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Tag Archives: photographers
Brian Parillo: Skyscrapers of Downtown LA
As the clouds are rolling over the skyscrapers of downtown LA, it’s 3:30pm on a Sunday afternoon in the month of March. It’s empty down here for the most part. The business crowd won’t be back until tomorrow so driving around looking for potential shooting moments makes things feel a little safer on the driving end of things. However being safe is never usually a preoccupation when down here but finding the right moment is. I like the way the wind sounds on days like these when the streets are fairly empty. It’s a hollower sound and makes things feel even more desolate. As I see something lighting wise that looks interesting I decide to pull a quick u turn and park in the yellow loading only zone.
© Brian Parillo
It’s Sunday, nobody will care. I quickly change my lens and I feel like I’m in a race. What am racing for? Light usually and cloud positioning. These poor buildings. They must feel like I’m paparazzi when I show up because I really do want to invade them in every way. So out of my car I go as I begin staring up at these giants. It amazes me every time. I walk around them for a while and try to find something that looks different to me. Something that gives these enormous slabs of concrete a voice. I can imagine what I must look like to the average passerby.
© Brian Parillo
Lying in the middle of the street on my back or standing on some ledge must look fairly ridiculous. However, when I find a moment that truly speaks to me everything slowly goes to silent. The only thing I hear, which I ignore for as long as I can, is the security guard who is quickly walking toward me shouting “Sir, excuse me, Sir excuse me,! Excuse me!” Here’s where things get a little hairy. I’ve almost got my shot and he’s getting really close to ending this for me. I open up a little wider on my focal length, drop my camera speed one stop as the sun tucks behind a cloud, and I start shuttering away. “Excuse me Sir”, I hear again for the last time as I pull my camera down from my face. “Hi,” I say as politely as possible. “You can’t take pictures here,” he says as I ponder the idea of that phrase being my epitaph. “Oh you can’t?” “Okay sorry, take care.”
© Brian Parillo
As I get in my car I quickly review my shots. No, no , no, no, no, maybe, maybe, possibly but the light is a little to hot on the top portion of the far building in this shot. I may be able to save it in post. I start my car and off to the next location. I’ve always felt like some refugee on the run while stalking these buildings. It feels a bit sin city like down here and I’m enjoying every minute of it.
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I’ve been shooting architecture for quite a few years now. I choose to shoot in black and white mainly because it extenuates the lines of a building and because it separates the elements of the photograph resulting in a more clean and efficient look. It also creates a feeling as if you’re being dropped into a mysterious abstract world. I see integrity, elegance, strength and vulnerability in black and whites and I try to carry those emotions into my shots as well.
Website: www.brianparillophotography.com
Posted in Behind the Image, Black and White, Landscape
Also tagged Brian Parillo, photography
4 Comments
Colin Gallagher: Winter in Central PA
This shot was taken after the only real snowfall this year in Central PA. Failure to set an alarm led to a late start, missing sunrise by a good 3 hours. Grumbling that I may have missed and frozen beauty before the sun did its work, a friend and I hopped into his Subaru and headed out of town towards Poe Valley.
© Colin Gallagher
The road into the valley looked pretty well-plowed, which worried me. I wanted fresh snow. Untouched. My fears were soon dispersed as we made a right onto a side road and clearly left our mark as the first ones there since the snowfall. A mile drive through snow drifts and sagging, snow-laden evergreens later, we pulled off next to a bridge. Strapping on the boots, I headed out into the woods towards the lovely stream cutting through it. The first few shots were nice, and served their purpose in getting my juices (and warm blood) flowing as I stepped carefully from rock to rock, trying to get a shot down the stream towards the bridge. The game of cat and mouse with the sun was growing frustrating, the dark midday shadows cutting harsh lines through most of my pictures.
Enter Solstice, my friend’s adorable dog.
Crashing through the trees off the right side of my shot, a few of the smaller, bare trees brushed up against the evergreens towering over them, sending dusty snow sprinkling down through the sunlight. And just then, a breeze blew through. From the very tops of the pines, snow crystals began raining down all around me. The light from the sun softened, glittering as the cloud of snow diffused the harsh rays. I stood there, mesmerized for a moment while I got a second helping of falling snow in my own little part of Poe Valley. Then I remembered something…
Push the button, Colin.
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Colin is a 27-year-old Bellefonte photographer from Pennsylvania. His uncanny ability to completely destroy any piece of lighting equipment that he touches continually drives him outdoors to capture the breathtaking scenes Mother Nature has to offer.
Website: http://colintgallagher.com
Dipayan Bhattacharjee: Human Rights
A man crossing one of the busiest streets in the city with a load on his back which he has to deliver at a shop on the opposite side of the street, and that probably weighs ten times more than his own weight.
I was out on the streets trying to get a subject to shoot for an exhibition on “Human Rights”. It would be unfair if I took all the credit for this image. It so happened that I was looking in exactly the opposite direction from this subject when all of a sudden a friend of mine who was accompanying me in the shoot, pointed her hand right over my shoulder (reaching behind me) and shouted “human rights! human rights!” I immediately turned back and saw what I saw and a part of what you are seeing right now. I barely had the time to make any adjustments on the camera (luckily I had done that before). I just raised the camera to my eye and in less than a second I had released the shutter and the moment had also passed away. Would I be a milli-second late, I could have never got this shot. Because just as I pressed the shutter and even before I could remove my eye from the viewfinder, a big car went past right across my frame, and by the time the traffic emptied out, the person had already crossed the street.
Now about this person, it would be very unfair to say that he is doing it because he can. No! He is doing it because he has to. So that he can feed his family. Employment is a major problem in India, and so people literally do/have to do anything to earn a meal. But we can clearly see that the job this person is doing is inhuman. The smallest mistake and he could get crushed under the weight. Or maybe even run-over by a car.
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Dipayan Bhattacharjee is a passionate Street & Portrait Photographer who loves to show posed beauty as well as candid truth.
Website: http://50mmstreettog.blogspot.com/
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/xedmundian
Posted in Behind the Image
Also tagged Dipayan Bhattacharjee, photography, photos, rights, street photography
6 Comments
Hummers at High Speed
Humming birds can be a difficult subject to photograph. The rate of speed they move makes it almost impossible to photograph while in flight. Your best photo opportunities present themselves while these fast flyers are feeding or they land to take that rare break.
Over the years, I have anticipated their seasonal arrival, and with camera in hand, I begin taking advantage of some great photo opportunities. The first time I attempted to photograph hummingbirds, I was not pleased with the results. My images were not in focus, and often times came out grainy and overexposed. Learning from these photos, a different approach was used in an attempt to improve the image quality.
After reviewing my errors, it was determined that first off, I was in a rush; I did not take the time needed to properly dial my camera into the environment I was shooting in. Secondly, I used the wrong lens for the situation. A super zoom lens was used and I did not need to employ such a lens for the situation. Based on these mistakes, I wanted redemption, and would not be denied.
On an early Saturday morning, I set up my camera near the hummingbird feeder and proceeded to patiently wait for these fast flyers to start their morning feeding frenzy. Surprisingly I waited almost an hour for some action and when the birds started to feed, they noticed my presence. Every time I would move to focus on the subjects, they would immediately fly away. To capture the images I literally had to be in position and motionless to snap the images. Over the coarse of the morning, the hummingbirds became more comfortable with my presence and even began to land on some of the existing vegetation’s we had planted in years prior to clean themselves. Although I was able to capture some nice images with their long tongues out, my position had some obstructions in place that took away from those photos. My advice when trying to photograph hummingbirds is simple. Patience and time, Allow them to become comfortable with your presence. Doing so will benefit you greatly.
The shots: Canon camera and Tamron lens combination. 270mm focal length with an aperture of f-8. ISO setting at 400 with a shutter speed of 1/500 to 1/800 of a second.
Michael Sargent is a top wildlife outdoor photographer in the eastern United States. See more:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/M.SargentPhotography
Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/msargentphoto
Blog: http://msargentphotography.wordpress.com
Posted in Photography Techniques, Wildlife
Also tagged birds, Michael Sargent, photographs, photography, photos, techniques, tips, wildlife photography
5 Comments
Photography Collections at Victoria and Albert Museum, London
DSLBlog reader David Jones recommended I take a look at the Victoria and Albert Museum,London England saying “The museum has an extensive collection of examples of photography from the earliest to the present day”. You know what, I am glad he did, thanks for the link David.
They have a good collection of Photographers, everyone from Ansel Adams to Fred Zinnemann. The website is clean and informative and not heavily reliant on flash gimmicks like many museums.
Take a look at the V&A website here.
Technorati Tags: photography, museum, ansel, adams, photographers, news, gallery
Posted in Notable Photos, Random Thoughts
Also tagged adams, ansel, gallery, museum, news
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BBC Ripping Off Flickr Photographers?
It seems the venerable bastion of public-funded media, “Auntie” BBC, is being a bit naughty when it comes to sourcing photography from Flickr users according to Editorial Photographers UK
.. it seems also they are not above just taking what they want either …
You can see how a photographer would be flattered and would be willing to offer up their work just for the portfolio/resume potential and bragging rights. The BBC though should be above this kind of thing, they should be leading the way in fair treatment of the public as they are supposed to be there to serve the public. They will get nowhere arguing they are under funded, they are certainly well funded in comparison to other media outlets who do pay and are not propped up by a television tax.
Personally I see nothing wrong with the BBC asking for free contributions. The pictures are submitted voluntarily after all. They just need to get their legal people to be a bit more fair with what they have people agreeing to.
See the full discussion at flickr here
Technorati Tags: bbc, photography, scandal, media, copyright, photographers, law, rights, news