Southwest, Open road

Last December I went for two weeks car camping/backpacking trip through our beautiful Southwest: New Mexico, Utah, Arizona and California’s Death Valley.

Visited many national parks : White Sands in New Mexico, Arches National Park, Bryce Canyon, Zion Canyon, Capitol Reef and Salt Lake Flats in Utah, Grand Canyon in Arizona and Death Valley in California. The weather was perfect for photography. The country we live in is just beautiful. We followed all covid guidelines for safety.

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Places and Faces

You all know me as a Family and Portrait photographer; I also deeply love travel photography. I am always a portrait photographer -- even when I am traveling. 

So, ever since I visited Nepal last year, I wanted to go back to Southeast Asia and explore more. Why? The living is inexpensive, the food is great, the people are friendly, and the scenery is out of this world. Below is my visual story for the last 6 months of travelling throughout Southeast Asia. I hope you enjoy it! The countries I visited are in the following order: Myanmar (Burma), Thailand (North), Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand (South), Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

PS: If anyone knows someone who can help me publish this, please let me know.



My long walk on PCT trail

Ever since I finished the John Muir Trail two years ago, I was dreaming of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. Well, I just finished 1500 mile walk, starting at Mexican border and finishing at Southern Washington border at the Bridge of the Gods (I had to skip High Sierra section due to extremely dangerous river crossings). The reason I had to stop at the Bridge of gods is because I have to photograph a wedding in two weeks. As always, photography is very important to me. So I carried 7 pounds of camera equipment on this walk. To anyone who does backpacking, it is obviously very heavy luxury item. To me, it was a necessity. Here are just a few photographs from my trip:

PCT, PCT trail, Wilderness photography, wilderness photographer, outdoor photographer,

PCT, PCT trail, Wilderness photography, wilderness photographer, outdoor photographer,

PCT, PCT trail, Wilderness photography, wilderness photographer, outdoor photographer,

PCT, PCT trail, Wilderness photography, wilderness photographer, outdoor photographer,

PCT, PCT trail, Wilderness photography, wilderness photographer, outdoor photographer,

PCT, PCT trail, Wilderness photography, wilderness photographer, outdoor photographer,

PCT, PCT trail, Wilderness photography, wilderness photographer, outdoor photographer,

PCT, PCT trail, Wilderness photography, wilderness photographer, outdoor photographer,

PCT, PCT trail, Wilderness photography, wilderness photographer, outdoor photographer,

PCT, PCT trail, Wilderness photography, wilderness photographer, outdoor photographer,

PCT, PCT trail, Wilderness photography, wilderness photographer, outdoor photographer,

PCT, PCT trail, Wilderness photography, wilderness photographer, outdoor photographer,

PCT, PCT trail, Wilderness photography, wilderness photographer, outdoor photographer,

PCT, PCT trail, Wilderness photography, wilderness photographer, outdoor photographer,

PCT, PCT trail, Wilderness photography, wilderness photographer, outdoor photographer,

PCT, PCT trail, Wilderness photography, wilderness photographer, outdoor photographer,

PCT, PCT trail, Wilderness photography, wilderness photographer, outdoor photographer,

PCT, PCT trail, Wilderness photography, wilderness photographer, outdoor photographer,

PCT, PCT trail, Wilderness photography, wilderness photographer, outdoor photographer,

PCT, PCT trail, Wilderness photography, wilderness photographer, outdoor photographer,

PCT, PCT trail, Wilderness photography, wilderness photographer, outdoor photographer,

PCT, PCT trail, Wilderness photography, wilderness photographer, outdoor photographer,

PCT, PCT trail, Wilderness photography, wilderness photographer, outdoor photographer,

PCT, PCT trail, Wilderness photography, wilderness photographer, outdoor photographer,

PCT, PCT trail, Wilderness photography, wilderness photographer, outdoor photographer,

PCT, PCT trail, Wilderness photography, wilderness photographer, outdoor photographer,

PCT, PCT trail, Wilderness photography, wilderness photographer, outdoor photographer,

PCT, PCT trail, Wilderness photography, wilderness photographer, outdoor photographer,

PCT, PCT trail, Wilderness photography, wilderness photographer, outdoor photographer,

PCT, PCT trail, Wilderness photography, wilderness photographer, outdoor photographer,

PCT, PCT trail, Wilderness photography, wilderness photographer, outdoor photographer,

PCT, PCT trail, Wilderness photography, wilderness photographer, outdoor photographer,

PCT, PCT trail, Wilderness photography, wilderness photographer, outdoor photographer,

PCT, PCT trail, Wilderness photography, wilderness photographer, outdoor photographer,

PCT, PCT trail, Wilderness photography, wilderness photographer, outdoor photographer,

PCT, PCT trail, Wilderness photography, wilderness photographer, outdoor photographer,

PCT photographer, Wilderness photographer, wilderness photography, PCT 2017

PCT photographer, Wilderness photographer, wilderness photography, PCT 2017

PCT photographer, Wilderness photographer, wilderness photography, PCT 2017

PCT photographer, Wilderness photographer, wilderness photography, PCT 2017

PCT photographer, Wilderness photographer, wilderness photography, PCT 2017

PCT photographer, Wilderness photographer, wilderness photography, PCT 2017

PCT photographer, Wilderness photographer, wilderness photography, PCT 2017

PCT photographer, Wilderness photographer, wilderness photography, PCT 2017

PCT photographer, Wilderness photographer, wilderness photography, PCT 2017

PCT photographer, Wilderness photographer, wilderness photography, PCT 2017

PCT photographer, Wilderness photographer, wilderness photography, PCT 2017

PCT photographer, Wilderness photographer, wilderness photography, PCT 2017

PCT photographer, Wilderness photographer, wilderness photography, PCT 2017

PCT photographer, Wilderness photographer, wilderness photography, PCT 2017

PCT photographer, Wilderness photographer, wilderness photography, PCT 2017

PCT photographer, Wilderness photographer, wilderness photography, PCT 2017

 

My Trip of the Lifetime

My Trip of the Lifetime! Ever since I finished backpacking John Muir trail in 2015, I wanted to spend more time in the wilderness, sleep under the stars, hike to remote lakes, rivers and mountaintops, meet total strangers and become best friends. Another way of saying this: to simplify and enrich my life.

Anyone who has followed me on FB probably guessed it- this dream is about to happen. On April 7th, I will start my long hike: from Mexican border to Canadian border. Yes, the Pacific Crest Trail. I am coming back to civilization in September.

So, if anyone needs my photographic skills for child/family photography or headshots, I am available till March 15th. After that everything goes to storage and or be sold (except camera equipment)! I know it’s hard to think about Holiday Photography so far in advance, but…since I will only be available during September-November this year; my schedule will be crazy when I return.  If you wish to schedule a photo session, you can have your pick of the dates now.

And finally: I am selling digital files from family photo sessions and weddings I photographed over the last 10 years to raise funds for the trip. The older the files, the cheaper they will go. Right now they are all on hard-drives connected to my computer and easily accessible. I have no idea how accessible they will be when I come back. This is your best and maybe last chance to purchase them.

I am taking the camera on the trip and will be updating periodically my travel status with photos and words on FB and on my website’s blog.

Hope everyone has great spring and summer.

Fima

Panorama Photography in Wilderness

Panorama photography in the wilderness. When you travel in wilderness, as in backpacking, weight is everything. So you want to keep weight as little as possible and, if you care about image quality as I do, bring professional equipment. Which limits your choice of lenses to one, unless you are built like a Sherpa or have a mule to carry it for you. But first, let’s start with camera choice. Latest generation of mirror-less cameras and their image quality is phenomenal. They are also weight less than DSLR cameras. Unfortunately their battery life is not very good. Also battery recharging, at least in case of Sony batteries, takes twice as long compare to Canon batteries. I also love to photograph Star Trails at night. For that I needed full frame sensor camera because I need very high ISO settings with clean image quality.  For reasons above I chose Canon 5D Mark 3. My favorite wilderness lens is Canon 24-105L  4.0   To some people 105 is an odd choice for wilderness. I also love to photograph people and it’s a great compromise between wide lens and portrait lens.

How to bring your pro gear into the wilderness. I have been struggling with this question for a while. At first, I tried to carry my camera on my neck with a camera strap, like some photographers do. It's OK if you are only going for a few hours. Ones I went out for 12 hour hike and could not move my neck for several days. I tried to put my camera inside my backpack. But found out that I did not take any photos because it was very time consuming to get my camera out. Finally I found the solution from ThinkTank Photo They make several products that let's you carry camera where it belongs: right in front of you. Below is the photo of me using their digital holster 20 in conjunction with their digital harness in Patagonia earlier this year. They do have other sizes available for different camera sizes. With this set up, I carried my Mark 3 with 24-105 very comfortably. The most important thing: I could access my camera in a few seconds and camera was protected from elements (I carried plastic bag on the bottom of the holster in case of the downpour)! The digital holster also had room for my IPhone and maps.

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By the way, if you buy anything from ThinkTank Photo, enter this special code number in the "Affiliate Box" in the shopping cart: 141269.357718 You will receive free gear with every order over $50.00!

Why Panorama photography? Why not take extra wide lens and capture everything in one exposure? I was asked those question many times. The simple answer is this: The wider the lens, the further away your subject will appear to be. So when you photograph magnificent mountains, for example, they will look very far away. But if you use longer focal lens and make several panoramic exposures, the perspective will be compressed, the closer your subject will appear to be.  Another reason is files size. If all you want is web image, this is of no importance to you but if you wish to print panorama image, you want the biggest files size possible (panoramas never look good in 5x7 or 8x10). They look beautiful large.

Creating Panorama images:

Tripod: You want all panorama images to be horizontal! (Unless you are doing vertical panorama).  Tripod with leveler will help you achieve this with ease.

You want to eliminate image parallax by finding lens nodal point. In plain English, you want to rotate camera/lens combination not where camera mounts on a tripod (camera center) but in center of lens (nodal point). Instead of trying to explain what it is, below is the link to Really Right Stuff page on the subject. By the way, all my panorama equipment is from Really Right Stuff.

http://www.reallyrightstuff.com/Panoramas-Made-Simple

Yes, the camera can be hand held. With practice you can make decent panoramas. But if you have lots of lines in the photo (fences, electrical lines, tree lines, etc.…) your software will have very hard time stitching it together and you will not be happy, especially if you are stitching more than 3 images together.

Below is a panorama photo made with 25 images stitched together using pano gear from Really Right Stuff. Please notice how many horizontal lines are there (deck, rails, etc.) This kind of image is completely impossible task for hand held camera.

Fima_Photography-

 

Secure your camera vertically into tripod/pano gear (your file will be larger).  ALL camera settings must be on manual: aperture/shutter speed/focus/ISO/white balance. The last thing you want is for one image to have focus in the foreground and next one on the background. You will never be able to make clean stitch.  For pano photography you want high aperture number to get foreground and background in focus.  Since camera is on the tripod, shutter speed is less important. You may have very strong highlights and shadows in the scene. Adjust exposure for middle ground (unless you also doing an HDR. Focus on what is important in this photo and turn off auto focus. Just for this reason alone, I love lenses that have auto focus switch on the lens. Trying to go through the camera menu to find focus switch is a pain!  Do not put any filters in front of the lens, especially polarizing filter! You will get more even files to stitch together.  If you take multiple panoramas of the same scene, before I start moving camera to photograph, I take a photo of my hand. This way in Lightroom I can easily identify different pano groups. When you photograph panos, you want to overlap your images. The rule of thumb is to overlap it by at least 30%. 50% is even better.

To process images, as in stitch them together, I use Photoshop.  Latest Lightroom can do it also but I still prefer Photoshop.

In Lightroom, identify what images you want to stitch. Take the first image and do all adjustments to your liking. Select all other images, including the one you just adjusted and sync all images to the first adjusted image.. You want all files to be the same. Photoshop will love you when you make stitching easier. While all images are still selected, right click, edit in, and in the drop down menu, select Merge to Panorama in Photoshop. In Photomerge window, I get good results with auto selection. I also select Vignette removal and Geometric distortion correction. I leave Content Aware fill unchecked. I like doing it as needed by myself ones stitching is done. If I use tripod and pano gear, very little content aware fill is ever needed.

Below are few of my panoramic images:

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Enjoy your panorama photography.

 

Star Trail Photography

There are few things you need to make great Star Trail photos:

  1. Be as far as possible from light pollution and preferably during new moon or when the moon is below horizon. Apps for sunset/moon/stars: LightTrac, Sunrise, Star Walk, TPE (The Photographer's Ephemeris).
  2. The image below is a great example of light pollution. Bear in mind that I am at least 30 miles to nearest small town (population less than 700 and 3 miles higher)
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  4. Be as close as possible to ozone layer without any clouds.
  5. Camera with very good image quality (low noise) at high ISO (1600 or higher)
  6. Cable release or intervalometer is essential.
  7. Tripod is extremely essential (mostly).
  8. Warm clothing, headlamp with red or green light, collapsible chair and refreshments.
  9. Fast wide angle lens is essential (2.8 or faster)
  10. All camera setting on manual including focus and color balance with image stabilization and noise reduction off; exposure drive is set to multiple exposures.
  11. Be on location 2 hours before sunset to find Polaris star, compose the image and include as much sky as possible.
  12. Photographing just the stars makes boring photos. Create scale by including foreground in the photo.
  13. LOCK the camera to make sure it does not move in the next few hours. Most tripods have a hook at the bottom of center column. I usually hook my backpack to it to make tripod more solid or bring a lightweight bag, fill it with rocks and fasten it to the hook.
  14. Be creative and take a photo/s of foreground before/during or right after sunset.
  15. Change the focus to almost infinity.
  16. Start photographing stars at least 2 hours after sunset Test exposure with different ISO to determine proper exposure.
  17. Keep exposures to 30 seconds or less.
  18. Take at least an hours’ worth of exposures. Two hours is even better.
  19. Believe in higher power that what you are doing will turn out OK because you cannot see it in the camera.
  20. I also need to mention that you need a way to bring your camera on the trail. If you are only hiking  short distance to a location, this is not an issue. But if you are going to wilderness and going to hike for days, carrying your camera properly is very important. I tried ones to bring my camera on the trail while hanging it by it's strap over my neck. After 10 hour hike, I could not move my neck for several days. I also tried to carry my camera inside my backpack. I ended up not using my camera at all because of the effort it took to get camera out. Until I found ThinkTank product Digital Holster in conjunction with Digital Harness Here is the photo of me in Patagonia and the above mentioned products attached to my backpack:Fima_Photography2-

 

Post Processing: Computer with lots of ram Bring all images to Lightroom.

  1. Select the first image from the series and adjust it but stay away from radial and graduated filters.
  2. Select ALL images from the series and batch sync to match first one.
  3. While all images are still selected, Edit in Photoshop >Open as Layers
  4. Blending mode to lighten and clean all planes and satellites lights.
  5. This was my very first Star Trail image. Total of 181 exposures. Exposure #1 was during sunset of your truly. This is where I positioned my camera to face North and found decent foreground.
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  7. I left my camera on a tripod in the same spot and came back several hours later and took hour and a half worth of exposures at 30 second interval (total of 180 exposures). This is how star trail image looked like:
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  9. I then combined the image I took during sunset with star trail image and called it "Loosing my religion".
  10. Here is the final image:
  11. Star Trail Photography
  12. Here are several more samples of Star Trail Photography:
  13. _MG_0123-Edit _MG_1137-Edit Star Trail Photography

My Patagonia backpacking trip

Last month I went on my lifetime dream vacation: backpacking in Patagonia! Combining my love for photography with my passion for backpacking!

The hardest part of the trip was getting there. I left my house to go to the airport Monday morning but did not start my tracking until Thursday morning.

Since I am much better photographer than a writer, I will let my photos tell a story about the trip.

Patagonia travel Photography

Patagonia travel Photography

Patagonia travel Photography

Patagonia travel Photography

Patagonia travel Photography

Patagonia travel Photography

Patagonia travel Photography

Patagonia travel Photography

Patagonia travel Photography

Patagonia travel Photography

Patagonia travel Photography

Patagonia travel Photography

Patagonia travel Photography

Patagonia travel Photography

Patagonia travel Photography

Patagonia travel Photography

Patagonia travel Photography

Patagonia travel Photography

Patagonia travel Photography

Patagonia travel Photography

Patagonia travel Photography

Patagonia travel Photography

Patagonia travel Photography

Patagonia travel Photography

Patagonia travel Photography

Patagonia travel Photography

Patagonia travel Photography

Patagonia travel Photography

Patagonia travel Photography

Patagonia travel Photography

My backpacking trip in High Sierras.

I just finished a one month, almost 300 mile backpacking trip from Echo Summit (near Lake Tahoe) over Mt. Whitney to Whitney Portal near Lone Pine (Pacific Coast Trail sectional/John Muir Trail). After few days on the trail, PCT hikers gave me a trail name – “Tripod” – because I was carrying a 7.5 pound tripod. After 9 tiring days, I had to ship my tripod home. I am a professional photographer by trade. Nature and star-trail photography are my hobbies. At first I was photographing just vistas, but after a while they felt empty without people in them – I am a portrait photographer for a reason. So I started to include hikers in my photos (PCT, JMT and sometimes support people). If you see anyone you know, please let them know.

This is the visual story of my trip:

Travel Photography, John Muir Trail Photography, Pacific Crest Trail Photography,

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Rainbow Alley

While traveling from Death Valley with my client (about that photo session later), the nature decided to give us a show. In the span of 2 hours, we saw 13 rainbows! 4 of the rainbows were full bows and 3 rainbows were double! What a show!!! Rainbow Alley

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The book of Ava

Last Saturday I had the privilege of seeing the debut of my long time clients Frank and his 10 year old daughter Ava in their cabaret show "The book of Ava" at Rex Hotel in San Francisco. A modern day family story. A tender look at adoption, equality , marriage and the love that binds us in our changing world.

Dreams do come true!

What a performance. Lady Gaga, watch out! Ava is knocking on your stardom door!

The book of Ava

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A model for a day.

I have been photographing Gitta for many years: Maternity photography, Newborn photography, Family photography and everything in between.  I get very excited when my client who is "Mom" calls me and wants to "Glam Up" a little and do a "Model for a Day" photo session. Well, it's more like a model for a few hours! :)    Child is waiting!

Gitta and I went to Marin Headlands National Park for our photo session. Please do not tell park rangers! :)

The weather was perfect and mom looked like a model! We succeeded!

A model for a day Photography

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Travel photography: Detroit

I am not a gambling man. Having said that, I bet my friend from Detroit $10.00 on a football game between 49rs and Detroit Tigers last fall. The looser had to deliver money in person!! I won the bet but since my friend could not leave his business, he flew me last month to Detroit to collect the money. I have heard from numerous sources about "Armageddon" style images in Detroit since there are lot's of buildings in a state of decay. Many movies were filmed in Detroit because of that reason. So when I go on "vacation" to Detroit, I bring my cameras. :)  I can always use this images in my "green screen photography" _MG_0467-Edit _MG_0462-Edit _MG_0445 _MG_0420 _MG_0417 _MG_0412 _MG_0390-Edit _MG_0378 _MG_0071-Edit _MG_0059

Green screen fantasy photography

My client Liz, who happened to be SFPD cop and I collaborated on this project together. I wanted to make images that look like movie posters. In the images below Liz is a Terminator, Cat Woman and Lara Croft.

PS. The image of the movie poster on the freeway cost me over $250.00. Courtesy of CHP. Something about non emergency stop on the freeway. :(

San Francisco Green Screen Photography
San Francisco Green Screen Photography
San Francisco Green Screen Photography
San Francisco Green Screen Photography
San Francisco Green Screen Photography
San Francisco Green Screen Photography
San Francisco Green Screen Photography
San Francisco Green Screen Photography
Green screen fantasy photography

A Fashion Portrait session

Last month I collaborated with model Kammeron Michelle and hair and make up artist Nomi Nguyen on an out of this world project (think Halloween). We came up with three different photo concepts: White Queen, Black Queen and Red Queen.  Afterwards, I added my own personal touch in Photoshop to give it more depth. Yesterday they were published in Freque magazine. Below are several images that got published.

Stars & Mono Lake

One of the curses of doing something that I love is that even when I go on vacation, I bring my photography equipment to try something different or new. So on my recent camping trip to Mono Lake in California’s Eastern Sierra, I wanted to try photographing star trails. In order to take pictures of the stars, you need to be as far way from city light pollution as possible, and as high as possible. My goal was to find the highest possible camp site in California, and I got many funny looks from Park Rangers when I asked them about this! I ended up in the White Mountains at 12,000 feet, where I took the star trails photographs. At night, the temperature dropped to 35 degrees Fahrenheit-but anything for arts sake! These are my three favorite images, one of the star trails above my campsite, one panorama of a rainbow over the bank of Mono Lake, and one panorama of Mono Lake.

Painted Ladies Panorama

After a photo session with a client in Alamo Square that ended at 7, I waited until 8 to take this gorgeous panorama. It was worth the wait! The photo, of the famous Painted Ladies Victorian houses, has downtown San Francisco in the background. The final panorama image is compiled out of eight separate images.

San Francisco Panoramas

In an effort to take non-boring landscape photographs, I chose to take a series of  panoramas that show three different gorgeous views of San Francisco. The first photograph was taken at the Broadway Pier, and shows a night view of downtown San Francisco. This picture is actually 40 separate images that were stitched together in Photoshop, and the final file size is huge, at over 6 GB! The second panorama includes the Golden Gate Bridge in the bay, as well as San Francisco in the background. It was taken from the Marin Headlands, and was stitched together in photo shop with 26 different images! The third panoramic view of San Francisco was taken from Twin Peaks and shows the entirety of the city. It started out as 24 separate photos, and then was transformed into one beautiful image in Photoshop. I am available for commission work!