The moment I saw flashes outside my window, I grabbed my 5D with 16-35mm 2.8L, remote and tripod. I wanted to create a time lapse, so each frame had to be fast enough shutter to allow enough frames, rather than low ISO and long shutter speeds. Each frame is ISO 400, f/13 at 5.6 seconds. The view is out my balcony in Fort Lee, NJ.
El Bob went to his very first Sonic after seeing the commercials for years, as a new location opened up in Totowa, NJ on US-46.
El Bob’s verdict: ¡No vaya!
Maybe the trip would have been more worth it if there weren’t sixty two thousand cars waiting in line while the rest thirty thousand cars were forced to make two U-Turns to park at another lot to walk over. It then took another 15 minutes of waiting in line to order from a machine where the microphone was 7 feet up. Wonderful design guys, wonderful. El Bob only tried a plain burger with tater tots and unsweetened iced tea, so perhaps he didn’t get the full 2000 calorie experience as intended. The food was normal. El Bob will have to go back early morning sometime and try their steak and eggs breakfast burrito and compare it with the Jack-in-the-Box version. Either way it was an interesting and fun experience nonetheless considering he was with two El Bob fans.
El Bob went to his very first BMW meet at Paul Miller. He saw a lot of pimped out rides though none of them are close to his P.I.M.P. status.
El Bob spontaneously made a 24-hour trip to West Palm Beach, FL to cruise on a yacht with a bunch of ladies, then spent the night at a DoubleTree before heading back to New York the next morning. El Bob made some Boston friends on the yacht who were already fans of him.
El Bob spent the day in New York City and made a few new friends. There is absolutely too much to see, it would take El Bob a few lifetimes to cover everything. Due to bad weather and limited time, El Bob could only visit a small seashell-full of places. He started with breakfast at Central Cafe, then off to Grand Central where he took the A to Museum of Natural History. El Bob walked through Central Park and into the Central Park Zoo to say hi to some penguin and polar bear friends. It was then off to the Apple store to play with the new iPhone 3Gs. El Bob walked through Times Square in the rain, visited the New York Public Library, which was kinda smelly, and finally ended up at the Guggenheim. There will be many more New York City trips for him in the future.
The reason why I prefer to use a point and shoot camera is deeper depth of field. Even with a super wide 16mm lens wide open, the background will be blurred out, whereas this does not happen with my Sony Cybershot.
While I’ve always concentrated on shooting people and not landscapes, shooting portrait style (vertically) has always been the way to go. You draw the most interest by getting close up, cropping, and filling the frame. So as long as the person is in a vertical position, a portrait frame would best fill the image with the subject. This style of shooting also carried on to my wedding photography for the first few years, always filling the frame. As my work progressed towards photo journalistic style, the images were less about each individual portrait of every person at an event, and more about capturing the entire scene and atmosphere.
A wedding is full of visual stimulation, from the architecture of the church, the colors of a garden, to the lighting of the reception hall, they all need to be part of the photo so the subjects have a setting or environment within the story.
Another reason for shooting landscape mode is reducing the “energy” in the photo. A portrait photo stands tall and has more potential energy than a landscape photo sitting horizontally. Just like you would not feel comfortable watching a vertical movie screen versus a horizontal wide screen. You want to be relaxed while staring at a photo. A landscape photo also simulates a movie scene.
I still remember the immediate transition from 85% portraits to 85% landscape while shooting weddings, and I’ve loved the results even more since then. Whether you still prefer to frame vertically or horizontally, you must be conscious about the environment you are including in the frame. Tight crop is usually safer at the expense of loosing environmental information, but sometimes too much negative space makes the photo boring as well.
Here’s a final random fact: I dont crop any of my photos with software.
The day after Italy, El Bob flies straight to Las Vegas for some R&R. Although El Bob does not gamble, there are still plenty of ways to throw his money away. El Bob stayed at The Signature by MGM Grand, which had a great deal for a large one bedroom suite with jacuzzi, and no annoying casino in the lobby. El Bob likes to do manly things, which is why he took a ride in a Corvette ZHZ sporting a LS3 6.2L V8 436 horsepower engine, as well as a Mini Cooper-S convertible. El Bob also went to The Gun Store and rented the Coalition Package which includes the M249 SAW, M16 Riffle, and a M9 Pistol. El Bob tore up Osama’s face, no sweat.
As much fun as El Bob had, he sometimes wishes there was a Miss El Bob (though not really named Miss El Bob) to share a Piña Colada with. Looking for someone to hook him up!
El Bob traveled with me to Italy the week before Memorial Day weekend for an engagement assignment I booked. We landed in Milan, and made our way to Pisa, Venice, Florence and Rome. His favorite part was playing with the pigeons in San Marco Square in Venice.
I adopted El Bob from Ceyey, Puerto Rico. I drove down there from San Juan to have some lechón (suckling pig) at local restaurants, or lechoneras. It only cost $3 to adopt this piggy from being eaten. Don’t worry, I did’t eat in front of him. Unfortunately Bob didn’t get into any other photo opportunities other than Old San Juan. I’ll post the other photos of my Puerto Rico trip next.
I dropped Bob near the water fountain when I was trying to take a picture, and his ear broke off. While doing some window shopping I spotted a butterfly store selling ugly yarn dolls. I met store owner Cirene, a gorgeous woman, who explained all the stories behind each yarn doll. I found her intimate knowledge of about 100 of these dolls extremely attractive, as I am attached to all of my ugly dolls back home. When she heard about Bob’s accident, she was heart broken and immediately offered to help me reattach his ear on the spot. As her gratitude for making her day more interesting, she offered to let me take a picture of Bob with the butterflies, since her store has a “no photography” policy. I can easily say my experience with her was the best 20 minutes of my entire trip.
All photos were taken with my point and shoot, Sony DSC-W170. The trick is to use a tabletop tripod, set your ISO at the lowest possible, and use a timer to take longer exposure shots for the best quality. Of course in daylight, you can just snap away handheld. I also have grid display on my LCD so I can easily apply the rule of thirds. One of the very few advantages this Sony has over my Canon Elph is the wider lens.
