Thoughts
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Money Doesn’t Smell
The main photo depicts a Syrian kid surrending to a photographer, whose camera she thought was a weapon, while the side pictures are automatically displayed by the advertising engine of the online newspaper. There is a contrast between the brutal reality where the kid lives and the luxury aura implied by the two fashion shot that shows how insensitive magazine editors can be. I understand the need to monetize every click or content, but I’m not sure that this is the right way to do it. Why don’t chose, for instance, to advertise a fund raising campaign supporting UNICEF or Doctors Without Borders? And, by the way, I don’t understand…
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YANE – Yet Another Nepal Exhibit
This the poster of Yet Another Nepal Exhibit. It is hard to see the point in going to the other end of the world to take pictures that, as a Google Image Search shows, have already been shot zillions of time. In other words: taking original photos in Nepal is very hard. This teach a simple lesson: going overseas in the belief that the place makes the photo is wrong.
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The Street Photographer Dilemma: Film or Digital
To me Street-Photography is digital. I missed this shot because I wasn’t able to properly focus my full-manual kit, as I would have do with an average digital camera. There is no point in wasting film in an highly fault-rate activity such as Street Photography.
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From Camera to Print…
This is what happens when a shot is not taken thinking of its final destination (or when a graphic editor doesn’t consider what the outcome would be once printed): a poor rendition.
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Dress Different
According to the fashion-photography standards this is a perfectly usable shot. To me, that’s simply a missed photo.
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The Leica M9 CCDgate Outrageous Case
This is not “new” news, but is getting momentum: Leica M9′ sensors (including those fitted into the more than expensive “special” models) are plagued. The repair cost is 1.800,00 Euros plus VAT and shipping, not to mention the time needed to get the camera back (weeks? months?) Leica claims to offer paid support to the older, out-of-warranty customers but just doing a few math shows that it doesn’t worth it: if you own a between-three-and-five-years old M9 you’re supposed to pay 600,00 Euros (plus VAT etc.) while more-than-five-years old M9 owner will pay 1.200 Euros (plus VAT etc.) to get an old and outdated camera new sensor, affected by the…
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Norwegian Suits
A missed opportunity for a good photo. I shot too early and failed to frame the guy with the bicycle whose look would have been a nice “counterpart” with the serious attire of the businessmen he was crossing.
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An Old Camera
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Italy, Street-Photography and The Law – A Real Case
Last July, members of the Polizia municipale of Rome seized the camera of a British-Brazilian street-photographer, Simon Griffee, while he was documenting the way they dealt with an immigrant. As Simon’s lawyer I’ve filed an appeal and a week ago the Court of Rome revoked the seizure. The battle is not over, yet, but hopefully Simon’s camera will be back on his hands pretty soon. As soon as possible I will release a thorough analysis of the case matched with what the law says, in theory.
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Pentax k-5 And The Aquapack 458
Like the other two previous pictures, this one too has been taken by a Pentax K-5 housed into an Aquapack 458. This underwater housing, at least for APS-C dSLR, is a cheaper alternative to the more expensive, though bigger and better engineered, Ewa Marine. It fairly easy accommodates the camera and the DA* 16-50, but using this lens that has a 77mm filter thread forces the use a focal lenght of at least than 40-45 mm, otherwise the border of the external cap fills-in the picture. A DA* 16-50 at 16mm (I repeat: with a 77mm filter thread) is the bigger lens that can be accommodated into the housing, but…
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The Street Photographer Rights In Italy. The Leaflet
Here is an easy-to-carry A4 leaflet to be used in case you are confronted by a law enforcement agent of officer that question your Street Photography activity. Legal issues apart, please remember to always be polite and to help the officer not to look goofy or ignorant (as he actually would) in front of the public. Q. Does taking people’s photography in public spaces infringes sec. 615 bis of the criminal code? A. NO. Under the Corte di cassazione ruling n. 47165/2010 outdoor there is no reasonable privacy expectation, as there is no reasonable privacy expectation in case of tacit – while non equivocal – withdrawal of this right, as…
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Who Needs A Wedding Photographer Anymore?
I took this picture at a friend’s wedding. Though there was an “official” photographer, almost all of the attendees did their own “service”. They spent the majority of their time (and of their mobiles’ batteries) by obstructing the professionals on duty to get mostly irrelevant and low quality pictures. This is the main reason I chose not do weddings and – in general – ceremonies.
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60×40 Borderless Printing with a HP Z3200ps 24
Printing a 60by40cm image on a A1 roll (61cm wide) should be a pretty straightforward task: well, not on a printer like the HP Z3200. To cut the story, here are the settings: set your image landscape, and size it 60 by 40 cm, set your CANVAS size to 61,8 by 41 cm with a white background (highlighted in red, in the picture) so that the final image size is, indeed, 61,8 by 41, In the Print Settings menu select the Paper Size option and set a custom page size of 61 by 40,5, Again, in the Print Settings menu select the Margins/Layout menu and check the Borderless radio button,…
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Noon on the Beach
Another experiment with the Nikkor 16mm F/3,5 Fish-Eye. Using this lens in a less conventional way is really challenging for the composition. Keep trying.
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Damned Autofocus
I like this photo very much. The two travelers, mutually unbeknownst, stroke a pose like if they were on duty fashion models. Unfortunately, the Fujifulm X-E1 autofocus didn’t work fast enough and, as I’ve already told, zone-focusing is a pain in the neck without a properly marked focus-ring. Long live to Hasselblad, Zeiss, Leica and Nikon…
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Brain vs Camera
The picture on the left is what the camera saw. The picture on the right is what I had in mind while shooting. Thanks to Photoshop I’ve been able to bend the “objectivity” of the camera along the line of my creativity.
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A Fujifilm X-E1 Annoyance
The X-E1 is a good camera, though has some annoyances that make it less handy for Street Photography. Contrary to Leica, (some) Zeiss or (some) Nikon lenses, zone-focusing is not set on the lens barrel. You must do it either through the viewfinder or the LCD, and this makes problematic the switch from one technique to another. Same is true for aperture settings. Operating the camera one-handed, happened twice to me, led to a change of the image quality settings from RAW to Jpg. Unfortunately I wasn’t aware while shooting and I’ve wasted half a day in Barcelona getting inferior quality pictures.
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Street-Photographer’s eye side effect
Seeing the world through the Street-Photographer’s eye makes you more aware of your surroundings both at a conscious and unconscious, Zen-like, level. A side-effect of this state is that you can exploit-it for personal safety when traveling in risky places, like big stations where pickpockets are doing their tricks.
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Hanging Towels
This is what happens when coupling a summicron 50 (third gen) with a Fujifilm X-1.
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Is This Photo Illegal?
Yes, if it were taken in Hungary. Against the European Convention of Human Rights, Hungary passed a law that by next March 15 will require any photographer shooting in public space to obtain a signed “model release form”. This provision will be bashed by either the EU Court of Justice or the European Court of Human Rights (for the very same reasons I explained here), but it will take time and – first of all – a photographer that sacrifices himself on the altar of freedom.
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Italy, Landscape Photography and the Law – Part Two
In a previous post I addressed some of the legal issues involved in Landscape Photography where copyright was willfully not mentioned: since copyright is an outcome of human creativity who might ever think of imposing it over a landscape? Well, as much as it sounds crazy, somebody did it: on 2o11 the Town of San Quirico d’Orcia, in Tuscany, passed a local regulation that copyrights landscape images and artistic, cultural, environmental and architectural “stuff”, making mandatory pro shooter to ask for an authorization before starting their sessions. This local regulation is simply illegal, because “copyright” implies an act of creativity, while the landscape in itself doesn’t (unless you believe in…
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Just a soccer field… Part 2
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The Google Experiment
The usual note: I don’t write about gear. But this time I want to do an experiment inspired by the consequences of having the post about Street Photography and Italian Law bounced by Adam Marelli and Luminous-Landscape. Since these two websites channeled my post around the world, the access to (other parts too of) my blog – mostly unknown, previously – steady increased. I’m far from saying that I’ve reached an “audience”, nevertheless this blog is gaining its space among the zillions of pictures that live on the Internet. And it is “quality” space, meaning that visitors (you’re always welcome, folks!) find something of interest by looking at my pictures…
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Good Idea
… bad execution. The shot would have been acceptable if the head of the fisherman had the sky as a background instead of the bow.
