Great puddle shots in the rain are tough to find.
There’s the famous one by Henri Cartier-Bresson.
But I really feel that the constant practice of photography engendered by the Internet’s social media has turned photography into a daily practice and that the 21st century has already done better than this classic on thousands of photos.
I’ve chosen two.
There’s this photo produced commercially as an ad for clothing rentals:
Also there’s this photo by Ted Chin:
This photo taken by Trent Parke in 1998 screams of many contrasts: light and dark, wet and dry, soft and harsh, under-exposed and over-exposed. The last contrast seems quite intentional given Parke’s oeuvre. He was a sports photographer (Street Photography Now, p. 129) and this has given him the speed, reflexes and confidence needed to take some chances by not using traditional apertures and shutter speeds, and yet yield great results. For example, in the above photo, given the same composition a street photographer would go for 1/250th of a second and as much depth of field as possible. While still keeping the same depth of field, Parke intentionally goes for a longer exposure, despite having adequate light, and ends up creating the play of light with the rain.
The challenge behind this photo is that you should take photos even if the weather is far from ideal. The reward is taking a photo way better than photographs of breakfast or comfy interiors.
I heard about Frances Ha from a friend in Sweden.
I read about mumblecore and its manifesto seemed very authentic to me.
The first scene in Frances Ha feels like something from a very pleasant dream or a reverie. We see two women who are having fun in a park, and then soon cut to running in the streets. Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind’s first 20 minutes comes to mind, yet the two women are not romantically involved. They are flatmates who share the deepest intimacy.
Unfortunately, this intimacy doesn’t last for long. Sophie, Frances’ flatmate, has other plans and just isn’t that into Frances in a platonic way. (You could call “Frances Ha” a bromance with chics.)
A very good job is done of making the audience feel just how close to Sophie Frances is. All the more heartbreaking when Sophie tosses Frances aside for an apartment in Tribeca, Manhattan.
The film accepts that we live in an age of friendships of convenience. We form deep intimacies yet are barely conscious of them being there and we so easily toss them aside. Does it have anything to do with mobile phones? Frances laments that Sophie’s phone with email seems to be more important to her than her.
I wish more films like this were made; they are after all low budget, but no budget can buy the insight into how we are living. Some might call the film NYC navel gazing; I’d like to call it great art.
So if you are newbie, and it is your 18th day, you probably have no followers and Instagram sucks.
So, it’s not looking good with my new Instagram account.
The followers I have are not engaged and seem to be bots fishing for likes and follows.
It feels like I’m being followed by spammers. At least there’s an app for fixing this. It’s called InstaFollow and it’s available in iPhone and Android versions.
I cessed out and followed the entire suggested users list.
I posted 2 photos that I haven’t published and was very conversational in how I interacted with folks on the suggested users’ list.
Only 2 people liked, commented and followed me back:
I went through this exercise because of a well thought out piece written by Jason H. Reinhart. He likened the Instagram to being a place of inequity:
I see people out here with 20k who respond to literally every comment and interact with others daily. While I see some with 100+k and up not make any effort to thank anyone in their comments unless it’s to respond to a fellow instagramer who has 100+K themselves. Yet it’s those who are always on the Suggested list. Instagram has turned into what America has turned into, the rich getting richer and the poor struggle to stay afloat. I’m sad to see this…
What do you think?
I volunteered to do a modeling shoot, and I got to learn a bit about how what apertures to use on a 50mm f/1.4 lens. In this case, I was using a Canon 50mm USM f/1.4 lens.
I don’t think you ever want to use it wide open since it gets really soft. At f/2.0 it is still soft but it has a nice blur. If you take a head shot at f/2.0, you get some really sharp eyes (if you focus there) and all the wrinkles blur away.
Do not use f/2.0 for a bust or full body shot. Bad idea. Everything is blurry.
When you get to f/5.0, that’s a great f-stop for a couple. You still aren’t tack sharp yet.
At f/5.6, you get tack sharp photos.
Beyond f/5.6 sharpness begins to fade, but just slightly.
These are my tips for newbies on Instagram.
1. When you first sign up follow a few select friends that will follow you back.
The Instagram community has suffered from the onslaught of spammers that actually sell fake follows and likes online. Don’t make the mistake of following every one of your facebook contacts and appear like one.
A spammy looking account has more followings than followers.
A non-spammy newbie account looks like this:
Sure she’s following more people than are following her, but with continued engagement via likes and photos, this user will eventually have better than less than a 1:1 ratio.
2. Straighten out landscapes unless you are going for dynamic tension.
Photographers trained in film were taught to straighten out landscapes. Ya, I know, it sounds lame from a “there are no rules in art” perspective, but there it is. Lucky there are so few of us.
3. Don’t cut people off at the feet.
This is another prejudice of those trained in photography. It has to do with the notion that photography is about capturing a “subject,” but we post-moderns don’t believe in that, right? If photography is about capturing the subject it must do so completely.
4. Don’t follow people, get a follow back and then unfollow.
This is pretty douchey behavior reminiscent of MySpace days. While we are at it. Don’t ask for a shout out.
5. Don’t steal someone’s photo.
Got any other tips? Add them in the comments.
Cheers,
Barce.
This weekend, I learned about @syahrilaz (account deleted), an Instagrammer who stole photos from others that he posted as his own.
One of the photos that he purportedly stole is this one.
The guy supposedly was going to meet up with a bunch of real, big-time IGers. The guy’s supposedly from Egypt. This all reminds me of the play, Six Degrees of Separation. To say more would spoil it, but it is an awesome film with Will Smith and Stockard Channing.
Why do people steal photos that aren’t theirs?
By fits and starts I’ve been trying to write a novel ever since I read Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther. It’s a small book with an emo story of young love.
My first attempt involved a clever ending where the protagonist kills his antagonist right in front of the cops, but due to the nature of the murder, gets away with it scott free.
My second attempt involved a magical realism attempt to portray life in San Francisco during the 90s.
I am now on my 3rd attempt.
The problem I’ve run into is that the world is changing quickly. Also, my passion for an idea soon fades away. I lose the inspiration that made it possible to write in the first place.
It’s tough to write a novel because I need my emotions to fuel it. To keep these emotions (jealousy, love, hate, pity) going, I need to have little reminders of them. This is where notebooks and photos are really helpful. They spark and re-ignite the dead fire of what was supposed to be chapter 3. They also provide a lose structure.
I am hoping that this final attempt will produce “the novel.”