[VIDEO] My Passion: Ride

Many people have passions for something, a hobby that s/he spends countless hours on learning, creating and perfecting. But a passion doesn’t have to be a hobby, it can be your work, an activity, a thing or a collection of things; as long as you put your heart and soul into it. I’ve been always fascinated with other people’s passion and I love to listen to their stories. Therefore, I have decided to start producing short videos - the series titled ‘My Passion’. 

This is the first video about Kevin, a guy living in the mid-south of the USA. Every weekend he wakes up before the sunrise to pursue his passion - to ride.

Kevin has a 9 to 5 desk job but he also has a passion outside of his office - he loves riding a bike. He can easily make 60 miles during a single ride and what drives him to wake up in the morning on every weekend is his passion. 'My Passion' is a series of short documentaries about people and their passions. Shot & edited by Konrad Dwojak (www.konraddwojak.com) Creative Commons Music: Nothing to Fear by Dexter Britain (dexterbritain.co.uk)

Why I am hated - a short documentary edited with free software

Those of you who follow me on social networks are probably aware that I was working for the last 3 months on my very first movie - a short documentary. I'm stoked to announce that the movie is finished and I'm very excited to share it with you.

I think that one of the most interesting things about the movie is the fact that I used only free software to put it together. I used Audacity to edit audio, iMovie to cut and put the video together and Blackmagic Davinci Resolve (Lite) to color grade it.

The short documentary is about Kelsey Hayes who is a special effects artists and a prop master based in Jackson, TN. He also attend on a regular basis various comic cons around the US.

Kelsey Hayes is a special effects artist and a prop master based in Jackson, TN (US). He also works full-time at a distribution center of a retail company so he has two lives and two jobs. But not everyone from his full-time job knows about his other creative profession.

Double Exposure Portrait Edited on iPad

My last blog post was about the Nikon - iPad mobile workflow that I’ve developed during my short trip to Poland in 2014. I think I’ll dedicate a separate blog article showcasing all of the pictures I edited on the iPad during my trip but I wanted to share with you now a double exposure picture/portrait, which I also edited on my mobile device. This was my first trial with a double exposure portrait (well, to be honest I have very strict rules and definition for a portrait and technically I wouldn’t call it a portrait but it’s something that requires a dedicated blog article).

I did a bit of research about double exposure portraits earlier this year and one of the most important things is to try to keep  most environment around a person overexposed. So that when you take the second picture, it only overlays on a person. This way, viewers attention goes immediately on a person. This is quite important because it’s very easy to photograph very ‘messy’ double exposure portraits. I tried to do it here and it looks like I was half successful - the top was overexposed as you can see. 

Everything was edited on the iPad using the Snapseed app (see my previous post about my iPad workflow).

You don't need a big camera, you need big lights

So what happens when a photographer finishes his work early and has nothing and nobody to photograph? He shoots self-portraits - at least that's what I did. I had some spare time in the photo studio after finishing my work, so I decided to shoot a self-portrait. To give myself a challenge, I decided to use my point-and-shoot Nikon P7800 to take these pictures. Why was it a challenge? Because my point-and-shoot is not compatible with the flash transceivers used in the studio. I had to shoot using only the ambient light from the modeling lights. 

Photographer's Self-Portrait

So how did I shoot my self-portrait? First and foremost, I put my point-and-shoot on a tripod. The modeling lights were very weak so I had to decide how to set the shutter speed, ISO and aperture. Because Nikon P7800 gives quite a lot of noise at higher ISO, I decided to keep it as low as possible. After playing around with exposure in the manual mode, I decided to use a shallow depth of field (low f-value). With ISO 80 and f/2.2 I got the shutter speed of 1/50 second. With the camera on a tripod and remembering that I shouldn't move, I set my camera on delayed exposure. 

Industrial Woman Shaman Photoshoot

If you follow my blog, you already know I've moved from Belgium to the US. Although I was very busy organizing the move, I had time for my last photo shoot in Belgium on the theme of  'contemporary woman shaman'.

woman shaman

Justyna Kuklo, who is a designer and a make-up artist, contacted me with her ideas for the woman shaman theme. We were very lucky to get the industrial site for the photo shoot. In fact, we ended-up having 2 slightly different shoots on the same day, but both on the theme of the contemporary woman shaman.

woman shaman

I have to admit that the pictures from the second shoot (in this blog post) are my favorite.

Make-up: Justyna Kuklo Model: Viktoria Bocevska Assistant: Jav Luc

The Sunset Alternative Couple

I think I couldn't image a better combination: a beautiful sunset, an interesting couple and a bit of alternative fashion. I put all these together using a speedlight and on-location photoshoot. I'm personally really satisfied with the results but of course, all these wouldn't be possible without a great team I had for this photoshoot: Ewa and Zoltan - models, Justyna - make-up and stylists, and Javier who assisted with lights and equipment. 

The Balloon Mystery Photography Project

Guess what happens when you combine a great photo-shoot team, environmental photography, conceptual photography and my twisted mind, ideas and sense of humor - all of these resulted in the Balloon Mystery Photography Project. I don't want to write too much about it here because I think you should look at the pictures and not be distracted with my ramble and words... So here you go: the Balloon Mystery Photography Project and its results: 

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Sylvia's Portrait

I figured out I'm way too lazy to regularly write (lengthy) blog articles, even though I have tons of pictures I would like to share on this blog. So, I've decided to turn the blog into an even more photo blog. I'll often publish here pictures but I'll spare you (and myself) text. Although, I might drop a line or two to give you some background information about the pictures. 

Sylvia asked me to take few portrait pictures of her.

Shooting with the Orbis Ring Flash

I published a review of the Orbis Ring Flash a while ago and I thought to share with you some of the pictures I took using it. When I started taking pictures with the Orbis Ring Flash, I noticed it was indeed producing a relatively* good light quality and that it can also be used as a light source positioned to the side from a model and the camera. The latter changes the purpose of the ring flash a bit, which is usually to produce shadowless photography.

Using it to the side from a model creates a desired shadow and also a round reflection in the eyes, which I really like. Because the reflection is round, it looks much like the sun, therefore it looks more natural than using other light modifiers (i.e. big softboxes, etc.) - hooray!

*Ok, let me explain why I wrote relatively here: I meant to use it for a double purpose. Firstly, the light quality from the Orbis Ring Flash won't be as good as the light coming out of professional and much more expensive ring flash. Secondly, when comparing the price and the light quality of the Orbish Ring Flash, it's indeed very good.