M.I.A.

It might look like I've been neglecting my blog. It's not by choice.

Because of my career change and a couple upcoming (big) projects, I have to move out of my place. Packing and getting rid of stuff is more time consuming than one would think!

I've also been out of town over the past few weekends and this coming weekend is no exception. This past one, we went up to Sonoma and San Francisco to celebrate my birthday. Pictures to come but here's an appetizer.

Tasting the Michel-Schlumberger wines

Most of the Sonoma trip was focused on tasting and enjoying my early birthday.

San Francisco was a little more about photography. To get the following shot, I woke up at 4am to go freeze my fingers while standing on the side of a steep cliff. Surprisingly, fog didn't show up to cover parts of the Golden Gate Bridge. It's too bad as it would've given the shot a little more interest. But for an unplanned last minute shoot, it's definitely not bad! This is a simple 30 second exposure to smoothen the waters and erase any car driving over the bridge.

Golden Gate Bridge Shadows Fine prints available

I will upload the rest of the pictures and write about the weekend once I'm settled in my new place. In the meantime, check out this French video of a guy testing the durability and resistance of a Nikon D3s. This video shows you why professional photographers pay extra $ for higher-end cameras. It's not about the pixels!

Camera-sensitive-souls need not apply.

Dentist Inspiration

I went to my dentist appointment in Downtown Los Angeles on Monday and was pleasantly surprised that they offered valet parking all day long. So I headed there early and just walked around snapping some pictures of the city before my appointment. This is what my dentist indirectly inspired.

Layer cake Fine prints available

10:00am is not the best time for interesting light but it doesn't mean you can't get any shots. I knew that the colors would come out dull and that I'd probably convert most of the shots to black and white. This allowed me to focus more on basic shapes just like that layered cake above. This structure is the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power building. It is known for its beautifully lit fountains and 1,250,000 gallons of water held in the reflecting pool that surrounds the DWP headquarters, which I think is somewhat ironic.

Building reflections Fine prints available

The nice thing about downtown LA is that you can just look in any direction and find some inspiration. It's best to have time on your hands of course. I felt rushed as I wanted to get all the way to the DWP building and back before my dentist torture. Just slow down a little and you can always find details, like this building checking itself out in the mirror.

Lonely bench in the street Fine prints available

Some subjects are worth keeping in colors. The contrast between the bright pink bench and the gray ground was interesting. I had to hold the camera way up over my head and guesstimate the framing to compose this one. I wanted the bench in the corner and to eliminate any distraction from the background such as stairs with people walking around. Those benches are located in Grand Park.

Lonely bench in the park Fine prints available

The same idea was applied to this bench in the park a little futher down.

Stairway to not much Fine prints available

As you walk down Hill St, you come accross some apartment structures. With this shot, the idea was to get an angle that would show repetitive patterns and hide distracting details. This picture contrasts the complexity of the building facade with the simplicity of the parking stairway.

Construction umbilical cord Fine prints available

Interestingly enough, I was really hoping to get a color shot out of this picture of the worker. The surface he is walking on was dark brown/orange, he was dressed in super bright neon yellow and orange and the hose going around was bright blue. I framed the shot to try to get as much brown surface as possible but cutting everything else out since it was distracting. It turns out the colors weren't quite what I expected them to be. I converted the picture to black and white where Lightroom offers good control over the influence of colors. I darkened everything but the blue pipe and the worker. This was shot right next to the Disney Concert Hall.

All the pictures were taken in Auto mode (Program mode) on my Fuji X100S. The fixed lens of the camera boosted creativity and simplified the picture taking process. I didn't have to fiddle around changing lenses, carry a huge and heavy DSLR or figure out what all the buttons do. Heck, on a simple blog post like this, most of those pictures would have looked very similar whether you used the latest Canon/Nikon or your iPhone.

Bottom line is don't worry too much about having the latest lens, just go out and shoot. Oh and get your teeth checked every 6 months!

On a side not, have you ever tried conversing with a dentist... while the dentist and their assistant shove all sorts of torture instruments in your mouth? Well technically, I wasn't trying to converse but the dentist was. Try responding with your mouth wide open, a drill on a tooth and a vacuum cleaner sucking any moisture in there. Now don't complain about your hairdresser wanting to exchange a few words!

Recycling

You remember that hiking trip you made a couple years ago? The one where you took a bazillion pictures that are stored deep somewhere in your computer, just waiting for a hard drive failure to happen (you should back-up your stuff by the way, but that's not the subject of this post).

The Sierra Mountains from Chickenfoot Lake Fine prints available

Well I did and I went back and looked through the pictures I took when Gabe and I hiked up to Chickenfoot Lake (it actually looks like a chickenfoot...) up in the Sierra Mountains, around Mammoth Lakes.

Gabe the Sierra hiker

While I wait for my next hike opportunity, I figured I'd look through and see if I can bring a little more out of some of the pictures I took on that trip. I had a few good ones in there, nothing too exceptional. This trip was almost exactly a year ago and my skills weren't as good as they are today (I still have lots and lots to learn!).

The Sierra Mountains from Chickenfoot Lake Fine prints available

Some of those pictures used to be in my portfolio but after a recent review, I didn't like them as much anymore. They were processed through Apple Aperture which is a great photo editing software to start with. I opened a few of them in Adobe Lightroom and started playing with them. I haven't been using Lightroom for very long but what a great tool! I was able to pull out a lot more out of the pictures than with Aperture. Here is an example:

Apple Aperture

That's about as much as I could with with Aperture at the time (I'm sure it could be better).

The Sierra Mountains from Chickenfoot Lake

Adobe Lightroom

That's what I could get with a few quick edits!

The Sierra Mountains from Chickenfoot Lake Fine prints available

Now that I've experienced that, I've transfered a whole bunch of shots from my Aperture library to the Lightroom library in order to sort and find pictures I could enhance just that little bit. Well I know what I'm going to be doing for the next few days!

A Frenchman in the Sierras

(Medi)Astronaut agrees with my take on life

Remember my last article about how I turned off my alarm in order to turn my life in the direction I want it to go? No? Well just click on the link or look a little further below, it's right there!

Anyhow, I am not the only one who thinks that "you are rich because you have the power to change your life, not because of money" (probably not exactly from photojournalist Tim Hetherington)

Chris Hadfield is a Canadian astronaut who is the best social mediastronaut (See what I did there? I should trademark this) on the International Space Station. Check out his take on how he got where he is; which is ya know 230 miles above our heads flying at 4.791 miles per second and orbiting the Earth every 92 minutes and 50 seconds, in case you haven't been paying attention.

You should listen to what he has to say and then you should take control of your life.

By the way, Canada has the best channel around (click the link for their channel). If this was available on cable, I might very well pay every month! I mean, just check this example below...

Oh by the way, he's also a photographer. Here is how he takes pictures from up there. Really interesting stuff.

I turned off my alarm

On this rainy Monday morning, I woke up without the sound of my alarm, and it feels great. Allow me to explain by going back in history a little. Fair warning, this long article qualifies as "the story of my life"; but the conclusion is important. If you are bored with my babbling, just skip all the way down to the video.

Almost 29 years ago in Paris, France, I was born. Good start right? Obviously I had no clue as to what I was supposed to do in life. I spent the following 15 years doing what almost everyone does, learning stuff at school in hopes of finding something that would be worth doing in life.

Yosemite Bridalveil Rainbow Falls Fine prints available

I chose to go to a technology focused high school mainly because it was where my good friends were going. At the end of 10th grade, I was told could go to scientific classes but that I would  have to work very hard to make it, or I could go to technology classes where it wouldn't be so hard and I would do better. I obviously picked the latter option and 11th and 12th grade went through fairly easily.

Lonely Puddle Jumper Fine prints available

By the end of high-school, I was accepted in preparatory class for Engineering School. I did just enough to be accepted at ESTIA Engineering School, to the surprise of my 2003 Math teacher; "I had this student who wasn't very good at math, I would've bet my hand off that he wouldn't make it. But he did... I guess he was pretty good in English..."

Alone on the wall Fine prints available

I picked ESTIA for several reasons. The first being that it's near the beach and has a cool surfer vibe to it. The second was that it was not too specialized of a school. And the last but not least was because my good friend Matthieu was going there as well and we had plans to rent a sweet house and buy a pool table. The latter part of that project didn't happen though... And we lived on a farm. I graduated in 2007 with an Industrial Engineer degree. I didn't excel, I just passed.

Headed to the sun Fine prints available

End of 2007 is when I arrived in the USA to experience the American Dream. It was an easy move for me since I have family out here. Yamaha Motor spotted my résumé and hired me soon after. I worked there for almost 5 years. Despite the great products (motorcycles, atvs, waverunners, etc...), I still wasn't passionate about my job.

The Supermoon Fine prints available

What if money was no object. Find the full length lecture here.

I saw this video around the end of October last year. I was browsing through this mountain photographer's website, Jack Brauer and pressed play (the guy has an awesome life by the way, check out his website). I can say that an inspirational 3 minute video changed my life and triggered something. Ever since I saw it, I had the nagging feeling that I was wasting my time leading my life in the wrong direction.

Enjoying the views of Chickenfoot Lake

I had been passionate about photography for a couple years now and decided that I had to find a way to live from it. That goal became very real on May 3rd 2013: Friday was my last day as an employee of a large corporate company. That is the day that I turned my 6:30am weekdays alarm off. Now life will be lived at my rhythm and I will find a way to live doing what I love.

Smile

What are you going to do with your life?