Posts Tagged Course
In the nude…
So last Friday we had a nude photography session.
Nude photography is different. And not just because the model doesn’t have clothes on. Suddenly, the entire body is your subject. When what you see is pretty much what you get, the beauty of the photographs comes from the angles, the light and shades falling on your subject, the unique cropping of frames (where sometimes you can’t even tell who or even what is photographed) and generally speaking – your creativity.
We met with Rodi Almog at the abandoned train station in Jerusalem. A beautiful location, with big (broken) windows and holes in the roof, making the sun rays light up the area in many different (and amazing) styles. Graffiti all over making a very interesting background. Isolation helped make sure we won’t be bothered by anybody.
There was nothing pornographic about this encounter. Not even erotic in my opinion. Sure, after Rodi has given us the guidelines for the session, there was the first moment of embarrassment when Navit took off her dress and you realize that there’s a naked woman standing in the room with you and ten other people holding cameras. Rodi also kept instructing Navit on how to pose next, something most of us were too shy to do. But throughout the session, everyone were focused on the next frame, and where to take the shot from:
All in all, this was fun. I loved the location. The coffee break in the middle was welcomed. I got more than 600 photos there. 100 were deleted straight off the camera. Choosing the above four was no simple task. Uploading these also wasn’t easy. But once again, this course has proved to be an amazing experience, exposing me once again to something I haven’t done yet…
Looking the bug square in the eye
I was at my cousin’s wedding Thursday night. It was great. Music, friends & family, good food and so on. We left the place slightly after 1am and got held up at a police inspection to see who’s been drinking too much. That took forever. And to top that, the highway was blocked for maintenance. But I did manage to get home. Eventually that is. I awoke after a brief 3.5 hour sleep to reach Rishon Letzion’s lake park at 6:30 am.
At first sight, the area looked like god knows what. A lake(ish looking pond) adjecent to an amusement park with some light vegetation around. Nothing fancy. It looked like it’s gonna be a wasted morning. And then Allon Kira showed us all the things which were to small to see:
When you find yourself crouching and crawling around, you suddenly realise how much life is around you. Dragonflies, normal flies, and many other creatures which I could name if I’d listened in biology class. Looking through the lens suddenly shows you things you didn’t notice before. Even more when you view the pictures on the computer later on. Especially if you have some dirt on your lens. That shows up very nicely on the computer…
I had a yet another wonderful experience. Now I need to buy me a set of Kenko extension tubes for macro photography of my own. I’ll just finish off with voyeurism on the macro level:
Happy photographing!
Street photography
Apparently it’s not just taking a photo in the street.
The way I see it, street photography usually shows movement, like someone walking. Usually the subject either has another subject completing it (like someone else walking opposite, or a big street ad). These photos are always precise. Most of the times, the person photographed doesn’t know that they are being captured at all (or at least – until it is too late for them…). Oh, and it’s almost always in black and white. Just google “Street photography” for images and you’ll get a clue…
We set out with Felix Lupa to Alenby street in Tel Aviv. I’ll admit, there were many times when I took out my tele lens to photograph people from far away, so they won’t know I’m even there. But this was different. Walking around with my camera casually held in the palm of my hand, and taking photos without bringing the camera up to look through the viewfinder. Hardly looking at the LCD screen to see the result. This was challenging because you need to set all the parameters before hand. But most of all, this was exciting and disturbing at the same time. This seems to me like voyeurism at it’s best.
I’m guessing street photography isn’t for everybody. I’m not sure if it suits me. But I did manage to get some nice shots there. My favorite I took while walking, holding the camera in my swinging hand:
Again, a new photo technique (for me) which I’m glad to have experienced. I’ll have to do it again some time. But next time I’ll prepare better for this (never forget your water bottle…)
36 Photos
Continuing with my photography course, we’ve set out to Florentine neighbourhood in southern Tel-Aviv last Friday. This outing was with Gilad Benari, and was titled “A different angle on photography”. Our goal was to find that thing in photos which will make us stand out, or to be precise: to be unique. The exercise had two very strict and intimidating limitations: use a fixed lens (50mm) and no more than 36 photos.
36 photos in 2 hours? You gotta be kidding me. I’ve just started getting used to 200 photos in less than an hour. And on top of that, no wide angle or tele? Crap… Uh… Okay, let’s see what we’ve got:
Not bad (if I my say so myself regarding a photo of mine 
). These limitations made me think so much before releasing the shutter. Composition. Making sure I’ve got the camera on the correct parameters. And also planning ahead, like in this next photo, where I just stood there, looking through the viewfinder, waiting for someone to walk by:
At the end of the two hours, I realised I took 17 photos. It looked like I took this to the other extreme… This allowed me to take 5 photos of this urban leopard:
I got used to taking many photos. In order to post some, I’d go over them, delete the bad ones, then the not so good ones, then the expendables, then the slightly less better than the others and so on. Leaving the chosen few (or to be more precise: the undeleted few). Now I could choose the pictures I wanted rather than the ones I don’t. I’ve really enjoyed this exercise and would highly recommend it too all of you who are used to just take as many photos as possible.
I also recommend Gilad’s project: A Different Look At Israel. A unique look it is…