(photo tip) decided to enter some tips, stuff i learned from each situation. wish i brought a small 1 step ladder. everyone is nearly 5-feet 8-inches high, when u have ‘service’ and the masses the same height, 12-inches more height aids in more fruitful photo op. heart out to jason reed. we were all tippy-toeing to get a pic. mandel was the only one heads and shoulders above and able to make pics at will. i know what i’m bringing as omiyage to my fellow photogs.

this years coverage was another year, POTUS/FLOTUS’ vacation in the islands. most of my views of POTUS (obama) was thru the bus windows ! LOL ! there were some logistical issues that kent shared about missing the yearly shaved ice photo op. LOL ! what ? more photos of obama enjoying slurping his shaved ice ?

all is well. many hours were spent at the base starbucks. with new white house staff, my days were shared rather uneventful as in above photograph. no complaints, just sending positive energy to the commander in chief. hey, when you’re vacationing and you’re a public figure at least give the pool press some views of your beach frolicking instead of having images being made a paparazzo. what’s so secret about you and the first family enjoying the beach ? i’m a kamaaina too ! wish there was more transparency regarding this issue. we’re on the pool bus to do our job, which is to cover your movements, and this includes your vacation time out in the public.

to make daily photographs from our pool bus like above is a farce ! repeat my words, a total FARCE ! this was our only view of the day ! talk more about transparency ! actions speak louder than words. below another view which we on the pool bus have been very accustomed to.

fun times though, hanging out w/ photographers from AP, Reuters and AFP ! here we are above on christmas eve, waiting for POTUS’ motorcade to cruise past the base xmas tree.

departure via Air Force 1.

lastly, the wave. this year opted to use a hand holdable 400mm/5.6L. fantastic, hand holdable lens if there is daylight. LOL ! more on this later ! have a good day, thanks for stopping thru !

A behind the scenes view into the view i know as the ‘international pool’ made up of Xinhua, EuroVision, European PressPhoto Agency, Reuters, Agence France Presse, Getty and The Associated Press.

some work photographs here, just search under my name webgate.epa.eu/

Some of the most amazing photojournalists work in both the White House pool and this working international tight pool. an honor to be working along side such a talented group of image makers. above photograph, Jason Reed of Reuters and Getty’s Kevork Djanesezian rearrange furniture for a group photograph of 20-something world leaders. there were 4 photographers from Agence France Presse, 3 from Reuters, one from Xinhua, and a small army from the Associated Press. the teams even had one or two on site photo editors to move images quickly and caption photographs too. Kevork and i were able to move images at the same efficiency as having two photo editors, i think one major factor is that since we made the images, we knew which images to file.

above photograph made from my perch, a 6 foot tall ladder. LOL

the photo riser for the group shot was packed, not to the brim, instead everybody was scrambling for a dead on head shot, which meant there was a large concentration of photographers and video dudes amassed in the center. in my situation, kent was in the tight pool, he was positioned near dead center which meant i was covered. i did make a wide shot too just in case and instead concentrated on moments, spontaneous moments that might be historical, both with a 300/2.8 and a 70-200mm. both lenses afforded an image with intimacy and yet allowed for me to go a bit wider in case i needed to include 8-10 people. earlier the quick thinking meisters of reuters and Kevork of getty immediately grabbed a couple extra steps and added it to the center creating about a 2 foot height advantage. i found a 6-foot ladder and propped it up on the highest riser giving me a cleaner background instead of coconut trees growing out of the leaders from the group shot. the background was much nicer with greens.

background backgrouna background

kent above during a break before the last press conference of the day, concluding APEC 2011 USA

dennis oda was on fire. he was making a huge amount of group photographs ! was happy to join along in one here. LOL !

the last day of meetings and photography ops was an amazing hawaii day !
below kevork ‘walks on water’ near our hold next to the pool at the JW Marriot Ihilani Resort and Spa.

let the APEC USA 2011 Summit begin ! arrived a week or so before to honolulu. fantastic weather awaited ! amazingly beautiful, clean tradewinds buffeted my lungs. home !

hawaii is host to this years Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. hawaii will play host to the 20 or so world leaders and delegates from neighboring countries.

looking forward to a week of interesting photographic opportunities.

cheers !

aloha world ! its always nice to return to the islands. wow ! the fresh breeze, morning showers, rainbows !!

few days ago honored to make photographs of a fellow photographer. decided to dust off some polaroid 55PN 4×5 instant film and make some portraits with the aero ektar combo at the downtown post office. what a beautiful building ! always inspired by the architecture, the arched walkways ! what a treasure to hawai’i !

this was the only frame i got, the rest of the roid films got jammed in my holder for some reason or another. such is life ! fun ! all we needed was one shot ! LOL !

also did some cool freelensed portraits too ! i still am amazed w/ the olympus zuiko glass ! more on that later !

i’d like to humbly invite all to a group show opening this 11AM, saturday, october 8, 2011 at Osambashi Pier, Yokohama, Japan. i’m sharing 3 large panoramic prints. here’s one of them.

humble thanks to enokida san for inviting me to join the exhibition. also Big MAHALO to Jerry & Ed for handling scanning (sorry for the dust ed), printing the canvas prints and mailing the prints to japan. graphic pictures inc ! you rock ! humble thanks !

aloha all !
from my last post, talking about standard focal length or 50mm we jump up to medium telephoto lenses. my favorite two are the Carl Zeiss Jena biotar 75mm f/1.5 and the venerable Nikkor AIS 105mm f/1.8

both feature compression and shallow depth of field. the former, Carl Zeiss Jena biotar (scalloped focus ring) features a very eclectic and ‘vintage’ view. the old coatings, glass and lens formulation gives me a very unique tool. i remember when this lens was fairly common and great value. quite recently, the prices have soared to over US$1000 ! yikes. this is a very unique lens, although very difficult to focus and prone to flare, this optic gem renders common scenes with a poetic stroke of the brush, rendering light in dreamy and surreal manner. enough said, its best seen in photographic examples.

i use all my lenses wide open. which means even during bright sunny days, i slap on a ND filter or use a slow ISO of 50 or ISO 100 to retain the aperture at f/1.5 or f/1.8.

below is an example of the Carl Zeiss Biotar freelensed. that is, lens removed and held manually in front of lens mount. a ‘handheld’ extension tube if you will !

humble thanks for swinging thru. for more visual updates featuring two current photo projects please follow me on twitter @lightmeister.

part 2 in a series. LOL

the infamous and standard focal length, the 50mm lens.

in my camera ‘stash’ i use various incarnations of the 50mm lens, each with its own signature and character. Starting with the fastest of the fastest, is the Canon 50mm f/0.95 in Leica mount, Zuiko 50mm f/1.4, Lensbaby 50mm f/2.0 in Nikon PB-4 tilt/shift bellows, and the most used, very sharp Nikkor AI 55mm f/3.5 Micro Nikkor for studio work.

above image created with Zuiko 50mm f/1.4 freelensed on a Canon 7D.

fitting into a nikon PB-4 TILT/SHIFT bellows, a Lensbaby 50mm f/2.0 . very versatile and fantastic on cropped sensor cameras. the bellows allows for some fantastic macro images. image below.

lastly, the Nikkor AI 55mm f/3.5. fantastically sharp and versatile with its flat field, or low distortion and the ability to make macro or closeup images.

image above, Nikkor 55mm micro nikkor. sharp and nice bokeh signature.
while below image, the macro also performs well for closeups too. two lenses in one.

each 50mm variant has its own character. the lensbaby features a very shallow depth and interesting bokeh signature. while sharp in the ‘sweet spot’, the lens also doubles as an interesting lens at infinity. the zuiko is a fast f/1.4 all around lens, super compact and sharp. lastly, the micro nikkor is also compact but razor sharp for all around images and most especially, closeup macro pics.

thanks for reading ! please chime in if u have any questions or comments !

without centering too much on brands or lens formulas, one of my favorite focal lengths is the 35mm.

there are many incarnations of this particular lens. leitz makes a 35/2.0 summicron, konica 35mm f/2.0 on hexar AF, canon EF 35/2.0 and f/1.4L, nikkor AIS 35/2.0 and f/1.4 and many more.

the ability for this lens to ‘see’ in a very unique way. visual juxtaposition is easiest in my opinion with this focal length. it is a wide angle lens primarily that works well in close and allows very little distortion. my opinion, its easy to slap on a 20mm and go in, but difficult to use a 35mm. visual elements can be included with little distortion to the edges of the frame to create ‘activation of the edges’ creating visually dynamic images.

each of these sample photographs were made with a Hexar AF 35mm f/2.0 hexanon lens. shot on 35mm film and scanned at fullframe. you can see the actual frames.

please follow me on twitter Follow @lightmeister

the 35mm focal length or lens works well in close too, as in this portrait below of tommy oshima.

thanks for reading !
please chime in with questions or comments. happy to respond.

Starting the weekend right.

perspectives or point of view/s.

what is it ? how do you use it in photography ? first, for the photographer it can be crawling on the ground or offering a bird’s eye view by climbing to the top of the highest building. two different vantage points with different psychological and visual differences. besides getting down and dirty, changing the view, via camera perspective show’s you the photographer are ‘working it’. sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. the important part is the effort or efforts.

in the above photograph, a fisheye lens is used to ‘force’ the foreshortened perspective, holding the camera above on a monopod gives a slight aerial view and a clear view of the rest of the subjects. so in this case, various lenses can create a super wide feeling or an isolated feeling via a macro (closeup lens).

macro view. below, freelensed macro view of pink flowers. (lens handheld in front of camera). the isolated view point, condenses the viewers and concentrates her/him into a perspective that oftentimes would be overlooked. detail images is what many photographers sometimes forget to ‘see’, they see the big picture and miss the little ones.

as you know, you can’t go back to the situation after the job is finished.

also when editing a final product of a bunch of images, having different views of an assignment sometimes lends itself to tell the story in a different and creative way.

another variation on the theme with perspective is the illusion of 3-dimensionality on a 2-dimensional surface. a genius of this was escher. huh ? 3d on 2d ? once you learn a bit about lighting, playing in the studio and learning more of the phenomena of light, you can start playing. breaking the rules too.

what rules ?

now the fun begins.

please follow me for tips about photograhy via Follow @lightmeister

Follow @lightmeister

learning about facebook and twitter… the million dollar questions, how do i connect a potential client to the vendor, in my case, how do i connect with new clients or companies needing images for their corporation or brand ? if u know please let me know. i’m learning about how social media can spawn new clientele. many humble thanks to our readership.

not just any kind of photographic images that any tom, dick or harry can make w/ a $2000 multi megapixel camera, but instead images that move beyond a snapshot by a ‘picture taker’ as opposed to an ‘image maker’.

one important key is LIGHTING. what is LIGHT ? simple photons you might say ?

there is one key component of light in the photographic world called ‘quality of light’. the sun is a light we commonly know and see every day, morning to evening. the most beautiful ‘quality of light’ of the sun happens at the moments before the sun actually rises and another time before the sun plops below the horizon and a magical time after the sunsets. i see many ‘picture takers’ leave after the sunset, they don’t realize or ‘see’ the magical ‘quality of light’. these ‘picture takers’ have the gear but lack the sensibility of how to see light.

i often wondered why i was sitting in art history class up at manoa listening to countless lectures and millions of slides being projected on huge auditorium screens. engrained in my subconscious was the renaissance works of rembrandt and his iconographic sense of light. what made him a painting meister was his sense of creating a mood with highlights and shadows.

PHOTOGRAPHY is ‘drawing with ight’ or in my case ‘painting with light’. when i set out, i brainstorm a few ideas, sketch them. most importantly, i think about the background (BACKGROUND, BACKGROUND, BACKGROUND) and of course foreground light and how and what tools i might schlepp along. less is more… sometimes.

if you have any questions, please chime in, this is a two way dialogue. sharing, growing and learning together. Follow @lightmeister