Finally, after 6 months without going anywhere (apart three days in Donegal, but they don't count right?), tomorrow I'm flying home for a few days (don't worry ladies, I'll be back on wednesday). As usual I've plenty of plans to squeeze in these few days, and as usual I will do nothing but playing with cats and dogs. But in case I'll find the energy to actually do something I need to be prepared, but because I cannot bring all my gear as on the way back I have to fly back with Ryanair (sigh!), I have to keep my backpack under 10kg, and as I have to bring my laptop (which it steals about 3kg), I have to bring what (I think) I will need for these days, so if you want to know (but I do understand that these are not information that can change your life) what I have on my bag, that's the list:

• Canon 6D
• Canon 17-40mm f/4 L USM
• Canon 35mm f/1.4 L USM
• Canon 50mm f/1.4 USM
• Battery Charger
• Lee Big Stopper
• Hanhel Remote Control
• Laptop

That's it. I could keep the 35mm at home, as that focal length is covered by the 17-40, but it's such a good lens for street photography that I just cannot bring with me, same story for the 50mm.
Do I need any telephoto? No I don't, I never use them when I go around, I love my 135mm but it's a lens that is not essential for me.
Now, tickets ready, baggages ready, tablet with a new book to read and plenty of games ready, girlfriend ready, so it's just a matter of wait for my flight tomorrow.
I'm not sure if I will be able to update the blog in the next 5 days, as playing with pets it takes a lot of resources, so if you don't see anything new in the next few days, don't worry, it's all fine, I'm in the right paws.

When you are shooting outdoor you always have to deal with the biggest source of light that mother nature gave to us: the Sun. And when you are shooting landscapes, but this is valid for any kind of photography taken outdoor, how to use this source of light is one of your main concerns. For example, if you shoot facing the sun, especially in those rare occasions where even here, in Ireland, the sky is clear, you will get a very bright sky, and it's impossible to have the entire frame exposed correctly, because if you expose for the sky, the rest will be underexposed, if you expose for the land / city / whatever, the sky will be overexposed. Then if you turn by 180 degrees, with the sun on your back, you get a better situation, where the sky is more blue, and the exposure can be a bit more balanced. But then if it's midday, you are screwed. as the sun is on the zenit, and doesn't matter where you point your camera, because everything will look the same: flat.
In fact one of the common mistakes in photography is to believe that in sunny days, when there are no clouds and the sun is high, is the best situation to take photos. That's absolutely wrong. Especially when the sun is high, the light is extremely hard, and the fact that it's perpendicular as well it doesn't help at all. It makes everything look flat, no tridimensionality at all, no depth, just an awfully boring photo.

I supposed to see these guys this autumn, but apparentely I'll better stay home, as this nice contract is just silly.
You can't use your pictures beyond the publication you are shooting for and they pretend a copy of your photos, that they can use for whatever they want without pay you a single cent, even if they don't specify the size of the photos you have to send them, so if you want to photograph this band anyway, do me a favour, send them thumbnails, like 50 x 50 pixels.

(via Music Photographers)

I know, in the past few days I kinda forgot about this blog, but I've been superbusy and I really couldn't find a minute to write a post. Anyway, I've a couple of articles on the way, but while I'm still working on them I wanted to share this cool tutorial from Aaron Nace of Phlearn.com, which is going to explain us how to blend patterns to our photos in Photoshop.

(via Phlearn.com)

Here we are with the second part of my weekend spent with my camera. You are already excited isn't it? Anyway, let me go through this thing, I've done a part one and now I can't just skip the second part. So, Sundayyy!
On that day my girlfriend has to work for a few hours in Malahide, so I decided to be a nice boyfriend, and I went there to take some photos, so when she finished I was there, but before that, I wondered around that area trying to find something interesting to snap. Originally I meant to go to a point, not too far away from the town centre, where I could see the bridge that connect Malahide and Donabate, which it looks pretty interesting to photograph, but unfortunately that point is in a private area, so I had to give up.

Then I was hoping to get some nice long exposure in the sea, but with the low tide there were nothing really interesting to photograph, well, at least not like I wanted, and after a few shots like these ones...

In this interesting, and quite long (about 47 minutes), Joel Grimes explains the process he uses to create his amazing composite portraits. It is a bit long, but he goes through every single steps of his work process. Really, really interesting.

(via FStoppers)

This bank holiday has been pretty productive to me, as my girlfriend was working for the whole weekend, I have plenty of time to spend with my other love: photography. But going back a couple of days, on thursday I tried, again, to photograph a thing, that's the best word I can come up. It's a wall on the beach, in Sydney Parade (which it sounds like a place in Australia, but, big surprise, it's here in Dublin), and I dunno why they build it, for what reason, or who did it, but for me it's just a cool wall in the water.
If you want to go to see this place, here is the map:

View Larger Map

I tried to photograph it plenty of times, and I always got there with the low tide, all the fuckin times, and with the low tide that thing is pointless to photograph for me, even this time I tried, but it just doesn't work, it's not more than a "meh", so at the end the result, apart one single shot, was to photograph everything else but that wall.

I have to admit it, I'm a bit late for this post, I've already talked about their supporter band a few days ago, but in the past weeks I've been working as a crazy and I couldn't find the time write anything, and this weekend I've been around trying to do some landscape snaps around here, and I also tried to go through 3000 photos I took for a client a few weeks ago, so I'm using this bank holiday to try to write some new on the blog. Anyway, The Riptide Movement are a really cool band , that it may sound a bit outdate for some of you as they play a mix of folk rock & blues, but they are totally worth to see (and listen). And they are nice people too, as they gave me a triple A pass for their show, so this time I could take some pictures from a different prospective. Light wise the show was really good, not the best, but really cool to photograph, especially because the Olympia has a very good light set up, so even if the artist doesn't bring a light, you still get good lights.
Also this band doesn't fall in the category of the "poles with musical instruments" (which it makes the gig quite boring to photograph), and neither on the "grasshoppers under steroids" (which it makes the gig nearly impossible to photograph), so you have the good mix of different poses and expression that makes the photographs more interesting, rather than a repetition of same faces.
To conclude, it's a great gig to photograph and it's a great band to see live, and here there are some of the best pictures I took that night, which you can also find on my flickr account.

In this very interesting video, SLRLounge contributor Lauri Laukkanen is going to show us three different techniques to increase the sharpness of an image in Photoshop.
Personally I prefer the first one (and I guess is the same for Lauri), but I use slightly different settings, like I stay between 1 and 2 in the High Pass Filter, and then I used Overlay, but at the end the result is the same.

(via Lauri Laukkanen)

This one is pretty standard, I still don't like it, but at least they don't grab any rights from the photographer, and adding in editorial use flickr, facebook and my site should cover what I need. Essentially they don't want you to use those pictures to sell gadgets or make money out of it, but that's it. To be fair it's a quite honest release, at least compared to other bands like Of Monsters And Men.

(via Music Photographers)