Project 52: Week 04

This week's post comes early! I hope to make this a habit, but I'm afraid will likely be the exception to the rule.

This is from the Stanley Kubrick exhibit which just ended last weekend at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. If you didn't have a chance to go, you missed a fantastic chance to find some meaty visual inspiration (sorry). Kubrick started his career as a photographer, and it's very evident in his film work. 

Zero noise reduction. Embrace the grain. Shot at 1600 on a small sensor, it still looks great in black and white, in my opinion.

On a side note, I've been enjoying shooting in square format tremendously as of lates. I'm slowly settling down to two formats, almost exclusively:

  • 1:1 gives me that bargain medium format feel. I especially like the fact that I don't have to debate between landscape and portrait orientation. No fumbling and awkwardly rotating the camera - just point and shoot.
  • 16:9, I'm just a sucker for that cinematic look.

(Not a real baby)

Project 52: Week 02

Week two proved to be a much harder challenge compared to week one - mainly thanks to the blistering cold weather that forced me to hibernate most of the week.

I came by the below shot at the 11th hour, while struggling to find inspiration. I had a bunch of "ok" shots, but nothing that spoke to me. This grainy, blurry pic of a statue of a child in the lobby of the new RBC builing near the waterfront hit the spot. 

In gear news, shooting with the E-PM1 + 15mm body cap combo is getting better, but still a royal pain. Most times I find a great shot, turn the camera on (wait for what feels like a century), point, focus, and shoot - only to find out later on that it was out of focus. 

On the plus side, I discovered I can actually adjust focus on the body cap lens, meaning I can focus in between infinity and 0.3m. I also figured out a way to assign the magnify function to the video record button. Why Olympus would put that button there is beyond comprehension, but at least it helps tremendously in avoiding misfocused shots when reconfigured.

On to week three...