The sweet pastel world of Natalia Campbell

Delicate and sensitive.  That’s the two first words I think about when I see the photos of Natalia Campbell. I’ve discovered her photos recently on the Abuzeedo website.
Her photographs are very colorful but with pastels colors that makes it look very soft. She has started with photography after the birth of her daughter and does lots of macro. She is playing a lot with drewdrops and simple details from petals. There also some nice children portraits in her portfolio. Look at her pictures and everything taste like old time candies, smell like fresh cookies and you can hear the lullaby that you mother sang  you when you were a little kid. Feels good.

If you want to see more, you can check her FlickR and buy some of her artworks here. Hope you’ll enjoy it !

Streetmaster 09 – Apeldoorn

Today, the streemaster contest was in Apeldoorn. Break dance, bmx, rollerskate, skate … quite a few things all day. Between the rain showers, the competition was really nice. Lots of talented young and less young candidates. Of course, the perfect occasion to do some nice pictures and I bet you guess that I’m planning to share the result right below. Enjoy !

And of course, I couldn’t resist to take some portraits.

More pictures on my FlickR. For those who live in the Netherlands, Streemaster will be held the 8th augustus in Dordrecht, the 15th augustus in Amsterdam and the finale will be the 29 in Amersfoort. See you there.

Worlwide photowalk 09 – Behind the scene in Amsterdam

Today, I’ve joined this worldwide event in Amsterdam. It was led by Hans Schachtschabel as last year. For me, it was my first participation. I liked the idea of meeting together to take pictures and that everywhere in the world at the same time. Unfortunately, the weather was not that good here in Amsterdam. It was kind of rainy and though rain can be a nice unusual subject, it has dissuaded many photographers. So the group was quite small but still the atmosphere really nice. Here are some picture of this day :

A big thanks to Scott Kelby for this wonderful idea and to our lead Hans…
… and that warps up this very short post !
I’ll join next year for sure, maybe in a different city to discover even more new things and people.

Hope to see you next year ! :p

Ps : Check out my result of this day on my FlickR.

The sweet nightmares of Krista Huot

I’ve decided to share what I like over the web, what inspires me. It’s not only photographers, I think that every visual creations are feeding each other. I guess that having a visual “vocabulary” comes from any sort of art expression. I’m curious about everything. Music, video, paint, draw … or anything I find smart, fun , beautiful, anything that stir me up.

Today, I was looking to the work of Krista Huot. It’s poetic and magical but kind of funny and frightening at the same. She paints acrylic illustrations in a very unique way, half childish way, half surrealist way, 100% talented way. Something between Tim Burton and Raymond Peynet. She also has done some digital work that I don’t particular like, I think it lacks texture and depth.
I think the description that she gives of herself fit perfectly her style :

“Krista Huot spent her formative years in the banshee-haunted forests of British Columbia, where she spent her time drawing and hunting a mystical floating skull named Xiclotl through a spectral dreamscape. Krista’s interests include howling, heavy metal, wine, late-night snack plates and ritual murder (the research of, not the act of). She resides in a 100 year-old rowhouse in the wrought-iron city of Montreal, with her boyfriend Florent and their two cats Gotham and Valhalla.”

I just like her work and hope you will too. Check some of her paint below :

To see more of her work take a visit to her website, or her twitter, her facebook page, her flickr, her myspace … she is everywhere !

Hope it’ll give you some sweet poetic tender nightmares !

One deadly day

I can’t  really put it this picture in the “daily” category anymore first able because I took it yesterday and secondly I haven’t done my daily pictures since a long time which become more a random picture category than a daily one. No excuse about why I didn’t take time recently to take my daily shots…
Well, let’s just share pictures. I was walking on the beach with my father yesterday when he showed me this dead bird half decomposed in the sand.(thanks daddy)
I have done this shot with my recently forgotten nokia as I didn’t have my dslr with me. It’s really when these little camera comes handy ! I’m happy I could capture this strange scene to can share it with you now. Please enjoy the result below :

Btw, this was taken in Scheveningen in the Netherlands.

Playing a bit with my new Sigma 70-200 2.8 Ex

I was walking around the sloterpark and saw these kids who were having fun trying to sail.

Btw,  it’s the “De duikelaar” water sport center, so if you have kids and you around  Amsterdam this summer check their website, they have plenty of activities.
Back to photography now. I just wanted to present you some shot I made of the sailing boat with some comments.

The first shot is a general where one of the instructor is explaining probably some safety rules.

Nikon D300, F 6,4, 1/1000, 200mm

The light was very nice, very sunny. I was trying to find some nice composition between the line of boats in the foreground and the line of empty boats in the background. The road behind is a bit out of focus with this focal length and aperture but maybe I could have use a smaller aperture to have it more out of focus maybe.

Nikon D300, F 18, 1/160, 120 mm

For this one I tried to frame and isolated the little sailing boat with the other elements. I’m pretty please with this shot.

Nikon D300, F 4, 1/1200, 85 mm

I wanted to play with a different foreground and to have the boats with their poles slightly out of focus to create some graphic effect and not to be the main subject anymore. I like the foreground very much with his old boats and rotten chains. I saw the bird coming but he was faster than I thought, I wanted to have him more in the center of the low part of the picture. Too bad !

Nikon D300, F 10, 1/500, 200 mm

And the last one is more about the sailing itself. I notice one of the boat that was about to fall. I took several shoot to capture the entire movement and I choose this one because I like the fact that it’s about in the middle of the fall. I also like the opposition with the group of boat completely still in the background thought I didn’t really notice it when I took the shoot. I like the wavy chains in the foreground that underline the action.

Unfortunately the pictures are not as sharp as I would like them to be. I still need to be used to the weight of the lens, I wasn’t completely steady. But the general quality is in my opinion quite good. I hope this some helpful comment, in any case, it was some good fun !
I would be glad to here your remarks or critics about those shots. More on my flickR.

4-week free photography course !

I’d like to share with a nice initiative from CreativeTechs Tips. They just announced yesterday on their blig that they will organize 4 free webinars around photography. The program is as follow :

July 15: Week 1 – Overview. Life of a World Traveling Photographer.
July 22: Week 2 – Your Camera.
July 29: Week 3 – Your Technique.
Aug 5: Week 4 – Composition Secrets.

And here the following starting time according to your location :

2PM – Eastern (New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Florida)
1PM – Central (Chicago, Minneapolis, Dallas)
12PM – Mountain (Denver)
11AM – Pacific (Seattle, Los Angeles)
10AM – Alaska
8AM – Hawaii
7PM – London, Dublin, Algiers, Lagos
8PM – Amsterdam, Paris, Oslo, Prague, Zagreb
9PM – Athens, Jerusalem, Cairo, Kyiv
10PM – Moscow, Dubai
11PM – Tashkent
Midnight – Islamabad
1AM Tuesday – Bangkok, Hanoi, Jakarta
2AM Tuesday – Hong Kong, Beijing, Perth
3AM Tuesday – Tokyo, Seoul
4AM Tuesday – Melbourne, Sydney
5AM Tuesday – Vladivostok
6AM Tuesday – Auckland

Needless to say I already enrolled myself. If you want to join the move follow this link. You just have to enter some basic information (First name, Last name and email address) and confirm your email (you know using this automatic email with the link you have to click in it). Login and password for the session follow later on. If they attract enough people, it means they will release more webinars in the future about InDesign, Illustrator, Fireworks, Dreamweaver, and other Adobe products. So spread the news !

24e Lakenfeest edition – Peurbakkentocht

Last Thursday, I went to see the “lakenfeest” in Leiden. I didn’t quite get the historical context of this event but after I had ask to some few people, it appears that the main goal is to have fun and drink beer. The participants decorate their boat and going down on the canals. A sort of carnival. This was pretty crowdy and the atmosphere was very nice. A very colorful event which was the occasion to do some pictures :

Nikon D300, 85mm, F11 – 1/500

Nikon D300, 85mm, F3,2 – 1/2000

Nikon D300, 50mm, F3,2 – 1/3200

Nikon D300, 85mm, F5 – 1/250

Thanks to my friend Aaron who told me about this terrace of a café on the 6th floor where I could have nice point of view.

Nikon D300, 85mm, F5 – 1/250

Nikon D300, 85mm, F5 – 1/320

We improvised (with one of my friend who was with me) a portrait session with some teenager that where kind enough to play the game. Here is the result :

Nikon D300, 85mm, F5 – 1/250

Nikon D300, 85mm, F3,2 – 1/250

This one is definitely my favorite :

Nikon D300, 85mm, F3,2 – 1/250

And that conclude this evening. More pictures on my Flickr. You can also check the website of the Lakenfeest. The event goes on till tomorrow.

NB : All the pictures where taken in aperture priority mode to can control how I wanted or not to isolate the subject from the background. I mainly used the lens Nikkor 85mm f1.8D.  I wish I had my 70-200 but it wasn’t possible

Trio

First attempt with the muse lens from lensbaby

Here is the first attempt with the muse lens from lensbaby. More on this later …