Cheetah

Today I was looking through the thousands of photos from this year that still need deleting/sorting/processing and I found this guy just staring at me. Since he looks like a nice guy, and it is my favourite animal, I decided to give him his minute of fame in the blog.

The photo is taken at the Zoo in Krefeld, unfortunately I did not manage to see any wild ones in Africa. The difficult task was to get him to look at me. I think this is the only picture where he really looks directly into the camera, out of a few hundreds.

Luckily he found that Diego was just the perfect size for a healthy meal and became really interested. He came close enough for a good portrait and stayed there, 2 meters away from us, for a while.



P.S: Maybe it is a gal and not a guy, if somebody has more accurate information just drop a comment.

Neuschwanstein

I made a short visit to the south of Germany with the family last weekend. I didn't manage to make too many pictures and none really worth mentioning. In this case the infrared gives a different touch to one of the most photographed spots in the country.

Ovronnaz under full moon

A night shoot under this month's full moon, the brightest in 18 years. I had to darken the sky a bit in lightroom since it looked like it was daytime, although it was 00:30. I hope you like it.

Fabio (photographing children in their environment)

It seems that in the new year I don't manage to post regularly either, no excuses.

Here are a few photos from the archive. I shoot a session with Fabio in october at his favourite park. He was having great fun running around and you can see it in the pictures. Being in a known place meant that he ignored me completely and I could do my work without him hiding from me or puting strange faces. Sometimes I would just wait for him to reach the place where I wanted him and then call his name. He would look at me only for a second but enough to capture his beautiful eyes looking into the camera.

I always try to adapt to the kids and follow them rather than trying to pose. It is important to spend some time observing them, since they tend to repeat the things they like, and position yourself where the light, or the scene, will be the best.

I choose the late afternoon in order to have that magical low light and it really paid off. You can see how his blue eyes are full of light and not in shadow, as they would be in the middle of the day.

I took the whole session with the 70-200 mm mostly at 2.8 in order to maintain the focus on Fabio thanks to the shallow depth of field. That also allowed me to work with speeds high enough to render him sharp, even when the light decreased after sunset.

I hope you like them.

Happy new year!!

Another year gone by and the shutter count passed the 25ooo mark. I took way too many pictures last year but, at the same time, I had tons of fun. The passion for photography is alive and kicking hard, the available time on the other hand is quite limited.

Thinking back I remember great moments shooting with friends; peaceful moments just watching the light; the tension of getting the shot during some assignments; the fun of trying new toys; the discovery of learning new things and many many more.

The tradition says it is mandatory to make new years resolutions. So here are my photo related ones:

- To learn more, specially about light.
- To take more risks, in composing and lighting.
- To share more, on the blog and in the web.

To wrap up here is one photo taken during the Christmas vacation and that is probably my favourite of the year, or one of them at least. It was taken in the Albufera in Valencia, Spain. It is a magical place to watch the sunrise and sunset, although I have never managed to wake up for sunrise.

As with many of the touristic and famous places it is packed with photographers, which is not bad. But I was surprised to say the least. There are many possible shots in just one place, you just need to walk 30 meters. But the people came, set their tripods, put their wide angles, their filters and started firing away. They stayed 20 minutes in the same position and then they left.

I will make a blog entry with the shots of the day soon but until then enjoy the picture and imagine a calm sunset, with no wind, 16 degrees, a beautifull light and your favourite music.




Click on the picture to see it bigger, it gains a lot.