Pen out January
Circa 20 photos from Year Three that were important for me for whatever reason. And I’ll try to elaborate on those reasons. :·)
I don’t think I became a better photographer since last year. If anything, I really just learned how to be better at post production (more and more of my photos are now brown and I started applying vignetting everywhere — help me!), and I definitely spent a lot more time on the wide-angle side of things, finally getting some good pixelage out of a 10–22mm lens I bought long time ago (the infatuation might have all started with me lying on a street in Zürich to take this photo).
The only new purchase: the updated 100mm f/2.8 L IS macro. Haven’t used it much. Oh, and I still have not figured out how to do HDR. Maybe that’s for the better.
Here we go:
Just a couple of days before Apple’s announcement of the iPad, I convinced a co-worker to bring in his vintage prototypes of Apple tablet computers to take photos of them. I had a simple one-umbrella setup and I was interested more in preserving the artifacts for posterity, rather than being artistic. Some of the photos (prototype one, two, three) were later picked up by tech websites.
I’m fortunate enough that my business trips to New York put me not even near, but right on the beloved High Line. One of those trips, I woke up to the sight of the park, completely unexpectedly, covered in snow. I jumped out of bed, grabbed my camera, and shot a series of photos while it was still snowing. The snow was gone by lunch time, but my photos will live on forever. On top of that, since I typically try to do at least modest amount of tagging, the High Line staff found my photos soon thereafter, said they were “smitten” by them, and proceeded to use them for some High Line newsletters and advertising. A fact, needless to say, I am really proud of.
This is what I wrote that day: “If you’re lucky, there will be a single moment during a given trip that alone will completely validate, and perhaps even define it. For me it happened this morning, when I woke up and found the Hudson River, the High Line, the yellow cabs, the entire world just like that, without any prior warning, surrendering itself to snow…”
It seemed appropriate to anthropomorphize on Valentine’s Day. :·) These are the last photos I took in Computer History Museum’s Visible Storage, before it closed to undergo a major renovation. Since Visible Storage was already unavailable for visitors, I was able to spend a lot of time trying out different lighting setups — and since some of the artifacts were already moved off-site, it gave me more freedom and access. (I even took some photos of myself pretending to be a data operator in the 1960s — but don’t tell anyone from the Museum! :·) )
My best friend described this photo as “scary.” Perhaps he’s right. We moved Andy Rubin’s Cylon Centurion for Bear McCreary’s visit and Brandon Downey and I took this opportunity to bring our lights and try out a couple of shots.
My idea for a shot was something for an imaginary magazine cover, although the one I ended up designing was a bit less flattering than what I originally had in mind. :·)
It was a bit challenging to set up the fake red light reflection, and making sure to capture the android’s moving red light. Here’s our lighting setup, although this particular one is what we used for this photo.
A quick photo shoot for a magazine article. “Don’t worry, these are just test photos.” “And those are typically the ones you end up choosing in the end?” Truer words were never spoken. This was the first photo I took and the one Nadav ended up liking most.
Another accidental photo that very much looks like a magazine cover. I haven’t gotten around to designing that one yet, though. My idea is a magazine for dogs that talks about how to handle your owner. ;·)
This was taken around midnight, during the all-nighter preceding Pac-Man’s doodle launch. Ryan and I needed a photo for the blog post, and after trying a number of complex arrangements with some of the team members, various mobile phones, etc. (some of them can be seen in the photo album), we came up with this simple idea. There’s actually quite a lot happening in this photo — you can see the JavaScript code, some of the bugs, an early sketch — but I like the simple setup, and my favourite bit is the ever-anxious Blinky not even being able to stand still for one photo.
Part of a quick engagement photo shoot at a corridor in UCLA, this photo surprised me because I could salvage something quite decent in post from what looked like a lost cause.
The most fun I had photographing ever. My friend’s band took over a grocery store in Davis for an all-night video shoot. Some of my lenses were used for video, but I also spent the night capturing a couple thousand behind-the-scenes snapshots, video stills and various portraits. Bottom line: If you like fun, rent a grocery store, put some cool people in it, and grab your camera.
The worst/best piano I ever played
September
There’s an ongoing debate whether a good photo could or could not stand on its own without a story, or at least a caption. For this photo, a story seems in order:
It was amazing. I was in a house in Mendocino, filled with families I didn’t know, and this old dilapidated upright. I am sure no one played it seriously for a long, long time, so I did. Without introductions, or asking for permission, or excuses, I just sat down and started playing — the sonatas I learned, the things I put together myself. I had to be a bit creative, since some of the keys no longer worked.
I have always dreamed of being able to do something like that, and I guess I do now. It snuck up on me. As we were all leaving, hours later, I was complimented by someone I least expected to do so.
I’ve been good and I’ve been bad
September
This was a bit of a personal project; me on the right is about one day older than me on the left, freshly shaved and with a new haircut. It was all shot in my apartment (check out the originals and an outtake), and then put together in Aperture and Photoshop. If you know what this is recreating, we should be friends.
Things I learned:
This cow licked my lens! True story.
Friends in a strange land
October
My friend sent me to check out the tourist-friendly Tian Zi Fang, but I took a wrong turn and accidentally ended up in a much more mysterious, but also much more authentic part of Shanghai. I struggle with taking photos of people, but the Chinese I met there were friendly and actually encouraged me (using mostly gestures) to take some photos of them!
It was a really weird day. I randomly ended up going to Titusville’s Police Hall of Fame and Museum, but I had no idea it had a shooting range. The ex-cop who was briefing me also happened to be a photographer, so I bolted on a wide-angle lens and handed him the camera. He was good enough to capture the very moment of me shooting, but I’m not too sure if the mixture of fascination and discomfort I was feeling as I was firing a gun for the first time in my life ended up in the photo as well.
Earlier that day, I woke up at 4am to see the ultimately scrubbed launch of space shuttle Discovery. Later that day, I lost a wallet, and had a text-based conversation with a police officer. It was a really weird day.
Taking skyline photos as the sun is setting is an exercise for the patient. Taking them in Chicago winter is doubly demanding. I spent a couple of days between 4pm and 6pm waiting for that right tone of the sky. In the end, I wasn’t all that happy with the photos (even though I consider them better than my previous attempt in 2008), but I am glad I tried; somehow I have fond memories of those frostbite-friendly moments.
Waiting in cold and sometimes rain, I learned the importance of wearing many layers. I am a slow learner, but the last day, I had three shirts and two jackets, and for the first time felt very comfortable… shortly afterwards realizing I forgot to pee. :·) Maybe I need a checklist.
The above photo is the first in the series. I found the location during my morning run (immortalized in a story) and it’s fun to compare it to a photo of the same location and a further zoom taken from the Hancock Tower. This might be my favourite photo on this page, but it was essentially a test throwaway; you can even see my camera bag dropped carelessly.
For the whole set, I ended up switching to black and white with just a hint of sepia.
To infinity and beyond
November
One of my favourite bridges ever, the abandoned Kinzie Street railroad bridge in Chicago has an amazing history, and while none of the photos I shot feels adequately amazing (although I am fond of the above shot with my… you guessed it, wide-angle lens), I spent a lot of time making sure the entire album feels, visually, like one cohesive whole. Here are the same photos as they came out of camera.
Sometimes you spend minutes, hours, days, weeks, waiting for that perfect shot. Sometimes the photo just takes itself. After arriving in Rio de Janeiro, I stepped out onto my hotel room’s terrace, and I saw this, looking like it belonged on a postcard. (More effort was required to capture other photos in that album.)
This is how Belo Horizonte says “hello.”
December
This photo took itself in a very different sense. The thunderstorm was in full effect already while the plane was landing. A couple of hours later, as I was going to sleep, I set up my camera with an intervalometer, taking a photo every 10 seconds through my hotel window. Among literally hundreds of photos, this was the only one with a visible lightning — for the rest it was too cloudy.
The day before I was falling asleep listening to the ocean in Rio, this day it was the repeated clicks of a camera shutter…
Clayton Cubitt famously gave this advice to aspiring photographers: “1. Find interesting people. 2. Find interesting places. 3. Be interesting.” I was lucky enough to be in an interesting place with an interesting person. Not sure if I myself was interesting.
But at least I brought a polarizer. ;·)
— December 2010.
