Tag Archives: Dreams

Dreamcatcher, Inspired Eye, Off Street, Photography, Street, Street Photography, Street Presets, Streetshooter, Uncategorized

Rainy Day Bluez…….and the Fuji X20 is My Friend……….

3 Comments

No! I’m not starting to do color for myself. I am in the process of making Color Presets that make an image feel the way I want it to make me feel. That’s not an easy task because I’m really not a color shooter.

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The content and intent must be supportive to color and visa verse. So I just shoot what I always shoot and let the color pixels fall where they may. I don’t think I’d want to be a generic anything at anytime. So I make things the way I live them.

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Take the photo right above…..yeah, that one. See, I was just doing my thing looking for whatever I look for. Then without thinking too much, I raise the camera and breathe and then Click! I was thinking that I liked what was going on. The girl seemed so caught up in her femininity and that of the heads.  I didn’t think about color or black & white until I got the images into Light Room.

Then of course I realized that I am in the process of designing color presets. So, heck….let’s try it. By Jove, I think he’s got it!

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It should be noted that the camera in my hand was the Fuji X20.  At no time did it speak to me or cause any intrusion. I don’t treat my camera as a tool. I treat is as my companion on my photographic journey.

More tomorrow…..Good Nite Wouter…..Good Nite Jorge……….

Dreamcatcher, Inspired Eye, Off Street, Photography, Street, Street Photography, Street Presets, Streetshooter, Uncategorized

………of course the camera has a lot to do with it………

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Many of my friends are writing on their blogs and in forums etc that it’s the shooter and not the camera. Well, not to be argumentative but I probably am as my wife definitely thinks so….. all the time. See the camera is much more important then most realize.

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Barsik (the best muse I ever met)

It’s true that ones vision is the main ingredient in photography that needs the most attention. You can read fancy books, go to school, take workshops, classes whatever you like and it’s mainly about your vision. It should be….until you go to WORK!

Here’s what I teach. There is a process to anything, even drinking a beer. One should be totally into the here and now during the process in order to get the most out of it.

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So lets move along and go to work. We will analyize the process of making photos. Now please don’t think there is only one way or even my way. My way works for me and I really don’t want you to do it that way….I’d rather you find your own method of working.

(the camera Don, get to the camera part…..) allright, allright.

Your on the street. Your eyes are like that of a hawk. Your walking and your in step with the life that surrounds you. You can smell the perfume from that young lady……over there,…to the right….you smell the exhaust fumes from the buses and the cars etc.

Your camera (I hope you named your camera by now)… is in your hand just waiting to respond to your every whim. Sorry, the guy over there has his camera on a neck strap….that’s fine…… ok….

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You can feel something on the horizon but it’s not yet….just a little bit further down the street….

Then, out of nowhere this lady walks out towards you and the light behind her is perfect…click!

You didn’t get that, geeze, why are you fiddling with the controls to set exposure? You, over there…see…you raised the camera to your eye and she saw you and well….. there’s a million things to come between you and your photos. The one thing that can’t be tolerated is your camera. So if the camera is just a tool, then go hammer a nail with it.

 

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Your camera must be an extension of your process. You must have a friend that your working with and not an intruder that just causes lost images. You should be able to make an adjustment in just a few seconds. If the camera is not an important part of your work, then your probably just looking for a scapegoat for you shooting failures. Yeah, this is heavy do do. It’s easy to say, my camera is a pain to work with.

The point is, you have to take responsibility for your choices in camera acquiring procedures. I have a Pen3 with the 25 lux and the 14 2.5. The Pen3 is a very good camera to work with….for me…. I can go back to around 1967 and I didn’t like SLR’s. I just didn’t like the form. I still don’t. I loved Leica M’s because they worked so well.

Flash to 2013 and I still feel the same way…almost. I had the Fuji X10 and really loved the camera. It reconfigured in a flash. Well, I never got a single RAW file to be processed the right way. I have all the goos processors..I make presets, right. I make photos right!

Now the Fuji X20 is at home and it does RAW like I love clams. The point is that this these cameras are mine and I use them. The offer no intrusion to my process, especially on the street.

I beg to differ with my friends. I state here and now that the camera may be a tool to them but to me and my readers….bunk. It’s an extension to our vision because we chose the right one……

No go and sit with you cameras and come up with names….cameras like names…..well…I do take meds for this sort of thing but my wife states that they ain’t working……

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I saw this dude on my ride home.     Dude didn’t see me on the ride home.

 

 

Dreamcatcher, Inspired Eye, Off Street, Photography, Street, Street Photography, Street Presets, Uncategorized

More Preset Madness

Yeah…yeah! I’m stuck on the computer doing presets. Well, I’m really stuck on 2 computers that refuse to co-operate with me or each other. Me poor brain is starting to think in terms of color. My brain, not my mind. But I must admit that working in color is teaching me lot’s of things.

Oh yeah…. I’m learning what I already know. I don’t like color but I do like making the presets.

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So because I don’t really care for color, I have to find a way to trick the ole’ brain into thinking it likes it. I have sent some of these presets out to shooters and have all good responses from them. I guess that means I might have my brain fooled.

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What I am doing is this. When I work, streets usually, I see the world in color. It’s not my idea but they put color in everything. So, in my brain, I reprocess the image in front of me to be in shades of grey. This of course is happening in the mind….now enter my cameras. I have them all to have a B&W screen. If they can’t do that….they belong elsewhere.

So, if I take the color out of the scene and then make a B&W photo the way I want, then add color to it with a palate I can live with….I get what I have up top there….. see those up there……

 

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I do this for those that like the color presets….for the rest of us……. up there is where it’s at….

don

Dreamcatcher, Inspired Eye, Off Street, Photography, Street, Street Photography, Street Presets, Streetshooter, Uncategorized

For Wouter Brandsma & Jorge Ledesma also for the Ricoh GRD5

So I’m in the middle of the interviews for Issue 2 of   The Inspired Eye  Magazine. I’m gonna have to drop a few names here because they get me to thinking about stuff. Nah, it’s not like I need inspiration or ideas or even trouble. I certainly dang sure don’t need any GAS.

Anyway, Wouter and I are going back & forth with interview emails about photography, not photography etc. Whoa…..hold yer horses now. I got Pete Tachauer, Christophe Debon and Paul McGuirk all working on the interviews. The reason I mention the 2 culprits above is that….

I’m working the street…hey…hey…making photos ok. Sheeeesh…. I get an email and I figure I could use a break. I sit down on a bench in front of the Liberty Bell. I pull the ole’ antique iPhone 4 out and open the mail program.

Now let’s get something straight right off the bat. I love the EP-3 and the lenses I have for them. Yup, I gotz 2 Pens. So I got the Silver Pen….Walker with me and he’s sportin’ the 17mm 1.8. Now I ain’t one to question things when they start to working just righty fine. There’s enough to do when the stuff hits the fan…….. The email shooter, what’s in the email? ok…ok…sorry..brain fart.

So there on my phone screen is this post from that Jorge Ledesma fella. Now I like Jorge and his blog. I read it because he bust his hump making it entertaining for his readers. Today he made the ultimate post for dreams of the new future. See, he posted a video about the new GRD5. Well, I damn near had a hissey fit when I watched the video. Nah, the first 5 times I just watched but that 6th time…that was it. I was figuring it’s a fake, again. So I forward the email to Wouter and he confirmed that it was a real camera and that the video was in fact true.  Now until we get the camera in our hands…it’s a dream but this dream, if it comes true…dang, I’ll sell my M43 stuff again.

The reason being is that the GRD4 is about as good a camera as any camera could hope to be…..the GRD5 will move to a whole new level.

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I ran home to my garden and made this real quick with the GRD4 but…this is exactly what I envisioned the image to be.

 

Thanks Jorge…..Thanks Wouter, see ya on the emails shortly….Thanks Ricoh….Sorry Olympus….

shooter out…………………………………………………………………..

Inspired Eye, Off Street, Photography, Street, Street Photography, Street Presets, Streetshooter, Uncategorized

The Dreamcatcher Strikes Again

Ya know. I really like what I go after and find on the street. Hey, don’t get me wrong…I love the street but it’s not the only place I work.

The images that bring the most satisfaction and always did are the Dream images. There’s something mysterious and ethereal amongst other things that excite me visually about them. The thing is that I can SEE the potential for the image before I release the shutter. Well ok Don, that’s the idea of  Pre-Visualisation.  I know that but there’s another element to take into consideration. That element is the print.

I use the term “Print” to mean the image you see on your computer screen after all the stuff is done to it. I love the idea of the transformation from reality to the print reality. The beautiful part of the experience is that I can see it when I am at the ready for exposure.

I’m not trying to sell you anything just expressing how much I love my images, the process of capture and the finished print produced thru my presets. This ain’t no sales pitch, just a note to let you know that I really do use the presets.

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Inspired Eye, Photography, Street, Street Photography, Street Presets, Streetshooter, Uncategorized

Dreamcatcher Is On Flickr Explore

Photography has so many special ways of drawing out our inner thoughts and feelings. For me, it’s always been about a dream. No, not photography but life. Making photos has allowed me to explore many inner thoughts and feelings. At times I just work the street or do portraits or the garden or whatever my lens is looking at.

 

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I sometimes feel that I’m seeing visions from a place that is not of this earth only. It doesn’t scare me in the least. It actually excites my creative juices. Maybe I’m just having a LightRoom breakdown. I mean after all, I am influencing the final image with presets and or adjustments. Surely that helps to create the dream like effect that happens on the photo.

 

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I agree with that but why would I make photos like this in the first place?

 

More questions and photos tomorrow……