carlo obillos photography

It's no secret that I love polaroid. Every image, good or bad, comes complete with nostalgia and novelty. It's even decent amount of fun when you (in vain) try to pull the image out of the paper faster by shaking it like, well, a polaroid picture. I love the simplicity of just shooting-there is very little to adjust on a polaroid. The shots usually work, and they usually look pretty good. You can't try too hard, like you can with an SLR camera, and the image just is what it is. The camera decides what the photo will look like, and thus, leaves its fingerprint behind.

Polaroid shots also look great at weddings. They have a retro appeal that the hip youngster crowd loves. Its part of the nostalgia, a nostalgia that may endure with today's twenty- and thirty- somethings, but that may be lost on the children of the nineties.

And when the Polaroid company announced that it would cease film production, I got a little sad. And when one of the lomography guys announced he would bring it back, I got a little happy. Its expensive stuff to shoot (as of May, 2009), but some things are worth paying money for. I happen to think prettiness and nostalgia are two of those.

Art Show Polaroids

At the end of May, the apple blossoms get to work, and the apple orchards in Grey County become magical places to shoot. This shoot took place at Grandma Lambe's, possibly the best known of the large apple orchard/markets. For this shoot, I used my brand-new, one-day-old Cybersync radio triggers (I'll do a post about them a little later).

In this situation, and for what I wanted to shoot, flashes were absolutely necessary. There was way too much contrast between the sky and my subjects. Without extra lights, either the sky ends up washed out, or the people end up too dark.

Exposure here was around iso 100, 1/200, and f5.6. With a polarizer, this made the sky look beautifully blue. It had rained earlier in the day, so I worried a bit, but the sky cleared, and fantastic clouds started appearing just at the right time. The polarizer also made the grass sooo green! Light usually reflects off the grass, and this makes it look a bit washed out in photos. The polarizer helps out enormously by killing the reflection and letting the green come through to the sensor.

When shooting with a single flash, it was set about 60 degrees away from the sun, in order to fill the shadows. Later, I added another flash, right in between the first one and the sun. They were set on manual, using the test shot/check LCD/test shot/bingo! method.

Family Photography at Grandma Lambe's Apple Orchard

I've been coaching the school's mountain bike team this spring, and been using the opportunity to take some neat shots of the kids and promote the team through photography.

The first set up was pretty simple-I picked a good spot where the trail swept into the frame, then set up flash high and to my right. This balanced out the light from the sun, which was coming from behind the riders. I made the background a bit darker than usual with my shutter speed and aperture. The flash brought the riders' exposure up to an appropriate level. The flash was triggered by wireless e-ttl: my on-camera flash told the remote when to fire. This system has ups and downs. On the upside, the settings of the remote flash can be controlled from the on-camera unit. The flash will also figure out exposure for you, if you want it to. On the downside, getting the flashes to talk in daylight can be tricky, since they use light pulses for communication. You have to find a way for the light from the master to get to the slave. A diffuser helps, by spreading the master's light in all directions.

On another day, we went out and made everyone look fast. I used a long exposure (1/10s) and panned with the riders to blur the background. A 2nd curtain flash burst (which fires just before the shutter closes) froze the riders in place. Again, since the riders need to be the focal point, I dropped the exposure by stopping down to f7ish and using a polarizing filter. The flash was set to +1 2/3, which made the riders 1 2/3 stops brighter than the background.

Mountain Bike Photography in Grey County

Social networking is terrific for spreading word about an event. If you are a teenager, this may result in a pile of rubble where your parents' house once stood. If your acquaintances are more responsible than that, you might end up with a very well attended, eclectic, and fun art show.

Jesse, Paul, And Katie have gotten into throwing theme parties of late. The Big Lebowski fest was a hit, and to follow up, they decided to put up an art show. Advertising was strictly by word-of-mouth and Facebook, and in a matter of a few weeks, they had gathered eight artists and over a hundred guests.

Showing were Paul Smutylo, Casey Smutylo, Susan Sparks, Katie Graham, Joe Rutter, John Fearnall, Carlo Obillos, and Megan Annette. After a while, the sales slowed down and the party ramped up-I kept a camera at my side, and lent a friend a polaroid as well. Check out some shots:

1060 presents...A homebrewed art show

Last weekend, we took a road trip to Chicago, to attend my cousin's wedding. On this trip, I wanted to simplify-no slr, just a point and shoot and a gimmicky, fish-eye film camera.

Simplifying also meant changing my shooting attitude. I have several long-term projects relating to travel photography, but this time, I just wanted to be a tourist. I didn't want to walk away with high art-I wanted vacation snaps-shots that evoke nostalgia and memories without attempting to be masterworks. No thoughts of gallery shows, or awards, or widescale notariety-just new sights, good people and a camera at the end of my arm.

Chicago