Need your help (3) – Color or B&W – Bow Lake

Eventually, I have decided to put my images to Flickr and 500px. So I can share “okay” images which are not good enough to put in my web-site. So I need your kind help now! Please let me hear your opinion about which you like better between the 2 images below. I cannot select one for the portfolio in my website. Top one is color obviously; the unique part of this shot technically is shutter speed is fairly long, about 3 min achieved by Lee Big Stopper filter. The other one is Infrared B&W, one of my  photography styles. Please click the images for the larger views.

 

Melancholic – Bow lake – color

Melancholic – Bow lake – B&W

I will talk about the LEE big stopper filter some time.

Jeff Cruz – instant art Exhibition

The biggest news this week among  photographers must be announcement of D800 by Nikon. Although I usually do not pay attention to new products, this time I read an article from truly beginning to the end. Now I really want this 36 megapixel camera. But wait a minute… think about what I CANNOT do with my rangefinder camera. Do I need auto focus? IF I start wedding or event  photography, I may need autofocus …or I can do a job with a rangefinder camera. I don’t know at this point. I know dynamic range of my camera is not as wide as current Nikon or Canon DSLRs. But can I overcome the limitation by some photographic techniques?…yes, I can. I use HDR, flash and grad filters even though they are really difficult to use with rangefinder cameras. Unless I become an aerial photographer or a sports photographer, the narrow dynamic range is not a problem. I found that catalog specifications tend to go out by themselves and photographers (especially male) are easily tricked by those numbers. But I believe knowing limitations of the camera comes first. When photographic expressions expand, I need  to think about new system. I guess this right way to go. (Well, still I want D800E. Used Nikon PC 85mm has been in a showcase at the Camera store…Devil’s whisper)

Actually, I am not supposed to write about such a thing. I should talk about my fellow photographer, Jeff Cruz. He will h ave one-man exhibition at Resolution Local Art Gallery in Calgary, AB from February 14th to March 4th. The special about this show is all images are taken by iPhone. “The best camera is the one in your hand”; achieving creative works with whatever camera you have now. It does not need to be D700 or 5D mark II. Jeff is going to prove it.

When I met Jeff first time was at Stampede Western Photo galeery 2011. Although he is a professional commercial and editorial photographer, he exhibited beautiful landscapes at the Stampede show. Actually, He started taking pictures with plastic toy camera from a Bazooka Joe gum wrapper, so iPhone may have been already part of his DNA. Anyway, the opening reception of Jeff Cruz’s Instant art show will be Feb 17th Thursday from 5pm. I am going to see this nice guy as well as great photographer.

Play with shadow

At a location photo-session, I found the interesting wall decorated with some English writing  Beyond the SHADOW of a doubt, I had to use the wall. As I mentioned before, I almost always set a concept before starting shooting. This time I tried to play with shadow. Well… Idea was good but it took long time to figure out the lighting set-up to create the shadow effectively. I had to ask Janet to keep posing for long time. I wish I had an assistant.

Please click on the photos for larger images

While I was post-processing, I found this image looked like a music album cover, so I cropped to squire format.

The model was fabulous Janet Tran from Calgary.