As I may or may have not mentioned I'm moving to India on May 13 to chase my dreams of becoming a professional photographer and all around media man. My friend Joshua is coming along too.
I saw this guy on my way out of the Matt and Kim show, which was amazing by the way. He started rapping and I turned on the camera. It was pretty great. I wish I had some change to give him but I didn't.
Taken with an Olympus Zuiko 50mm f1.8 attached to a 5D mark II
Another old lens I picked up. It has more edge softness than the SMC-Takumar I was using yesterday. There's heavy vignetting but it sort of makes for a cool effect.
I've definitely been neglecting this little outlet. There just seems to be so much to do these days.
I fell in love today. With a lens, har har. I discovered the beauty of attaching old lenses to new camera by using little adapter rings from Hong Kong.
This isn't a new thing. Apparently people have been doing it for a while. You can read all about it here.
Anyway, the weather was perfect when my little metal adapters came in the mail today so popped an SMC-Takumar 55mm f2 onto my trusty 5D and walked around the neighborhood. I got the lens for $13 at a thrift store with a Pentax camera body attached to it.
The results were surprisingly wonderful. Here's a little example. More later. (maybe)
As I've mentioned a bunch of times I can shoot video with my 5D mark II.
I haven't messed around with this function much that is until now. Shooting the documentary over the last couple of weeks gave me a perfect opportunity to get comfortable with the moving image and what it's good for.
I also learned how to use Final Cut and soundtrack pro to mash things up. I'm going to try and do this a lot more but for now here is some of the b-roll that I shot for our documentary.
My close friend Joshua and I collaborated on a piece for the St. Petersburg Times about cobblers. He wrote the story and I took the pictures. It will be in the metro section tomorrow.
The last two weeks were hectic to say the least. Long days that began early and ended late were the norm for myself and the two other members of my team as we stabbed blindly into the world of documentary film making.
Our film isn't perfect but I'm very proud of it. The effort it took to make was monumental and I feel confident that I could do it again and I will. The audio levels still need to be mastered so you may need to mess with your volume as you watch it.
It was filmed in high definition using the latest and greatest cameras. It's possible to watch it that way here but the file is massive so it may take something like an hour to optimize depending on your computer and internet connection. If you want to see it in it's native form I suggest letting it load and then going and doing something else and coming back to it. Some of the shots are really worth seeing in all of their ultra defined glory so if you like me, do me a favor and watch in high def.
An interesting point for those into this kind of thing. We mixed footage from Canon XHA1S AND MY 5D Mark II. See if you can tell what's what.
A little background: This piece was filmed in Clarksdale, a small erstwhile cotton town in Mississippi where blues music was born. The place has a surprisingly high concentration of artists. My team and I wanted to explore creativity and how the artists who lived int he town found their inspiration. The idea changed and morphed into something new as the filming and editing process unfolded.
I'm currently based inside of a bright blue Airstream trailer that's zooming around the country inspiring people to dream big and act boldy. www.milliondollarroadtrip.com
