Strangers 4,5 and 6 - The Family

So back onto the my 100 Strangers project, which is tremendously lagging, I manged to get this lovely photo, of this young family enjoying themselves, after asking, of course, and they very generously let me take some photos! In my classes recently, we have particularly been focusing in on emotion, and I need to work more on showing it in my portraits, so this was an amazing opportunity to get some practice!

The editing consisted of curves and contrast editing, and that was it this time!

I'd like to thanks the family very much for letting me to take a photograph, It is much appreciated!

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Development Shoot - Sharpness and composition

Hello!
After my Windkarting shoot in the Summer, I went out on a shoot to develop the skills I felt I was lacking in, and I chose sharpness and composition for this development shoot. As my shot was taken at night, I used longer shutter speeds so the photos were properly exposed, and I made use of very slow apertures, (I used f/22 for most photos on this shoot)to keep the photo sharp, and make sure everything was in focus. Here are my final pieces after editing.

F/22 10 seconds ISO100

HDR photo, combining F/3.5 1/5 Second ISO 100 and F/22 30 Seconds ISO 100

Another  HDR photo, combining F/3.5 1/5 Second ISO 100 and F/22 30 Seconds ISO 100

Because it was a windy night, and I was using long exposure times, I used two photos, one long exposure photo, and one short exposure photo, and I then merged them, so I retained the sharpness of a fast shutter speed, while achieving effects only achievable by longer shutter speeds.

Thanks for looking, and feel free to knock some feedback down below! 

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Freelance photographer arrested on assignment.

A Freelance photographer, who was doing an assignment at the time for The New York Times has been arrested while he was on an assignment with two reporters, who at the time were in the progress of doing street interviews.
          The photographer, a Mr Robert Stolarik, who has worked in photojournalism for 15 years now was taking photos of a teenage girl who was being placed under arrest, at arround 10:30pm, until a police officer asked him to stop. The photographer identified himself as a photographer for The Times and continued to take photos. Then a second officer appeared, grabbed his camera and "Slammed" it into his face, Stolarik said. Stolarik then said he asked for the officer's badge numbers, then the officers took his cameras, and dragged him to the ground. He then stated he was kicked in the back, and stated he received bruises and scrapes to his arms, legs, and face.
            The statement issued by the police department said that the officers were trying to disperse the crowd, after giving “numerous lawful orders” to everyone in the crowd, including Stolarik. Then Stolarik apparently tried to push forward "inadvertently" striking an officer in the face with his camera. After this, the statement said Stolarik "violently resisted being handcuffed" and because of this, an officer was cut on the hand. As this was happening, one of the reporters with Stolarik got a video of him face down on the ground with 6 officers around him.
           After the incident, Stolarik was taken to the 44th Precinct station and was released at 4:40am. He then checked himself into New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center for X-rays., where he was let out with no broken bones, or any internal bleeding. 
          “It’s the most uncomfortable I've ever been as a journalist and I’ve had a gun to my head" “All of your rights can be take away instantly.” said the 35 year old photographer.
           Keith Bedford, a reporter for The New York Times was one of the reporters near Stolarik at the time of the incident. He said that even before Stolarik was arrested, police pushed him and shoved him to the ground. “They forced us off the sidewalk, hit us with nightsticks—shoving them into our chests,” the freelancer said.

 “This is an incident where it seemed the photographer was doing his job taking photographs, and the police overacted and attempted to intimidate him and block him, leading to his arrest,” Mr. Freeman said. Stolarik is scheduled to appear in court this November.

              Now, is this a case of an arrogant photographer pushing his luck trying to get a good shot, or is this a case of big headed policemen trying to intimidate Stolarik? I'm unsure. I'll try and keep you updated when this goes to court!

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Wind Karting

Hello Everyone! Back today with a post of some shots I took on a day down to Weston-Super-Mare, a seaside town, where sports involving wind such as kite surfing, wind karting, wind sailing and just kite flying are big attractions! I got the chance to photograph some real talented Wind Carters while I was there, and here's the shots I got;

Very proud of this one, I like the angle, and where the light is in this photo!

This one uses the panning technique, a technique I'll be giving a full tutorial on for my next post!

Another panning shot here, like this one more than the one above, as it looks crisp, and brighter!

more panning....

and more panning.......

This fella twisted his kite, but as he got it back flying, it lifted him off the ground a little!  I like this one, and if you look in the background, you can see a kite surfer! I like the composition of this one, but it was more luck than judgement I think! 

Nice bright shot here, very contrasty! (According to my spell check,"vontrasty" is actually a word!

Used a clone stamp tool, to get rid of a kit that was in the way of this shot, and I think it was effective! I'll have to write a tutorial on how to use the clone stamp at some point, but I don't know when! I'll keep you updated on when I plan that one!

Another one I  really like, because of the lighting, I thought the lighting made this shot very effective!

Bit of a plain image IMHO, however this man's kart was VERY fast!

Second image, taken seconds after the above image.

So there are some of the shots I got at Weston, I have some more of the wind surfers and kite surfers, so I'll post em' when I can get round to em'! You might also notice the new watermark, I've started putting these on images from now outwards, as I was told by a fellow photographer, who runs a blog similar to mine got ALL of his pictures copied and sold on print through a website without his permission! He advised me to watermark my images, and here's the first set with them on, what do you think? Does it look good? Bad? Do you like the photos? or maybe not, whatever you think, comment down below, and until next time, Happy Photographing!

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Stranger 3 - The Photographer

Now this was a really fun mini-shoot, I saw this guy waiting outside a store as I was crossing a road, and I asked a friend of mine (Holding the guitars in the background) to wait for me, and ran back to ask him if I could get a few photos, I explained my project, and he gave me the go ahead! I asked him about his photography, he said he was part time photographer, and hobbyist! He was also in town to take photos of the City's harbour festival, and he was really great to talk to! He nudged me in the right direction about background, and he was an all round friendly guy! He also gave me one VERY important tip. ALWAYS enjoy it. Don't do photography and miss the enjoyment, because then it means nothing!

Here's my portrait version, and you can see my friend in the background again!

I like these photos actually, I had to turn up contrast fairly high (about 15+ by photoshop's scale) as the sky blended with the man's hair a little, and it still does, but it's relatively fixed! Because of the contrast increase, brightness went up a little as well, and I increased the saturation for a little more "pop" in the photo. The landscape needed some more background blur as the scene was distracting, but I like the outcome!


Thanks for reading, and until next time, Happy photographing!

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Stranger 1 + Stranger 2 - Children

Not a spectacular one, but I was trying to be fast as it was really nice of the parent to allow me to take a photo or two, These two were in town for the harbour festival that our city has once a year, and I saw these two looking over, and I asked their mother if she minded me taking a photo, she said go ahead, so I took this. It's boring, it's bad, but it's a start! My signature bokeh edit with some colour correction was the only editing used here!

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100 Strangers - The Start

So, I've decided to set myself a new project, and that project is to take portraits (hopefully good ones) of 100 people in a year. I want most of them, (like, 98%) to be of strangers, and any good ones of friends I might include too!  I've already got a start, I have 3 people, 2 young children, and a photographer! This post is just to mark the start, keep your eyes open for posts on this project!

P.S;   If you live in the Bristol (UK) area, and would like a few outdoor portraits done for me to use on this project, and for you to keep, contact me on ryanfrankcom@gmail.com, and I'll be happy to do them for free!

Also, you may have notice our adverts have disappeared. I was all ready to buy a shiny new lens with the profits of the blog, and then google has a paddy. Not pleased.

Happy photographing, and until next time!

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