The trees, many creatures of nature, and especially myself, are ready for warmer, sunnier days.
I got this image the other day when I was shaking some of the winter from my body, and after a whole week I got locked inside the house for a bad cold that kept me away from exercising. As is often the case, I had the Fuji X100S with me.
In the areas close to home there are still open spaces that allow life flourish free most of the year. A small park and the surroundings of a basketball field benefit of the proximity of a large property that has only a house isolated in it and a school that has also its backyard left unconstructed. I go there often mostly in the mornings when I don’t go to run and ride my bicycle some other place because I don’t have enough time, or I feel more like being where I can be alone or almost alone since just a few people use to go there early.
Grass grows tall and some kinds of wildflowers flourish in these areas too, allowing bugs, spiders, grasshoppers and even bees and butterflies feed, enjoy the sun and the wind, mate and take shelter at night or when the weather gets rough. Many times I go there to stretch and meditate, and I bring a camera along and enjoy my time there contemplating the morning light from that high terrain in the hill, also appreciating and photographing the beautiful sights of the small details and creatures.
Luckily my Fuji X100S allows me to get as close as 10cm from this kind of scenes so without hauling specific closeup or macro gear I’ve had the chance to make several images there playing with the light, the shapes and textures, in colour or black and white. The morning of this image the grass was especially high after most of the summer and I watched these winged creatures being lit by a spot of sunlight, I did my best getting closer among the grass without spoiling them and shot a few frames. I think the best one is this with nice lighting, colour contrast and the out of focus areas that the X100S lens renders so well, something I surely love!
Es increíble cómo puede cambiar el entorno!, en Noviembre del año pasado un costado del garaje gozaba de una vida que hoy no tiene, en estos días las paredes blancas carecen del exuberante verdor que nos compartía una bella y enorme planta de calabazas. Nunca antes había tenido la oportunidad de admirar la belleza que se puede encontrar en las formas y contornos de una planta así.
El poder mirar con detenimiento, diariamente y a múltiples horas del día las hojas, las flores, que por cierto varias terminaron en quesadillas, las caprichosas formas espirales, y las vellosidades de las ramas de la enredadera, inevitablemente condujeron a que destinara muy buenos ratos a caminar junto a la bella planta cámara en mano. Al correr de los días alterné el uso de mi Fuji X100S y mi Nikon D200 armada de un macro de 55mm, explorando una y otra vez los variados paisajes a pequeña escala que se abrían ante mi vista.
Realmente disfruté mucho la experiencia de contar con esa compañía en casa, siempre hemos tenido plantas y árboles, pero la manera de extenderse de la planta de calabaza, de llenar todos los huecos por donde pudo, sí que es algo especial, a pesar de ser una especie cultivable en México desde hace muchos siglos no deja de tener su espíritu silvestre, o al menos así fué mi sentir. Finalmente llegaron los fríos de diciembre y enero y la planta se fué secando, hasta que los paisajes que me regaló ya no los pude ver mas.
A few weeks ago I had the chance to take sometime to enjoy myself at UNAM’s botanical garden here in Mexico City. The botanical garden is part of a natural preserve and is in fact a little bit of a much needed wilderness inside this huge metropolis, which holds several flora and fauna species that present very nice photo opportunities. Taking a walk through it gives priceless moments of peace and joy, and since I love photographing Nature there was no excuse for not taking a camera along, so took one that day, actually, two cameras.
As you may have noticed the Fujifilm X100S has taken a special place in my image making, so I packed it inside my camera bag along with my recent tool of choice for making macrophotography, a Nikon 1 J1 armed with an FT1 Adapter and a Micro-Nikkor 55mm AIS lens, these kit allowed me to enjoy two different approaches of making closeup images. For several years a heavy DSLR and a macro lens have helped me to approach tiny creatures and natural details, but with mirrorless cameras I’m able to capture the small world (and the big one) almost wherever I go, and even when long runs for training or caving trips are the main deal, there’s a much lighter gear choice that I have at hand so I don’t need to keep myself away from my love of photography, so lately I’ve been practicing closeup photography much more with these setup rather than with my DSLR.
Fuji X100S, Velvia Film Simulation.
So, on this occasion after a short running session (really short) I entered the botanical garden where I walked for a while relaxing and recovering my breath and at the same time starting to connect with the place and paying attention to the light, I really wanted to enjoy my time there being by myself so my intentions were to play rather than taking the assignment approach. During the next few hours I switched between the X100S and the J1 combo and since the effective field of view are 35mm and 148.5mm respectively I was able to get a very distinctive feeling with each camera, sure, for getting really close to my subject the J1 was the choice, but with the X100S I had the chance to get as close as 10cm from the subject which in combination with the slightly wide angle field of view, putting the subject into its context and the visual perspective of the images really pleased me.
Nikon 1 J1, FT1 Adapter, Micro-Nikkor 55mm F2.8 AIS
What really made this so much more fun was taking advantage of Fuji’s beautiful film simulations, and since my love of B&W imagery has had me preferred the monochrome aesthetics even with nature and closeup images I really wanted to try the Velvia film simulation taking the photos with the RAW+Jpg activated in the image quality settings. All of the images made that day with the X100S were chosen from the jpgs, so no processing the Raw’s in Lightroom this time, only with the Raw’s from the J1 I spent some time fine tuning contrast and colour, and sharpness to some degree. Using the two cameras was really fun, I loved so much the X100S Velvia look and more environmental feel and the J1’s ability to render the subject really large in the image and that I can be farther from it which gives the advantage of not spoiling the bees and other creatures and when it gets harder to get close because the roughness of the terrain, being made of pure volcanic rocks in this case, or the presence of cactus and other “friendly” flora.
Here is a gallery of the X100S images.
And here is the gallery of the Nikon 1 J1 images.
Life is all around us, we as humans for centuries have seen Nature as something separated from our existence, something to be conquered. Our planet is still full of beauty and wonder far in exotic locations and right in the places we live, and is the only home for all species including our own. Celebrating Earth’s Day is a great chance to think about new ways of living our lives in tune with the environment.
Inspirado por un post en la página de facebook de un gran fotógrafo que realmente admiro, el maestro Art Wolfe, sobre la Serie de Fibonacci, que nos acerca al concepto visual de la Proporción Áurea, recordé esta imagen que hice hace poco y de la que precisamente me llamó mucho la atención la belleza de la geometría en el mundo natural. Inspired by a post on the Facebook fan page of a great photographer who I really admire, master Art Wolfe, about the Fibonacci Sequence, which takes us to the visual Golden Ratio concept, I recalled and image I made recently, in which the beauty of geometry in the natural world really caught my attention.
The rain season brings some really spectacular views of the Sky! This images are from a few weeks ago (tough these kind of clouds can still be seen these days). On a windy afternoon I went outside home with the Fuji X100S and while amazed by the power of Nature I pressed the shutter button a few times. I really enjoyed making use of the power lines in the compositions, and the light that was falling on the street.
¡La época de lluvias ofrece unas vistas del Cielo realmente espectaculares! Estas imágenes son de hace unas semanas (aunque ésta clase de cielos aún puede ser vista éstos días). En una tarde con mucho viento salí de casa con la Fuji X100S y mientras me maravillaba ante el poder de la Naturaleza oprimí el botón del obturador unas cuantas veces. Realmente disfruté el hacer uso de los cables de energía eléctrica al armar las composiciones, y la luz que estaba bañando la calle.
Tiempos de nostalgia y melancolía, el Sol se nos anda escondiendo, como si el mismo astro rey tuviera frío. A tener paciencia en lo que los amarillos, verdes y demás colores vuelven a llenar el campo con su alegría.
Los pastos que surten de alimento a las poblaciones de saltamontes, tan abundantes en el tiempo de lluvias, han empezado a desaparecer en el otoño por su mismo consumo y por la disminución en la frecuencia y abundancia de las precipitaciones. Los saltamontes que nacieron por millones ahora ya no se ven tanto en el monte.
Unas orugas que hacen caso omiso de los fríos que ya llegaron al centro de México, y engordan alegremente todos los días. Capté una de ellas con mi cámara hace unos días por la mañana.
En ésta época del año en las cercanías de donde vivo, la abundancia de lluvias llena los campos de multitud de flores silvestres.
At this time of year next to where I live, abundant rain fills the fields of a myriad of wildflowers.
Hace unas semanas algunas de mis fotografías de naturaleza se exhibieron junto con las de un compañero y colega fotógrafo en las instalaciones del “Metro”, el sistema de transporte en trenes que traslada a millones de los que circulamos por esta ciudad, con la intención de mostrar visualmente un poco de la enorme variedad de especies y ambientes que nos ofrece el bellísimo mundo natural de nuestro México y con suerte contagiar nuestro aprecio y nuestra preocupación por cuidarlo. Entre los invitados a visitar la expo varios se vieron cortos de tiempo para ir al Metro a ver las imágenes. Para los que quisieron pero no pudieron asistir, y para compartir en este medio esas imágenes aquí les dejo esta galería integrada por las que personalmente tuve el honor de presentar a los ojos de todos aquéllos que a propósito asistieron, o que les llamó la atención hacer una pausa en su recorrido, y observar y emitir comentarios o críticas, algunas de éstas últimas escuchadas por mi, en ocasiones presente de incógnito 🙂
Espero que ver ésta colección de imágenes siga siendo un disfrute y una reflexión, así como para mí fue un descubrimiento verlas desfilar como un conjunto, conjunto que atestigua las constantes y los cambios en mi visión a lo largo del período transcurrido entre el disparo del obturador de la foto menos reciente y el momento de elegir la mas actual del archivo.
Ojo De Piedra - Eye of Stone. 