Marinating Ideas

  • Trapped!

    Trapped! by The Torontonian
    Trapped! a pho­to by Mauri­cio Alas.

    While play­ing a sup­port role at a wed­ding. As I too was part of the wed­ding and a full-time pho­tog­ra­ph­er had been hired to the bulk of the work, I nev­er­the­less decid­ed to linger around and get a few good shots.

    Lack­ing an exter­nal flash, I was chal­lenged by the poor light­ing since esca­lat­ing to a high­er ISO is always ill-advised when you want your cap­tures to stay as crisp as pos­si­ble.

    Luck­i­ly, at one end of the hall a set of track lights and a shiny hard­wood floor helped to reflect some extra light­ing.

    So as the par­ty dis­si­pat­ed, the bride was asked to assume some pos­es for me and a few of the guests with cam­eras. Side by side, fam­i­ly stood near pro­vid­ing ideas which inspired me to take this par­tic­u­lar cap­ture. Along with the bride’s facial expres­sion, her eyes por­tray sub­ju­ga­tion with a hint of coy­ness. Add to this her white dress con­trast­ing the two face­less fig­ures stand­ing omi­nous­ly at both sides, one can­not escape a mount­ing sense of claus­tro­pho­bia. While nev­er for­get­ting that she, iron­i­cal­ly, just tied the knot.

    Tak­en with a Nikon D700, 50mm, ISO 6400, 1/640

  • Looking Up The Vatican Spiral

    As part of my ongo­ing pho­tog­ra­phy work, this cap­ture, was tak­en at the entrance to The Vat­i­can Muse­ums. The Spi­ral stair­case or Dou­ble Helix as it is some­times referred to, is arguably one of the top 10 most know in the world and one of the most pho­tographed. As such, like in any­thing else, cap­tur­ing this beau­ti­ful piece designed by Giuseppe Momo required skill and the right tim­ing.

    Luck­i­ly, the ran­dom group of tourists pho­tograph­ing at the bot­tom while the stair­case was (sur­pris­ing­ly) emp­ty dur­ing my com­pos­ing added a sense of exclu­siv­i­ty which is rare to achieve in a build­ing always teem­ing with peo­ple. Spe­cial­ly as the Vat­i­can is extreme­ly con­ser­v­a­tive and pro­tec­tive about pro­vid­ing per­mits to shoot any of their assets. Par­tic­u­lar­ly their art. I do not blame them, as it is a way to pro­tect what they own and also a source of income.

    As far as the pho­to itself, it was shot with Nikon D700 with a 17–35mm lens­es. Hand­held as again, due to traf­fic, the use of tripods is for­bid­den. This shot was tak­en min­utes after they opened their doors to the pub­lic.

  • Mad Man With A Camera: ‘Tis Rainin’ Drops

    Some­times, a shot, an idea comes to you just like that. Some­thing occurs in front of your lens­es, sim­ply scream­ing to be cap­tured. Will it come out right? Will it blow your mind once you see it on print? Many times, you already know even before you press the shut­ter.

    How­ev­er there are always sub­tle moments hap­pen­ing all around us. Mut­ed and sim­ple. Not fast nor intense. Not high-speed nor self-indul­gent. They are just there. Like these sim­ple drops falling on a ran­dom car’s wind­shield dur­ing a heavy rain. They are just there, Rain­in’

  • Mad Man With A Camera: Whirlpool!

    Whirpool! by The Torontonian
    Whirpool! a pho­to by Mauri­cio Alas.

    A few weeks ago, I decid­ed to try some­thing new. To begin a Pho­tog­ra­phy Col­lec­tion where I try to exper­i­ment both cre­ative­ly out­side of the scope of the cam­era, while at the same cap­tur­ing that same ‘Eure­ka’ moment through my lens­es. Thus expand­ing, explor­ing and dare I say it, hit­ting two dif­fer­ent venues with one prover­bial stone. So with­out fur­ther ado, my first pho­to of this col­lec­tion: Whirpool!