Lighting

1, originally uploaded by gugs.

This is one of the best books I own about photography. It concentrates on light, being natural or artificial... I recommend this book to all the people who want to improve their skills because photography is about managing light. It also explains quite some useful post-processing techniques (how to correct pictures with Photoshop or equivalent tools).
Highly recommended.

Eagle

sharp eyes, originally uploaded by gugs.

This a picture I took while visiting the Paradisio park in Belgium. This is an interesting place for photographers and the occasion to photograph nice birds. This was during a birds show, shot with the excellent Nikkor 70-200VR f2.8 lens fully open (2.8), mounted on a Nikon D200. The DOF (depth of focus) is incredibly thin, making only a very small part sharp. I reframed the picture, like many others to make it available as a poster for those interested among my friends. Bird photography is one of my favorite anti-stress activity, this is definitely not the last one I will post.

Farfadais show

Elia 5 years9, originally uploaded by gugs.

This is a picture I like a lot. This has been shot with the D200 camera with a fast medium length lens, the 85mm f1.8, during a corporate event. This was a performance by the "Farfadais", a kind of modern circus, similar to the "Cirque du Soleil". I loved the light and took a number of pics. This turned out to be one of my favorites.

Chinatown in Singapore

singapore 2007 BW 04, originally uploaded by gugs.

This is a picture I recently took in Chinatown in Singapore. I had been working all day and had some free time at night. I decided to have a walk in Chinatown with my favorite travel camera, the D200 with the 18-200VR. This was a very low light environment and I had to increase sensitivity to ISO 1600. Even so, the shutter speed was 1/15sec with a focal length greater than 100mm. The vibration reduction (VR) system saved the picture by compensating my own movements, but the speed was still too slow to freeze the subject. The person in the pciture is thus a bit blurred. Anyway, aside from the technical explanations, I like the result, I wanted to give a kind of movie drama look by shooting in black and white. The exotic character adds to the mystery... this could be from an old fifties spy movie...

Collecting salt in the Lake Rose

Senegal 88, originally uploaded by gugs.

This has been shot in Senegal, not far from Dakar. This is the lake Rose (lac Rose in french), very close to the sea. The lake contains a very percentage of salt and people collect salt crystalizing on pieces of wood they put in the water. That job is particularly difficult and bad for your health because the salt attacks your skin and eyes. Economically speaking, the activity is not too interesting either because those people don't make a lot of money, price of salt in the region not being very high. From a photographic point of view, a great opportunity to take colorful pictures. This has been shot with a Nikon D200 camera and the 18-200VR lens. There is some vignetting in this picture (dark corners) but I didn't dislike it and didn't try to remove it with post-processing.

A window to the world

bw F5 brussels3, originally uploaded by gugs.

This is an interesting place I found by walking around in my home town. I shot this with a film camera, the Nikon F5 and a roll of BW film. No special processing applied, basically this is a picture out of the camera (after scanning of course). I liked the feeling of being lost in a kind of deserted/destroyed place, just a few steps from the classical tourist places. Using black and white just adds to the feeling.

First introduction about photography

I am a very enthusiastic photographer. I started very young when I was a kid, my father told me what an aperture was, what a shutter speed was, how to measure light and calculate the different parameters including the DOF (depth of focus).... I was 10 years old. After that, I used a lot of small and reflex cameras, just taking a lot of pictures, mainly naive travel pictures. A few years ago, I decided to become more serious about photography, and I started to invest time in lurking on several internet forums to collect information. I actually rediscovered photography about 6 years ago with a simple Nikon SLR camera and since then, I have invested quite a lot of time and money in that hobby. The hobby recently became a professional activity and I now get assignments to take pictures... I consider myself as being a beginner semipro photographer. There is so much to learn and to do. That's one of the reasons why I create a simple website to share my experiences with any people interested in photography. I hope to help them with the information I share, to speed up the learning process and to have fun...

My site can be found here:
http://users.skynet.be/van.hooveld

The best way to learn on the internet is to participate to forums. The forums I would recommend (I am a Nikon shooter so they are Nikon oriented)
http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/board/7
http://www.nikoncafe.com
http://www.nikonpassion.com (French speaking)

to be continued...