The Shoeless

So I just started classes yesterday, Monday 12, not too bad. Japanese is pretty fun. However I’m not here to talk about classes, I’m here to talk about what I see.

Last week I went hiking for 3 hours, it was suppose to be a 1 hour hike..oh well. That’s what happens when you don’t read directions right.

We started getting lost in this neighborhood where someone redirected us to go through this graveyard…

Japanese graveyard

After then, this nice grounds keeper got us back on the right track… at least what we thought was our right track. We started trekking up this trail alongside a road.

Walking up the side of a mountain

Now we never did reach our actual destination, which was a wild onsen next to a river. We did find a wild onsen though that was smaller but enjoyable just the same.

Esther and Victoria sticking their feet in the onsen

Apart from that we had a nice view from where we were sitting…

View from the onsen

I still plan on going back to find the bigger nicer onsen though!

So, I’m in Japan and well it’s awesome. I love Japan, this is the view out of my dorm room window

View from my room!

I’ve been here for just about a week now, and I’ve already been to a karaoke bar which was hilarious, draining, and awesome all at the same time. I’ve gone and seen the Jigoku onsen, which are the hell hot springs that are so hot that if you were step in them you would die. I also went to an actual onsen that you get in and just soak in for about half an hour.

海地獄ー Sea Hell: 1 of the Hell onsen in Jigoku

and Because I realized instead of making these long I should make the short and more frequent I’ll will end this post with a few from the plane!

View over Russia

So, a friend of mine, Jonathan, recommended that I started doing Photoshop a week for next little bit. Basically until I leave for Japan. decision…..why not?!

So every Friday for the next 12 weeks or so I’ll be having photoshop week where I’ll work on a photoshop piece during the week and show off the creation at the end of the week.  Some weeks might be kind of pathetic or week and other weeks might be amazing (I hope). But none the less I’m going to do it!

How I think I’m going to do this is I’ll show three pictures, original/Base Photo, a middle photo, and a final picture.

From my last post I showed a portrait I took of Christian, well from the same shoot I created this week’s creation!

Original photo of Christian

About mid way but close to the end

Final version of Christian and fairy

So this was week 1 kind of a last minute decision but let the photoshopping begin!

So this is going to be a 2 part post but I figured I would at least break-up a little bit.

If anyone knows me they know that I take a lot of portraits. They are actually my main form of photography. Now the other day I was reading about how boring and popular portraiture. From doing different kinds of web surfing I noticed that he was completely right, everyone’s portraits look the exact same.  It made me kind of said but it got me thinking on ways that I can get better. If you would like to read the article please take the 5 mins out of your day to… The Portaitist

On that note though, I took some portraits recently that I feel the need to show. No they aren’t amazing but they are getting better… I have room to grow and I know this so I am excited.

So my middle sister recently got married, a week ago, and for her wedding she had me take bridal portraits of her in her wedding dress. I took her to N.C. State’s Arboretum and the rose garden at Raleigh Little Theater. I haven’t been able to show any of these portraits because of the possibility of the groom seeing them.  I printed a nice 16″x20″ for her/the wedding which is where it was shown for the first time.

My sister in her dress at the rose garden

Smelling roses before they died for the winter.

As I have talked about in previous post, I have started (not yet finished) a 7 deadly sins theme. To take a new picture for one of the sins, I did a shoot with one of my friends. Once we finished, we just kind of fooled around taking a variety of different shots. The followed shot is a product of us just messing around.

Kathleen being light by a stray incandescent light

The following meet I met up with a new friend to just kind of mess around and shoot. I was still getting use to my new 35mm f/1.8 lens so I used it to pull off different feels. While I was in Washington D.C. in the portrait gallery at the Smithsonian, I saw a variety of head shots with this low depth of field, grungy feel. I kind of liked it so this one of Christian kind of mimics that sort of photography.

Christian studio shot

With Christmas in between now and my post, I took some pictures of my family.  I took some fun ones of my sister on Christmas eve.

Cheryl having fun on Christmas eve

For Christmas I got a set of pocket wizards and my friend from Maine came down to NC and I got a chance to visit with her. We went over to Duke Gardens and I got a chance to try out my new toy. After some frustration (from wind and the pocket wizards) I got everything set up. While I on one of the bridges I got to take the following photo.

Nyssa at Duke Gardens

I feel like my portraits aren’t great but I’ll soon get to where I want to be. Look for my next post on sporting and other events I’ve shot in the past 2 months.

I bought a new lens last Friday.  I really wasn’t sure about. but I eventually gave in.

I got the Nikon 35mm f/1.8 DX lens.

Courtesy of Nikon USA

Beautiful lens, quiet, small.  The only thing that still bothers me is the fact that it’s a DX lens, I would of much rathered gotten a non-DX lens mainly because I know that I will get a Full Frame camera within the next 3 years, and I would prefer to have all my gear be compatible. However, in thinking this, I Love my 28mm f/2.8 but it just hasn’t been as sharp as I would of liked and the larger depth of field was bothering me.  You might think well it’s a f/2.8 that’s still pretty low. Well, my 2 other lenses are 1.8 and I shot with a 28mm f/1.8 (on my friend’s 5D) and I couldn’t get over how the depth of field works.

All this being said. I keep it on my camera now as my default lens. It does beautiful work and I’m glad that I spent $200. That is right it’s only $200 and it’s well worth it!

Just tonight I was walking to go do some work in the library, when I ran into this kid sitting on a stone playing a guitar under a light post.

Rudy playing guitar outside his building.

So The first few pictures you’ll think my theme is silhouettes but it’s not. I just have been trying to get better and show more emotion attached to them. They are fun though.

The first one is kind of special to me, because I got to go shoot the U2 360 Tour for N.C. State’s paper, The Technician. So that was pretty awesome!!

Bono on a Bridge

I went with one of my friends to get her tattoo, so naturally I took pictures. The point is I was able to borrow my friends 5D. Shooting on full frame open to my eyes to a new side of digital photography, that I have been naive for so long.

Marisa getting her tattoo with her twin sister sitting close to her.

To view more images from that please click on the image or go here: http://kutsuphoto.com/tattoophotos/

To get back into my idea of silhouettes, the newt image is one of my friend Marisa under a beautiful afternoon sky.

The next to be grouped with the silhouettes is my friend smoking from a hookah followed by a nice long exposure of the hookah.

Brent smoking hookah

Long exposure of the hookah

Every year, N.C. State has an event to raise money for Habitat for Humanity, known as Shack-a-thon. Groups of people build small shacks to live in for the week while raising money each day. Students have to also sleep in the shack as well.

Girl studying in her shack at night.

After having a model show up, I got one of my friends, Ryann, to come the Rose Garden at Raleigh Little Theater to take portraits of her. Chris and took turns managing the flash and taking pictures, while Brent used the reflector.

Ryann in the pond.

Brent with the reflector and Chris with the flash.

So a few of my friends discovered some face paint that was left over at my place. They started painting their faces. One of them took on marks that you would think she would belong in an Amazon tribe.

Marisa with her face painted.

We had an article about a pie baking contest at the State fair, due to judging rules we couldn’t get a picture of the pie.  So, a fellow photographer got a pie to photograph for the story with the previous friend, Marisa, to pose with it.  We later consumed that sweet sweet pumpkin pie.

Marisa looking classy with the pie.

Ryann eating the pie.

Just for fun times, Ryann decided she was going to use her hands to make decorations on a freshly baked cake.  To me this was the best plan that could possible happen.

Ryann with frosting.

Bought a new lens this past weekend, look for a post soon on that.

So, I fail. It’s ok but I’m sorry. I was actually going to keep it up but then I just busy again. On that note, I’ve been busy every since but I’m going to try to find FANTASTIC times like these and actually update my blog. Mainly because so much has gone on between now and the last time picture wise, I don’t know if the blog can really support how much I have to show. Ok that is kind of a lie but none the less I do have a lot to show. I decided to keep a few things for next blog post though.  Without further a do, what has been doing on!

A sail boat on Lake Johnson one afternoon.

Brent while we are on the paddle boats on Lake Johnson

A girl kayaking on Lake Johnson.

So I took a few photographers to Lake Johnson to take some pictures. We walked around half of the lake first and then went into the paddle boats and went around and got some shots. It was a fun afternoon. out.

Christian sitting on the life guard stand at a local pool while it rains.

The Agromeck did a spread about lifeguards from N.C. State who were working in the area. I went to a local pool in Cary and got pictures of Christian being a life guard as part of the spread.

Kate holding the flag on hole 16 at Loonie Poole, N.C. State's new golf course.

Bryant hitting hole 18 during the Press game at Loonie Poole

My sister's dog Cronus, named after Zeus's father, while I visited her in August.

I visited my sister at the beginning of August while I was on break and I got to meet her cute little puppy, Cronus.  I wish I could remember what breed he was.

HDR of Lassiter Falls off Lassiter Rd in Raleigh.

Slow exposer of Lassiter falls.

While I was driving after trying to take some pictures, I stopped by these falls located just off of Lassiter Mill road. I was frustrated so these shots and the place and general really calmed down. A place to check out if you’ve never been.

Meredith and Kate posing for a photo to explain focal length

For a photo training I did few weeks ago, I took a series of shot to show focal length and what it does to a photo. That photo was taken with a 400mm. I took another few with a 300mm, 200mm, 85mm, 50mm and 28mm. They and I both stayed in the same place through each shot.

Alex Smith diving for the ball during a match against Rutgers.

Junior setter Alex Smith during her game against Rutgers for the Crabtree Valley Marriott Classic. N.C. State lost 2-3.

Meredith spray painting outside of the Free Expression tunnel.

The Society for Collegiate Journalist spray painted the outside of the Free Expression tunnel last wednesday night for Constitution Day on Thursday, Sept. 17.  We spray painted an American flag with words like constitution day, SCJ, 9/17/09, and We the people to make up the stripes.  and SCJ made up the stars.

Nettie in the Photo studio during one of her designing nights.

A portrait of Nettie in Technician’s photo studio. Nothing really special about it, but a fun interesting shot none-the-less.

Danny taking a picture of film with a macro 50 mm f/1.4 .

So one of the photographers I work with, Danny, took a Minolta 50mm f/1.4, shaved on the back and put a cap on the back that would fit with a Canon body.  The focusing distance is about 2″ or less.

So that’ s pretty much it for right now. I know that that is 14 pictures but I figure that iwll make up for a little bit…maybe :/ Be back soon!

o today ends my month hiatus. Why might I be on a hiatus, I do not know but it HAS ended. On a reality note, I have been consumed by Webassigns (if you do not know what they are, be happy) and Photos. Not in the sense of taking new photos but working as the Photo editor to manage the photos taken.
But onto the reason why I have this blog, these photos are going to range from 4th of July up until this water slide that was at my school yesterday. There is also an update picture from my previous post from the Train tracks.
I’ll start with the update. So, last time I showed off my HDR image of the train tracks.

HDR of train tracks

I went back and redid the HDR and tone mapping, to see if I could get it better watching this interesting post from Matt Kloskowski from NAPP. I also took the time to actually do some important photoshop editiing.

I fee there is at least a more pleasing difference between the too.
I’ll continue on with my editing endeavors. I was making a background for a photo of mine, and realized the background that made was awesome but didn’t work with the photo. So I did some searching and found a photo that would work. And then there was happiness.

At the end of June I found out that this camp on my campus was dropping 50 lbs of silly putty from the top of our 11 story library. Can we say Happy Day. I grabbed my camera and was out there. As it turns out. When that much weight, when it reaches it’s terminal velocity, it’s elasticity can not stand up to the force and it explodes!

Silly Putty expoding!

For the 4th of July, my friend and I ended up getting some fireworks and lit them in the back of her apartment complex. Taking pictures of each other and the fireworks all the while. The appending 4 of photos from our joyful explosions.

Fireworks sparker

Fireworks from bigger container, the finale of our fun.

Michele through the Fireworks.

More Fireworks exploding

Michele looking at her camera.

Just last week I was asked to take a picture of the Women’s rugby team, and after standing in the hot in pants for an hour I was able to go home with this.

Girl breaks away from being tagged at Rugby Practice

Last but not least, on Wednesday the University Activities Board summer programs division got a waterslide to have in a field outside of where the paper is produced. So my friend and I set up a remote flash (because it was at 9 at night) to try and get pictures of people enjoying their slide down. This one guy was able to pop himself up on his feet once he hit the flat part and so the picture of him is right before he hit the back barrier which was right where I was sitting.

Boy standing up while going down a water slide.

So the cool part from this event was the owner of the float got up with me and asked if I would shoot pictures for him.  This Tuesday I’ll be shooting pictures for his website. Once they are posted I will link it on here.

I’m hoping to try and not wait a month from my next post, but I can’t make any real promises.

I want to first say, I officially have a new website! Kutsuphoto is up and working. It has my gallery of images and soon to be my design portfolio as well. My friend Ian decided to design/code it. Check it out, tell me what ya think.

So, I feel a little sad because I wish I was updating more regularly but I guess since it’s the summer, I get tied up doing other things – not photography. On a brighter side, I ended going on a MUCH needed photo adventure with 2 of my friends, we basically ended up just trying around Raleigh. We went over to the train tracks off Boylan, by where the infamous “youliveandyouburn” artist put an angry face on the water tower.Sadly enough Raleigh police arrested the NCSU student this past week and is charging him for Larceny. He wasn’t as secret as Banksy I guess. I Just don’t understand how people can be prosecuted sometimes for such fabulous. (*Thinks back to Medival times*)-Yeah..uh..nevermind, we haven’t changed.
Anyways, point of this post..
So we went to the train tracks,
Downtown Raleigh
And a lake over off of Penny Road.

Apart from that, I would also like to say that it really sucks to be a photographer really entering into the “world of photography” right now. I’m not exactly entering, but I’m still trying to make how versatile my gear collection grow. So I use a D300, and over course Nikon upped all of their price on lenses this year. DARN YOU RECESSION. I’m kind of hoping when I go to Japan, I might be able to find some cheaper gear *crosses fingers*. I know some people who are thinking about updating their camera bodies soon, i.e. my fellow photographer Jonathan; or people who are thinking about starting to buy a camera, i.e. my friend Sam. I just wish things would get better sooner than later.

Anyways, I’m going to try to be more regular, but until then enjoy the summer.

So I have been taking pictures for the past 4.5 years, but I have never created a visual portfolio of my work. So to remedy that fact, I have put 164 photos that I have taken in the past 2.5 years into a gallery. There is a flash and html version. What I need any and all people viewing this post, I need you to email me ( Luis@kutsuphoto.com) or leave me a comment on this post which which ones are you favorite. Just give me the file name or number ( xx/164) that you like are worthy of existing in my portfolio. For people who know me on Twitter, facebook, etc. please feel free to leave comments on there.
This is extremely important for me to put together. Once I have gotten enough feedback I will post the gallery up here to show what were the favorites.

While doing looking through the pictures, things to consider: I’m a photojournalist and studio photographer.  So, look for good nature, news, studio, and feature type photos. I need something to display what I’m worth.

I’m appreciate any and all feedback in advance.

For the Flash Version!
For the HTML Version!

To end this post, I took some portraits of my friend, Eilene, recently so here is one of my favorites.

Until next time