Short Get Away to the Belgian Coast & De Haan

May 29, 2011

Fresh breeze, smell of the sea and getting away from the busy city streets even for 3 days are for me a good inspiration and a already nice holidays. That's what I did at the end of March 2011 by going to the Belgian coast to De Haan city. Although I was raised and spent most of my youth in a city very close to the seaside, I haven't had much chance to see the sea often lately as I spent much time in Brussels (probably too much :) ).

Those 3 days were perfect for me not only for 'recharging my batteries' but also to get some photography inspiration - the fresh sea breeze can work its magic. The weather was perfect. It was a bit windy but taking under consideration that it was only the end of March and the very beginning of spring in Belgium, it was just perfect.

Brussels Photo Walk #5: Abandoned Warehouse

December 5, 2010

I just want to give you a quick nudge about Brussels Photo Walk #5, which took place on Sunday, November 21, 2010. We were lucky again having pretty good weather without rain. I think this was one of the most exciting Brussels photo walks so far because we went to the part of Brussels that wasn't discovered by anyone of us before. We went to the industrial part of Brussels - it was exciting and a bit scary at the same time. We run across many abandoned and squat buildings but I think that the most joy gave us an abandoned warehouse where we spent most of the time. Destroyed windows without glass, wires sticking out of the walls and floor, plants growing inside the warehouse and many other things became the photography subjects and inspirations for Brussels Photo Walk #5 in this amazing abandoned warehouse. It was a really inspiring walk and thank you all for participating!

Remember, everyone is welcomed to join a photo walk – you don’t need a fancy camera or photography knowledge. As long as you enjoy photography, you’re more than welcomed to join and have fun with us!

Remember to join our Facebook Group and the Flickr Group (links below) to stay up-to-date!

Facebook Group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=290912725588&ref=ts

Flickr Group: http://www.flickr.com/groups/brusselsphotowalks/

By the way, despite the rumors going around, I'm still alive :) I haven't been much active online lately (on the blog, Facebook or Twitter) but I hope that this period of limited online social activity will disappear soon. I have lined-up few new and exciting photography projects for the end of 2010 and for the beginning of 2011 so these new assignments will keep me busy for sure.

Always have your camera with you - Weekend Trip to Maastricht

November 13, 2010

I don't know how many times photographers repeat it to their students but I'm sure that you're already familiar with it: take your camera anywhere you go (when possible of course). I think it was the very first thing I learned when I was starting my adventure with photography few years ago and so far it's the easiest thing to remember. Probably because I really can't move anywhere without my camera anymore. My friend once said that a camera has glued onto my hand.

Why is it important to always have a camera with you? The answer is very simple and it's common sense: you never know when an opportunity for a great shot will be. It's important to have a camera not only in situations where and when you're expected to shoot but also in random situations, like a walk, family meetings, going out for a dinner, etc. Having a camera with you allows you to be ready to capture a moment that will pass and disappear. Scott Bourne goes a bit deeper into this topic in his article "Capture A Moment – Before It Goes Away Forever" on PhotoFocus.com.

1 November (Monday) was a public holiday in Belgium. I took an opportunity of having a long weekend and I went to Maastricht (the Netherlands) where I used to live before I moved to Brussels (Belgium) in 2009. I lived in Maastricht for about 5 years, so you can imagine I have lots of good memories from there. Going back to the city where I spent 5 years of my life was a great experience and even a time-machine, if you know what I mean. I took plenty of pictures during that weekend, counted in hundreds, and it's a great feeling to look at them now.

Fiesta Latina Festival in Brussels

September 26, 2010

I met with Norbert Sokolowski (www.norbertsokolowski.com), a fellow photographer, in Brussels for a short walk to Fiesta Latina Festival in August 2010. The day started a bit rainy but soon sun came out and it really felt like Fiesta Latina Festival! :-)

Fiesta Latina Festival takes place in Brussels each year and is a unique opportunity for everyone to get away from her/his culture and start discovering the traditions, rhythms, colours and flavours of Latin-America. We spent there with Norbert about an hour but we experience almost everything: music, dances, food, cheerfulness and the great spirit of Latin cultures.

A Photo Shoot at the Polish Seaside

September 19, 2010

I was going to update you on this photo shoot already a couple weeks ago but because of an extremely busy calendar and lots of photography assignments recently, I'm able to publish these pictures only now.

As some of you might already know, I spent my summer 2010 holidays in Gdansk, Poland, which is actually not only a beautiful town in the north of the country, but it's also my hometown (surprise, surprise! :) ). I managed to convince my friend to model for me (it actually wasn't so hard to convince her) for a photo shoot at the seaside. I always wanted to do a photo shoot at the seaside :)

Although the shoot was in the evening, the light was still quite hard so we did few shots under a pier and then we moved to a little forest just next to the beach. I used Nikon's SB-900 speedlight for all the pictures taken in the forest and also for few of them under the pier.

Back from holidays, back to work

September 11, 2010

It's been a while I posted something on the blog since last time and I thought I would just give you a quick update what was and what will be going on in my photography life. Let's start with the past events then, shall we? :) I spent 2 weeks in Poland in August visiting my family and friends. Besides taking some snapshots at the countryside and while traveling a bit around, I also had a photo shoot at the Polish seaside. The pictures from this shoot are ready to be published but I think I'll put the online next week or so.

Why so late? Well, I've been quite busy recently and I'm actually going to be pretty busy with various photography assignments for at least next couple of weeks. Having said that, let me tell you what I'll be doing this weekend: I was asked by the organizers of Antwerp Diamond Triathlon 2010 (www.adt2010.be) to be an official photographer for the event. The triathlon will take place on Sunday 12 September 2010 and will start at 14:00, so come over if you're around!

Photo Location Hunting around Brussels Airport

July 11, 2010

I went to the area near Brussels Airport with my friend Lourdes (her photo website) in May 2010 to hunt for interesting locations for the upcoming photo shoots and assignments. We found some really interesting spots for portraits and creative pictures in the area of Brussels Airport. I ended up taking few portrait test shots with Nikon SB-900 speedlight but I have to admit I was much more fascinated by the airplanes.

The area near Brussels Airport is easily accessible. They are many roads, bike roads, fields, etc. and the place is very interesting for some creative shoots. But my attention quickly turned over to the airplanes. I was amazed how low they get when approaching the airport and I couldn't stop taking the pictures. The feeling of a low-flying airplane together with the enormously loud sound of the engines was simply AMAZING! I can't wait to go there again!

How to shoot better pictures - Film Camera Style Tip

May 3, 2010

I was looking over some of my older photography gear few weeks ago and obviously I ran across my old film cameras and old memory cards from my first digital cameras. I started to recall the times of film photography and compare it with the experience of the digital world.

It took me awhile (being so deep in digital cameras nowadays) to realize that film cameras limited me by certain number of pictures a photographic film roll could contain (not like digital cameras, which can take from few hundred to few thousand RAW pictures, depending on the capacity of a memory card). The limitation of a number of â€˜exposuresâ€™ (in photographic jargon of course) in film cameras forced me to spend some time and think about a composition of a picture, how to frame a subject, inspect closely foreground, background, double check the lighting and any other details that could improve a picture so that no film and frames would be wasted. This limitation of a film camera was (and for someone who uses a film camera still is) a very important step in the learning process of the art of photography and I personally believe that it still should be a part of the learning process of photography.

I think that digital cameras with their huge memory cards give us the freedom that actually does more harm than good for those who want to learn photography â€“ we donâ€™t take that extra time and effort on checking composition of a picture like in a film camera because we know that we can re-take a picture countless number of time and delete easily â€˜badâ€™ pictures without any financial costs (as it wasnâ€™t the case in the photographic film roll era).

I think I have found a solution for those who own only digital cameras and who want to learn composition in a way it was done before. The solution is quite simple: next time you will go for a photo walk, do an assignment for yourself or just take pictures, leave your 8 or 16 GB memory card at home and take with you only one memory card of 1GB or even less (the less capacity, the better; I just checked that 1GB for shooting 12.1 MP RAW will give you about 68 exposures). Depending if you shoot RAW or JPEG and how many megapixels your camera has, you should find a memory card that enables you to take not more than 30 exposures. And remember to leave all other memory cards at home! This way you will limit your gear but you will definitely expand your knowledge and experience in composition!

I strongly encourage you to try it out few times and I guarantee that you will see improvement in your photography soon.

Happy Shooting!!!

Article Picture: I took it in the evening with my Nikkor 35mm f1.8 lens in Jubel Park in Brussels (Bruxelles), Belgium. Jubel Park in a part of Parc du Cinquantenaire (click to see Google Maps). EXIF info: Nikon D90, Shutter Speed: 1/60 sec., f/1.8, ISO: 200.

Exposure Is NOT Shutter Speed!

April 25, 2010

I met a group of young photographers in Brussels (Belgium) few days ago. I overheard them discussing various aspects of photography so I joined them of course. At some point, they got to the point of talking about exposure as if they were talking about shutter speed (for example that the exposure was 1/60 sec.). To be honest, I was confused at first and I started to question my knowledge on the differences between exposure and shutter speed. Thankfully, it didn't take me long to do a quick and quiet analysis in my head and to assure myself that I was right in the first place:

Exposure is NOT the same as shutter speed!

I won't go in detail but I will just give a quick summary to those of you who are still confused a little: exposure is the total amount of light that passes on a film (or a digital sensor). That total amount of light depends on the aperture and on the shutter speed.

Note: Some photographers use 'exposure time' as a 'shutter speed'. Although this is correct (shutter speed defines for how long a film or a sensor are exposed, therefore 'exposure time'), I personally don't use 'exposure time' because it's very much different from 'exposure' itself but can create much confusion.

Article Picture: This is another picture taken at the Cemetery de Molenbeek in Brussels (Bruxelles), Belgium (see google map). Previous one was posted with THIS article. I saw this statue while walking around the cemetery and I was amazed with it's look. EXIF: Nikon D90, Shutter Speed: 1/1600 sec., f/1.8, Aperture Priority, ISO: 200, EV Bias: +0.7

Aperture 3 Finally usable: Aperture 3.0.2 Update

March 28, 2010

You might recall that I mentioned in my previous blog article I would be moving away from Aperture 3 and I promised to tell you why. Well, things have changed in the past week and they've changed quite dramatically, but in a good sense. Apple released update to Aperture 3 with the number 3.0.2 on 25 March 2010. Although, this update number looks insignificant, it includes many crucial updates and fixes (at least for the most part) what was bothering me the most: extremely low performance of Aperture 3. The detailed description of the fixes in Aperture 3.0.2 update are provided on Apple's website here.

I spent few hours yesterday testing Aperture 3.0.2 and I have to say I was positively surprised. This update makes Aperture 3 finally usable or as Scott Bourne from PhotoFocus.com wrote: "Aperture 3.0.2 “ FINALLY Finally Ready For Prime Time". It's true (and many photographers confirm that) that Apple's first public major releases (like Aperture 3.0) are in fact full of glitches and bugs. Therefore, they should be seen by the end users as 'unofficial' public betas and not final products. Only after few updates (just like in case of Aperture 3), these products become usable. I myself didn't use Aperture 3 and I waited for the first update of 3.0.1 but even then, the product was not operational, unusable and buggy. I'm a little surprised and even disappointed that Apple acts the way it does with its products towards the customers. Maybe they will learn the lesson, especially after such a sound criticism about buggy Aperture 3. Sometimes it's good to learn from competitors Apple!

Having said that, I will probably stay with Aperture 3 (well, actually Aperture 3.0.2) as it seems to work fine (more or less at least). I've tested about 75%-80% of the features and performance of its 3.0.2 update and it works much MUCH better than the previous version.

Article Picture: Some of you might be familiar with it: it's theÂ Atomium in Brussels (Bruxelles), Belgium (see map) or at least a part of it.