It has been a while since I last posted on that page... nearly 8 months. A sensible excuse would be that I have been pretty busy over the pasts months but in fact not really... To be a 100% honest I have gradually been dragged toward Instagram which is to my sense a "Q&D" (Quick and Dirty - this expression belongs to Brenda Thake my former Masters thesis supervisor) way for posting pictures. Cons of using of Instagram include the very annoying cropping of all your "portrait" pictures, reason sufficiently annoying that pushed me back toward the blog/website in order to be able to publish full-size pictures. As a photographer the way you actually shoot your picture and how elements fit in the frame are key components of the final picture and by cropping your pic (because of silly Instagram) can lead in losing some bits of the message you want to transmit through your pic. When shooting a picture I'm not actually thinking "hmmm portrait mode,... I need to zoom out a bit as IG will not allow the full size of this..." and I won't apologise for not doing so... Also I prefer detailing personal opinions and thoughts on a platform that feels more free of control than Instagram. Anyway, again I got a bit lost... On a photographic perspective, I have actually been a bit busy for the past 7/8 months. I have not done a lot of wildlife photography thought or not as much as I used to do but on the other hand I got quite productive on the portrait side. Wildlife and Landscape: Scotland, Kingfishers... Just after my PhD viva, I really wanted to kind draw a final line on this and planned a little trip to Scotland and its beautiful Isle of Skye which is well famous for its eagles sightings (Golden eagle and Sea eagle) . Just to cut it short, I did not see the eagles or actually I saw the golden eagle but from such a distance that it was impossible to take a good shot at it. On the other hand, I managed to have so amazing approaches with some loons (black throated and common ones), eider ducks, common merganser but the cherry on top of this was an approach with some stags and deers. With these last one I managed to make my way through the high grasses, playing "hide and seek" with a very tall male, it was woaw... heart taking and also a bit scary. Canon 7DmkII - Sigma 150-600 SportScotland is a beautiful land with unbelievable sceneries. I really need to invest in a good quality ND filter though. I currently use a "variable one" ranging from ND2 to 400 and the quality is not fantastic. See under a couple of pics taken over the trip (more in the Landscape section). Canon M50 + Sigma 18-35 ArtI could speak for ages about that trip and all the amazing sites and sightings I have experienced during these 6 days of mind freeing but I won't, there is so much to say and I'm trying to cut short in order to tell you a bit more about the rest of these 8 months. Feel free to have a look at the other sections of the portfolio to find out a bit more pics wise. I'm just dropping below a couple of pictures to wrap up on Skye and its beauties. Just to carry on the Wildlife of these past months, except Scotland, most of my focus has been on birds (and hares) with a couple of visit to some of my regulars sites in the North of France (see below pictures) and more recently during summer time to a new spot I found to shoot kingfishers... North of France - Canon 7DmarkII - Sigma 150-600 SportNow just to finish on the wildlife bit... Over the summer I did go for the bee eaters maybe 3 times but I was not feeling a lot into it... I mean it is not the same when you have the spot and that you know that almost every time you are pretty sure to see them a get a couple of pictures. I was really motivated to find a spot for kingfishers, which I did after may be two days of searching. For this specific occasion I have also invested in a new piece of equipment, a foldable chair/hide which just work perfectly with the kingfishers. Have a look (if you wish) to this link for the little IG story and live testing of the chair: HERE. Just below are some of the pictures I took with that piece of kit and my usual photography gear. South of France - Canon 7DmarkII - Sigma 150-600 Sport (1 and 3 with NightHawk hide)Photography contests... In order to challenge a bit myself and to check my general progression, I have joined to 3 different photography contests. The first one was held by the blog "émotions-numeriques" (Link HERE) and divided into two round. First round consisted in a generic theme for which participants could send any kind of pictures and were judged on the quality and technique. Group of four participants were made and the best pic from each group was selected and allowed its owner to access the second round. The second round had a specific theme which was "Le temps qui passe" which I would literally translate into "passing time". After the results from the first round were known we had a month to produce our picture. For this occasion I made three different shooting, but only kept one picture out of them (obviously). I managed to access the second with a picture from the series "Cocoon" (HERE) and managed to rank 3rd on the final round. I was pretty happy with the general result as it was my very first competition. Here under is the final picture that got me that 3rd place. Canon M50 + Sigma 18-35 Art Second contest was organised by the "Maire de Sorbier" a little city near to Lyon in the eastern part of France and had for theme "Fais moi peur" / "Scare me". For this one, the idea was pretty straight forward and I did not have to think too much about what kind of shooting I wanted to do. As a child (and still now) I was not very confortable with clowns probably from watching back in these days the movie "IT". As you might be aware, the movie has been recently revisited in a more modern version and watching it I found the new version of Pennywise very intimidating. So I decided to start from this and to think of two different scary situations I would not like to be in. Pictures are presented below. Just for the record, I'm wearing the costume and pictures were taken using a remote control to trigger the shots. Canon M50 + Sigma 18-35 Art Outcome of this contest was that my picture (one with the balloons) ranked second (jury decision) but also received the price of the public from the visitors of the exhibition (pictures ranking within the first ten were public exhibited to the public). Overall a very pleasant and positive experience. Finally the third one, well quite a mitigated outcome. The contest is organised by the "Photo club - Reflets d'un Instant - Pont Farcy" and had several categories (6 in total). I applied for three of them, one on "Wildlife photography" for which none of my pictures ranked within the first ten (massive disappointment to be honest), one "Portrait" for which two of my pictures ranked within the first ten (6th and 8th position), a third on the theme "Hands" for which the only picture I sent ranked 6th. Overall this is was a pretty good experience as the quality of the presentation was also assessed and that gave me the opportunity to try making my own supports/frames for my pictures. Just a bit sad that none of my wildlife pictures were good enough to get within the first ten. It also encouraged me to focus a bit more on this practice for the future months. Workshops "Canon Explorer Series" and Nath-Sakura "Light mastering"... A couples of months ago, I was explaining to you that I had met with the fantastic Nath-Sakura at the Salon de la Photo in Paris after having ordered her book (which one more time I highly recommend, photography equivalent of the Bible and Tome 2 is coming out in November). After a little thought I decided to join/pay for one of her 2 days workshop on "Outdoor Light mastering" which was happening in Bruxelles, not too far from where I lived by that time (I recently moved back to the UK). The overall experience was fabulous, I learnt a lot, I got to practice with great lighting equipment (Profoto), exchange with professional photographer, shoot a real professional model (Carla - have a look at her IG, she is a lovely person very professional for a young age though) and this in a delightful and very chill atmosphere. A couple of pictures are presented here under but the rest of them can be seen in their allocated section: HERE: Masterclass - Formatrice: Nath-Sakura / Model: Carla Maurel - Canon 7DmarkII + Sigma 18-35 ArtI told you these were busy months... In May just before that workshop, I also got selected to attend a one day workshop organised by Canon, project name "Canon Explorer Series" which was held near Paris on a secret location for the entire day. We did not know much of what this will be about just that we had to meet Canon staffs in Paris at 8.30 in the morning on a specific day. Obviously I went there and joined another 30 photographers/moviemakers, then we got in a bus and the adventure started. We ended up in a beautiful property in South of Paris, the kind of place you only hire for weddings or seminars,... stunning. We had breakfast (buffet) and then we were told what will happen during the day, introduced to the staffs and 3 Canon ambassadors, Felicia Sisco, Olivier Chomis and Pascal Maitre. Each of them will separately take a group of participants in a specific workshop to try out the new set of gear that Canon had just released a couple of months ago. The goal of the day was to test as many gear as possible in different situations but to also experience the full "Canon experience" from taking the picture until the final stage of printing it. National Geographic was also co-funding this event and a photo competition was also organised at the end of the day. I don't want to kill the suspense but I did not win that one :p. But I had a fantastic time !! I mean getting my hands on a 10 000£ telephoto lens mounted on a 4000£ body was just insane. Exchanging with professional photographer , big names of the photography was just a unique experience and the workshop were just incredible. To sum up this was a blast. I'm just gonna put up a couple of pictures I took on the different workshop and briefly comment under them about what they were about.
Further exercices on the lightmastering... Following the workshop with Nath-Sakura, she obviously encouraged us to practise as much as possible using her book because this is what photography is about, practicing, trial and errors especially these days with digital cameras. So over these month I have tried to regularly set a couple of shootings where I was challenging myself with the light conditions, the chose of clothes, colours involved, the instructions to the model,... This lead to a series of mini-projects that have now been included to the Portait portfolio. Prior to this I also had a very nice collaboration with my old friend Leslie Carles, on a project I untitled "Urban Classic", which took part in a car park. This is also in the "Portrait" porfolio. I also realised two "milk bath" projects just because it was very fun to do and I thought that the result was quite nice. Again, accessible in the Portrait section of the portfolio. Just to get back on the Light mastering exercices, I'm just gonna drop below to this a couple of pictures from these exercices which this time ARE NOT in the portfolio. I think is pretty much it for now... I'll make sure to come back more often with new articles as, as I mentioned I have now moved back to England and I have new territories to explore regarding wildlife photography.
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