Composition workshop

For the composition workshop, the following links to dropbox folders.

Sommittelu ja erottelu

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/p1ecpzdasrl9zla/AABjxNQCS-by3DsqeyTnSowCa?dl=0

Sommittelu

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/z8ztkfzvckwcges/AADhcw9tzLnyyyy8yebamGooa?dl=0

Tunna ja Riku

Tunna ja Riku, originally uploaded by mungozan.

Last weekend in Kuva & Kamera. Riku and Tunna, gyus from TV show “Madventures” signing stuff..

Interesting story behind undoubtedly a very iconic portrait.

Iconic Photos

.

It was one of the most famous portraits ever made. Some say it was one of the most reproduced images in history. LIFE put it on its cover when WWII ended. The photo was taken by one of the most famous portrait photographers, Yousef Karsh — known as Karsh of Ottawa — on 30 December, 1941, after Churchill gave a speech to Canadian House of Commons in Ottawa. [On the 60th anniversary of that famous speech, Canada honored Karsh and Churchill with a commemorative stamp featuring above photo.]

Karsh was hired by the Canadian government to do this portrait and knew he would have very little time to make the picture. He began by researching Churchill, taking notes on all of the prime minister’s habits, quirks, attitudes and tendencies. When he finally got Churchill seated in the chair, with lights blazing, Churchill snapped. “You have two minutes. And that’s it, two minutes.” The…

View original post 397 more words

Helsinki-Vantaa, Cafe Tori

20111119_205818_1040069.jpg, originally uploaded by mungozan.

The trip to Singapore is about to begin. I still have couple of hours before the departure from Finland, but I guess it is not too bad idea to be early, rather than late.

The flight will be about 12 hours, so plenty of time to get bored on the plane, in addition to the airport.

Luckily, the flight from Finland is a direct one. I guess I am getting a little excited about the trip 🙂

0.T.

0.T., originally uploaded by mungozan.

Time to start this Photo-a-Day blipping again. Hopefully this time I can keep on posting images.. Anyway: the rust had eaten the paint on this hay trailor. The text actually said “1600 T”. I liked the form that rust had made there. Also, the colors remind me of autumn we are facing. Hence this posting.

Two realities

Two realities, originally uploaded by mungozan.

Sometimes, when shooting, you get this surreal feeling from a situation opening up in the front of you. This was one of those occasions. The gyu didn´t pay any attention to event taking place one meter behind him in the street.

I took this shot with my Panny, which actually made him notice me, but still nothing regards to the kissing couple.

I wanted to increase the surreal feeling with some rather heavy post-processing.

Via Flickr:
Shot in Jyväskylä, the guy in the picture did not have a clue about things happening in the background. Also, some Holga-like post-processing.

Anatomy of a street shooting session

I was shooting the streets in the center of the city yesterday. For some reason I tried to break out of my usual street shooting pattern. Maybe the sun boiled my brain, who knows. Anyway, instead of shooting everything that moved about, I tried to establish a some sort of contact with people I wanted to shoot. Of course, this is something that should always be done, but to actually do it.. well lot more difficult than one would think!

What was also odd about this session was that I actually didn´t shoot that much. No sir, almost every picture I took yesterday is here. (Of course I didn´t include the duplicates of the each picture or the lousy picture of a police car I took.. But other than that, all are here..)

One more thing: the way I shoot most of these. Instead of trying to look invisible, I tried to look as visible as possible. I bolted a flash unit with diffusor in my camera and made it very clear for all, what I was doing: photography. This actually helped to establish the contact in some cases. Maybe I move towards this Martin Parr -type photography even more in the future. So I´ll just have to start hunting for a small softbox that goes well with HONL speed straps. That´ll make the camera even bigger 😉

The bottom line: I thought it would be fun to post here the anatomy of the whole session I spend shooting. Just remember that the time between consists of loitering about and scanning the street for something interesting to see. Anyway, moving on to the pictures. Are you ready?

The first picture I shot was done the “traditional way”. Traditional for me, anyway. I saw the situation and seized the moment. Before I shot the picture, I stood there contemplating the situation for a while. They saw me, but didn´t seem to react to my interest. I took this as a sign that it is ok to shoot them.

First one, situational. The awareness about the photographer is there, even though not visible.

Next I moved on, towards a stand where few people were telling about their convinctions and things they do to make a difference. You´ll have to guess the subject I´m afraid. Anyway, I stopped there for a quick chat, for their initiative, when they offered me a cup of coffee. After chatting there for a while I felt completely comfortable to snap a couple of pictures.

First pic of that stop, these persons offered me a cup of coffee. After a while I offered them a chance to get photographed.

Second picture of that stop. With her, I spend most time talking to. She seemed interested about what I was doing. At the end, I asked if I could snap a picture of her.

Third stop: a terrace at the local Tex Mex -restaurant. These gyus asked me, if I could take their picture. And I did. This proves the fact that when the camera is big & visible enough, some people might actually want to appear on your pictures.

"Hey Mr, can you take our picture?"

Next, I returned back on my footsteps and stopped at this line for ice cream. I noticed this young chap with pink clothing and thought it would be cool to take his picture. I waited a while, so he had spotted me, and then continued to take the picture of the line. Again, I made a conclusion that it was ok to shoot him (no pun intended) because I didn´t see any signs of objection. The rest of the people on the line might or might not have noticed me, but the girl in red shirt sure did.

Ice cream line.

The next picture sure was interesting. The girl did notice me, you can tell by the slight smile on her face. Maybe she thought that the guy with that big a camera surely is pro. So no objections there either.

Fixing the shoe. Sure, crab your shot mister!

We are always told, that it is a no-no to take pictures of street musicians, because that subject is so worn out. I took it anyway. Again, they know very well that I´m right there, shooting the scene.

Street musicians.

In the next picture I cheated a little. I´m guessing that the couple sitting on the terrace assumed that I was shooting the musicians, when in reality, I was shooting them. I think the wine was not that bad, it must be the “music”.

She doesn´t think they are real musicians.

Next, once more that situation you run into very often when shooting the streets. You try to make yourself either invisible or visible. The latter was the case in here, but still there is no way to tell whether she knew I was taking her picture.

The lady with a dog, occupied with her cell phone.

The final picture of the session was of this lady, who initiated a chat with me. She started by asking me about the magazine I was shooting for. We ended with a nice chat about life and hobbies as well as work. In the end I asked if I could take her picture and she thanked me for it.

The lady who wondered about the newspaper I was shooting to.

So, what did I learn? It was interesting to notice how this type of approach actually gave me quite a good rate of decent pictures and situations. I think that the outcome from this shoot was much better than usual, when I´m doing the street shooting more in the spirit of HCB. I´ve decided, that I sure will try this approach again. This also proves two things in photography:
1) If you can´t get a good picture, it is because you, the photographer, build a barrier between you and your work.
2) If a photographer can´t get a goof picture, he/she is not close enough.

We´ll continue from that 😉

Surprised!

Surprised, originally uploaded by mungozan.

It´s been a while since I´ve posted anything over here, sorry about that. I try to correct that now and try to post an image at least once a week, starting now.

Yesterday evening, I was shooting at Kokkola evening market as I´ve done couple of times before. As usual, I was scanning through the market place, looking for people to shoot (no pun intended).

When I came across this stand with sunglasses, the girl was leaning over and organising the sunglasses. She didn´t notice me at first, so I thought I´d try something different.

I bowed down before her, taking my time to frame and waiting for her to notice me. When she did, I took the picture. Her reaction was surprised, but she was amused in a friendly way. So I think this method certainly paid off.

Something to try next time as well, I think..

Some tech info for you techies out there:

Camera: Canon EOS 50D
Exposure: 0.003 sec (1/400)
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 17 mm (EF 17-40 f4 L)
Exposure: 0.00
ISO Speed: 100
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: No Flash

Latin Show Dancers

20090516-183644-4187-Edit_sRGB, originally uploaded by mungozan.

I was shooting a city festival called “Yläkaupungin Yö” last saturday. There numerous performances, people wandering around in the University end of Jyväskylä city center. Here is the first shot of the series, one of the Latin Show Dancers dance group explaining something about their performance.

And another one with dancers in action:

20090516-183818-4209-Edit_sRGB, originally uploaded by mungozan.

More shots in my flickr photostream. Later also more from other performances and subjects.

Easter bonfire

20090411-213630-1535_sRGB, originally uploaded by mungozan.

We were at Bothnia during the easter, this was one of the shots I took there by the bonfire. Shot with 5D + 35 f1.4L + 580EX on remote. On flash, there was warming filter and a diffusor thingy made from Ikea´s drawer plastic and a foam from local arts & crafts shop..

More shot on my flickr photostream, as usual.