Looking out the Train Window

GR, f2.8, 1/60, ISO 6400, RAW

To celebrate World Photography Day 2016, I thought I feature a photo on my blog I didn’t post before and will tell something about it.

I took this photo at the beginning of my Around the World trip while on the train from Cologne to Copenhagen.

This photo happened mostly by coincidence and quite a bit of luck and almost no preparation. Not being a big portrait photographer, I like to take more candid portraits instead of posed portraits.

Still, while in the overnight train to Copenhagen and chatting with the other people in my compartment about my travel plans and photography one of the girls told me that she always wanted a photo sitting in front of an open train window.

Since we were in a train and had a window we could open right next to us I was happy to take said photo for her.

I did warn her that it would probably make more sense to wait till the morning given it was dark outside and there might not be much in terms of a background.

She was happy to try it and for her it was more about the wind in her hair and capturing this instead of any views outside.

The Ricoh GR with a fixed 28mm f2.8 lens is not an ideal portrait camera but it had to do for this photo. I set it up to TAv mode at f2.8 and after some test photos decided on 1/60 since it seemed to cope well with the train movement and dim light inside the carriage, while keeping the ISO low enough.

The train was passing by some lit up houses, some railroad crossings but it was going too fast to be able to predict when the next lit up place would pass by the window.

To make sure the wind was coming towards her, I had to face the opposite way of the driving direction, not letting me even anticipate anything lit up passing by the window.

But as luck had it, on the 2nd try we passed by this railroad crossing and without seeing or anticipating it, I took the photo just at the right time. She was very happy with it and try as we might, we didn’t get any other photo as good as this.

So I will celebrate this World Photography Day with the knowledge that photography is sometimes all about the luck of being in the right place at the right time and pressing the shutter button to capture a moment that will not happen again like that.

Candlelight

TG-4, f2.0, 1/30, ISO 1000, RAW

Night at the Circus

GR, f2.8, 1/125, ISO 8000, RAW

Tonight was the company Christmas party and I had to take some photos while there. Most are boring for people outside work but this photo I quite liked.

Sunny Day in Richmond

After getting back to London yesterday, I went to Richmond to meet Tom and we’ve been out taking some photos in the afternoon once the sun came out.

I started off by using my GR to take photos but used Tom’s Sony a7s with my Jupiter-9 85mm f2.0 lens when we stopped for a pint
.

The Jupiter is a great lens and works very well on the a7s, it is very sharp even wide open and has a nice bokeh.

Focusing on the a7s is certainly more of a pain than using the GXR because you have to magnify the screen in order to get accurate focus with Sony’s peaking but zooming in takes two button presses which is annoying. The fact that you can’t change the minimum shutter speed from 1/60 is another thing that Sony needs to fix. As good as the a7s is, small things like these show that Sony is not giving their cameras to realm photographers for feedback before they release them and don’t listen enough to feedback afterwards.

Still, it is a great camera and it was fun shooting with the Jupiter-9 lens, a great combination if you need a inexpensive portrait lens for the Sony a7 cameras.

Silhouette Selfie

In between chilling out, doing some gaming on my Surface Pro and browsing through photos, I was having some fun taking a selfie using the shadows on the wall.

Day 228 – People

Today, I got the chance to meet Daniel and go with him to one of the slums in Yangon to see the work he is doing there.

But before I continue let me first say thanks to Daniel, for his help and support of the people you see in this post (and more), and the friends at My Place, who made this possible by introducing me to Daniel.

Every city has areas where poor people live who don’t always have the means or  the support from the government to improve their situation and have to make the best out of their situation. We call these areas slums and we have all bee driving or walking past at one point or another.

So has Daniel but unlike most of us he decided one day to step off the bus and go to see if he can do anything to help the people living under poor conditions in one of the slums in Yangon.

He managed to set up a school for the kids and teaches them English and other skills that might come in handy for them once they grow up to find jobs or try and improve their situation. This alone is quite impressive but he manages to do all this without any government support and only by using his own money and with help from his family.

He is now working together with the people at the My Place charity but a lot of the work is still done on his own money and in his free time on weekends.

After learning that I am in Yangon, Daniel invited me to come and see the work he does and also meet the children he is teaching but also the other people living in the slums and showed me the conditions they live in.

Now, I could go on and say how poor these people are and under what horrible conditions they live in, that they are very unfortunate and that we should feel sorry for them.
This certainly is true but the people I met are great people, they are friendly, happy and make the best out of their situation, they help each other, they share their houses with other families (so 3-4 families live in a small house), they are proud people who despite everything smile and don’t complain.

Sure, they live in poor conditions and don’t have a lot of money but they are not poor because they have so much more than a lot of people I have seen every day on my way to work in London.
They have neighbors they care about, they help each other, they deal with everything as best as possible without constantly complaining, they do their best to improve their situation and don’t wait for someone else to do something.
These are the people I have seen and met there, great and proud people, they all smiled and were welcoming.

Do they need help to improve their situation? Sure, they do need help and especially Daniel needs help so he can work with the children and provide them with an education.

So if you’re in Yangon, do get in touch with me or the people at My Place and see if you can help Daniel and support his help with the kids.

Just as a note, none of the photos were directed by me, the people chose where and how to pose and just asked me to take a photo of them. This is a longer series with a lot of photos but I felt it was necessary to portray it better.

You can find even more photos from the day on my Flickr set here.

Day 170 – A Luoi Views

A bumpy ride over a narrow and partly still under construction road from Hue will lead you to the Ho Chi Minh Trail and just a bit to the north lies the town of A Luoi.

While the town itself is nothing special, the valley it lies in provides spectacular views and the small roads leading to the rice fields provide a goo opportunity to see some of the local people.

There are not many tourists here and given that even Vietnamese struggle to understand the local dialect, it makes for a great experience. The locals all seem friendly and specially the kids like posing for pictures.

After taking the wrong turn and having to go a longer way to get here, there was not too much time so I could only take photos in two places before it was time to head back and make it to Hue before it got dark. It is a 160km round trip and over the bumpy road it will take you quite a while to get there and back but it’s worthwhile.

I enjoyed the time there and it was great for photography, despite it being a bit brief. Maybe next time I will incorporate it into my journey and spend the night here to have more time for photography.

Day 17 – A Quiet Day

What started off as a quiet day, with us playing some football and shooting with bow and arrow, turned into an adventure when we were ready to head back to Ulaanbataar.

It was nice to start the day quiet and just having some fun. Before I knew it though, it was already noon and I hardly taken any pictures. This was quite surprising since I started the day by taking my first picture before 6:00 in the morning. It was not a day focused very much on photography from the looks of it but there was still enough time on the way back and in UB.

Bert offered us a lift back to UB so we didn’t have to be crammed into the microbus again, this sounded like the fastest and most convenient way to get there. Once we had our stuff together and into the car we set off.

The first part of the drive is to get from Bert’s camp to Terelj village, to do this we needed to go over some dirt tracks and through three rivers. It all went well in the beginning and was fun going through the rivers in the car.

This was until we hit the third river, higher than usual due to the recent heavy rain in the area, proved to be a problem and we drifted off from the path and got stuck in the middle of the river. The car did a good job holding off the water at first but after a while water started to come in and we got wet feet.

After calling a old Soviet 4×4 truck to the rescue they towed us out and across the river to Terelj village. The car started up again and kept going, albeit with a whizzing noise, towards UB.

Since we passed by Turtle Rock in Terelj National Park, Bert stopped and allowed us to go out and take some pictures. This was very nice, especially given the trouble before and delay in getting to UB.

But as often the case with ‘Doyle’s Law’ (25th Hour reference here), ‘What can go wrong, will go wrong’, the car did not start up again. The tank showed almost empty so Bert tried to get help and have someone bring some petrol. This took quite a while but we got to enjoy the sunset near Turtle Rock and if you have to be stuck with a car somewhere, a National Park is probably one of the best places.

After quite a Mongolian cars drove past, with some people laughing, Bert’s friend returned with the petrol and we were on our way again. As we would find out later, the problem was most likely not the petrol but some water getting in the tank.
Driving through Terelj at dark is quite an experience as all you have are unmarked tracks through the landscape, interrupted by bits of asphalt and more roadworks without any indication of which way to go around them. The roads in and out of UB were quite busy, despite this being almost 22:00 on a Friday. It took us a while but we got back to UB and the guesthouse there after 22:15 so it meant there was not much time left for anything but having some snacks and of course some beers.

I will have a few hours sleep, before taking the 7:15 train to Beijing tomorrow morning.

Having a Pint

GXR A12-M, f2.0, 1/125, ISO 3064, RAW, 75mm (Jupiter-8 f2.0 50mm L)

Took my Jupiter-8 lens out again for a spin, I like it since it’s small and light and produces very good results.

Focus on Imaging 2013

Another year another visit to Focus on Imaging in Birmingham.

What set this year apart from previous years was my complete lack of interest in any new camera, gear or gadgets. It was nice to see the Fuji X100s, the split image manual focus is great and would be perfect with a red peaking overlay and Fuji has really improved the operation, and the X20, the information overlay in the OVF is great and puts other OVFs to shame.
Aside from this there was not much to really see at Focus and it starts to feel like Fuji is the only manufacturer who actually cares about this show or maybe it’s also because Canon and Nikon have absolutely nothing remotely interesting for me with their boring dSLRs and very poor mirrorless and compact cameras.
Still, at least Canon and Nikon bothered to show up, Sony, Panasonic and as usual Ricoh did not even do this. Olympus had a small booth dedicated to the OMD which seem to do very well for them and rightly so, it’s a great camera and the best m4/3 camera.

This time round it was less of a gear show for me but instead I did have time to take pictures of the models and people around. A 53mm lens is not perfect for this task as you have to get very close but it was still good fun to do and the GXR performed very well and showed why I don’t care about any new cameras.

So unlike the previous years no camera talk here and instead pictures so in a way the focus this year was on the actual imaging for me ;). Hope you enjoy this series.