New Photos uploaded on site

Short blog action on this Friday afternoon. Just got into the PRS office and wanted to drop some blog love before I head into a meeting where we talk about Jung's Conception of the Structure of Personality in Relation to Psychical Research.....yea thats a mouthful.

I did manage to upload a new portfolio on my site: Zen in Nature

Anyone doing anything fun this weekend? Seems like the weather is getting better and better each day. I hope to explore a new park that is maybe half an hour away from here.

Well folks...off to the meeting...

Cheers,

Serg

Inspired Wednesday's - Sam 0'Hare

We are beginning to see an evolution where photographers have the choice of either adapting or getting left behind. Digital cameras are now coming with quality movie recording options. Perhaps the moving photograph images that once filled the pages of Harry Potter will soon fill our homes. This reality becoming ever so close, especially with the introduction of digital frames. But photographers now have the option of learning the art of creating visual, flowing art. Ever since I got the Canon 7D I have been curious in playing around with its HD video recording. I want to share with you all a video a found. And although, this isn't a movie (35,000 stills) it flows every so beautifully and inspires me to go out there and create something similar.

The Sandpit from Sam O'Hare on Vimeo.

Also, I am proud to say that my store is progressing well. I have added a special, limited edition print. It exemplifies the student-seeker-warrior theme.

http://photoserg.flyingcart.com/?p=detail&pid=14&cat_id=

Thanks for stopping by and may you all have great Wednesday. And I also want to add that I am super excited that I can schedule when I want my blog to be published. So I can write blogs up and have them be published in the future. Time travel Serg...here I come.

A photographer can dream

Just a quick post. Someone sent me an email with this photo and my mouth dropped and began to excrete a lot of drool at the same time. I quote Alex from A CLoCKWorK OrANGE, "Oh bliss! Bliss and heaven! Oh, it was gorgeousness and gorgeousity made flesh. It was like a bird of rarest-spun heaven metal or like silvery wine flowing in a spaceship, gravity all nonsense now."

Unfortunately, this is just a concept and is not being sold...but a photographer can dream. It's almost the weekend and I need to get ready for the Open House this Saturday. Well me fellow frontier photographers, I wish you well and I shall see you all...well, you shall see me on Sunday.

Peace,

Serg

Post-Edits

Leaving some room for post-edits of various links I will probably put up.

Inspired by Other/TED - James Nachtwey

Due to the crazy schedule I am merging Tuesday and Wednesday together. But I am also doing this because there is a photographer who appeared at TED that truly inspired me.

James Nachtway is famous for his photojournalism of third world countries. He has risked his life by documenting war, disease, poverty...life and death. His path in life is far different from mine, and yet I can't help but feel a connection as there are some things that I would like imitate. I admire him for his skill and respect him for his actions of capturing critical social issues.

"I have been a witness, and these pictures are my testimony. The events I have recorded should not be forgotten and must not be repeated." - James Nachtwey

Warning the link takes you to quick presentation by James, followed by a video of his still photography as he documented the XDR-TB, a drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis that's touching off a global medical crisis. Some photos may be graphic.

Link: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/james_nachtwey_fights_xdrtb.html
Length: 5:52

Inspired by Others - Monica Szczupider

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/picturesoftheday/6445353/Pictures-of-the-day-27-October-2009.html

I came across this photo and I thought I would include it in Inspired by Others....

As photographer I am really drawn to photojournalism. There is an art with this type of photography where the photographer must embed oneself heavily into the environment and yet, remain a fly on the wall as to not disturb anything during the process.

Best,
Serg

PS
I was up pretty late working on a creative project which I will share with you guys later on. Just want to do some fine tuning before I release it into the wild.

Collection of Photos from Tehran Street Protest

Post note:
Just something I want people to know. Some of the links below take you to graphic images and videos. This is a lot to take in, so I am just throwing this out as a warning. Be strong, believe.

With what has been happening in Iran this week, I would like to take part and help spread the message. Due to what many believe was a rigged election, the people of Iran have taken the streets with peaceful protests. Their request for a recount has been, instead, met with violent police and military action.

Here are some very powerful photos from protests throughout this week.

Pray for peace.

Links from comments below:

http://www.atlargely.com/atlargely/2009/06/iran-protest-update.html

http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/06/20/iranian-protesters-defy-ban-clash-with-police-in-streets/

http://mashable.com/2009/06/20/iran-youtube/

More photos can be found at:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/6/19/744656/-Tehran-Street-PhotosOn-the-Brink

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/06/irans_disputed_election.html

Photographs from Blind Photographers

Truly spectacular and inspiring, that I thought I should share this link with you guys.

http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1897093,00.html

Other then that, I am putting up some touches on the field trip to Trout Lake, Washington this week and continuing putting together portfolios for my website.

Just,
Serg

Coming Back and Painting with Light

Hey Guys,

I am coming to State College in a few days. The long road trip is just about over. From New Jersey, to North Carolina, to Tennessee, to West Virginia and finally home sweet home. We are currently finishing up our Mothman event in Point Pleasant, WV. So the question comes down to...what do I with my week in half of free time? Photo shoot? Website development? Business planning? All of the f-ing above baby!!!

So I hope you guys have kept yourself busy. What have you guys been doing?

I stumbled upon an interesting website on Light Painting Photography. This has been a quite a fascination to me. When it comes photography there are several things that I search for. Above all, the one that thing that I watch out for is uniqueness. So when I was browsing through DIYPhotography, they had an article that lead me to this website: http://www.lightpaintphotography.com/

He actually write about his technique at this link.

I had some practice when it comes to PWL. It was something that was taught to me by a photographer. I will tease your eyes with some of the photographs in a few days.

Then, this site has some cool trick photography photos: http://www.toxel.com/inspiration/2009/01/17/trick-photography-with-books-and-magazines/

Other then folks I have to get some much needed rest.

Take care all and see you in few days.

Much love,
Serg

Photo Studio Day 5

music: Ikarus - Mr. Brown & Ikarus - Pray to Different Gods

Now it is time to rest. I will reply to the emails that have been sent to me tomorrow.



From, The Prophet

"Always you have been told that work is a curse and labour a misfortune. But I say to you that when you work you fulfil a part of earth's furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born, and in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life, and to love life through labour is to be intimate with life's inmost secret."

Awaiting the next dream,
Serg

Photo Studio Day 4

Like life, the experiment with wax and water did not go as I expected it. But, thats not exactly a bad thing. I was able to create some interesting, abstract images. I am still trying to find myself when it comes to abstract photography, but a really neat technique is to play with symmetry. Take a photo, duplicate it, reverse it and put it next to one another. The Rorschach images you get really start playing with your head as your mind starts to matrix meaning from the chaos.













The final phase of the floor has begun. Now I am waiting for the gloss to try. Tomorrow I hope to build a rotating pulley system for the black curtains. I would also like to put up some photos from the 51-Word Challenge of Doom.

Did you remember to smile today?

Serg

Photo Studio Day 3

music: The Grates - Carve Your Name

Photos

Sometimes we split up to take a different path in life.


And sometimes photos don't need to have any meanings.


Xander was not harmed during the making of this video. In fact he got a walk and a treat after dancing.

Photo Studio Day 2

music in background: Sigor Ros - Vio Spilum Endalaust

A photo I took during the Mothman episode. Dumped into Adobe Lightroom and created a series of these three gems? I was in a phase where I was playing around with mainly using two colors for the photo. Anyway, I am beat.

Think of something that you are thankful for right now.

All the best,
Serg

Photo Studio Day 1

First and foremost, thank you to everyone that had nothing but the positive positive thoughts for us and the family a few days back.



The following photos are from my old collection. The used to be my desktops. Enjoy them in no particular order.

Bring hope to the hopeless,
Serg

Opinions please.

Trying some changes for the future.
Logos 1 - 6

Thoughts? Comments?

LOGOS

ISO 400

This last case that we just filmed was pretty darn sweet. I think the biggest dose of awesomeness came when the client gave me an old camera that he had bought at an antique store.  Its an Olympus OM-1n. I did a little wiki reading about the camera and it was a pinnacle for film SLRs. It started this with a huge reduction in size, weight and noise. 

The camera works...at least it sounds like it does. I have 400 ISO black and white film loaded and I am ready to take some photographs. I think the beauty of film cameras is that one can double or triple expose on the same piece of film to create some really nifty shots. Thats kinda what I am aiming to use this. Only thing that sucks is that I am used to the digital camera metering the light for me. This allows me to pick the appropraite settings to properly expose the photo. Without metering one runs into a chance of over or under exposing the photograph. 

Now the camera does have the capabilities of doing it but it requires a battery that I cannot find. Bugger....Well I figure I can go with my guts. Not guts no glory, right? So I am gonna take my digital SLR and set it to ISO 400...then I am gonna set it to manual and see what aperture and shutter speed I need in a given amount of light. I figure if I do this enough times I can get the hang of naturally figuring out what aperture and shutter speed I need to expose a photo.

Anyone have any halloween plans? We are stopping by Long Island this weekend for an event that we are throwing. Its at Kaitys Bar...the same place where we filmed our season 1 episode. We are throwing an early Halloween Bash. I am going as an old school journalist. I have the camera and the hat that would work great.

Pinhole Photography

Last week I had a meeting with my web designer. The meeting went well and we totally connected on how the site should look. So ladies and gents...heres to having a site in a couple of weeks.

So some time back I did a little experiment that I thought would one day help save me ass when I needed to pick a topic for my blog. That time is now...and the topic is pinhole photography.

I came across a website that detailed the construction of a pinhole camera from a box of matches. I can't remember how, nor do I remember exactly which one it was, but if you Google, you will defintately find something. The first link on top takes you to the one, the only, the awesome DIY Photography website: LINK.

Some say it was held together by my passion for photography. I, honestly, think that the electrical tape helped a lot. But you know what, this was as close to primitive photography I could have gotten. Granted I didn't develop the film, but taking the photos felt strangely exciting. I would hold the camera against anything I could find to eliminate camera blur, open the flap to let in light, count to about 5-15 seconds and close the flap. Then twist the film a couple times and start again. I hope to rebuild my camera and use it to take some special photos. I would like to think my second round at this will go a whole lot smoother.

Here are a couple photos of my good ol' camera.

And here are some of the photos. Some of the photos below have been washed thoroughly through post-production.

Somehow I feel like I can use one those photos for my 51-Word Challenge. I gotta get back on it. Also, in the batch of photos above, you will find something that deals with a topic I would like to write about...I tried to hide it pretty well so I will be impressed if someone can guess what it is. I will give another hint next week.

Review of Presslite Vertex Revised

Review of Presslite Vertex Revised

So there have been a couple of reviews floating around that I have read on this little gizmo, but they are rather stale. I mean, if I could write a review about those reviews, that is what have to say. Wheres the passion? If you are gonna support a product that you think rocks then let me rock with you. Instead its like a trip to grandma's house on the day your friends want you to come out tothe movies with them. And not the kinda a trip where you leave with a $20 dollar bill either. Now I am not gonna go pointing fingers and naming names; my finger is way to important for that: I need it to take photographs. All I am saying is, if you are gonna support a product, then show me some ENTHUSIASM!!!

So lets start of with the appetizer of this review. I am in the mood for something light and not too filling, but something everyone can share and enjoy. For that I guess you guys need a little backstory and a lot of what the hell is Sergey talking about. In mid-August I was browsing this really awesome website called DIY Photography. There was a quick blurb about a device that was coming out in September. This device is known as the VerteX. It was love at first site. The way it looked, the way it moved; I was in awe. So I thought, let me send them out a quick email and do a little name drop that I am from Paranormal State and see what happens. Well come beginning of September I had a pre-production unit, a rented lense and a model that was ready to go.

Now for those that are curious about what I am talking about, just do a quick visit to their Presslite's website or go directly here for a quick demo on couple of its possibilities.

The photoshot that I did in my previous blog, was done using the presslite. Now because the biggest advantage of using the presslite is that it allows you to direct light to bounce of walls ceilings, etc, I had bring a stand and an umbrella for the outside photos. I will be first to admit that I probably do not have the most knowledge when it comes to external flashs and all the accessories that are out there, but I have an open mind and the ability to recognize potential in subjects. And that is exactly what the Presslite Vertex has in my eyes. It has the potential to open a person up to a whole other world of photography. Can one survive without the VerteX? Yea, I don't think every photographer needs it. But I think like an explorer, and to me, this is something worth exploring.

This review is not done. In fact I will go out and do a more technical photoshoot today...wheres Ryan and Xander at? But if you guys have any questions let me know and I will incorporate them in the review.

A quick story on sturdiness:

A lot of people have brought of concerns that it looks fragile and will break easily. That is not the case. As I was leaving the house with the camera, flash and vertex all attached I accidentally smacked the VertX right off the camera agaisnt the door. It went flying. Picked up, examinded it...nothing. Nothing broke. It still works and it works fine.

Keep on snapping....photographs, not at one another.

Serg

PS
I love my grandma.

Technical Report

Here are a couple of test shots and how the light reacted. I didn't have the ability to come up with the cool 3D animated demo on Presslite's webiste so I took photos of how my VerteX was positioned.



Set up 1: Light bounced of the mirror panel and hit the right wall. The other part of the light bounced of ceiling and a tiny bit of the diffuse panel.


Set up 2: All light bounced of the diffuse panels straight toward the the right wall.



Set up 3: All light bounced of the mirrors straight toward the right wall.


Set up 4: Half of the light bounced of he mirror panel and half bounces of the diffuse panel.


Set up 5: Half the light bounced of the mirrors straight toward the right wall. The other, smaller half of light bounced of the ceiling and a tiny amount of the mirrors heading directly toward the subject.


Set up 6: Something like 70% of light went toward the ceiling. The other 28% or so went toward the slight right and the other 2% toward the subject.

Did I really just write," I took photos of how my VerteX was positioned."?