“Its hard to believe how fast last summer passed by, one blink – and its gone!”… that’s was my thoughts when I was shooting West Indian Parade this Labor Day, which was official end of the Summer. This rainy winter day one more time reminds me that everything is relative, and what few months ago felt like first day of Autumn in the middle of Winter could feel like peak of Summer.
Well, photography-vice it was my peak of the Summer this year, since that day I get more images saying out loud ”Summer!” than I had entire summer combined. I decided to post here some of pictures I took that day, so it would be like few rays of sunshine for me. …and maybe for somebody else as well?
It was my first time shooting West Indian Parade. I didn’t managed to get to walk with parade as I planned. I choose bad spot to shoot it from, and I did not brought with me lens long enough to be able to get as much up-close to individual parade participants as I would like. Still I get quite few decent shots, I think. Next year I definitely will shoot it again, only this time I’ll be better prepared, and should have more good quality images.
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For this little project I used 6 Vivitar 285HV portable strobes with Cactus brand radio remote triggers. 3 of flashes were set in Lastolite medium size softbox to the camera right and slightly in front of guitar for creating soft main light. One flash with 3 red gels for deep red color was set at 1/4 power on the floor behind guitar aiming at drapes in background. Actual background drapes color was beige. 2 more strobes were used to add accent light from different angles on different shots. Power setting on those flashes was set from 1/16 to 1/2 depending on the angle and how far or close it was set to guitar. Flashes in softbox and one of the accent flashes was outfitted with warming gel, and camera (Canon 7D) white balance was set to tungsten. Accent flash used for strings on most of the shots was without any gels, effectively giving strings blueish tone.
Here is one of my favorite shots from that session:
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To commemorate Giants great first playoff game of 2011 I’m posting here one of my old pix of a fitness model who used to be on Giants training squad few years back.
I know its not exactly in Giants colors, and I know its not of Brandon Jacobs who’s passionate running in my opinion was catalyst of Giants dominance in this game, but it closest I have in my archives … so far. Call me Brandon, so I’ll have more appropriate pic in true Giants colors for next year playoffs! :-)
If some Giants fans want posters or canvas of this image, you can order it on my FineArtAmerica page here:
http://fineartamerica.com/featured/purple-challenge-val-black-russian-tourchin.html
To see more sport and fitness vivid duotones check out my Zenfolio album
]]>In last few years I took few thousands pictures of NYC architectural details. Well, to be honest, much more than few… Weirdo I am, I have over 10 000 pix of just one building. Though, to my defense, it is my favorite building in New York.
From the few thousands I selected few hundreds pictures to create few slideshows, and this is one of them.
All photographs used here are B&W tone mapped HDR images. So, as some might figure, its takes quite some work from time pictures were taken to moment they become final images ready to be presented to the world.
Yes, I heard about “golden hour”, and that architectural pictures should be taken on the cloudy days, under softer light because it makes them look “better”. Just like I heard how midday sun makes everything to look absolutely horrible. Hmmm…
I guess I didn’t get that memo on time, or maybe I like my pictures to look horrible, because I took most of them in the “worst” possible time. Or maybe, being nice guy I am, I just didn’t wanted to step on somebody’s toes in the crowd of golden hour photographers. So I choose long and hard way of HDR.
Hope it won’t be too hard for you to enjoy it!
NYC Architecture in B&W pt1 from Val Tourchin on Vimeo.
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It is hard for me to accuse property owners, who since 2002 voluntarily allowed graffiti artists to use their building legally for graffiti paintings, and who stated they are still committed to provide available space on the planned new building on site for graffiti artists to work on. However, taking into consideration new buildings would be residential towers, we all know it won’t be nothing comparable to current 5 Poitz in scale and magnitude. I afraid it won’t attract anymore best graffiti artist from all over the world to travel all the way to NYC to show their art, or even if they would do so, they would be limited in space for it to be displayed properly.
One more of NYC hidden gems is in about to disappear forever. Sad but true…
It inspired me to create this HD slideshow from the images of 5 Pointz graffities I took last summer.
Until I’ll figure out how to bypass file size limitations to put it directly on my site in full HD, rather than offer you low res version here, I choose to provide link to it on YouTube. Choose 1080p quality if your internet speed could handle it, play it full screen and enjoy.
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And if it didn’t scared you enough… those bloody hands will reach you in your sleep:
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