All posts filed under: Street Photography

VSCO 04 Street Photography and the Fuji XE1

VSCO 04 is revolutionizing my workflow, not only because of the great presets, but also the wonderful accompanying tool kits that are included. For this candid, I used Agfa Scala 200 Contrast ++ as a starting point. The good folks at VSCO recommend adjusting the exposure and the white balance and then apply the preset of choice ― sage advice and one I always follow. So from the Agfa Scala 200 Contrast ++ preset, I then played with a few sliders in the Black & White Mix block, added a slight curve, increased my black point with the tool kit and added a little grain. Processing time, 30 seconds, saving the new forked preset 4 seconds, uploading a post from Lightroom directly to the Blog via the LR/Blog plugin 15 seconds, coming to a look I find pleasing for street photography in less than a minute ― priceless. Thanks VSCO! Update: This image got Flickr Explored !!

Ricoh GR: Zun Lee, the power of vision

I take great pride and comfort in having a “brother in arms” with the GR as well. This time my great friend Zun Lee. Long time readers of this blog will surely recognize him as my first interviewee in the Togs Series. A couple of years I had this to say about his photography: Every once in a while something truly special happens. It can be an encounter with an old friend, a chat with your special loved one, or perhaps meeting someone new. Well, I had such a moment a few months ago when I discovered the work of Zun Lee over on Flickr. I’ve perused a multitude of streams and some have left me in awe but yet others have left an indelible impression on me — such is the power behind the images of Zun Lee. Folks, today Tog Series is proud to inaugurate with an amazing street photographer — Zun Lee. Well, its been about 2 years since that statement and today I still feel the same way. Zun has been …

La Yuma

I’m pretty upset at WordPress.com right now, I just sharing this image with everyone and I’m all happy with the end result, I upload here and what you see right below is an exported jpeg straight form lightroom and it looks nothing like what I viewed on my deskop. So, I get to thinking and I tell myself, “let me do a screengrab,” which saves the images as a png and let’s compare. Oh my gosh, what a difference. Click here to view the original image and tell me if you don’t see an immediate difference.  I don’t know why but WordPress.com is compressing the images like there is no tomorrow which totally sucks in my book. I mean we take the time to process an image to our liking and WP ruins it, not right guys, please fix this or are you guys getting too big already? Or better yet, develop another store addon that doesn’t compress the images and I’ll gladly pay $20/year for this service. I mean you sell photography themes and …

Meeting Dale

When it comes to street photography there are many choices out in today’s market. Remember there is no right or wrong. These cameras are just tools towards fulfilling our vision. Today, I took the Pentax K5 IIs to the streets of Downtown Miami where there are a multitude of worthy photographic scenes. The K5 performed flawlessly. The fact that it doesn’t have a Anti Alias filter I think brings a lot to the table. Images are sharp, crisp, and in my opinion, they have that full frame look, you know, that richness of the frame. Pentax got it right with the K5 IIS, the buttons are perfectly laid out, the grip is very ergonomic and just feels great despite this camera weighing in a little more than one may be used to from a different manufacturer. Exposure compensation and ISO have dedicated buttons right next to each other thus complementing, in my opinion, the two most used options in any camera. Photoessay “Meeting Dale” Here’s a photoessay “Meeting Dale” where I had a chance to …

Versailles Cuban Cuisine

So the other day, I went with a group to have lunch and being raised in Miami and having had Cuban food all the time [my fiancee is Cuban] I decided to venture out and go for something new. While perusing the menu, something struck my eye ― an Angus burger. Say what. That’s exactly what came to mind at that moment, an Angus burger, ok I thought, who knows, maybe its done well here. Gee, little did I know I was in for a surprise.

Confession, I’m a huge burger fanatic and I’ll go at lengths to find an awesome burger just about anywhere. Ok, so here I am kind of pumped and intrigue with an Angus burger at Versailles. The waiter takes our order and I said happily said “I’ll take the Angus burger.” Immediately, the waiter fumbled and literally mumbled something in half spoken English which I understood to be hamburger. At that precise moment I knew the waiter didn’t speak English. Shit, I told myself, did he get it right? So, rebutted in Spanish that I wanted the Angus burger and he was like “yes, yes, for sure, excellent choice.” You know that reassuring type, appeasing your desire until there’s no tomorrow ― that type. Double shit, so I’m thinking, I hope this guys “fudge” my order man! I had eary feeling in my gut something was wrong the moment he step away.

Fifteen minutes pass by and in comes the crappiest burger I’ve ever ever ever seen. Literally, go to any supermarket in the United States and buy a pack of burger bun bread and a pack of frozen burgers, put some crappy wannabe Romaine lettuce and some weird tomatoes and that was what eyes were looking it. A total disappointed. Being somewhat shy about the whole thing, I decided to eat half of it, thus confirming my previous statement ― what a crappy burger. I was about to explain to the waiter to call the manager but I figured I’d just leave with out a fuss and swore never to eat a burger at a Cuban restaurant. You’ve been warned.