Fotos by Carlos

My girlfriend is a hairstylist, and a good one. After she cut her friend's hair, I wrangled said friend into letting me get some portrait shots. The incandescent lighting gives these a warmth that I enjoy, although for portfolio work, I'll need to use a whiter light. It was a great learning experience to work with someone, play with lighting, and get input from hairstylists on what they want in a shot.

I love shooting either in the city, where the buildings and the art (legal and illegal) make things interesting. It's also fun to shoot in places remote enough to find interesting plants and wildlife. Miramar, Fl, is neither of these things. It's a suburb filled with cookie-cutter houses in gated communities and strip malls with chain restaurants. I didn't expect much out of an evening stroll with my girlfriend and favorite model (who are the same person, to be clear). Boy, was I wrong. Exploring the weirder corners of the area as the sun went down led to some pleasing shots, taking advantage of interesting lighting. I'm also getting more confident with my camera settings, which leads to much less editing. None of these photos have been edited beyond a little cropping and straightening out. I was surprised to find that there are still a few houses left from a time before there was even a suburb. Florida is prone to flat, swampy landscapes like this, but that...

As I work my way through National Geographic's Fundamentals of Photography course, I'm learning to be much more intentional in composing a shot. Below, some examples of shots that I feel are relatively well composed. Some are better than others, but all show something I was trying to make happen. This slash pine is small, and there's so much going on in the background that it's hard to get a sense of it. Changing my perspective lowers the horizon line, cleans up the background and lends drama to this small tree. Here again, a low horizon and lots of sky behind the royal palm communicates height and drama. The roofline and posts, along with railing and bars on the doors, all add structure and frame this shot nicely. This ended up being one of my fave shots from a recent Bahamas cruise. Wish I could have caught more of the goats, but I like the way the fencing frames the shot, and rule of thirds draws your eye to the girls, who were fascinated by a f...

Apologies for the lack of posts lately. I've had limited access to my computer over the last few days, and trying to update via iPhone is an exercise in frustration. I'll try to get back to a more regular schedule this week. Meantime, let's talk white balance. If you've read my previous posts, you know that I've benefitted greatly from watching National Geographic's Great Courses DVD on fundamental photography. I can't recommend this course enough, as it's made me think about the fotos I'm taking in ways that have noticeably improved my photography. Most recently, I've watched the lessons regarding lighting, which have some great tips on how to light a subject using both ambient and introduced light. The host, photographer Joel Sartore, also mentioned white balance, about which I've thought very little before now. Sartore mentions that auto white balance (which I used basically all the time) tries to mimic our eyes' adjustment to d...

The Frost Science Museum in Miami is the latest addition to its growing Museum Park, which is an attempt to be as cosmopolitan as other major cities. Its original location was shut down in order to move it to its new spot in the park, and while it's a little rough around the edges still, it's nice to have it back. The highlight of the museum by far is its aquarium, from which I took most of these fotos. Some have a chrome filter applied, others do not, depending on what pleased me. I'm kind of on the fence about whether using filters is OK. I think for personal fotos, I'm fine going with whatever gives me the look I want. When taking fotos for other people (and any paid work), I either offer both filtered and unfiltered, or just unfiltered, since mimicking film stock isn't for everyone. Anyway, enjoy the fotos! One of several views into the big tank. Love the way the light creates contrast on my lovely girlfriend's face. The main viewing area for the ...

Made it down to Wynwood this afternoon. For those who don't know, it's a neighborhood in Miami with a history of being a little rough around the edges, but which has gentrified pretty quickly in the last five years. By Miami standards, it's a little more cleaned up than I like to see, but friends from out of town assure me it's still fairly grimy. Anyway, rain kept me from being able to take half the fotos I wanted to take, but it's hard to walk through the area without finding something of visual interest, so I still got some decent shots. Below are my favorites from today, with chrome filter applied, and a little context in captions (when I feel they're needed). Towards the center of this foto is Atomik's distinctive smiling orange. If you're in Miami and never see one of these, you have failed at seeing Miami. The harsh, bright light presented some challenges, but I feel like I'm getting better at making the camera do what I w...

Not having a lot of time for shooting fotos today, I decided to try and get some fotos of a small bird's nest in the yard. I pretty much failed at it. At first, I tried to shoot from the ground, but I couldn't find an angle from which the nest was clear. It was always partly obscured by the branches of the tree. I suspect this was by design. The nest is visible, but indistinct. When I wasn't able to get the shot I wanted, I grabbed a ladder and tried to shoot from above. I discovered that the nest had eggs in it. A quick google search confirms that they're mockingbird eggs. There's an egg just barely visible in the upper left quadrant of the foto. If you don't see it, you'll just have to take my word for it. A closer look makes the egg more clear, but not much more clear, unfortunately. At this point, two mockingbirds started circling and screeching, which I assumed was their way of warning me that I'd disturbed the nest quite enough,...