I think this is such a great video for a number of reasons.
First, the photos that Lukasz Kazimierz Palka creates are wonderful and beautiful. I love his night shots, especially the vivid colors and incredible sharpness. He really captures the vibrance of the Tokyo streets and the people there. Fantastic!
Second, I feel he has an honest perspective on his own motivations for photography and why he takes the photos he takes. I thought the way he got into photography was interesting and realistic (a way to get out of his apartment and explore the city), then his explanation that he takes photos of subjects he finds beautiful is honest and straightforward. It’s the way it should be.
And third… it’s Tokyo! My favorite city of all time. It was my dream to live and work there, and I did for a few years. It’s funny to think that I have not been there (even visiting) for 15 years. It seems like it was just yesterday! I really like Osaka, but my heart is in Tokyo. So, seeing Lukasz Kazimierz’s photo brings back so many good memories.
Anyways, please watch the video. I think you’ll enjoy it!
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/3.6, 1/25 sec, ISO6400 “Olympus XA” Cedar Park, 2016
こんばんは！How’s it going? Over here, it’s raining… make sure to keep dry and stay healthy!
Today’s photo is of one of my favorite cameras, the mighty Olympus XA. It is such a great design, and takes wonderful photos because of the lovely Zuiko lens. I love it, although I don’t shoot with it too often.
Tonight I replied to a post on Flickr that was concerning running out of hard drive space because of shooting many RAW files. In writing my response, I thought about how my philosophy on making photos has changed over the years to where I am now, which is a happy place. Not surprisingly, it has to do with decluttering. Below is the response I posted:
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Just my personal experience…
Short answer: It helps if you cull your photos early on, and be “ruthless” about it. :)
Long-winded answer:
I think many of us have gone through or are going through a similar situation, myself included. There was a time when I was shooting so much, in RAW, kept everything, was running out of space, and “got behind” in processing those files. Photography started being less fun for me.
Then, I started shooting some corporate events and my view on culling the photos started to take shape. Each time I clicked the shutter, I would think “This photo is going to take me X amount of minutes to process.” This left a feeling of dread – I didn’t want to stay up all night processing so many! So I decided I needed to cull more aggressively. Now, if I shoot one event presenter, I might take 40 shots, but immediately (in camera) cull that down to 15, deleting obvious ones like closed eyes, weird mid-talk expressions, etc. Then later in Lightroom, I’d spend one minute to cut that to 3 maximum (more for a keynote), and post-process those.
I then started applying that to my personal work. I found that choosing the best ones in-camera soon after I took them made photography a lot more enjoyable. The sooner I deleted the rejected photos, the less I would think about them and consequently eliminate any regret I might have had in not keeping them. (I didn’t have time to get attached to those photos) And my memory card felt nice and tidy, free of clutter.
Another change that really helped me enjoy photography more is that I now shoot exclusively (for my personal photos) in JPEG. I have found that committing to the image immediately gives me a sense of closure and peace-of-mind. This may sound weird, but to me, a RAW file is the middle step in the photographic process, with the end of the process being a print or JPEG. It’s like the RAW file represents an unfinished project (with endless possibilities) and when I had 1,000 RAW files sitting on my hard drive, it was like having 1,000 unfinished projects just gnawing away at me. (I guess I have some issues!)
So now I cull like crazy, and I’m happy with (or at least committed to) the images I keep, and forget about all the others… it’s a lot less clutter on the hard drive and less clutter in my mind.
Sorry for the long-winded (and somewhat off-topic) message, and thanks for reading.
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I hope you have a nice rest of the evening, and let’s do our best tomorrow!
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/2.8, 1/120 sec, ISO6400 “LOMO FishEye 2” Cedar Park, 2016
こんばんは！ Hello! How are you today?
Can you believe the temperature was in the 80s today here in Austin? It’s only the beginning of March and it’s getting so warm. I wonder if this summer is going to be hotter than usual. I guess I wouldn’t be surprised since record temperatures keep getting set. 🌞
Today is Hinamatsuri, otherwise known as girls’ day in Japan. 🎎 In our family, we have two sons so there isn’t too much of a celebration. 😟 But maybe we’ll have a granddaughter some day and then we can have a proper hinamatsuri!
Today’s photo is of a fun little film camera that my family gave to me as a gift a few years ago. 📷 It’s a LOMO FishEye 2, and as you can probably tell from the name, the lens is a fisheye, with a super-wide frame of view. I don’t think it is true 180 degrees, but it’s still pretty extreme. I’ve had this camera in the cabinet and it still has the first roll of film that I loaded into it when I received the camera. No, I don’t use it very often! But there are only 9 more shots left on the roll so maybe I will finish it this year. We’ll see.
Well, it’s almost Friday, and then the weekend. Looking forward to it for sure! Take care.
Today’s photo is one that I took while watching Koa’s baseball team practice as the sky lost its light. I took the photo in color and converted it to black in white using Lightroom and tweaked a bit using the Exposure, Highlights, Shadows, Black, and White sliders. I’m quite pleased how it turned out!
I usually use Nik Silver EFX to do any black and white adjustments, but decided to try a new technique I learned after watching a video on Youtube. It’s a quick and easy way to adjust black and white images, loosely based on Ansel Adams’ workflow.
Well, that’s all from me for today. Let’s have a great Thursday!
おやすみなさい！
-B
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My camera & photos
I use a Fujifilm X-series camera for most of the photos on this site and my Instagram. Why not pick one up for yourself?
