Luca Sartoni
Taking pictures is not a crime. Period.
Today I had the pleasure to lead a workshop about street photography in Amsterdam. The meetup was organized by Irina from KGS Global.
Rain in Amsterdam
Let’s say that the weather was not on our side but we had some good fun.
I had the chance to share some of my tips on how to be creative, have fun and get some good picture to be proud about.
Creativity through contraints
Every time you feel a lack of creativity, give yourself a rule. Contraints can help you to get creative, lern more and explore things that you would never try otherwise. For instance force yourself to shoot with a prime lens, or just use a specific focal length of your zoom lens. You can decide to spend the entire day at f2.8 or just shooting round objects.
Look at me
Every time you narrow down your possibilities, you start to explore the niche and you will find new inspiration. Try out this trick, and let me know!
Forget your display
Even if you have a top camera, the LCD display sucks. I was really disappointed that even a super duper camera like the Leica M9-P had a pretty crappy display glued on their back. But why do we look at the display so often? To check our latest shot. We check the light, the colors, the composition, the exposure, etc etc. And then we take decisions. We decide to recompose the shot, to take another one, to try with another aperture, etc. So basically, we take decisions based on what we see on our display which, as mentioned before, is really bad in term of quality.
For this reason I strongly suggest to narrow down what the display is telling you: Shoot RAW and set your camera to BW. You will always be able to edit the pictures in full color but you visualize the picture in black and white. Then, if possible, put your histogram on.
This way you have all the information you need to take wise decisions for your next shot: composition and exposure. The only two things that you can really change straight away when you take pictures. Colors, white balance and contrast will be fixed later on your computer screen, that in the worst case scenario is at least a hundred times better in term of brightness and color balance.
shoot RAW + BW
Keep shooting
Pic by Floor Drees on Instagram
Your camera is tougher than you think. Don’t worry about a few drops of water on it, you really need to get extremely wet to get troubles. Just take some plastic bags with you and keep on shooting even in the rain.
The full set of my pictures and the group pool are available on Flickr. Enjoy!
- The Internet does not exist: it perfectly matches the physical world, we go there as we go to the office, to a bar or as we enter our bedroom. The only real difference with respect to physical environments is that it allows us to be ubiquitous.
- On the Internet there aren’t different conversations, it’s that you listen to conversations of people very different from you.
- Online relationships are just like offline relationships: a few of them are deep, many are superficial, as many are opportunistic, mannered or false.
- Technology enables the change, it does not generate it: a person who has nothing to say or write does not become active and generous only because they may do so. Explaining the change to him again and again is like explaining a joke if one did not laugh the first time you told it.
- Technology enables the talent where it exists, it does not create it.
- Digital natives are accustomed to technology, not aware of all its potential: being amazed or disappointed that they use Facebook to comment on X-Factor rather than to make a revolution is like giving me a pole and wondering why I’m not jumping from one rooftop the other.
- The awareness of the significance of a medium (any medium) belongs to a minority of professionals. Bridging the digital divide does not mean making everyone professionals.
- In being an enabler and not the cause of the change, digital media cannot be classified as good or bad, right or wrong, useful or dangerous.
Labeling them with those attributes is just a cheap shot to win the stage. - If someone – even competent – explains in detail the issues of the Internet, they’re are just telling you about their problems with the Internet.
- The Internet is a medium in which the spoken language prevails, or even better, the transcribed thought. We need a new syntax.
- Most of the exchanges that occur online are phatic nature, no transmission of information.
- It’s about the story, not the book.
This list was posted yesterday by Mafe De Baggis in italian. With her consent (and Sara Rosso‘s help) I republished it in english.
Enjoy the video!
Do you really think the Dutch have always had the best cycling infrastructure? Wrong! They needed an economic downturn, an energetic crisis and they realized that cars kill people. Does that remind you anything? Enjoy the video!
Via Damn Cool Pictures.
Don’t miss the new episode of The Sartonialist with Carmine Gallo! It’s a great episode you should definitely check out on my brand new dedicated podcast blog!
Now it’s possible to subscribe the feed and as soon as Apple reviews the application, the podcast will be available on iTunes as well.
Fuji X100 - ISO 3200 - f2.0 - 1/60
Fuji X100 - ISO 3200 - f2.0 - 1/18
Fuji X100 - ISO 3200 - f5.6 - 1/60 - Flash
Holidays are almost over, three more days in Ravenna and I’m heading back to Vienna. Yesterday I spent another night at Bronson and I took the opportunity to take some pics of the gig, the crowd and the crew.
Full picture set on Flickr. Enjoy.
Lisanne Vos from KGS Global is giving us three tips on how to blast your audience and make your event unforgettable. No matter which industry you are organising it for. Enjoy!
My day in Venice was completely devoted to explore some limits of my photographic skills. The first study was about the gear I should carry around and as I wrote previously, it’s much better to focus on what you have rather on what you could have, switching camera or lens. This is also true when you want to buy some new stuff. Are you sure you are limited by the lack of gear rather than by your lack of skills?
The second test I wanted to perform was about my confidence taking close-ups of perfect strangers on the street. This time the lens mattered a lot because the smaller the focal length, the closer you have to get. Let’s start with a 85mm lens. The easiest lens of the ones I had.
Fully manual close-ups
My challenge was pretty tough because I was taking head shots with a Nikkor 85mm f1.8 fully manual. No light metering and no AF. It means that to perform a proper shot you really need to be prepared. No time for metering, just focusing, therefore the metering has to be done before. It requires a bit of experience but it’s not so difficult. Manual focusing is a bit trickier but the D90 has a manual focus assistant and a green light turns on when the AF point is focused. Unfortunately it’s not so easy to rely on a very small assistant like that when your subject is not posing for you and you have to catch the moment. The key for success is practice, practice, practice.
Nikon D90 - 85mm - ISO 400 - f2.8 - 1/250
Nikon D90 - 85mm - ISO 400 - f2.8 - 1/250
Nikon D90 - 85mm - ISO 400 - f2.8 - 1/125
In the next blogposts I’ll show you the same kind of experience but with shorter lenses: 50mm and 23mm. I will also tell about my rules of engament, stay tuned!
The full set of pictures is available on Flickr and your feedback is more than welcome!
Yesterday I spent the day in Venice with my friend Giorgio. Despite the fact that my hometown is just 150km far from one of the most amazing cities in the world, I hadn’t gone to Venice since I was a teenager.
The weather was not too bad, considering it was the second of january, it was freezing cold but not too rainy. It was cloudy, therefore the light was perfect for taking portraits in the narrow streets of the city center, and so I did.
I planned to use only two setups: Nikon D90+85mm f1.8 MF for close-ups and Fujifilm Finepix X100 for wider shots. I also had my Nikkor 50mm f1.4G with me, you know, just in case…
forget the gear and be flexible
The main trap when you have two cameras/setup or many lenses with you is to adapt your setup to the surroundings. It’s ok if you are shooting landscapes or nature. You put on your wide lens for a gorgeous sunset or you go telephoto for details. Same story if you are shooting with a model. You have time to adapt your gear to the light and the subject.
After the first hour I realized that I was spending too much time thinking about which camera was fitting the scene, rather than clicking the shutter to catch the moment. So I decided to apply a simple timeboxing rule: 30 minutes with a camera, 30 minutes with the other camera, adapting myself to the gear and not the opposite.
The result was much better. I took amazing portraits and great landscapes because I was focusing on how to deliver the best shot with the camera I was holding, rather than switching from one camera to the other.
Here three shots, with different setups, but with the same spirit.
Nikon D90 - 50mm - ISO 400 - f2.8 - 1/250
Nikon D90 - 85mm - ISO 400 - f2.8 - 1/250
Fujifilm Finepix X100 - 23mm - ISO 800 - f4.0 - 1/280
The full set of pictures is available on Flickr and stay tuned because more stuff is coming!
Feedback is more than welcome, leave a comment or share this blogpost if you like.
About Me
My Podcast- Ep07 – Sean MacNiven about motivation, gamification and enterprises
- Ep06 – Carmine Gallo about passion, vision and leadership
- Ep05 – How to organize a great event: Lisanne Vos from KGS Global
- Ep04 – Facebook ADS and Analytics to leverage your music business: The Sartonialist with Paul Bonahora
- Ep03 – The Sartonialist ep3 – Teymur Madjderey about iPhonography, Instagram and Hipstamatic
