journal
These last few days, and besides launching Image of the Month, I've been busy working on a couple of new projects.
I'm trying different techniques, and even though I don't know if these projects will materialize in new work, I've been having a lot of fun.
I'll be posting some images as a preview of what's to come. The one above is the first one and belongs to Project 1, still with no name.
New episode of the American Road Trip Journal.
Still in Sedona, Arizona, Luna and I go on a hike to Baby Bell Rock. It is an easy, short and beautiful hike to great views of the amazing rocks and colors of the area.
I try to shoot some photos with my Bronica SQ-Ai and Ilford HP5+, but once again, I struggle to get good compositions in black and white. Color is just too hard to get out of your mind when shooting here.
"Crosses", Spain, July 2018. Image created with AOWS B&W Red Filter preset.
This is the preset I usually apply to my snapshots from documenting my life and the places I go to, images that are meant to be for me and don't require much farther editing.
This preset transforms your RAW files into a gritty and contrasty black and white image. It uses the Red Filter profile from Lightroom to further increase that look.
Read MoreWhat's the meaning of life? Who am I? Could we be living in Matrix? These are really important questions, but they all pale compared to a more important and crucial one. What's better: prime or zoom lenses for landscape photography?
Read More"Gate" is one of my latest images, born just a few days ago.
I want to show you how I made it, from beginning to the end, explaining the whole process.
Read MoreAfter uploading a video about my workflow in the new Lightroom CC, I thought it'd be more useful for many to have those steps written down and well organized.
That's why I wrote a new eBook that I offer for free: "Lightroom CC Workflow".
Lightroom CC Workflow
How to keep your photo library under control and safe
You shoot a lot of pictures every day, you have a few projects going on at any given time, you upload your images to multiple social networks, to your website, you sell stock photos, you print your photos... among many other things.
Making a big photo library efficient for several projects is hard. Keeping it clean, tidy and, most importantly, safe, can be overwhelming. But I believe it doesn’t have to be.
Over the years, I’ve developed and refined a workflow that I use every time I make new images.
The goal of this workflow is to have a small catalog, easy to manage and browse, and unload everything that we don’t use elsewhere (but still accessible).
I sent a copy of the book to the subscribers of my newsletter a few days ago. If you haven't joined us yet, please consider subscribing to stay up to date and get books and other educational material like this one for free.
The book is published under a Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial- NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND) license, so feel free to share with everyone you think might find it useful!
Last day of my trip to Cedeira!
As usual, the forecast completely missed it: I was expecting "mostly cloudy" and I got "rain and wind". Even though I got rained on, I still made some images (one of them was one of my favorites from the trip).
In these conditions, make sure you protect your gear appropiately. I've already ruined cameras in the past, and believe me, it isn't fun. Use a plastic bag to cover your camera, and if it's raining a lot, just don't shoot at all or use your phone (if it's weatherproof).
For the last two days I've been shooting with a Fuji X100T I borrowed from Rachel. I'd tried that camera a few times before but never for too long.
I have to say I've been having a lot of fun. It's not a camera for the kind of images I make for my main body of work, but for casual, handheld shooting, is almost perfect.
These are some of the shots I got.
Read MoreMy second day of landscape photography in Cedeira was an intense one. I found dense fog, which made impossible to photograph the big vistas. But I found something much better: intimate and mysterious compositions.
Change is very, very hard. Breaking bad habits isn't, but the way we see ourselves and what others think about us is. That's why in order to change yourself you need to change everything around you.
I know it very well. I used to be lazy and not motivated to do any creative work, and that’s the image that people had (and still have, those who hadn’t seen me in a while) of me.
If I’ve changed, anyone can. This is how I did it.
Read MoreFirst day of my landscape photography trip to Cedeira and the Costa Artabra, in NW Galicia.
Last year, I achieved something I never thought I’d be able to do: I climbed a 3,000m+ volcano. And then I did even harder things. But the last few months have been hard on my body, and now I’m 25 pounds fatter and out of shape. This has affected many aspects of my life, including photography.
Read MoreEpisode 25 of the American Road Trip Journal.
Still in Arizona, I drive in the dark to Sedona, where I go on a very popular hike to Devil's Bridge. It was a nice, warm day at a beautiful location.
Afterwards, I visit a chapel in town and then Montezuma Castle National Monument, a cliff dwelling that is hundreds of years old.
I remember looking at my watch, still feeling drowsy from the very early call. 6:21am. It's at those times when I wonder what the hell I'm doing. It's early, way too early to be here.
I've been driving for half an hour, I believe. I parked on the side of the road, next to a sign that says "Vixía Herbeira". I'm trying to gather some energy, but it's hard after all the driving from the previous day and a short 4-hour sleep.
Read MoreFrom time to time, I enjoy documenting life with my camera. Like this last weekend in Lugo, Spain, during Arde Lucus, a festival that celebrates the Roman and Castro heritage of the city.
These are some of the photos I took that day.
Second video of my landscape photography trip to Somiedo, in Asturias. This time, I went on a hike to the beautiful lakes of Saliencia.
First video of the two from my recent trip to Somiedo Natural Park, in Asturias.
For the last month or so, I've been using my digital camera exclusively. I am in no way new to digital photography, but after a year of shooting film only, this process has felt like I was learning everything from scratch again.
And that's why I wanted to talk about the settings I use in my digital camera for landscape photography.
Read MoreI just got back from one of my best landscape photography trips here in Spain so far. I visited the relatively close mountains of Somiedo, about 3 hours away from where I live.
After looking at some photos, I was expecting something beautiful. But I couldn't believe what I found so close to what had been home for so many years. It was paradise. So, so close I felt ashamed for not visiting it before.
But... I finally fixed it. I didn't spend much time there but I went on a hike to breathtaking lakes and drove a lot getting to know all the small towns around. And I'm already planning my next visit to this gorgeous area in Northern Spain.
Very soon, images and videos from this trip.
