing most of my equipment. Consequently, I recently decided to sell my Canon 50mm f/1.4 lens to get the famous among the famous Canon 85mm f/1.2 II one. This lens is one of the most exclusive and extreme one of the whole Canon line of professional Lenses. It produces absolutely outstanding diffuse background and is able to produce some very unique pictures. Canon calls it the “definitive portraiture lens“. If you think that an aperture of f/1.8 is gathering a lot of light, just remember that this lens is gathering twice as much light at f/1.2, allowing you to take handheld pictures in your Grandma’s wine cellar or in a Grizzly cave. This chunk of glass (1 Kilogram = 2.25 lbs) is also a challenge to use since it is very hard to focus on a subject with a f/1.2 aperture. Using this aperture, you’re likely to screw up 90% of your photographs due to focus errors. If you’re (as I am) a “one shot AF mode” shooter, you’ll have to change your habit since focusing and then recomposing will most probably end up in loosing the focus at f/1.2. I’ve been testing this lens the whole week and from this (very) little experience, I can say that the only way to get a proper focus at f/1.2 is to use the Live View feature, to zoom into your subject eyes and to make a manual focus this way. Wow, at last a real use for the Live View Feature ! Naturally, I’m going to have to experiment a lot before mastering this lens and I’ll update this blog very soon by giving samples of my work using it. Below is the pictures I took this afternoon in a park near to my place. All the pictures below are taken at f/1.2, notice how only the eyes are in focus. Almost no processing has been done on these pictures (except the Black and white one ) !
Il y a quelques semaines, je saluais la sortie du CANON EOS 5D MARK II, le premier reflex doué de vidéo HD de chez Canon. Ce reflex étant maintenant sorti, c’est avec le plus grand plaisir que les DP (Director of Photography) et Director (Réalisateur, traduction pour comprendre la vidéo ci dessous) se ruent sur la bête pour la tester. Dans cette vidéo, un DP a travaillé avec toutes les caméras HD/reflex vidéo du moment sur une même scène afin de faire une comparaison la plus honnête possible. On commence par du film 35mm et on fini avec le CANON 5D MII en passant par la RED, la HVX 200 et j’en passe, un vrai régal.
Zacuto, a video accessory maker and reseller, has posted an interesting comparison video showing the same scene recorded with the Canon EOS 5D Mark II, Nikon D90, various other HD-capable video cameras plus 35mm motion picture film. The comparison itself it somewhere like in the middle of the video. Please don’t hesitate to set the video to fullscreen !
Maintenant une vidéo promotionnelle nous montrant quelques kits possibles.
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