Darla’s First Birthday
When you get older, years begin to blend into each other – one after the next and you can quickly find yourself amazed at how quickly time flew by. I think 2011 was no exception. It seems like just yesterday I was taking pictures of a newborn and tiny baby named Darla just a few days as her parents took her home from the hospital. That was last March and just this last weekend I had a chance to attend her first birthday party. It really felt like I had just gone through a time warp from 2011 and ended up in 2012 suddenly. It was an amazing day and one thing is for certain – the last year has been a lifetime for Darla while it was only a blink for me.
Darla is an amazing and very different baby. You know it the instant you walk into the room and see her. She is always smiling and laughing and watching everything around her and always eating, grabbing for or thinking about food of some kind. The Doctors say she is in the 85th percentile for babies her age and Darla seems motivated to reach that 99th percentile. Besides making a quite entertaining baby eating machine, Darla is always trying to hug everyone or share her food with them. It is the cutest thing to watch a baby that is so social and friendly to everyone around her. When I step back and look at the photos I take of Darla I am struck by the sense that she has already discovered that the most important thing in life is the close people in your life. She seems to have learned that at such a young age and it took me close to 40 years to discover what she has already found in less than 1. Needless to say she is the focal point of every family event.
Darla’s birthday was up in Los Angeles at Elizabeth’s (my sister) and Greg (her husbands) home. One of the most unusual things about the party is that there were probably about 10 other babies that had just turned 1 or soon would there. It was a one year old baby birthday bash. Darla provided the main attraction of the day eating a BabyCakes cupcake in the messiest and cutest fashion that you could ever ask for. Take a look at the pictures and be amazed at all the cuteness.
http://www.frankiefoto.com/Portraits/Darlas-First-Birthday/21834559_nPBp8w
Strobist
I went to take some pictures of Trevor my friend a couple of days ago. We didn’t get started until after the sun went down so we really didn’t have any lights besides flashes to take pictures. We went to Windansea Beach, one of my favorite beaches, and not to far from my home. Trevor put on a suit, tie and Penguin outfit and we took some shots. I like shooting with flash because you can essentially freeze action and get some pretty cool effects. In this particular photo we used a backflash (which Trevor is covering with his body) and a front flash to capture and light his face and body. One of the great things about back-flash is that you can highlight things around your subject. It’s great for capturing rain, smoke, mist or as in this picture – SAND! I think this picture turned out cool because it looks like he is whipping the sand and it is coming right out of the palms of his hands. Flash photography can be a lot of fun.
This is not a bunny rabbit
This is not a bunny rabbit, this is my niece Darla. How cute is that picture of her?
Well, I cannot lie. Last week you may have noticed that I didn’t really get a chance to post anything new. Well, I have an excuse. I was very sick. I had a stomach flu like no other. I am proud to admit that I ate 1 ding dong last week and that is about it. I could not even think of food, if I did I immediately had to run to the bathroom and throw up. I am not sure what I had but I never want to return to that state. In any case, I am starting to feel much better this week and I am getting really ready to take a lot more pictures and videos. I have a few projects lined up that I am pretty excited about.
So anyway, about this little bunny.. She is very cute isn’t she. She is turning 1 next week and I will be there to take some epic shots.
Darla – An adorably mischievous baby.
She is back at it again. The adorable Darla who you may have seen in some of my other videos is back being her adorable self again. I spent the afternoon with Elizabeth, Greg and Darla at their home in Los Angeles and got a chance to see first hand some of the adorable stuff that Darla does all day long. Well, you can have sneak peek too, check out the latest video showing a day in the life of an adorably mischievous baby.
Irish Auditions
Irish is auditioning for an acting program in college so we met on Saturday to record music and videos for his audition tape. Irish is a very good actor and recently has taken classes to improve his singing voice so that he could pursue a career in acting. I think he has the ability to make it happen. Ever since he was a young boy he has taken to the spot light and used to perform rap and dance routines at any school function he could. He also used to customize songs and raps at every family wedding. He was always the hit of the any event that we went to. The kids got talent and looks like a real leading man if you ask me. Don’t forget, you saw it here first.
Downtown San Diego Skyline
I went to take nighttime photos with my friend Armand tonight. It’s no secret that the San Diego skyline is among the most beautiful in the world so it was great to find a spot in Coronado where we could capture it in all its beauty. It was a cloudless night which I think makes for the best atmosphere to take skyline photos. It was another beautiful night in San Diego – America’s finest city.
Village people of Sa Pa
Sa Pa is a quiet mountain town in Northern Vietnam that is home to a great many ethnic minority groups that have been living in the region for thousands of years. It is a pretty special place in Vietnam for many reasons. The most obvious difference from the rest of Vietnam is that it is cool and mountainous while the rest of the country is very tropical and low lands near the ocean and water. Sa Pa is a place where the climate is very similar to that of France and so when the French were occupying Vietnam earlier this century they would send soldiers for vacations to the region to make sure that they didn’t leave the country. When French soldiers left back to France for their vacations they sometimes didn’t return so the French Military created Sa Pa as a vacation destination for those soldiers.
Sa Pa is beautiful, but the ethnic minorities are very poor. This is the place where you get to see how people lived thousands of years ago untouched by all of the modern amenities like TV, transportation, internet and IPADS. One thing that was obvious to me when I was there was how much happier people seemed to be even though they had almost nothing besides each other. It was a very transforming experience for me to see these people and the way that they live. This woman was wearing large earrings. They say in their culture that when the earrings fall off the ears that they are ready to go to heaven. I saw many elderly ladies where the earrings were just centimeters from coming off their ears. I bet that they were pretty happy to see that. Just another thing that makes this place so special.
The 35mm lens. Simplicity. Perfection.
After two years of testing, renting, buying and selling just about every level of Nikon and Canon lenses and cameras I have learned quite a bit about what works and what doesn’t. Pretty much you can’t go wrong with Canon or Nikon and just about everything they make is top notch. You can buy one or the other and in the end you’ll have a great product even though I give Nikon a slight advantage in most categories. One thing I have learned is that the more you spend the better the quality of the lens, the camera and the final pictures you take. Well, that is until this week. This week I discovered the Nikkor 35MM Manual Focus lens. This lens has been around so long that it has reached legendary status (I believe it has been around since 1982 which is amazing considering how much technology and cameras have evolved from that point). The lens was originally created for press photography and is one of the fastest wide angle lenses that you can buy even to this day. This lens has one of the most superior color renditions of any lens I have used and creates great contrasty images with amazing depth of field when you dial the aperture to its lowest levels.
For years I have tried different focal lengths on lenses from super wide angle and fisheye to super 500MM zoom to find the perfect picture. Even though I tried them all, I never had a 35mm lens. I was convinced that the best focal lengths for portraits was my trusted 85mm lens and the best focal length for landscapes was my 16mm to 35mm lens. I had 50mm lenses and almost everything in between but never a 35mm lens. Now that I have one, I am surprised at what I was missing and I have changed my mind. 35MM lenses are a must have in my opinion for any photographer and videographer. I have a variety of reasons for saying that, and if you are looking for a great 35mm lens, I think the Nikkor 35mm AIS is as fine as any lens out there even more expensive ones. Here are some of the reasons I am a big believer in 35mm lens photography.
Focal Length – In terms of composition, the 35mm lens is the closest to the focal composition of the human eye. That is why it is used so often in movies because it gives a much more realistic vantage point for the viewer. In terms of photography using a fixed 35mm lens requires you to get creative in terms of how you move your body around to get the right composition. You can’t be lazy but when you catch a shot with a 35mm lens it has a more artistic look to it than any other lens that I have tried.
Versatility – The 35mm lens can be used for almost anything: Landscapes, portraits, travel shots, macro photography, street photography, real estate photography, product photography – just about everything. The 35mm I use allows me to get great close up images but also allows me to get pretty decent wide angle shots. Many photographers refer to the 35mm as the wedding photography lens because of its versatility indoors and outdoors.
Video – I originally purchased the Nikkor 35mm lens exclusively for creating videos with my D3S. I had read a few articles on the fact that it was the best lens for videography for a variety of reasons. All of those reasons were spot on and I could see the difference I snapped the lens on the camera. The focal length was wide enough where I virtually had no camera shake but not so wide that I could not focus on my subject. I could walk a foot away and get great close-ups and the video had an almost cinematic quality when you dialed in the aperture to its lowest levels. I attached a test video to the end of this entry. In short the video is just beautiful with a lens in this focal length. If you use a DLSR for your video you know that the autofocus feature is nearly useless and will cause your videos to go in and out of focus quickly. The fact that this 35mm lens only provides manual focus and no autofocus engine is not a problem since I rarely use the autofocus feature for my videos anyway.
Best Capture of Subject and Environment – One of the best features of a 35mm lens is that it allows you to capture your subject relative to their environment. I think this is another reason that it is used so broadly in film – it helps you tell a story with your video or your photograph. I brought the 35mm lens to a show I went to for my brothers band. I was positive that I would not use it since the music was fast and I was positive I could never dial in the right focus to capture what was happening since autofocus was not on the lens. When I got home I was amazed since my best pictures of the night came out of the lens. The reason was that I was able to capture the subject and what was happening around them to the perfect degree.
Forced Interaction – You can always tell from someone’s photos if they were passively or actively engaged with there surroundings. The best photos I see is where the photographer is actively involved in their environment – not changing the scene but involved in it somehow by getting in the middle of the action. Zoom lenses can make a photographer a little lazy since they can zoom into their subject from far away and not get in the middle the action. The 35mm is a lens really requires you to get in the middle of a situation to get a good photograph. If you stand far away from your subject it won’t work since the angle is pretty wide and you won’t have a real subject in the end photo. I find that the 35mm is perfect since it requires you to jump right in to find the perfect picture.
Low Light Performance – I am referring in particular to the Nikkor 35MM AIS when I refer to the stunning speed and low light performance of the 35mm lens. I find that the combination of my D3S and 35MM lens which can be dialed back to 1.4 aperture level provides me with unreal low light performance. I can take pictures in near dark rooms and the photos appear that they have been taken in great lighting conditions. This is beneficial not only for photography but videography as well. I find that the videos taken with the 35mm lens have far less noise and are far less grainy than pictures taken with my other lenses.
Small, light and compact – When I put the 35mm lens on my camera it makes my camera feel small and light. When I compare that to my more expensive prime lenses which make my camera feel about twice the weight it is really an added bonus to this lens. Since the lens is so light, compact and versatile it makes the perfect walk around lens for taking street photography or any type of photography when you are traveling. Sure you might be tempted to break out your fish eye or zoom but this lens will force you to deal with your situation and take the best picture possible with what you have. I find that always makes for more interesting photography.
Wide angle with constraint – I was editing pictures once and a friend of mine advised that I turn the contrast up to exactly where I wanted it and then to dial it back slightly. Constraint is ultimately very important in photography and is what differentiates an average picture from a great picture. The 35mm lens is considered the very beginning of wide angle lenses. It is the most subtle wide angle on the market and that is why it consistently delivers great shots. It is certainly not fish eye, certainly not super wide angle, but it is wide enough to capture a subject interacting with their environment. I am often tempted to use a wide angle lens. The 35mm lens is analogous to slightly dialing back the level of contrast that I feel is appropriate. The 35mm keeps my wide angle nature in check.
