Great Misconceptions!!!

Hiya!  

So...Photography

It's easy, and yet it's hard.

What do I mean?

Well, it's now been about 5 years since I first picked up a camera for reasons other than taking a random family picture. When I first started I didn't think it would become what it is now: a tremendous part of my life. I became obsessed with it from the get-go. I spent months and months (literally an entire summer) studying photography, nonstop, for more than 15 hours a day. Studying meant going outside and taking a couple hundred pictures after having spent 10 or more hours studying techniques and theory and other such stuff online. I remember several instances where I would stay up 2 entire days studying feverishly. As a close friend recently told me, "You were in flow" (as psychologists say). I guess it's true since I never felt tired: I always went to bed afterwards and wouldn't fall asleep until 1 or 2 hours of photography theory had finished running through my head. But, really never did stop running around in that noggin.

And that was the easy part, but only because I liked it. I did it because I had no other choice, both as a high school kid during summer vacation, and as a photography freak...it sounds kind of weird to me being serious when I say that.

Oh whatever, it's me.

Hard money...

So the hard part was mainly made up of two things (that are strongly tied together): money and being self taught. More specifically, I'm referring to lack of money and lack of an official art environment full with resources. Photography is EXTREMELY (I repeat) EXTREMELY expensive. I've calculated that, in total, I spent about $1,500 within the first 2 years without a single dollar being made back. And $1,500 is on the cheap end of things, considering my camera (the one I still use) is only an entry level professional camera. The body alone, without a lens, was $800 at the time.

Once I started doing some gigs people would mostly say, "Oh, since you're new, will you do it for free? Assuming payment would be the experience," and obviously (to me at least), I would be excited to just do more photos, so I would either do everything for free, or maybe make $50 for what I would now charge $800 worth of work (I'm not trying to show you how greedy-which I'm not ;D). This just goes to show how much work I did for free in order to gain experience, and help friends out.

Anyways, I'm glad I did do all those things for free, as I learned a tremendous amount from each experience that I pushed myself into, but obviously it was difficult since I didn't have a car (my parents had to spend money on gas, which I felt bad about), and once a couple of years passed it felt like people still asked for free work, acting as if they thought photography wasn't expensive (and sometimes I still do free work, but life is getting real these days, so I need real non-monopoly money). And yeah, that reminds me, photography is EXPENSIVE (3rd time's the charm!) and a lot of people asking for me to do their photos don't realize that.

.........and a long flat path

The long flat path mainly has to do with having started photography and having decided to remain self taught; school had started up again and was taking up most of my time, I also didn't have money for photography classes. During the first few years (3-4 to be more precise) I was like a boy-with-a-camera in an egg that would just not want to crack and allow the world to see me. Like being under a cellar-door that won't open when a bad guy (or lady) is coming after you......about to stab you with a knife so ghetto you feel like shitting your pants just looking at it. 

Back on course-
Since I wasn't "good enough" to actually merit any attention from people other than my parents and some friends, I felt like my progression, which really was big (other people said it...not me) was not being acknowledged,
like Gosh! give the man some credit, YEARS of Hikikamori style studying, can someone give me at least one clap?

 *cricket sounds*

This lack of acknowledgement mainly showed itself when I first started publishing my work online and not many people would react to it (actually almost no one...except my best friend (fist-bump best friend))***. Many times I felt like not even posting anymore and deleting the social networks, especially dA (which I don't use anymore since it's now the mecca (not talking about Saudi Arabia) of hentai and porn and most legit work is drowned by cartoon character porn and people trying to be cartoon characters, while doing porn (can you do porn? or ARE you porn? DAMMIT DIGRESSION!).

***(correction) best friend(s)...I don't need anymore hate mail.

Anyways (again), as time passed, I started getting more attention from the public [yay!], but then I came to realize there are different types of public...("what the hell does that mean?," you ask?) Well there's the public that consists of regular citizens which has subgroups that are made up by buyers, and loiterers non-buyers....Then there's the public of Art (specifically photography; the **art world** of photography [very shiny]) which is the public I am now starting to dip my toes in.

For the last 5 years I've been COMPLETELY focused on the first type of public (loiters people and such...no buyers...well, maybe 1-2). It wasn't a mistake to do so; I found MANY amazing people in the non-art community, but the main focus of this long sentence is the second thing I mentioned WAAAAAY at the beginning (talking about being self taught, and its difficulty). Being self taught meant I never took a legitate art/photography course. This means I never dipped my toes (as I am doing now, currently, this moment, ahora) into the art community. I'd describe my life as a photographer, before starting my path into art, is like me being a cat that acts like a cat for the sake of the humans, but doesn't even pay attention to the fact it is a part of the greater cat community/catmanity (no, not a cat/manatee) missing out on the nice fish bones around the corner......so sad. 

/////Btw crazy story, I just saw my neighborhood cat eat a squirrel....shiz B cray-cray./////

So as a lonely cat (with a camera). I did not realize my brethren and sistren cats where the bees-knees (incorporating lots of animals today) and that I should have started focusing on them as well. Like a cat in a room filling up with water with the only way out being the open window on the other side of the room, I realized I was screwed...unless I jumped in.

So I jumped in...

....and things started to change.

It turned out that being trapped in that hikikamori-like egg shell (with a camera) for so long while spending money on building a website, printing stuff, and doing a ton of free portfolio-building work was actually a blessing in disguise. How?

Well, for one, having decided to not post-process ANY of my pictures from the moment I started photography actually forced me to work EXTREMELY hard on everything I did. I wanted to get good, fast...very fast, which explains the Japanese lock-self-in-room style of living (pretty much the definition of Hikikomori, if you were too lazy to look it up.....you jerk).
But because of that ridiculous addiction to learning photography very quickly, it now looks like the giant swamp monster that lives in the "Art Public" swamp is not letting me simply dip my toes in the water, it wants to suck me in...which obviously has me a bit nervous. But since I have built a strong support system (having focused on the "Regular Citizens" public in the early years) I feel like there's a ladder next to me which will help me ease my descent into the (swampy) arts-side.

***sorry, I pull these things metaphors out of my butt; they stink, don't they? (leave a comment and let me know how much you hate them...or love them)***

Well, after having spent that $1,500 in the first 2 years I decided to make a website in my 3rd year costing $30 a month, make several prints of my photos, and throw money in the yard (#moneytree), which I'm guessing put me in (imaginary) debt at about $2,300 (which happens to be the amount I'm paying for my new lens in a few days) But because I had a website (very nice one) and prints to show off my work I was recruited by a museum in Cuba to do an exhibit this coming summer. AND.....well other stuff which I can't say now since it ain't solid. But it's big...real big. When I know what's going on, for sure, I'll lay it on you like a nice warm turd. #neversorry.

The money I've spent over the years is progressively being made back with jobs I've done for the Bucs (The Tampa Bay Bucs) and some other major gigs. It took a LONG time (felt like it at least) but now things are working out...and it feels like I'm now walking on a sandbar (a moist sand bar) waiting to be fully immersed by that Swamp Monster. 

My point is that there is no point I just wanted to talk....see ya

bye.

Just kidding :P heehee

Anyways, my point is that I'm starting to feel really good about my work, after a long time of feeling like a cat with no other cats to support me; I had humans there giving me pats on the back, maybe some tuna on payday, but I didn't really have another cat to show me around the corner and guide me to the fish bones. BUT, because of that, I worked so hard knowing that every picture I took and every hour I spent studying represented a small piece of wall being chipped away the Great Wall of China between me and some tasty fish bones. 

So, now that you read all of that, I will summarize it in a few words (because I'm actually the swamp monster, didn't see that coming, huh?....actually, me neither)

In summary, shiz be gettin' cray-cray.

Love ya.

Ravimi Photography. 

P.S. show sum love by sharing, commenting, and liking this long, time-wasting post...it will mean a lot to a little cat like me.

Also, I may start writing a lot more often...maybe once a month (compared to once in 1 year). So if I do...I'll see you next time.

  

 

Photo and Personal Style: Nothing made into Something (part 1)

Ravimi Photography:

It started as nothing...

When I first started photography I really did not think it would become one of my strongest passions and skills in life just a few years down the road. I started in highschool when a club I was in asked for a volunteer to run the Media team. Being an upperclassman I decided it would probably be best to take the initiative and become the Media Director for the club. 

And that's where it began.

Seriously, I picked up my professors camera and never put it down (well sometimes when I went to the bathroom, but only sometimes). 

Since I didn't have my own camera I had to borrow, with an unnecessary amount of begging, my mom's point and shoot camera. After a month of unnecessary begging I begged one last time and got my very first camera; Casio Ex Fh100.

One of the first pics I took, full manual
with the Casio

Once I had the Casio (took months of research to find the best cheap camera, with the most manual control I could get) I stopped everything and started taking pictures.

I wasn't that good.

But I loved it.

Because I was so intent on learning as much as I could I had decided (before even getting the camera) that I would do EVERYTHING (pretty much means whatever the camera would allow) in manual mode. And after a month and 10,000-15,000 pictures later (no joke), I realized the beauty of the Casio, and unfortunately the limitations.

Some more pictures of my first exposure with a camera 

(Casio FH-EX100) 

trying out the sepia with some classmates

First pic I took of my dad

WOW I've been looking for this for SUCH a long time haha.

 After my first 1000 hours of photography (this includes studying and pure shooting) I new I had discovered a life long passion. And most importantly I decided to never let go of my no post processing photography style, along with a complete dedication to manual mode.

By this time I had my first DSLR (same one I still use btw) and within the first couple months of having it my style grew stronger, along with my knowledge.

Second stage of development: first (and current DSLR)

Canon T3i

These pictures were taken just before a 1.25 years of starting photography

Continued in Part 2

Creating Purpose: Favorite photographers and my gifts to them.

Who inspires me......

There are multiple reasons why a great photograph is "great". Some of those reasons just deal with the subject, technique, or many other elements that touch the heart of the viewer. These photographs are created by skilled photographers that are able to capture, not only what they see, but what they feel, or don't feel. I personally have many photographers I admire that make me think of how wonderful it is to be a part of the action that creates those inspiring images: photography.

One of my favorite photographers is the amazing and equally famous photographer Steve McCurry. His most famous photograph also happens to be one of the most well known photographs in the world (according to multiple sources, this being one of them), Afghan Girl. McCurry captures the individuals he photographs for who they are at the present time. When I look at his portraits I'm always sucked in by the eyes of the individuals, but most importantly the soul behind those eyes truly helps me experience the soul of the image.

If Mr. McCurry ever read this I would share this picture, of mine, with him.

I took this on my last trip to Cuba. This lady is almost 100 years old and she has completely lost her mental ability. During my visit she would yell out "MAMI! MAMI!" (which means "Mom! Mom!"). But what surprised me wasn't that the people around her would not get irritated, but instead her own daughter would respond, "Estoy aqui," (which means "I'm here."). 

Another one of my favorite photographers is Arno Rafael Minkkinen (you can see his pictures here). Minkkinen uses his own body in his photography. His long slender form is blended into the background at times to create a sense of unity between the world and the human form. But at other times his limbs extend outwards as if trying to reach the infinity of the horizon. It's a very intense collection of photographs and as someone that has a great appreciation for the human form I truly admire his work; especially this one.

For Mr. Minkinnen I would love to share this picture I also took in Cuba.
.......

actually, I'll hold onto that picture. I'll show this one instead:

The other picture hasn't been released to the public yet since it will be part of a collection I will be exhibiting in Cuba (possibly this coming 2013 summer). If somehow Mr. Minkinnen does read this please contact me and I would be more than happy to share the original picture with you.

The picture above was taken in my college dorm living room with a really dark blue sheet as the background and 2  regular desktop lamps. 

I have many many other photographers I admire and would love to present my pictures to as a gift of appreciation for showing me their world, through their eyes. But that would make this into an entire book instead of a blog post haha.

Anyways, in this post I shared with you who inspires me to continue on my path of photography. Ultimately the world I see is what truly inspires Creative Purpose.

Who inspires you? 

Photo and Personal Style ~ Photography called Street, Part 2

I couldn't wait any longer, I had to go. I had to breath that city air. I had to walk across those car infested streets. And most importantly, I had to photograph it all.

I went back on the streets two days after I had first gone, as a photographer. The atmosphere just pulled me in like a vacuum collecting dust from a shaggy carpet. I started off my second day completely different compared to my first day, I was full of confidence and desire of capturing the city. I began with an image that I feel correctly separates the multiple elements of tampa's downtown  park.

Then something awesome happened. I encountered the "City Posse" as I'd like to call them. Separate  they all had character to spare, but together they created such an amazing scene in my mind. But why write about it when I can show you....

After I had taken this picture the two dudes on bikes began doing some of their BMX tricks and I couldn't help take pictures. 

And finish it off with a portrait!

City Alive

I continued on my journey through the city and encountered more of the things that had originally sucked my attention from my first visit. I began to see more of a subtleness to the city life, that lived inside the insanity. This included:

A traveling band, on bike

The relationships between the city workers 

Just seeing these "raw" moments made me feel the sense of being a scribe for human life in the city, just like the first time I came. 

And then a style revealed itself:

I call this "Mr. Jackson"

This one is "Runway Street"

The character these two individuals gave made me feel like I was watching super models from 1950's Bronx, it just blew me away.

The Picture

After encountering the "Duo from Bronx" I had decided to return to the park I had started at, but I took a different route. I'm so glad I did.

I decided to take a path between some buildings (instead of the sidewalk) and while I was walking I saw a giant hole between two buildings. It gave me this kind of vibe that means I'm looking at something unique, so I studied it further and this is what I saw.

This is by far one of my favorite pictures that I have taken. Since I do no editing of my pictures after pressing the shutter I took about twenty pictures (good ones) before I felt confident enough to look away. It was another story trying to walk away. 

The Park

At the park I found a large group of children playing in the Fountain Springs and it was awesome seeing the incredible smiles on their faces from simply running through jets of water. I got some really awesome pictures of the children playing, while trying to not seem like a creeper to the parents haha:

It was such an incredible day. Being able to experience such moments in the lives of other individuals, and capture incredible parts of the city was what makes street photography an art that I think will never stop blowing people's minds, especially my own.

I hope you enjoyed reading this blog. I've been very busy for the past couple of months with college as a premed student (I'm a self taught photographer). But I hope the length of this post makes up for the time lost :). 

Contact me if you have any questions.

With just one click the soul is captured and displayed for the world to be inspired.

Ravimi Photography

Photo and Personal Style ~ Photography called Street

Grab my camera and my 50mm lens, drive into the Downtown area, walk up to a random stranger whip out the Canon AND.....stand there. lol, yup that's what happened. It's incredibly hard and difficult (for the first time ever) to take a picture of someone completely random in the streets. I'd have an easier time taking pictures of a tiger while I'm inside the cage with a Philly Cheese tied onto my back. 

Well once I got over the idea of creeper status being hung around my neck, I decided to go for it. It was still difficult, this was one of my first captures:

Suckish work for what I hold myself to. But I kept on going and working for those magical images I had seen on the web to make inspiration and desire kick me out into the streets. As I progressed throughout my first day out on the streets the first thing I noticed was how artistic the city can be. I never really noticed it since I never actually took the perspective of a photographer in the city. Finding this out gave me a little bit more inspiration and I started getting better pics:

The more pics I took the more I began to start figuring the best things to do in order to feel more comfortable and produce better pics; I began talking to people and getting to know them a bit and my usual "pick-up line" was, "Hi! I'm a street photographer, can I get a picture?", and it worked like a charm every single time: 

Love this one

By the end of the day I had experienced a field of photography that was completely foreign to me, before that point. When I had only about 1 hour left I began to experiment a bit and like a rock to the face I discovered the ABSOLUTE MAGIC of "Shooting from the Hip". It was like a Chocolate Milk: AMAZING lol. Anyways, I started doing some interesting angles:

And as I had mentioned before I discovered the magic of City Architectural Photography:

With the end of the day coming and finally getting home and taking a shower after the Florida rain had me more wet than a lake I started reflecting on my latest adventure, and I felt realized a new connection in my life. I felt personally involved in the lives of the complete strangers I had photographed. I felt like they would represent a relationship in my life completely separated but not unaware of their existence. Seeing the "typical" business person walk around town and the Homeless (some within a family of homeless, which is something incredible that I realized, others completely separated from the world) sitting on the side of the road or selling little crosses made of palm leaves made me feel like I was the author of their novels; their personal Scribe. It was aw inspiring to feel that for someone I had never met, and it was something I had never felt with anyone else, even if I knew them. This feeling was what made me go back.....to be continued.

Photo TIPS! ~ "Fireworks, Lightning and Birds"

So today I will be doing a post on a topic that was requested: Fireworks, Lightning, and Birds. In essence I will be talking about speed photography and precision (for the Bird and Lighting photography). With my explanation for each I will include a picture (except for lightning photography since I haven't been able to practice that one recently; therefore, lack the images). I will try to make each explanation as short and full of content as possible.

Fireworks!

Yesterday was the 4th of July! which means the left over fireworks will be in the sky tonight and this will make great practice for those who want to try this out. Taking great pictures of fireworks can be very difficult because you have to figure out WHERE the explosion will be and (harder part) WHEN and how long the explosion will be.

WHERE:

The simplest way to figure out the direction in which a firework will head and where it explodes is to have an experience reference (lol don't look it up on Google, it's my own made up word), in other words, a past experience that you can refer too. To build this experience reference you just have to first experience what you want to capture in a photograph before actually attempting the shot. Shoot a couple of fireworks up in the air (or watch others do it) and pinpoint the area where the fireworks most explode. Of course this area will vary greatly if you use a different firework every single time so try to make it easier by watching an area that has at least 2 or 3 explosions from the same type of firework.

Next,

you have to set up your camera settings. The picture I took below will have the information for what settings I used.

ISO 800
1/500 Shutter Speed
f/13 Aperture
50mm

This image was taken at midnight on New Years and it was pitch black outside (when there were no fireworks exploding). I had experience reference already when I took this because there were already fireworks that had been fired so that made this image a lot easier to capture since I had an idea WHERE it would explode. Since the explosion is bright I had a faster shutter speed and high Aperture # because I wanted to make it very dark without having to use a super high Shutter speed. These settings will be different for different fireworks and how bright/dark the night is, but you can use this as a reference for your first time.

WHEN:

This can be figured out the same way as described in WHERE; with an experience reference. Watch a couple of fireworks in the sky, count the seconds from launch to explosion. Once the firework launches start counting 1-Mississippi, 2-Mississippi, 3-Mississippi, etc until the firework explodes in the sky. Make sure that the fireworks you are counting are all the same, if you don't you will have completely different timings for each explosion and you'll be more confused than when you started. Once you have the timing down you can then decide when you will press the shutter button. I like the full explosion effect and mid explosion so I press the shutter button .5-1sec (about) after the explosion and then 2-4 seconds for the full explosion.

Lightning!

Lightning isn't as hard to capture as birds or fireworks but it takes a lot more luck in my opinion (not as much as flying birds though). To capture lightning you do the complete opposite of what I did with the fireworks image. In order to capture the image you have to turn the shutter speed into a long exposed shot which means the camera will be taking a single picture for a much longer period. First make sure your Shutter Speed is longer than 1 second (to do this just keep moving your shutter speed down until it goes from 1/# to #. (ex: 1/20sec to 2sec). The  shutter speed will affect how wide your Aperture will be; the longer the Shutter Speed the higher the f/stop # (Aperture). So with a shutter speed of 10 seconds you will want a very closed Aperture somewhere greater than f/15. Since the amount of light varies per lightning strike you will have to do a lot of changing. The reason we leave the Shutter Speed long is to make it easier to capture the lightning. The camera sensor only works with light so once the lightning strikes the light will be imprinted into the sensor.

Remember:

-Very long Shutter speed greater than 1 second (between 5-10 is good)

-Very small Aperture to avoid any other light sources from washing out the light from the lightning, and since the shutter is open for a long period it lowers the amount of light being registered by the sensor; therefore, only the lightning will show up in the picture.

-Patience and Persistence. (PnP)

Birds!

To take pictures of birds flying you will need a lot of PnP (Patience and Persistence). Have a Shutter Speed that is high enough to stop the bird in flight while also removing the blur created by the birds motion. A good Shutter Speed would be any above 1/800 (you can also do less since you are moving the lens with the bird but 1/800 is a pretty secure base number) when taking close up bird images, but the further away the bird is the lower the shutter speed can be. The Aperture can vary depending on what you want in focus: only the bird (Aperture less than 5), bird and background (Aperture greater than 5). The higher the f/stop(Aperture) # the easier it will to get an image with the bird focused since the DOF(Depth of Field) is much greater. Here are a couple examples of my in-flight bird photography.

ISO 400
1/3200 Shutter Speed
4.5 Aperture
50mm

ISO 400
1/3200 Shutter Speed
4.5 Aperture
50mm

ISO 100
1/2000 Shutter Speed
5.6 Aperture
300mm

ISO 100
1/500 Shutter Speed
5.6 Aperture
300mm

When I do bird photography I do 1 of 2 things: I find a flock of birds on the ground and lay on the ground in front of the group pointing my camera up, then I get a friend to scare the crap out of the birds from the opposite side of where I am so that when they fly away they fly towards/above me, and I fire away. The other option is standing in one place and trying to predict the flight pattern of the birds and have the camera set up pointing towards that direction.

Keep on Snappin',

Ravimi

One of those Randoms! ~ "Parade!"

So I've been out for a while because of a summer program I was a staff member at and other events (after the summer program) that I wanted to photograph and use as my back-on-track photos (so I avoided posting before then). So this post will be dedicated to showing some of the best pictures I took on that event, which happened to be the annual St. Pete Pride Parade! I hope you enjoy and if you want to see more just visit my website.

Remember to SUBSCRIBE! and share this with your other friends if you like it. If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment or send me an email.

Keep on Snappin',
Ravimi

***Update: We also have a new SUBSCRIBER!!!! (rockets shoot into the air while elephants run off cliffs and land on trampolines that launch them over the moon). Thank you Horacio for joining us on RPB!

ISO 100
1/400 Shutter Speed
5 Aperture
50mm

ISO 100
1/1000 Shutter Speed
5.6 Aperture
50mm

ISO 100
1/320 Shutter Speed
5.6 Aperture
50mm

ISO 100
1/320 Shutter Speed
5.6 Aperture
50mm

ISO 100
1/1000 Shutter Speed
5.6 Aperture
50mm