Lensbaby for Street Photography

 Double Glass Optic 50m, f4, 1/4000sec ISO 200

Lensbaby and street photography, not an easy task but great tool to separate your subject from his surroundings.  I was in Palermo Viejo a neighborhood of Buenos Aires in Argentina, beautiful country, and an amazing city, that morning I decided to do street photography bringing only my camera and one lens my Lensbaby Composer and the double glass optic. The way this optic works like most of the Lensbaby optics, you have to manually add your aperture, small little disc that have a variety of size and shape.  One hint for starter, it is way easier to use f5.6 and up aperture to start an learn you way down to  f1.2 that will save you a great amount of frustration, my favorite aperture using this optic for street photography and portrait is f4.

f4, 1/400sec, ISO 200

 Double Glass 50m, f4, 1/1250 sec ISO 200 the morning news!

Back to Palermo, that day I decided to go for f4, wandering in the street close to the church I saw that homeless woman, in reality at that moment I regretted not having my Canon 24-105 lens "my favorite street lens", it means not only to be creative but to get closer to my subject, the double glass optic is only 50m. I gave the woman money and began shooting, no tripod, manual focus, at f4.  I learned 3 valuable lessons that day, never go out without my 24-105, start using Lensbaby optic more often and always bring a tripod.

The result was very interesting, now on I always have Lensbaby with me, it's a very creative tool that doesn't take a lot of space. For better resolution and more of Argentina images visit my site at

http://dianedugas-imagen.com
  

Recoleta Cemetery Buenos Aires, Argentina

Recoleta Cemetery Entrance, Canon 5D Markii, 24-105 at 24mm, f14, 1/60sec, ISO200, Black and White

I passed few weeks visiting La Recoleta Cemetery, during a trip to Buenos Aires, in Spring 2011, I had the chance to do a lot of shooting  my subject where mostly "Statues", for me they represented the spirit of the place, they are in fact the residents,

This cemetery is an amazing place, 14 acres of history, I used a map to find my way around, if your time is limited the best option will be to go on a tour. 

That cemetery contains the graves of notable people, including Eva Peron, most of Argentina Presidents, Nobel Prize Winners, etc..., and a lot of cats.

The location is great in the heart of La Recoleta BA best neighborhood, very cultural, with the  National Fine Arts Museum, a lot of great shopping and BA best restaurants.

For our stay like always we rented an apartment from  http://www.bytargentina.com  they are great and affordable.

 If you have any questions about BA, don't hesitate to ask me, I may not be able to know the answer but I can find out, I have a lot friends in Argentina that can help.

For the shooting I used my Canon 5D Markii, and different lenses, including Lensbaby,  I wrote the shooting info under each image, you can find more images by visiting my website gallery Fine ArtRecoleta Cemetery BA 2011

The Little Angel, Canon 5D Markii,16-35 at 18mm, f18, 1/85sec, ISO200, Black and White onOne Soft

The Man Canon 5D Markii, Lensbaby, double glass optic  50mm, f4, 1/1600sec, ISO200,

The Queen, Canon 5D Markii, Lensbaby, double glass optic  50mm, f4, 1/2500sec, ISO200,  Black and White on

The 2 Brothers Canon 5D Markii, 24-105 at 105mm, f5.6, 1/1250sec, ISO200, Black and White onOne Software

The Bird on the Cross, Canon 5D Markii, 24-105 at 24mm, f9, 1/400sec, ISO200, Black and White  

 The Good Over Evil,   Canon 5D Markii, 24-105 at 67mm, f4, 1/800sec, ISO200, Black and White

 Angel,  Canon 5D Markii, Lensbaby, double glass optic  50mm, f4, 1/500sec, ISO200

The End of the Day, Canon 5D Markii, 24-105 at 105mm, f7, 1/80sec, ISO200, Black and White onOne S

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Black and White Fine Art Nude Project

I always liked black and white for fine art nude,  I like the simplicity of it,  no color distraction at all.
For this project I wanted simple beautiful arty images, minimalist style with a minimum of props focusing on the shape of my subject keeping her anonymous, no eyes contact no facial expression.

I find that eyes contact and facial expression are more suitable for glamour and for this project I really wanted fine art nude.

It was done with a minimum of equipment, Canon 5d Markiii, Canon  24-105 Lens, Lensbaby Pinehole and soft focus optics, 2 Canon Speedlites 600EX-RT on a tripod bouncing on a circular white reflector and Canon radio transmitter  ST-E3-RT for the flashes that were set manually.

We worked in a very small space in my bedroom, not more than 10x10 feet, using mostly only one white wall that had no distraction, it was far from the comfort of a studio, but nothing is impossible when working with a great subject!

We did the best with what we got, and the result of that cooperation and interaction between my subject and I was the most beautiful set of fine art black and white images.

I didn't want to put the images on my blog by respect for my subject as they can be copied, and put directly into google public gallery, but if you want to view them you can visit the gallery on my website just follow this link Fine Art Nude Project


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Penelope with Jessy Cortes

Penelope is a beautiful song a story from Joan Manuel Serrat about a woman that waited all her life for her lover to come back, going back to the train station hoping, a sad story as he never came back to her or, they were never able to reconnect, as the time passed they couldn't recognized each other.

Penelope story was the inspiration for last week story teller photo session with my best body Jessy Cortes, she is an amazing woman, and she did like always a perfect job. We had a lot of fun, I only used my 5DMarkiii and one lens Canon 24-105, when working with Jessy I have no fear, even taking photo under harsh light, with her nothing is impossible.  I used different preset in my processing to reflect the past, using nostalgic color and bw filters.

 It was a great day of work, , we added these photos just to add to this sad story, to have fun using this space, Mendoza is one of the perfect place to play in a dangerous place without being outlaws, the authority are extremely patient and only told us to move when they needed to move the train!

 

 

Behind the scene with Karl our dear friend, bodyguard and make up artist for the day!!!

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Indiana Jessy at the Jurassic Park "La Quinta Anabtawi"!

This image was done using 53 photos stitched together.

Working with Jessy is always fun,  this time we decided to relax and enjoy a sunny Sunday morning at our friend Riyad place " La Quinta Anabtawi, in Vistalba Mendoza.

We were there for our photography meet up, this was my last one as the group organizer, and it was the best one ever!

I did 2 panoramic photos, the one on top was done using 53 photos stitched together, I had to reduce the resolution of all the photos to merge them in Photoshop to prevent crash, I am hoping to redo it with even more resolution with a better program.
For the second one I used 26 images a bit faster to merge, but still I had to reduce the resolution of all photos again to prevent crash!

This image was done using 26 photos stitched together.

 I also used my small Lensbaby Circular Fisheye 5.8mm, extreme wide angle, not crazy with the resolution but it a creative tool, and I use it from time to time,

Lensbaby Circular Fisheye, 5.8mm, extreme wide angle, Fall in Mendoza Argentina

Lensbaby Circular Fisheye, 5.8mm, extreme wide angle "Ceibo Argentina National Flower

 Keeping the best part for the end, I shoot Jessy my bff and favorite model, this time my heroine was playing the role of Indiana Jessy in Jurassic Park, I processed all the photo in black and white for 2 reason, first I wanted to give the photo a vintage movie look and second all the photos were shot during the noon hour the worst time to take photo, harsh light not great for any photos especially for portrait. No matter how harsh the light was Jessy always looked great, as you'll see with this little story teller,                    "Indiana Jessy at the Jurassic Park!"

Behind the scene!

Riyad helping Jessy to get into position,

Jessy having fun, like always during our shooting session!!!

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