Tag Archives: art

07/3/18

Pocket Pixel: Herramienta para light painting

Hoy os quiero presentar una nueva herramienta para fotografíar con la técnica Light Painting. Se trata de un dispositivo compacto para ser usado con una sola mano, pensado a grandes rasgos para dos tipos de funciones distintas.

Por un lado se puede usar sujetándolo con la mano para dibujar formas de distintos colores y su otra función es para dejarlo fijo en el interior de una habitación o casa para iluminar de un color toda una estancia mientras hacemos la foto desde fuera.

Características:

  • Dispone de un botón on/off y 3 botones para usar los distintos modos.
  • La superfície cuadrada que ilumina mide aproximadamente 5,5cm x 4,5cm y produce una luz LED difusa.
  • Se alimenta con 4 baterías AA a través de un portapilas integrado en su caja.
  • Dispone de dos pequeños imanes a los lados de la superficie que ilumina para añadir posibles accesorios que cambien la forma de la luz o incluso añadan difusores de formas distintas.

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04/1/14

Making of "Pens and Swords"

Today I’m going to start a little project about how I make some of my photos or build my light tools, usually using materials that can be found at home, because sometimes there’s no need to have an amazing studio to create decent photos. I won’t describe the details in each case, and the making of photos will probably be made with the smartphone, but feel free to ask if you have any doubts 😉

The idea was suggested by my friend and photographer Xavier Carol, check his blog if you want: lalquimista.com

For this first photo, I used a feather I found on the street. With a cutter, I carefully cutted the feather to the point I wanted, and then I placed a decoration sword I had at home inside the feather. I wanted a dark background but also emphasize the details of the sword and feather, so I used my computer screen and a polarizing filter in the lens, rotating the filter to a point where I saw a black background.

With some exposure time, I could illuminate the objects and also keeping a dark background. Also, although I knew the final capture would be vertical, it was much easier to make the photo horizontally due to the working area of my “soft box”.

Before:

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After:
 

 

 

07/30/12

State of Your art: What makes an artist improve?

Paths to consciousnessHow many times can you overcome the same challenge feeling the satisfaction you had the first time? Some people only need one or two times, others can keep repeating the same thing for a long time and still enjoying it. This number will depend on our degree of demand and perfectionism, which in practice is the time that takes us to need a more complicated challenge, and see what we’re capable of. That’s why I think artists or professionals learn and get results at different rhythms.

From my experience, the learning curve is based on what I’ve just mentioned and two more factors that I’ll explain now, but in a different perspective than the typical “learn, practice, learn, practice”. What I find more interesting is what do we think about the results we’re getting. Are they good, bad? Are we proud of them? Which aspect would have a better result?

The first and more important factor is what I call State of Your art. If you were asked to position your work in a “quality ranking” among everything you know about that subject, where do you think it would be? You’ll probably think there’s a lot of people already better than you at that, and still more if you’re just beginning, but knowing the State of Your art will allow you to have an imprecise but also global reference, and wou’ll not be disappointed when you find out somebody else had the same idea as you and executed it in a much better way, or with a slight difference that you wouldn’t have thought of. Knowing the State of Your art won’t give you so much satisfaction when creating something new, but neither you’ll be disappointed if you discover that your idea was already done, because you already knew that this could happen.

How do you know your position in the ranking? Suppose there’s still a lot to see, that there’s somebody better than you, and that you still have a lot to learn. Thinking this way won’t give you an exact position, but I believe it’s an appropiate attitude to have. I find interesting and useful to read and talk with other professionals, to see how they work and also to learn and inspire myself, but I also think it’s important to develop a personal style that, while being influenced by some others’ works, are the product of our vision as an artists and professionals.

The second factor which I find necessary to improve is self-criticism. Just before creating something, many times comes the initial euphoria of “This is amazing!”. It’s fine to feel this way at first, but then it’s necessary to place your new work in the ranking of what you know and settle down.

I think the previous factors allow us not only create better art, but also better products and services, as long as exists a continuity and passion in what is being done, without thinking about getting huge results, just to improve, do someting meaningful and setting personal goals, the rest will follow.