Light and Love

This lens is EVERYTHING.  

The Nikon 24mm, f/1.4 is by far superior to the 85mm, or at least that's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.  I prefer it mostly because it's wide and very fast, and probably the sharpest glass I've ever used.  It's the kind of lens I'd put on my camera and leave it there for a long, long time.  Needless to say. it performs excellently in low light conditions, and it works awesomely as an action lens as well as a portrait lens.  All in all, I'm in love.  And since its price is in the $1500 range, I can't afford to buy one (yet) but I am definitely renting it again, and soon.

I took these around the house last night and this morning before my lease ran out.  The photos are very lightly touched up, mainly for color and sharpness.  As usual, I'm using VSCO presets (modified), and editing in Lightroom.

Enjoy, and Happy Monday!

Boys Will Be Boys

Johnny, John and Julian in the good light during the golden hour.

Oh, and Julian finally got his first tooth!!!

Enjoy and happy weekend, peeps :)

Happy New Year!

In the last day of 2014 I rented an 85mm Nikkor, f/1.4 lens and went down to Mountain View to test it.  Shooting candid street photography and taking portraits of strangers is one of my favorite pastimes, but between hanging out with my kids and doing family sessions I haven't had the time to indulge in proper improvised photo walks....

As you can see, the lighting conditions were not perfect; at high noon the sun beats very harsh even in the Winter.  The lens is a bit narrow for my taste, through its sharpness and speed makes up for it at least partially.  Next I really want to try one of the ultra-wide lenses, 24mm or so (or even a fisheye), again with such a large aperture.  Stay tuned!

P.S. My favorite image must be the jumping shot - thanks Jeff and friend (sorry, I'm terrible with names...)!

Christmas Bokeh Galore

Eucalyptus Street in San Carlos is a magical place this time of year.  There are inflatable Santas ten feet tall, there are Nativity scenes, there are reindeer pulling sleighs, huge blown glass ornaments, snowflakes, Grinches, glowing gift boxes, bows and angels and elves and glitter, and there are hundreds upon thousands string lights adorning every house and tree and car.  It's a very good photo opportunity for one's Holiday family portraits...if, of course, your kids are willing to stand still for even a second instead of running amok, trying to destroy the place.

We left the baby at home so that Johnny could enjoy some Christmas spirit, but I only managed to take one proper photo of him.  I compensated with capturing the amazing bokeh!  Merry Christmas, peeps!

At Santa's House

I love Christmas but when it comes to decoration, I keep it simple.  A stocking or two under the mantelpiece, a small living tree, a dozen ornaments in classic red and gold...and that's pretty much it.  But life is interesting because people are different, and there's a family in our neighborhood who's literally obsessed with holiday lights.  We went to their house last year to take the photos for our Christmas cards and we returned again yesterday for more bokeh and glitter and toddler fun.  Most of the portraits here are fuzzy on the focus - I was tired and the light was fading fast, and I was not able to keep up with the speed Johnny was running around.  Still, seeing the way his face lit up when we got there made up for all my technical failings.

P.S.  This is Johnny's NO face.  I get that face every time I try to photograph him...

Freefalling

Freelensing + Fall = some serious visual excitement!  

Freelensing is the method of detaching the lens from the camera body and shooting by using your feet as a vario, and tilting the lens to find a focus point.  It's really fun, and I want to give all the credit to my fellow photographer Alex for inspiring me to try it out!  The shallow depth of field is insane, and the overall effect is almost like a tilt-shift.  I present you my first experiments with this technique, and boy, do I love the bokeh and the flares in these!  

Taken in my back yard this morning, just before the weather turned overcast.

Flower Power

This is my last post before Julian's arrival tomorrow!  Before I take this baby break, however, I want to leave you with a few current - and positive - images.  John gave me farmers' market flowers this morning, and I photographed them this afternoon with the help of Shelby.

See you guys soon!

Youth is a perpetual intoxication; it is a fever of the mind.

~François de La Rochefoucauld

This is most probably our last photo session before the baby comes in a few days.  I wanted to capture the three of us the way we are now - absolutely unaware of what life will be as four.  We are happy to find out, though.  It will be tough in the beginning, but it will also be so much fun.  I am sure of it.

My Dad too joined us this weekend, and I am quite fond of how his portraits turned out.  The light was amazing that morning - going on noon - and it kept changing in the most interesting ways as we moved through the park.  I like how the trees filtered it, and even the part-shade, part-sun headshots turned out fine.  The bokeh is almost painfully good here, and if I wasn't as partial I would have found it distracting.

No Minute Gone Comes Ever Back Again...

...Take Heed and See Ye Nothing Do in Vain.

These are some of the very first images I took with my 50mm lens.  It was late December 2009 and I was exploring the city of London in its holiday attire.  No snow of course but many, many wonderful lights and sights.

Chasing Light

As I was saying recently, I am lucky have many great photo opportunities, but lately they have been limited to capturing special moments rather than special lighting conditions.  Most of the time it's either a work gig or an outing with Johnny, both which inevitably end up happening in mid-day sunlight and although I try to make the best of it, it's been months since I've captured anything during a sunset/sunrise, or at night.  In other words, thanks to motherhood and pregnancy my light hunting days are temporarily over.  

It's just so hard to get out of the house only to shoot stuff...so I try staying in to chase the light.  We work  best artistically with limitations, don't we!

Here are a few pre-July Fourth shots representing my usual subjects - kids, cats, and naturey crap...but with a bit of a bokeh/flare twist.  Enjoy!