Street Photography from my trip to San Francisco

It seems like ages ago but it's been only 4 months since I went to San Francisco. I was able to break in the Fuji x100s, walk around, and enjoy the city. I ate a lot, walked a lot and ate some more. The best part was enjoying getting to spend quality time with my best friends and my wife for sure!

You 'll see that my hair makes some cameos in the images, but I decided to leave them there because it shows how close I am to some of my subjects. I had the camera in silent mode all the time, so sometimes I didn't even know if I'd taken the picture or no, it was kind of a surprise, a little bit like shooting film again.

Here's a collection of my favorites:

 

 This camera is amazing, simply amazing. I love it and cherish her like a child!

Fuji x100s Mini-Review

I promise I am getting to blog as fast as is humanly possible.

You may remember that I started a project that I called "Love is Love: Portraits Project" (if you haven't seen it yet head over to the link and check it out!) and that kind of has the majority of my attention, along with work, life, more work, in summary, it's good to be busy.

Three months ago, Santa thought I was really good and got me a Fuji x100s. I wanted that camera as soon as it came out , and I was so lucky that now I am the proud owner of one.

It's been three months and I've gotten to use it quite a bit. I feel I can address why I love this camera much more accurately.

REASONS WHY I LOVE THE X100S:

Size: It's small, comfortable, you can hold it with one hand!

Image quality: Hello gorgeous! That's what I feel like saying (I actually say it) the grand majority of the time that I shoot with this beauty.

Look: The throwback vintage look has me so in love. I really wanted a compact camera with a "please don't steal me" kind of look for years, and I that is something this camera really has down.

Portability: Easy to carry on your neck, your purse, perfect for travelling, street photography, documenting.

Versatility: You can do a lot with this camera, including using a pocket wizard to use off camera flash!

Funny story, my camera came straight from Japan with only one manual in Japanese, I don't speak or read the language, however, YouTube is a wonderful thing and David Hobby did a fantastic job on a step by step review of all the features of the camera on this video: And here is another review by Zack Arias.

I read both reviews and watched the videos, they are really very informative. The only two things I can add with this review that Zack and David don't talk about, (maybe they did and I missed it!) are the following:

1 - If you have the camera on silent mode, the flash will not work, you have to go into the menu settings and turn off the silent mode to use the flash. I guess you are not being very anonymous if you are using the flash, however, at least for me it's good to know, I found out the hard way!

2 - The camera has a ring around the lens that you have to remove in order to mount the hood and filter that David Hobby talks about in the video. I did not know that the ring could be removed and I spent quite a white trying to figure it out.

If you know of any other tips and tricks that are not addressed by Zack Arias, David Hobby, or any other photographer, please feel free to comment and share them, we all want to use the camera the best we can!

Here are some images I've taken over the last three months, including some images taken in my trip to San Francisco back in December and January.

 I'll be doing another blog post with more street photography from my trip to San Francisco. Hope you like these!

Love is Love Portraits Project!

Yay, Yay, Yay! As I said in my New Year's message I have a few projects on the works, the first one that is ready to share is a project very dear to my heart that I called "Love is Love, a portrait project." With these portraits I am looking to illustrate that love is love regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race, nationality, backgrounds, etc. I asked several couples that are close to me to pose for me, I will be sharing a set of portraits every week, sometimes it will be one photo, sometimes there would be three, it would depend simply on what the pictures are telling me. 

I opened a new blog on Tumblr dedicated to this project, little by little you will see the progress. The portraits will be paired with a little caption about the couple, and answers to questions I asked, sometimes it will be the same questions, sometimes different, again, the pictures will tell me what to do. 

Thank you to Giselle and Andrew for coming to pose for me, I know it wasn't an easy task, since your girls were tired and ready for bed. I hope you like the pictures as much as I do. http://loveisloveportraitsproject.tumblr.com/

A short visit to San Diego

I really have to get better at writing blog posts more often! 

I went to San Diego back in September for a conference.  I had the opportunity to walk around, drive around a do a little bit of street photography, which is something that I strive to do when I travel.

San Diego is a beautiful city and I would go back in a heartbeat, because I know there is so much I didn't see, mostly because I had to be at the conference. 

A few of the highlights were celebrating the birthday of a very good friend (portrait below), hanging out in the Midway, an aircraft carrier turned museum; standing on the 40th floor of the Hyatt, and of course the beach, any day that I see the ocean is a good day.

Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the trip.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Until the next time!

 

www.florblakephoto.com