Heidelberg Project

This is the last part of my Detroit post. A few years back me and my friend went down to Detroit and he knew of a very sweet place to visit. So like champs we went to Detroit at 2 A.M. and visited the Heidelberg Project. located at 42 Watson Street, Detroit, Michigan. The focus of the Heidelberg Project (HP) is rooted in the need to improve the under-resourced and horribly blighted Detroit community where the project was founded. If you live in the Detroit area i feel you need to check it out =] hope these pics convince you.

If you look close at Santa's bag you see a message from a Jewish kid. I thought it was pretty neat.

Focal length

Watch your focal lengths when taking pics. These can make or break an image. For each subject you have to find a good length to compliment the subjects features.

This is 18mm 

 This is 24

These are crap, the smaller the focal length number the longer it makes a face. These pics make me look like i have a long nose that almost comes out of your screen. 

 This is getting closer but i still think its not good for my face. This is in 35mm

This is around 50 mm and if it wasn't for it being shaky i would think it would be the best of the pics showing how to do a good portrait for me.

 This last one is between 85-135mm i didn't get the length. As you go higher up the numbers the flatter the object looks. The last pic still give a good feel of the shape.

My time in Detroit part 2

My buddy and I went to Detroit a second time so I could bring my camera to take pics. On our way down we stopped at a cell phone store and what do you know, the counter had bullet proof glass. That is one way of knowing your in the D. My friend was talking to the cashier and I was walking around looking at all the phones when i heard in the back a few guys talking about gun. This would be fine and all, I like to talk about guns too who doesn't, but then i heard a click and then I knew they were playing with real guns. I couldn't contain a smirk on my face. Oh and also the D likes to have people park in the right lanes... THESE ARE NOT PARKING SPOTS Its great.

The Big Bang

My short film. Yes there is some mistakes but I worked with what I had.

My time in Detroit part 1

The other day me and my buddy went to Detroit to visit some Salvation Armys. He looked at books and I looked through old records, I got two sweet records for $.50. 

After that we headed down Mack Ave. and we started playing a game called "Count all the," no don't get ahead of me you racist fuck, "churches." It was crazy that within four miles we counted around 20-25 churches, I never knew Detroit had so many.

We hit up highway 75 and I saw this amazing graffiti on the side of the building, My camera was at home =[. We decided to go back down to Detroit a second time to take pictures. I went back today and took some pics of it, here they are =].

More to come tomorrow on my silly day in Detroit. Much more silly stories to come.

I know, I know, Its just one picture. I have been working real hard to finish my film, which I'm finishing tonight. super busy , plus tomorrow I'm heading to Detroit to take more photos, so new stuff soon my friends.

The Snow is leaving

 I am kinda happy the snow is melting away from my area. I will miss it but I'm sure it will snow again real soon ( Michigan weather*). here are some pics I took the other day. 

* Michigan's weather changes every 10 mins

Happy Valentines day everyone!

Winter Photography

Winter is in full effect where I am at and I wanted to share some great tips for winter shots.

 MAKING THE SNOW WHITE.

The biggest mistake people make when photographing snowy scenes is having them turn out gray in the final photograph. It happens because camera meters average out exposer to middle tonality, turning white into gray. The easiest way to get the white of the snow perfect is to check your histogram after. The histogram represents the amount specific tonalities in a scene, with the left side showing dark tones and the right showing bright tones. So when you shoot you want to make sure the histogram is pushed to the right side. Best way to do this is to open your aperture  or slowing your shutter speed.

 USE POCKET HAND WARMERS

The one trouble I always had when i first started shooting in the cold was my hands would lose dexterity, and your batteries lose power faster. After I got a few hand warmers I would leave one in my pocket and leave one near my spare battery so it doesn't get drained as fast as the one I was using at the moment. Tip for hand warmers, keep and airflow to them, if they don't get air they don't work.

AND JUST FOR GENERAL SAFETY
 Please when you do go out into the cold, either on a walk or hike in the woods, bring supplies like hand warmers. Also dress for the weather don't act like the tough guy and wear a hoodie in 30 below weather. 

These are some really old photos i took with just my cell phone . 

(No, i did not use an app for any of these looks, they are not photoshopped)

This first one was just using the flash on my phone, the way the light bounces through the water really give is a beautiful touch. It took me a lot of tries to get it because my phone is a piece of crap that wont sync the flash and capture at the right time.

This one was also a flash but with an object covering the flash a little bit. When I placed my finger in front of the flash it gave me this bright glow from the flash bouncing off my finger. It reminds me of an old photo from 40 years ago. This one was also hard because i never found the perfect position to block the flash with.

THE WINTER BALL prt2

The amazing wonder of the fushigi  contact juggling, this is Flec Mindscape The magical man that makes it look like his balls are floating in mid air. Its not phoenix feathers like that darn blasted Fushigi crap, no folks he is doing this with his magical hands. Flec has master the art of contact juggling and trust me folks he is a god with his hands.

This is the beautiful and equally talented Hayley Jane as she rocked the stage that night singing a great version of "Hit me baby one more time" and "Bohemian Rhapsody". She unleashed her ukulele onto the crowd which in fact left them in a hypnotic dance that was left ringing through the night. 

Bride Stripped Bare had performance on the level of sold stadiums. With only having their duel pianist and  a drummer they don't hold anything back. Hearing them on an album you would never think it was just two people, they hold a very strong sound that will carry them on to greater and better things.

One of the last performances was the great Chloe Bowie and Majik Detroit. As they danced around the stage with fire in each hand, they slowly stripped Chloe down to almost nothing. It was very nice and gracious movements that they had up on stage, truly art at its finest.

Are you shooting in RAW or JPEG?

RAW or JPEG, the two serious choices for camera lovers. It is really the first question you must ask yourself when you get your DSLR.

Lets talk about both before we decide witch one to go with.

When you use JPEG the files are processed in the camera according to the settings on your camera. Which in many cases is fine, if you have the right settings for the photo. That means you have to be more careful with your exposer and white balance. When you open the JPEG image in a computer the data has already been saved in this format, reducing your options when it comes time to edit.

RAW files are uncompressed data right out of the camera and is the best form of digital capture. So with raw you are able to go in and edit a more detailed picture and get much better results then if you took a JPEG image. My only downside with RAW is converting them to JPEG after but its nothing to worry about really.

If you have the space for it I would shoot in both, RAW+JPEG, if you camera allows it. This will take up more space but when you get done with a shoot you can either take the smaller JPEG images or you can go and edit the RAW.

My deciding factor, RAW is the way to go, if you get a few more memory cards then you'll never have to worry about how much space the images are taking.

Winter Ball: part 1

THE WINTER BALL! 

As you can already tell this night was a good night. Just like Halloween there was costumes and attractions of all sorts. The Winter Ball was the perfect event to start off the year. The performers that showed their many skills that night were from the Detroit Fire Guild putting on a most spectacular display of fire dancing and object manipulation. 

That monkey would never stay still, the pictures I did get of him were all rubbish but i think this is a really good one and yes I know it has motion blur, but i think it makes it that much better. This photo captures the wild and elusive Monkeyman who moves faster then humanly possible and was never caught on film before, Brilliant!   

These performers really did a great job playing with fire and balancing on each other. Their movements and positions made it seem like they were weightless and unable to grasp the concept of gravity.  In the back playing is Bride Stripped Bare.

Micha In this photo is contorting into this box faster then an octopus squeezes through a hole. After she was lodged in there her girly friend decided to stick steel rods through the box making it even harder for her to move. 

Check back for more tomorrow for more on this event.

Do you see what I'm seeing? This was some photos I took around Halloween perfect season for the creeps to come out. I just love the holiday,  all the costumes, haunted houses, parties, and who can pass free candies.

In these pics I was messing with my depth of field, getting the feeling of it.

Oh yeah the doll, I picked that up at a garage sale  for $10, great deal. If I had my other mannequins I would have a huge collection of creepy pics for all of you guys to see. I have about 6 mannequins stored away and it's great getting people drunk at parties and scaring them with all the mannequins when they pass out.

 Winter is in full effect around my area, either little snow each day or large amounts every other day. In my area we got 20 inches about but luckily the roads have been fine.

 The top photo here is of my bathroom and it was a nice feeling seeing the icicles hang from the window as a silhouette to remind me of my favorite season. 

 But these ones are dangerous, I have almost hit my head on them every time I went outside to get to my car. Sure enough my head would get nicked ever now and again. There was a nice 5 foot one hanging in front of my kitchen but someone knocked it down or it got to warm one day and it fell down.

The great thing about winter is you never know what you will see, may it be a broken water pipe on a main road to put you in traffic for thirty mins bumper to bumper and car crashes which I always love to watch when I'm not int them. 

Tomorrow I will head down to the lake to get some water pics, hopefully there is something good down there =]