Enfin un peu de temps libre pour regarder les photos prises en voyage. Voici mes préférées. Si vous chercher un coin magnifique et tranquille, de grands espaces, l’océan, et des gens très gentil, allez dans les maritimes.
At last, some spare time to check out the pictures I shot during my trip this summer. Here are my favorites. If you are looking for a beautiful and quiet place, wide open spaces, the ocean and nice people, go in the eastern provinces.
Je l’avoue, je suis un fan de cette tendance. Je l’ai découverte dans mes débuts minimaliste et elle se retrouve maintenant fréquemment dans mes compositions. Je parle du negative space (à défaut d’un terme exact en français, quelqu’un peut m’aider? “Espace négatif” sonne un peu étrange), qui consiste à laisser une très large surface de la composition complètement vide et libre de tout détail. Il en résulte une image où le “vide” devient pratiquement le sujet principal. Il peut en ressortir beaucoup de choses, comme l’isolement, mais aussi l’onirique, l’imaginaire, quelque chose qui est là tout en étant invisible. Une photo devient doublement intéressante lorsqu’elle nous fait voyager au-delà de son cadre.
I love using negative space. I began using this composition style when I was into minimalism photography. If you’re not familiar with it (I’ll try my best to describe it in english), using negative space means leaving most of the photography empty, but not completely. This negative space becomes the main subject of your composition, and at the same time, it puts a lot of emphasis of what’s actually on the picture. This can make an otherwise very ordinary picture become very powerful and meaningful. A lot of things can be felt from negative space, like loneliness, silence, but also imagination, dreams, and ghosts. A photography becomes twice as interesting when it makes you go beyond its borders.
Je cherchais un moyen pas trop cher d’équipper mon flash d’un diffuseur pour les shooting “légers”. Je suis finalement tombé sur le Lumiquest Softbox III (environ 60$). J’aurais vraiment pu me le bricoler moi-même pour le tier du prix. Enfin, au diable la dépense (un dicton populaire chez les photographes habitués de se ruiner pour leur art). 
L’effet est surprenant et plutôt satisfaisant. J’arrive à adoucir énormément la lumière du 580 EX II. J’imagine que je vais surtout m’en servir lors des mariages, pour la photo prise sur le vif avec flash, question d’adoucir un peu la lumière. Premier conseil si vous faites souvent l’utilisation du flash avec votre appareil: n’utilisez jamais celui qui est inclus dans votre caméra et qui sort à l’improviste. Utilisez-le seulement si vous en avez vraiment, VRAIMENT besoin et qu’il n’y a rien d’autre à portée de main, ou alors si vous êtes sur les lieux d’un crime et que vous devez prendre des photos de cadavres, ce genre de chose. Il aplati joyeusement tout et rend vos photos tout à fait quelconques. Achetez-vous un flash et éloignez-le de la lentille, donnez-lui de l’angle, ou alors orientez-le pour le faire rebondir sur une surface blanche comme un mur ou un plafond qui diffusera sa lumière et ne projettera pas des ombres titanesques derrière votre sujet.
I was looking for a cheap way to soften and spread the light coming out of my hotshoe flash. I stumbled on something called the Lumiquest Softbox III (around 60 bucks). Frankly, I could have made it myself (there are tons of web pages teaching you how to do it), but I thought, you know, what the heck. The results are pretty encouraging and satisfying. My 580 EX II becomes much softer. I guess it’s going to be pretty useful in weddings for portraits and pictures on-the-go. Watch out though, it can get in the way of your flash exposure reader, so set it to manual. I already had the Stofen diffuser, white, gold and green, but the Lumiquest produce a light that is much softer. An advice for begginners using flash: for the love of all that matters to you, don’t use the popup flash included with your camera. It flattens everything in its path and will probably makes your pictures even worse. Use it if you really, REALLY need it or, say, if you on a crime scene and must take pictures of corpses, that sort of thing. Buy a hotshoe flash and get it away from your camera, give it some angle, or make its light bounce on something white such as a wall or a ceiling. The light will spread, give a much more natural look and remove all these dreadful shadows behind your subject.
Voici le genre de lumière que le Lumiquest Softbox II peut donner sur mon cobaye préféré.
Here is a picture that was shot using the Lumiquest Softbox III on my favorite model (and girlfriend).
Je me suis quand même bricolé quelque chose. Ça faisait des lustres que je n’avais rien bricolé et une fois la chose terminée je me suis rendu compte à quel point on se sent bien une fois qu’on a construit quelque chose de ses propres mains. C’est un flash annulaire (j’ai trouvé ça sur Strobist, merci Max), le plus souvent utilisé en macro, mais aussi très en vogue chez les photographes de mode. Il s’agit d’un flash qui encercle littéralement la lentille, une sorte de beigne lumineux qui donne une lumière frontale et un reflet très intéressant dans les yeux. Voici ma sublime création. Au lieu d’en payer un vrai au montant de 700$, j’ai déboursé quelques 30$.
Actually I did make a DIY flash. I can’t remember the last time I built something with my own hand. Once finished, I realized how good it feels to make something yourself. It’s a ring flash. I found an easy way to make one on Strobist (thanks Max). Usually, a ringflash is used for macro photography. But some fashion photographers like to use it too for a very special (a likable) effect. Here it is! Beautiful isn’t it? Instead of buying one for 700 bucks, I spent a mere 30$ at the local store.
Ce qui donne ce genre de portrait.
Here is a picture shot with my DIY ringflash.
1/60, f/1.2, ISO 400
America (the world) really needs Barack Obama. That’s all I gotta say.
1/60, f/2.8, 1600 ISO
85mm, 1/60, f/2.0, 1600 ISO. I have a vertical version of this shot here. I used to do a lot of these shots with my first digital camera, a small Fuji Finepix E550, very nice camera for its price. You can all the pics I shot with this camera here. My most faved picture on flickr to this day was shot with this camera. Since I uploaded this picture on Paronamio I receive comments almost on a daily basis, mostly via Google Earth. I was at the right spot at the right moment. Since I had almost no zoom on this camera, I had to crawl next to it to take the shot. I was very surprised that the butterfly never took off. I gues it’s a proof that whatever camera you actually have, what matters most is your skill at getting close enough. Like Robert Capa said, If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.
24mm, 1/400, f/2.8, 400 ISO.
This one was taken in Seydisfjordur in Iceland. I loved the way both men were framed by the door. Taken with a Canon 30D mounted with a 50mm f/1.4 lens.
I have yet to take a look at all the shots I’ve made in Iceland. Too many. It’s kinda nice because I can’t remember all of them, so from time to time there are nice surprises, shots that I took quickly while on the go. I had this feeling with this one I just found. It was shot on the beach of a town called Vik, in the southernmost part of Iceland. There was a great, huge, desert beach made of volcanic black sand and pebbles. I loved the way my girlfriend’s colorful shoes came out on the black pebbles.
I can’t wait to have some spare time and make a selection of all the best shots. Maybe I could make a photo album using iphoto. I’ve seen some of them and they are really nice. I’d like to print some of them, get them framed and showing them off in a gallery or a Cafe somewhere. That could be nice. My mother keeps telling me I should sell a book on Iceland, like a coffee-table book. I wonder if it could work?
Publishing a photo book must be expensive.
I guess you are going to see many of them in the future, as I shuffle through them. Scattered pieces of Iceland, one of the most beautiful place I saw. Cleary the best trip I have made in my entire life.
