Greek Cycling Championship, April 2009

Here are some photos from the Greek Cycling Championship, Athens April 2009. I was there to snap some fast-action shots. Enjoy!

If you took part in the races, I have many more photos of the participants. Email me for a copy for you or your team! ( The same if you want me to remove any photographs from this blog ).

Nathan David

A few weeks ago, I had the honour and pleasure to visit the studio of Nathan David, a renowned sculptor.

A large proportion of his work has to do with dancers. As you see below, the movement is captured very realistically.

However, the faces are the ones that stay in my mind: very expressive or thoughtful, as if they have paused for a second and will turn to face you and continue the long discussion you two were having or ask you to leave because you are interrupting the dance routine...

Enjoy a few shots from that day.

Wildlife

As promised, here are some wildlife photos. A bit funny, I would say, and spooky.

At some point, I will create separate links for different categories of photos, as soon as I get round to it :). Enjoy wildlife for now!

Landscapes

A few more photos from my archives, some landscape shots this time. Look out for some wildlife next!








Thank you for clicking!

Sample Photos

Below you can see some more photos of my work. They are from a lot of different "categories", and will talk about each in turn.
I have tried a variety of subjects and settings for taking photos. I have shot two marriages ( not as the official photographer ), I have tried macro, spent some time on wildlife and general portraiture. Lately, I am fascinated by colour and shape.
This shot is from a pizzeria in Bayswater, London. Nothing fancy, I snapped this on a night out with friends. Velvia 50 film helps bring out the colour of the lamps as vibrant red. I always shoot my object shots with vibrant colours in mind, and I usually leave an 81A ( warming ) filter on the lens to make them slightly warmer.





Macro is a league of its own. I got a macro lens for Christmas last year ( my girlfriend still mentions it, as it was quite an expensive lens and she doesn't see it often ). This lens is for special occasions: portraits and shots of small things. Here are a few small subjects:
I took the next shots at Wisley Gardens, which is a botanological park close to London. It has a large tropical glass-house, which during winter is more or less the only part of the park with any flowers. In order to attract more visitors, the management bought and released in the glass-house thousands of butterflies.
I spent a day there with a good friend of mine, shooting a 105mm, f/2.8 macro on my D300. Used a tripod for most of the shots, folded as a monopod, because it wasn't sturdy enough to be used open and there wasn't enough space to move with its lower part open. We snapped hundreds of photos, like these.
They are quite something, aren't they? Again, went for vivid colours and tried to have high impact composition, not the easiest thing if the butterflies won't stand still!









This red butterfly was actually black and white on the outside.

Here is a crop from the center of the image. Spooky!

In the next post, I will show more of the macro lens for portraiture, as well as some wedding and landscape work. See you later!

Holga

I got a Holga camera a few weeks ago from the Photographers' Gallery. I had such a hard time finding reliable information on it on the internet, so decided to share my experience.

This is a funny, fun, plastic camera. It costs from 25 pounds upwards ( about 40 USD at the moment ), depending on the model. The one I got is the "expensive" one, GN, which has a glass lens. The original holga had a plastic one ( and still has, it is Holga N ). The lens is primitive, though, only one element and no coating. The aperture can be changed between two settings, both quite small ( f/8 and f/13, apparently ). Shutter speed is about 1/100 sec and there is a "bulb" choice, for long exposures. There are four focus settings, ranging from 1m to 10m, though that is again an estimate...

Let's see a picture from it:


This is as shot on a Fuji 160C film ( see below ). What can we say? There is a lot of distortion, first of all. The lines of the building are not parallel, and the flat windows seem wobbly. The focus is somewhere in the lower center, but not sure exactly where. If you see it in full size, you realize that it is soft all over. Light is massively reduced as you look outwards. Why would anyone want to shoot this camera, especially with no real control over the process?

Well, here is another shot from the Holga:

This one has the same issues. It is distorted ( check the bridge ), it has focused sort of in the center, it is soft and the sides are dark. So? Doesn't all this give it a melancholic feeling? Doesn't it tell a story? So, for pictures of buildings it might not be the best camera. But you can still employ it to convey your feelings!

About the film it takes, it is 120 film, which is about 60mm tall and can give you 12 square shots at 6x6 cm or 16 shots at 6x4.5 cm. You get two masks with the GN model, so no sweat, it is up to you. I prefer 6x6, personally. My choice of 160 ISO film was not the best, though, as most of my first two rolls were massively under-exposed. I would go for 400 for hand-held or room shots.

More next time!

Some Velvia Scans

Like most people my age, I started photography with a digital compact. I knew almost nothing about photos, other than I hated taking photos with my dad's film camera.


The digital compact was such a refreshing experience that I was quickly hooked! It took me a couple of years to outgrow it and move to the next camera, a Sony again ( seen in the picture to the right ). Again, a great camera, lots of pictures and lots of memories stored. However, something was missing.


Another two years, and I got myself my first digital SLR, a Nikon D300. I got this one with a mission to start creating art. My art. And while doing that, I realized that film might also be worth a look... I got a second-hand Nikon ( I only paid for the lens, the camera just happened to be attached to it :) ). Then a friend gave me a Yashica rangefinder. Last month I even got myself a Holga!


I am still shooting my D300 90% of the time I am going to meet friends, or have a shooting assingment. However, I always carry one of the film cameras over my shoulder on my way to work, or coming back. I even got a scanner ( Epson V500 ) to scan the film myself.


Anyway, I just got back my first roll of Fuji Velvia 50, the standard in professional landscapes from what I am reading. I was blown away by the vivid colours and fine grain.


Here are a couple test shots... Enjoy!


I will review my gear in future posts.