Min DOF Photography

Yesterday I was on a hip hop party in Metelkova Mesto. It was crazy. DJs were rolling mostly good old-school rap. I was there with my boy DkleMan . DJ Ninja put us on her guest list and we returned her the favour, by making her a few photos. We almost missed her gig, because one of the DJs canceled, so she started a couple of hours earlier, so we managed to get only a few photos of her, without the time to set up the camera and flash unit properly. We are “noobs” when it comes to party photography and need a bit more time to get the settings right. When we got it right she already finished and DJ Supastar came on the stage. I took most of the shots with the kit lens 18-55 and flash unit Canon 430 EX on Canon 350D. I mounted Sigma 30 1.4 (which I’m currently testing) for a short period of time, but it wasn’t wide enough.

On the first two photos you can see miss DJ Ninja, on the last three DJ Supastar:

The star of this short post will be a kitten I named Goldeneye. After the Photoshop manipulation. He had green eyes, but I figured they looked a bit dull when I partially desaturated the image (it sounds kinda funny using the word partly, since only a percent of it is left in colours). I met him when I was wondering what to shoot in one of the most interesting towns in Slovenia, Izola (I wanted to do some architecture since it’s pretty interesting, colourful mediterranean, but I’m not sure if I made a single shot of it). That was back in October 2005.

On August 25th 2006 Slo-foto organised another shooting with pro models. Until this shooting, we (I’m a part of the Slo-foto team) only had various photo workshops. This time we decided that theory and mentorship were unnecessary and focused on the practical part only, since many experienced photographers don’t care much about theory and they just want to have a session with good models. And it’s cheaper too. A friend of mine attended the shooting and she was amazed by professional approach of the models, which made it easier for her to take photos (and make good photos), since she had no experience with model shooting. At the same time this was a chance for her to see other photographers at work, especially more experienced ones - we all know that the relationship between the model and the photographer is very important (if you want your photos to be good).

We began the shooting on Metelkova in Ljubljana, which offers many interesting places to shoot. Urban&alternative. Interesting. The second part of the shooting was supposed to take place in Ljubljana’s main park, Tivoli. But we had to choose another location, because DJ Umek had a big event there at that day, so we decided to shoot the second part in the surroundings of Ljubljana’s castle. The environment is pretty much the same as in Tivoli (nature and a castle). We intentionally picked contrasting locations (urban/nature and historical architecture), to offer the participants a variety of environments for photography.

The editor chose this one for the magazine cover:

Since I didn’t have the time to make a complete coverage (I was busy holding reflectors etc and took a few shots myself since I needed a photo for the cover of ONA magazine), here’s a link to Slo-foto forum, with more photos.

I dedicate this post to all my friends, which I often bothered with my camera. All of this photos are spontaneous snapshots. Shots were made in the last year and a half, using various cameras (from Canon 350D to Canon 1Ds mkII), all of them with fixed focal lenght lenses, 50 1.8 or 85 1.8 (besides the two with obvious UWA distortions).

Let’s start with the best hairdresser in town:

My mean man Nikolaj:

Desperate for the first hit of nicotine that day:

Luc, the administrator of the best Slovenian photo site

. . . Alien?

. . . OG #1:

Cheese:

In the beginning of December I was supposed to have a session with Sandra. Unfortunately I got sick the day before the session, so I had to cancel it. Because she planned on going to Ljubljana anyway and I really wanted to have a session with her (although I was still sick and wasn’t feeling well), I called her and asked her if we can still do a short version of the session. A kind of a try out session, since she didn’t prepare for it, because I had to cancel it (she didn’t had the clothes for the session, no extra make up etc). So we had a 30 min session and this is the result:

We’re planing a real session in the spring/summer, I’ll make her book photos, so she can take on pro modeling.

2005 was the year I started taking photography as a serious hobby. In may 2005 I bought my first DSLR, Canon 350D (which I still use). Before that I used two compact cameras for around 9 months, before I finally realized compact cameras are limiting me. In 2005 I was a frequent visitor of the ZOO, I was there at least 15 times. On the other hand I had just a few portrait sessions (5-6). I attended a portrait/fine art nude workshop in the summer and a fashion workshop in the fall. At the first workshop, the most important thing that I learned is the interaction with the model (I observed the more experienced photographers). The second was more of a shooting, then a workshop, but it was a great experience working with many beautiful models. I chose the best portrait of 2005 and the best big cat photo.

Ghetto style

Far faraway is Africa

The workshop took place on a sunny day on may 13th 2006. We had 7 models and two sports cars. The practical part (shooting) was in Metelkova mesto, a place for alternative culture, art and music. There are many interesting places to shoot, endless walls of graffiti, staircases and sculptures. I’m going to show you a few of my photos (again I didn’t take that many shots, since I coordinated the workshop and assisted photographers by holding reflectors). I wanted to put a link to the workshop coverage on www.slo-foto.net, but unfortunately all the photos were hosted on shrani.si, which deletes the photos after a few months (only text is left…).

On this image, behind/below the sexy model, you can see a Porsche Boxter S (a part of it really), which is no ordinary Boxter S. The owner RSR motorsport exchanged the engine with Porsche’s 911 and tuned it up to 367 horsepower (over 100 more then the stock Boxter S), suspension and rims were changed and carbon body kit was added. Unfortunately I didn’t take pics of the cars (there was a turbo charged 315 horsepower Audi TT roadster as well), since other photographers did. As mentioned before I can’t link it to the workshop coverage, since the photos was deleted from webhosting site shrani.si.

. … . . . Fetish?

That’s the third session with my favourite model. We’ve had 5 so far and she was a model on a portrait workshop that we organized on slo-foto, but I didn’t take many photos with her since I was one of the project managers (I was too busy with other things). We’ve waited for a long time, for this session, since the winter was so long, so we had this session on 22nd april 2006. I could say this was a breakthrough session, she’s an excellent model since then, I always get many good photos (for my level, ofcourse) when shooting with her, many more then with most of the other girls.

This one was on the cover of ONA magazine:







Canon, Nikon, lens, depth of field, flash, aperture, raw, jpg, Pentax, portrait, portrait photography

Last week I had this lens for a test, so I had some fun with it. I took a few funny portraits of my friends. I’m going to get it back soon, together with Canon 1Ds, so I’ll do serious tests later. I’m not sure how serious, because I’m not sure what you can shoot besides photos of skateboarders and funny portraits, which I already did. I heard it’s also usable for astrophotography and for paragliders (if they shoot during the flight, they really get everything in the picture). And ofcourse for panoramas.

All the photos are taken in a bar at ISO 400-1250 (800 pushed for 2/3 stops):




Shot wide open at f3,5 and ISO 1250 (800+2/3 stops in Rawshooter). As you can see, sharpness in the center is excellent.

I had my last real session almost 2 months ago. I was shooting together with my boy Matjaž aka Matias. He’s a photoreporter and a semi-pro fashion and portrait photographer, you can see his works on billboards all over his hometown Celje. We were supposed to have two models, Andreja and another girl. At the end only Andreja came, because the second model had a mood swing, and changed her mind right before the session. Working in pair with one model sucks, but we still managed to get a few good photos from this session. I’ve decided to keep my future posts short&sweet (my previous were way too long for most of the visitors of my blog), so I’ll get right to the photos.

This one is going to be on the cover of ONA magazine in january.

Here’s the link to the photos taken by Matjaž aka Matias