Photography - Live Shows, Some Tips

Hello everyone.

A few days ago I read an article about photography and photo filters. In that article we learned how to use the filters to improve an existing fairly good picture, to a great one. In other words, to make a lemonade from the lemons that our camera produced.

I thought to myself, in which of my photos over the years, I didn't have to use a "heavy artillery" as filters or complex photoshop techniques? and the answer popped immediately - in live shows!

As for me, I love music since I was a child. I played the trumpet, played in some bands and orchestras all over the country and over seas. I will always remember the excitement that I had while I entered the stage. The lights, the red curtains or the smoke. And come to think about that, that setting will always look good on photos!

So what do we have here..   an ambiance, a good light, a theme, some props, an energy from the crowd, and many more... all we have to do is to click!  right?

Wrong! although we have some great conditions to have a perfect picture, we must follow some simple rules.

Turn Off The Flash!  

Personally, I hate to use a flash when I'm taking pictures. It ruins the natural light, and doesn't produce the same atmosphere, nor even represents the scenery well. don't get me wrong, sometimes the flash is really needed, and if your purpose is just to take a picture of your friends, or just to have fun with the camera it is ok. But It seems to me that many people use it automatically, even professionals, and though you may see every wrinkle on the object's face, you will lose the atmosphere completely. So my humble advice is just to save the flash for the real hard cases.

In a show, we have the setting, the colorful lights, the energy, so PLEASE, accept that gift, turn off the flash and show the world what your eyes have really seen. You may have to play a little bit with the f-stop (lower numbers), or the shutter speed (slower), but it's totally worth it!

you'll be the judge                    
                                           

as seen on demais music blog

It's the same singer - Maria Rita , the same stage, the same show.  But you can easily think that the left picture was taken at a junior high prom, while the other one gives us the real deal  - colors, lights, and magic. and to be clear, I am not talking about the composition, just the flash factor.

Let's see another example.

This picture was taken on street theater festival. With the flash on, we can see a heavy use of make up, and we can't see anything special or magical about that image. We can obviously see the object clearly, we don't miss any detail and as a common facebook photo it serves well.

But if we will turn off the flash, we will see that :

and that     

A completely different image. We can actually see the golden tones, the make up fits well, and the whole image looks much more romantic, and dreamy...   All that without any effort.

A Little Editing Will Do

When you have such great components in your photos, all you have to do is to tweak and adjust some little things. To make your photo a little bit more appealing and interesting, you should crop sometimes, play a little bit with the saturation, maybe to sharpen every now and then. But that's it ! suitable for beginners as well as lazy people (as me).

Here are 2 examples

The original photo

A little crop to the right and a tiny desaturation - and you're good to go!

The original photo

A little bit of crop, brightness/contrast and a sharpen filter
 and the result is much more dramatic.

Feel The Groove!

This is the best tip I can give.

You can have the best looking picture, with the best composition, but it is worth nothing with out the feel!

You have to feel the music, spot the expressions of your objects, try to visualize what would be their next step and shoot! A good picture will throw you back to the moment, you will relive the concert again, the sounds, the sweat - everything!

Here some examples,

. 

Well, as you all understand I really think that live shows can give you a lot of great photo opportunities, without a big post production hustle. I hope my advises will help you in your next shooting session !

Thanks for your time, see you soon!

Idan.


Btw: if you like to see more of my work, you can take a look (and even purchase if you'd like to)

Photography - Copacabana's curve

It was a cloudy day in Rio de Janeiro, a pretty good weather if we consider the last 4 days of a non-stop rain. yet it is normal climate for march there. I woke up in the hostel, last night we had a party here, and I was pretty darn tired. After two months there, it wasn't so exciting for me. Some people have complained that they lost their cameras or their wallets, other were sure that there was a thief in the house. I wasn't worried, I've locked my things in the locker since the first day here, but yet I had to check the locker...

Those bastards! they broke it!

My computer, passport, credit cards, and travel checks.....  They still were there... but wait a minute! something is missing... Damn! it was the rent for the last month, they took it all! and I have to check out tomorrow.

All of that happened before breakfast.

I just sat there, dazed and confused... thinking what to do now, there is no way I could get the money in one day.

Barbara walked towards me, she was happy, it was her last day in Rio and it was the first day she could actually go to the beach. "Why the long face?", she asked me, holding the beach towel. I told her, she could see that I was pretty upset. "Never mind the beach", she said, "lets go directly to the police station and report". I tried to tell her "No, you should go to the beach, it's your last day here", but actually I really needed some company, especially hers. It was funny, I only met her 5 days ago, but I started to feel something.

We went to the tourist's police, and I reported, obviously nothing will happen, I thought to myself, but nevertheless it felt right.

It started to rain, but I felt pretty relieved and happy to have Barbara next to me, I only had like 10$ in my pocket, and it was all my money, But I couldn't care less.

The rest of the day was so good, so funny, and I almost forgot the incident I had that morning, I just lived the moment. She was an architect, she new almost every building in the city. In some point she asked me if I'd like to see the Copacabana beach from the best point of view in town. I said of course.

A few minutes later, we were on the roof of one of the most luxurious hotels in Rio (she knew how to charm the staff members too).

It was raining again, the weather was cold, I was robbed, but I was so happy!

Here is the view I saw from the hotel.

You can imagine that I have special sentiments for that photo ;)

(When I processed the picture, I tried to show the colors of the Brazilian flag. You can really see the yellow, white, blue and green).

Thanks again for visiting my blog, have a great day!



Btw : If you liked the picture you can find it as poster at IBadishi digital art zazzle store.

Photography and vector art - a self portrait

Hi there!

I must tell you, I've never thought that I would mess around with digital art or something similar. but I could guess I would like to be a photographer. Every photographer will say, that he finds the beauty in every corner, and that he would like to show us the world through his eyes. Yeah I know, I would say the same thing, and it is boring...
even though I really think it's true.

But today I wanna show you a self portrait, that was existed in my head since I opened my eyes, the other day.
I woke up on that day, a kind of grumpy, frustrated and angry. Didn't have a job, broke up with my girl friend back then, and basically hated the world. I went to the gym, and in my mind I saw myself in a portrait, staring in an angry look, wearing a hood. that image didn't get out of my head, I tried to shake it, to feel happier, but it didn't work out. So I decided, that it will my daily project, I will shoot a self portrait that will be exactly like I imagined, and then maybe I will get rid of that bad mood.

I came back home, posed my camera on some books and magazine (no tripod back than). and took hundreds of pictures until i got the one i wanted. it was perfect for me!  I felt relieved !

here is a peek of the session - 6 pics out of hundred.

And here is the final result (after a tuning....:))

After that final result, I was satisfied and all my bad mood went away.


A year after, I went back to that pic, and decided to transform it to a vector art, it kind of reminded me a character from a violent video game.

and that was the result.

If I may say,  I love both of the pictures equally - and please don't call me narcissist  ;)

well that's all for today , see you in the next post!


and btw:

 If you liked this image you can find it here as a t-shirt or as an iphone/ipad cases.

Pop art - The colorful homeless

Hi there!

As I wrote on the previous post, 3 years ago I decided to take a break from my life, and went to Brazil. I planned to absorb the atmosphere, the music and the people.
My first week was in São Paulo. I was overwhelmed, a huge city (11 million people), very energetic, loud and dynamic. I was walking on the streets trying to get the feel of the city, watching the people on there way to work,  learning the sounds of this big metropolis. It was 3 weeks before the carnival, and everywhere around you could find groups of people rehearsing. I tried to follow them, to track them and just to enjoy the music. One day I heard a sound of percussion, and I couldn't track the source, the traffic and the city buzzes confused me. Finally I found myself walking under a bridge, below the traffic jams and the commotion - staring at a group of women rehearsing and singing samba songs. There was a guy there, who looked like the band leader, or conductor, he gave some instructions, praised the girls and sometimes corrected them - as you can see on the pic.

As I approached, I realized that the guy was a little bit drunk, and the girls didn't pay any attention to him, but nevertheless he continued to give the some musical tips.

I should have noticed before that he was a homeless guy, who just wanted to have some fun, but as I told you before I was a little overwhelmed and a bit naive.

Anyway I thought that guy was really interesting, and asked his permission for a picture. and that was the result.

This guy made me think about all the homeless people, that are in a way fading in front of our eyes. Most of the people don't notice them, or try to avoid them if they asking them something, and that made me feel sad.

I really liked the portrait of this guy and decided that he will be the star of my next pop art. I decided to do it in an Andy Worhal style, but this time it will not be a regular celebrity, It will be a street celebrity.

 I decided to add color, glamour and some drops of  fun to the image. I believe I've recreated the carefree and happy carnival atmosphere, that I found on a February day under a bridge, in São Paulo.

Pop art - my very first work.

Hello every one!

My name is Idan from Israel. 3 years ago I decided to quit my job as a financial consultant, a job I had for 12 years. I figured out that maybe I am losing something in life while I am earning money, and doing everything I was expected too. so... I decided to leave everything and to fulfill a dream of mine, to travel alone to Brazil, to see how can I handle alone in a foreign country (12,000 km from home.), the language, the costumes...

During my travelling I realized that I have a lot of spare time, and began to think about what is important for me to do in life, how can I enjoy life while making a living. I haven't found the answer yet, but I discovered that making graphics and digital art, makes me feel good. I am a photographer for a while now (still just a hobby, but quite a serious one), and I found that I love to take some pictures and change it to a pop art, to extract some more emotion, or to tell the story from another angle.

So... I want to share my art with you guys, and maybe to tell the story behind it. I guess I will share some of my travels' stories, my thoughts, feelings etc.

So... lets begin.

This picture was my first pop art work ever.

The girl in that picture, has a sad yet dreamy look, and I decided to keep it more intense. I wanted to simplify the picture, so I kept only the necessary basic lines, and made it B&W style. To intensify the contrast, I painted the hair, lips and eyes with a fluorescent colors, that will pop up immediately at first glance. Now you can feel and see even more the clash between the black to the color, between the sadness to the vividness.

To be honest this girl evoked the same feelings in me at that time.... I was so happy and yet so sad with her...
Laughing and crying at the same time ...

Well... that's it I guess, for now.

Until the next time!

and btw:

If you liked this design take a look here