“Stop it! Now!”

OK, just one single post on politics, cause I wanted to share this. I’m discovering other stuffs with photography, but I’m on exam now, no time to shoot!

Today, there has been demonstration all through my homeland Vietnam, against the Chinese government attack in China Sea. The conflict has been running for a long time, kind of a little Cold War opposing Vietnam, China, Brunei, the Philippines and, if I’m not mistaken, Indonesia, about two archipelagos in the Southern China Sea. China and Vietnam claim Paracel Islands is theirs, and China, VN, the Phillippines, Brunei and Indonesia fight for Spratley Island. You know what, no one cared about those empty little piece of land some years ago, when no one discovered gas under it.

Map of the chaos...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13661779 + got some infos from friends in HCMC.

My opinion? ONU should make those international waters. And stop those stupid comflicts. What? I’m a bad Vietnamese? What makes me a bad something?

Nationalism, as Einstein wrote it, it a “children disease”. Stop it, now. I won’t hate the Chinese for what their government ordered, if they ever ordered it. My family hates a lot of things, including my Grann.y despising the Japanese (for their invasion in the 40′, my grandpa hating the French because of Indochina, my Dad being not that keen on Chinese, even though he admires their culture, and my mom having issues with Thai people for some personal reasons (but she finally admired them for the Red Shirt demonstration). You know what? My boyfriend is all of that. And I can’t explain how much I love him, who’s currently working in China. I think all the hatred that my family brought me with turned into love. I have Filipino, Chinese, Japanese, Thai and French friends, and they’re so great. I think human beings need to hate… so much that they are able to generalise one flaw they saw on some people to a whole people.

Japanese troops entering Saigon, by the way, I love those old photos taken on a piece of glass!

 

Stop with all that nationalism. It’s only a concept to control people better by creating them an identity. I’m sad that Vietnam got attacked because it’s my homeland and even though I’m a citizen of the world, it hurts me within my flesh, but I won’t do anything else than facepalming because calling hatred is even more stupid than doing nothing. Human beings are so greedy. Live – love and spread love! I’m a pacifist, no matter what happens!

Tags: boyfriend, brunei, china, islands, japanese, love, nationalism, paracel, politics, spratley, the philipines, vietnam

10 reasons to use film cameras

My camera and I, picture taken at my bestfriend's.

Lots of people have a big smile when they see I don’t have a CanonEos 5D Mark II/NikonD300s/Sony Alpha. Actually, that’s because I don’t have enough money yet to buy one. I’m saving to get one of those… Well I don’t know if I’d really like it, but if I don’t it’s going to be a waste. I’ve already taken pictures with a friend’s Nikon D60 for family parties, and even if I tried to do is as artistic as I could, something was really missing, and I still don’t know why, but I think I prefer film cameras.

Here are the reasons why I PREFER film cameras (doesn’t mean I hate digital), because I can’t obviously say what’s missing with digital.

1. Using silver film makes you and what’s around you IMMORTAL. By pressing a button on your digital camera, you can delete all the pictures you got on it. And anyway, digital pictures are never kept that long. Even if they’re good. Negatives last for more than decades. My photography mentor in HighSchool (a soon to be retiree) told me she found negatives her father took when he was a young man…
2. Black and White goes with silver films, nothing else. I like film cameras more because black and white were INTENDED for them.
3. Silver Cameras are CHEAPER now. Not to say, but economic arguments work very well.
4. The noise of the shutter, the crackling of the film advance lever…
5. Developping your negatives in the dark, then enlarge them, choose your paper, your lense, it’s like opening Xmas Gifts. The same if you don’t develop them yourself.
6. Film cameras make you a better photographer: you can’t delete a failed picture, you can’t see immediately what you’ve done. You have to be good to avoid wasting negatives.
   

   Whoops! Nearly too dark! but it's still good... Next time will be better. I nearly wasted a negative!

7. No need to turn on your computer to show pictures to your friends.
8. Nowadays, you hardly have material memories of your lives, as we used to have before. I had tons of pictures taken during my childhood. You can’t see my growth after I turned 12: when the first digital cameras were released…
   

   Picture taken by Dad with his small, handy Nikon EF. Younger sis and me. We were cuties.

9. You have an unlimited range of possibility with a film camera. Some digital camera will tell you there’s a problem with the picture you’re trying to take and you would miss some amazing effects.
10. You’ll have a better understanding of digital photography by starting with film cameras.

For the other reasons, it would be all about tastes. One disadvantage is the fact you need a very good scanner if you want to post your pictures on the internet. Mine obviously sucks…

Any questions?

To start photography with a reflex. Take two. Shutter speed diaphragm aperture.

Get rid of the P-mode!

Done? OK, let’s go. The shutter speed/diaphragm aperture was something that took me years to understand. It’s rather confusing so I’m going to try to explain you as well as possible.

Now imagine you’re in a dark room, with an awful headache, and the door is opened to the outside. There’s a pretty guy/girl outside, you really want to look at them, but there’s too much light and remember you got this awful headache. You have two choices

Open the door

• Open it wide, you get a lot of light in your room but you can’t see lots of the outer details, cause you’re focusing on your love interest and everything around looks blurred. You can see your love interest, and the landscape around them

If it’s closed, you there isn’t that much light, which is good because of your headache. But on the other side, you’re not seeing a lot of details from the landscape, out of the guy/girl, but the landscape is distinct, because your focus does not concentrate in one small spot.

Close the door

• Slam the door. So you’ll only see for a very short time what the person’s doing. They’re going by, that’s it, but you can’t see if they’ re going slowly or quicly, and if they’re angry or not.
• Close the door slowly. So you’re seeing all the details of what the person’s doing. But you’re seing a lot of light. Ouuuuuch!

OK, hang on kid, now focus, we’re reaching Pokemon level 2.

A camera actually works like a room with a door. The mecanism is a mirror that closes down and reflects an image on a sensitive pellicule, the negative, which is you and your headache. If there’s too much light, you burn the negative and the image you’re going to get will be too white, and have a serious lack of contrast. Too much light kills the light.

You get the light by opening the diaphragm or increasing the exposure. What’s confusing is the number.

• The shortest exposure (a little amount of light) is 1000. Or I should say 1/1000sec but on analaogic cameras, it’s written 1000.
• The largest opening is f/2.8, the smallest is around f/16, sometimes 22 or more.
• You must find a balance between the apperture and the exposition. A lot of light means you have to either shorten the exposure (slam your door!) or keep the door half opened.

The longest your exposure is, the more movement you’ll get. This picture was taken with a 30sec exposure.

This image is not mine! Go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/fontina/

You can see light strains! If it was a short exposures, you’d see the cars! and for that kind of pictures, you absolutely need A TRIPOD!

With a short exposure, it’s like you’re freezing the time! But you don’t get a lot of light. So OPEN THE DOOR! Open the diaphram (if you’re in the light, else open it).

With a long exposure, you’re seeing shadows deeper, but lights are brighter, CLOSE THE DOOR! Close the diaphragm.

• Remember your first negatives are going to be very frustrating. So to avoid it, set your camera to “apperture priority” or “shutter speed priority”. You’ll only be caring about 2 things, the zoom, and the apperture/shutter speed, depending onwhat priority you set.

Now go out and practice!

Tags: shutter speed diaphragm apperture learning explaination starting photography p mode how to

To start photography with (analogic) reflex. Take 1.

Hey!

Now that you got your own camera, you can start shooting!

There are some stuffs you should know when you’re a beginner photographer like me:

1. Get rid of the P mode.
2. The first negatives are going to be very frustrating. I mean, REALLY frustrating. You take lots of pictures that you expect beautiful, and when you see the negatives, everything is too dark, too bright or just ugly.
3. Go out! Natural light is always better. Artificial light is really hard to deal with
4. Until you can master an amateur reflex don’t buy an expensive, professional one. Small amateur camera like Canon 450D, Nikon D5000 , when they are well handled, make wonderful pictures. Diana F, the famous lo-fi analogic camera, is really wonderful too. Famous fashion photographer Zhang Jing Na (deviantart’s zemotion, yes, another Canon girl!) started with a Canon 400D and made incredible pictures with it.
5. You don’t need 200$ projectors to make good fashion portraits. A white sheet or a mirror + 1 slave assistant are perfect to reflect the natural light.
6. Enjoy what you’re doing. Didn’t it work this time, next time will be better. Practice makes it perfect.

Tags: analogic, beginner, beginning, camera, enjoy, frustration, indoor, learning, lenses, lightning, macro, natural, negatives, outdoor, p mode, Photography, practice

My material

As the photographer’s daughter, I could avoid a problem some of my fellows young photographers could avoid : lack of material.

I could take whatever I wanted, if I cleaned it and handled it back, which makes me a very very spoiled girl. I don’t have any lightning stuffs, just flashes, and I hate flash. Luckily, analogic reflexes are not that expensive now. I’m planning on buying lo-fi cameras too.

Did not need to buy a camera, my dad gave me his old one, and his friend provided me theirs.

But when I talked about buying digital one, their answer was all: “DIGITAL WILL NEVER OVERTAKE SILVER NEGATIVES”. The discussion was closed.

My material list:

-          Karl Zeiss IKON Contraflex B 35mm SLR AKA Mister Zeiss. It’s the one I started photography with, and the first one my dad bought, 35 years ago… and the camera was already 15 years old… It has no electronics inside.

-          Karl Zeiss Macro lenses. They are extensions of your lens that allows you to take very precise macro. Actually, the Karl Zeiss was  not a camera for art, it was a camera for scientists. I did not find them, lost somewhere in my mess.

-          Canon A-1 box AKA “Mama Canon”. It was actually the first camera with digital electronics, and no more analogic.

• ISO range: 6 to 12800
• Shutter speed: 1/1000 to 22 seconds

-          Vivitar Wide Angle. 48mm (on the body)

-          Vivitar Macro Telephoto. 90mm

-          Vivitar Autovariable. 35-85mm

-          Vivitar Teleconverter

-          Canon Lens FD. 135mm

-          Canon Power Winder

-          Canon Flash (never used it. I hate flashes)

I love them as my own kids.

Oh one last thing: you can use your analogic camera’s lenses on your digital camera, you’ll simply lose some luminosity and, and will have to divide the focal distance by 1.5!

Even if your material looks really old, it’s most of the time still really efficient. My material is hi-fi, but I also love lo-fi stuffs (about which I’m going to write about later), as the ones done with cheap 60’s cameras. I also really like Polaroid®. The only thing with old materials is you have to be really careful, because there’s probably no more warranty.

Now go out and shoot!

Tags: 135mm, 35-85mm, 95mm, Autofocus, Canon, Canon A-1, Carl Zeiss Ikon, FD, lenses, macro, material, Photography, power winder, telephoto, Vivitar, Wide angle

Blogs are like goldfishes…

… if you don’t stimulate them a bit, they die.

OK, quick introduction of little me.

I’m a 2x yo International Relations & Sociology student, addicted to silver negatives, darkrooms, and shutter noise. Dad gave me the craze. He was a professional photographer. I was not really interested in it when I was younger. It was just my dad’s whim. Until I randomly joined the photography club in highschool and developped a serious addiction to it. I need a rehab.

Dad was a good photographer, but he did not want me to become one. “Too expensive”, he said. And “digital photography sucks”, he added. Although he was not eager to see me become a photographer like him, he was a good teacher. Even though he did not tell me why I failed all my first pictures.

Example of conversation:

Daughter: What do you think about this pic?

Dad: It’s bad. Something’s weird.

Dau: What’s wrong?

Dad: Won’t tell you. Think it yourself.

Take 2

Dau: How do you manage taking a 2 second exposures without moving?

Dad: I don’t move.

In this blog, I’ll write about my long little padawan way from amateur photography to good photographer.

Pictures coming soon… Till there, shoot as much as you can.

Tags: beginning, blog, dad, introduction, landscapes, learning, Life, padawan, photographer, Photography, photography dad beginning introduction blog padawan photographer teaching learning shooting landscapes, shooting, teaching