Tag: travel

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Live Show Recap: Travel

What’s up, jerks? We reviewed your travel photos last night, and you really came through! It’s a pretty ambiguous topic, but I think we got some really impressive submissions. 

We decided that travel photography was something that captured the unique spirit of a place, or portrayed motion and destination.

Support our Patreon! You can vote on the live show topic each week and even see videos before we post them publicly.

Here’s where we get into your photos, I’ll highlight our picks and ridiculous one-liners below:

-“what’s the Matterhorn with you?”

-this talk of travel dreads killed me

-Tony is confirmed robot

 -thatched roof

–Alcatraz

–Jacksonville

–runway

-mixed facial expressions

-Cape Smokey

-Golden Gate

-so much talk of terraforming Mars, Chelsea is invested

-Ho Chi Minh City

-girl with donkey and lamb

Over to me for viewer questions:

-what gadgets have been game changing for travel? Smartphones, USB batteries for smartphones, drones, electric razor? Noise-cancelling headphones.

-what has been your favorite place to travel for photography, and your favorite place not for photography? Peru and Portugal for Chelsea. Japan. Lucerne, Switzerland was great for photography but not much else.

-Roderick! Our generous Irish gentleman friend. Thanks for loving us quietly. Thanks for dating us.

Time for a portfolio review! Fabian Santiago. Gorgeous images, great full-screen layout. Fabian, we’ve seen your photos before and we are fans! Maybe just pare down your “on the line” category.

We very unceremoniously get into Chit-Chat, the part of the show where we respond do your dumb YouTube comments.

-nerd the Jeff out

-“kicking the greasy piglet”

-wait so… are we or aren’t we a paid shill? “You’re wrong, but I’m sure you’re used to it by now.”

-podcast? sdp.io/picturethis

Okay, back to photos:

 -leave your family and photograph one place for years

–arches, now I see the Kuato

-waterfall celebration

-oh, it me

-lady in red

–Erlend!

–lighthouse

–oasis

–Vancouver

–Key West

-Great Mosque

-Broad Museum

–Banff is fun to say

Back to me:

-10 years ago would I have imagined I’d be on a YouTube live show? Nope, that wasn’t a thing. I was working retail. “You committed, die with it.”

-T&C love Puerto Rico

-two picks happened in the background, here and here

-we’ve been doing the live show for 3 years!

-thanks for $$$! Can the Nikon D7200 do sports? Sure.

-quick tips for travelling on a budget? Stay in hostels, trade apartments while you travel, volunteer tourism, work travel, fly standby or travel by land, travel locally. Travel on container ships? Don’t take a limo to the airport. “What are we, Hulk Hogan in 1989?”

Back to your photos:

 -some castle

-New Zealand

-fall colors

–Thailand

–waterfall

-“I can’t level it because I’m not level, biologically”

-“we’re the people that don’t have a ding in our car”

-airplane aisles

–sunset

Back to me for some more questions:

-if you could only have on mirrorless camera, which one would you choose? a9, or the XT-2, or the XT-10, or the GH5…

-how often do you carry a tripod and then don’t use it? Most of the time. That’s why they like the BeFree.

-are you beyond bringing a laptop for travel? Do you wait to come home before you edit and post? They love the new iPad.

-Twitter Q for Chelsea: where’d you get your shirt? She doesn’t know.

A few more reviews:

-tilt-shift train

–vultures

–infrared

-v v cute dogs

And that’s a show! Next week’s topic is Night or Astro photography, see you then.

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Beginner Photography: Travel

So, this post is a bit of a cheat. I haven’t traveled since I went to San Francisco in September, so I went through those photos again and chose some shots to edit that I didn’t use in my previous posts here and here.

I’m still not entirely sure what constitutes “travel photography”. While these were certainly shot while traveling, I’m not sure that looking at a shot will convey travel unless you include a mode of transportation, a selfie lugging bags around or in front of some site-specific monument. I just shot the things I liked about San Francisco. Most of my favorites were of surfers on the beach, but I want to include some other bits for a more well-rounded experience of the trip.

I was shooting with the Olympus EM-10 which I think I’d just started working with, and I’m pretty sure I had my camera on auto, because my settings are complete nonsense.

I should have watched this video before I set out:

 

f/10, 1/400th, ISO 200

 

f/11, 1/400th, ISO 200

 

f/8, 1/160th, ISO 200

 

f/8, 1/400th, ISO 200

 

f/4, 1/400th, ISO 200

 

So that’s San Francisco through my eyes! I hardly spent any time downtown until my last few hours in the city and by that point my camera had died (I forgot my battery charger like a rookie) so I’m not sure how recognizable any of this would be. It was my first (and so far only!) trip to California and I hope I can go back and do it justice sometime.

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Beginner Photography: Best of 2016

Happy holidays! This post is going to be a look back on my photography journey so far this year, as we’ll be reviewing your best of 2016 photos for the live show this week. 

So, this might not be much of a dramatic transformation as I only started this series 4 months ago, but I can certainly say I’ve tackled new projects and stretched myself. I mean, I was second shooter on a wedding! That’s crazy. I found out which genres I’m not great at (landscapes, still life) and some that I was surprisingly good at (spooky, wedding, street). I started shooting with a borrowed Olympus E-M10 with a Lumix 14-42mm lens, which felt like a revelation after using my Samsung smart phone for so long, but now I am feeling limited by my gear again.

I found that I need to work on mastering my camera settings. I still rely on automatic mode a bit too much, I don’t nail focus as often as I’d like. I’m better at finding my shots rather than creating them, I could use to plan more.

So I’m going to post my favorite images from these past few months below, in chronological order:

Adventure: 

This shot was taken with my phone, so the settings were out of my control. But the sun was high, so the shutter speed was fast and the ISO was low. I love the mood, the action, and the colors. I feel I successfully captured the joy of children in summer. 

 

Travel:

Another phone shot! I could not have planned something like this. Just a beautiful moment I happened upon in the Muir Woods. The light filtering through the trees, the backlighting of that lone stump.

Street:

I loved this bright turquoise wall, and I only had to sit for a few minutes to catch someone walking by it. I shot at 1/400th of a second at f/8 and ISO 200.

 

Spooky:

This is one of my most successful shoots to date, and one that I actually planned out instead of winging. I dressed up my daughter in a vintage dress and applied some makeup to appear dead. I shot behind an old school and an abandoned church at sundown for the mood. The leading lines bring you to her and then off into the darkness. 1/60th, f/4, ISO 800.

 

Wedding:

This shot is one of my favorites, and it may only be because I know the people in it. I cut off feet, but I love the mixed eye contact, the anxious energy and mood. I was second shooter for a friend who lent me her Canon 5D Mark III and 24-70 f/2.8. It was shot at 1/1000th, f/2.8, and ISO 1250 which is insane. I could have certainly shot at a lower ISO and shutter speed.

 

Bird:

Another example of the right gear making the shot. I was shooting with the D500 and a 200-500 f/5.6. This was shot at 1/800th, f/5.6 and ISO 100.

 

Night:

My first attempt at night photography was my most successful. Shot with the Olympus at a 6 second exposure, f/5 and ISO 200.

 

So those are my favorite shots I took this year. I got to play with cameras I will never own and shoot with really talented photographers. I got to do some travelling and force my family into modeling. I got to practice making art in a way I haven’t in years. I am really enjoying this, and I hope you are having fun watching me try and fail and try and sometimes succeed. You can see all my past posts here.

What do you think I could use to work on this year? What would you like to see me try? What have you learned shooting this year?

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Beginner Photography: Travel

Hey friends! This weekend I got to do a whirlwind weekend in San Francisco for my friends wedding. This will essentially be a two-part post, since next week’s topic is street photography and I did quite a bit of that while I was there (get ready to see some surfers)!

This was my first time on the west coast, so there was a lot to capture. We stayed by the beach in a great, diverse little neighborhood. I also got to go out to the Muir Woods and hike among the redwoods. I hope I can do them some justice! I pulled a total rookie move and forgot to bring my Olympus battery charger. My camera made it through to the last day, halfway through my hike. Luckily I had my phone with me still, and wound up getting some of my better pictures with that.

I wish I’d taken some more time to just go out and shoot, but it was an action-packed weekend and I wasn’t about to take time away from friends and events to take pictures. I hope I can go back and spend some more time in the future, there’s a lot more I wanted to capture.

There was a lot of great street art and signage in the neighborhood

 

There’s that distant SF fog

 

This needs some editing, the exposure on her doesn’t seem right

The water was so cold, these men are insane

 

I got this shot with my phone after my camera died

So those are some of my faves! I did minimal editing to them all to adjust exposure and make sure I had black and white points in each photo, as well as some cropping and straightening. I hope I captured the feel of the area (let me know, Kyle Wolfe)!

Help me out here, how’d I do? What would you change/add/leave out from these shots?

 

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Live Show Recap: Travel with Matt Granger

Guys! This week I’m watching the show for the first time right now with you. I was driving while the show was happening, so I wasn’t there live. Thanks to Chris Reddy for filling in!

Matt Granger skyped in this week to help review your travel photos and be generally hilarious as usual. Teaching us all that if you have a guest you fill the cupboard with crackers, in case Vegemite appears.

Next week is smartphone photos! That’ll be fun. I take those. Lots of my dog. How do you feel about shooting with a smartphone?

We look at some of Matt’s photos at the beginning here, you can see them at sdp.io/mattperu. Matt talks about studio workshops and photo tours, things that Tony and Chelsea hate doing as introverts.

Ok, let’s get into your photos and see the favorites:

Some tips gleaned from the reviews:

  • make sure you have a focal point that your eye rests on
  • make sure the image conveys either the movement or feeling of travel, or is an image that readily conveys where you are
  • sdp.io/toptip for tips on contrast

Over to Chris with your questions:

  • monkey selfie copyright? Monkeys are taking our jobs.
  • Sony pro-support? Pretty much a scam.
  • 5D Mark II or 70D? Depends on what you shoot and what you need it for.

Now let’s look at a portfolio and give some suggestions. Make the photos click through to your gallery since you only have one category. Great images though!

Instagram=$$$, the Kyle Wolfe story. Kyle got work through Instagram! Someone bought his image. He’ll be writing a blog post about it for us, so look out for it.

PhotoNews:

Back to Chris for your viewer questions:

  • what do you do with throw-away images? Store them on drives.
  • multiple catalogs in Lightroom? Yes for Chelsea, no for Tony. Matt is transitioning from a Tony to a Chelsea.

Here’s Matt’s taxi pic. Put a towel down. He’s gotten busted in Australia, but not anywhere else!

Back to photo reviews:

Back to Chris for questions and some great tips from T&C&M:

  • Google Nik software is out for free!
  • how to get models when you’re inexperienced? Have something to trade or pay an experienced model.
  • save money on gear, go travel instead

Let’s look at some more photos, speed round:

  • here’s an adorable seal
  • birds
  • there’s some great ones in the speed round, just watch um all
  • “do you have deer in Australia, Matt, or have the giant spiders eaten them all?”
  • cloud city
  • cute town
  • some sort of duck inception
  • hazy beach

And here’s a barbershop quintet sing-along. It fell apart quickly.

Here’s another question. Thanks so much for filling in, Chris!

  • what are our future channel goals? Matt’s are for more episodic videos. He wants to focus on having enough, then going and working outward instead of for himself. Chelsea wants to be proud of what she does instead of following the business. Working on a travel show. Tony wants to teach photography to people who wouldn’t consider themselves photographers. Spread the photo joy!

Kum ba yah happened.

That’s our show! It was a great one. Next week tune in for smartphone photos.