Mendoza Wine Country

Mendoza is a joy if you love wine like I do, sure you can go the winery for a tour, but if you don't have time you can buy your wine at the super market, Carrefour is one of the best, great selection and a lot of specials,

I went this morning I had a ride with our friend Arnold, great guy an other Canadian!

I came back with 6 bottles of great wine and 2 bottles of an amazing champagne, all for less than $50 Canadian!!!

Loving it!

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Portraiture Point of View

I always like to try different point of view, even when shooting portraiture, during my first session with Jessica, I asked her to go under the staircase and looking up at me, it's a different point of view for portraiture but it worked very well.

I processed one in color and one in black and white.
I added a soft effect a hint of color and texture to the black and white, to add mystery.

Different point of view for portraiture

Adding softness, texture and a hint of color to black and white to add mystery

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My Friend Jessica Part 2 Conceptual Images

Contact

I enjoy creating story with my photography, during  the first session with Jessica I worked on different themes, even if it was our first session together it went very well and I was able to create storyteller images.  We had nothing planned and not a lot to work with, but we managed to get some great shots, I was very fortunate to work with such an amazing woman.

For all of the images except the falling one, I extended the frame, what I mean is that I started by getting a perfect shot of my subject and after I took some shots of the surrounding keeping the same settings including same focus, very important to have everything the same for a seamless darkroom process.

To do the stitching I used 2 different methods, for "Contact and Levitation" I did them manually, only 6 to 8 images to stitch.

To do "Hope I used Photoshop Panorama stitching, I had 28 images, Photoshop didn't do a perfect job but it was almost impossible to do it manually, I also tried Kolor Autopano an amazing and very expensive software, did the job perfectly but because I don't own it the result was covered with water marks and I wasn't able to use it.
Falling was a collage using 3 images, a completely different process, many hours, but sometimes it's the only way to get what you want to illustrate. I also used a small collage for contact just adding the butterfly.

For all of the images except "Hope", I used Photoshop curve, hue/saturation, replace color, liquify, and many layers.
Hope was different as I wanted to create a comic book image, I always wanted to create a series with this kind of images, if I had the resources, I would have a skyscraper, a back alley, a dark figure, a super hero, to add to this image to create a real story, one day I will have the resources to do it.
To create this image I used Photoshop cutout filter, and added some black lines using Corel Painter 2015 ink brush, after what I plaid with Photoshop curve, hue/saturation, replace color, etc...

Levitation

Falling

Hope

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My Friend Jessica

Canon 24-105 at 100mm, f4, 1/250sec, ISO 640, Natural Light

Since I arrived in  Mendoza  I have been searching for a model, I wanted someone I can direct easily,  someone that will will work with me during my creation process someone to be part of my team.

My friend Jessica was the perfect match, she is beautiful, smart, easy to direct and as crazy as I am.

We had the first session this past Thursday, an informal session just to get to know how to work with each other, Jessica only speak Spanish, not a problem at all.

This is some of the shots I took, next step will be to do some conceptual and fine art image.

 The gears I used for that session were, Canon 5D Markiii, Canon 24-105mm, Lensbaby soft focus, Canon flash.

Lensbaby Soft Focus, 1/400sec, ISO320, Natural Light

Flash Manual in a Beauty Dish, Canon 24-105 at 105mm,  f4.5, 1/160sec, ISO 200

Canon 24-105 at 80mm F4, 1/100 sec, ISO 160, Natural Light

Canon 24-105 at 105mm F4, 1/100 sec, ISO 160, Natural Light

Canon 24-105 at 105mm F4, 1/250 sec, ISO 160, Natural Light

Canon 24-105 at 60mm F4, 1/250 sec, ISO 640, Natural Light

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Forest

   Forest,  digital painting, 

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Floating Curves

Color, movement and shape, my brain was wondering today and I had to do an image to illustrate my feeling, all about floating and dreaming,

Floating Curves

 Great week end to all:0)))


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Mendoza Vendimia Parade 2015

Since I can remember I always liked parades, and Mendoza Vendimia is one of my favorite.

I took all the photos and the video with my small Panasonic Lumix, I didn’t want to carry my big camera, not sure it was a great idea, next time I will bring the big guy for more flexibility and a lot better resolution. 

I used my little Lumix on manual setting this is the best setting for event like this one, using auto will had work for some shots only, the camera cannot decide way too much contrasts between dark shadows and bright highlights.

Also using the camera on manual setting give me the opportunity of using raw instead of Jpeg for better resolution. 

I had to up the ISO quite often to get the right shutter speed to freeze the action 1/200 sec minimum even with an aperture of f2.8 I couldn’t get enough light and my only option was to bring the ISO up bringing noise into the images. Small sensor camera like my Panasonic Lumix  had a lot more noise than a crop or full sensor DSLR, that’s another reason to bring my big guy next time.

I used the regular Photoshop noise reduction to reduce part of the noise and Alien Skin software for my black and white conversion.

If you have any questions about setting or processing let me know.

During this event I focus mostly on what make the event so successful "the people" they worked extremely hard, the weather was very warm about 34C and they did it dancing singing smiling enduring under very warm costumes, thanks to these amazing people it was an amazing event.

My favorite part was the Bolivian Dancers to see the small video follow this link "Mendoza Vendimia Bolivian Dancers 2015" .

It's a huge post with a lot of pictures it will take time to upload, the gallery is also on my website follow this link to view it Mendoza Vendimia Parade 2015

 


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