The Shoeless

So, yesterday was the rumored announcement day for the Nikon D800. I was all excited, I was working at squaring away the money needed to purchase this camera and finally make the switch to a full-frame camera. Something that I have been looking forward to for quite sometime. Which leads to my slight disappointment when it wasn’t announced rumored because of the floods in Thailand. With that said, I would like to say how much that sucks for Thailand and I feel for them. I wish them a speedy recovery from this disaster. It has been a little weird with the recent natural disasters. They seem to be a little more plentiful lately or maybe I’m just closer to them so it feels like there is more of them. I don’t really know.

With all that said, I need to figure out what I’m going to do.  I’m really itching to buy a full-frame camera and I kind of want to wait to see really what the D800 has to offer, so we’ll see. Apart from that maybe a new lens is in my near future, maybe that 24mm f/1.4 is in my future. I wonder if that will be a good purchase though. Part of me says YES, it’s a 1.4 who wouldn’t like that, plus on my D300 it’ll be a 36 which would be nice and when I get my full frame it’ll be 24 which that will be nice as well.But then part of me wonders if I should get a zoom lens that will be more versatile in my travels. But I have a 50 and a 85. after the 24 the purchase will probably be a 70-200… can’t wait for that one Hm….we’ll see.

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

So I’ve been gone for over 2 weeks and it’s like AH! But not all has been a waiste. I’ve been in DC for a week. And then there was getting back and starting summer school. On a bright side one thing I’ve found out since I last posted.  I have officially been accepted to my study abroad program, so I’ll be going to Beppu, Japan next March. So exited!!!
So this post will be of my pictures from DC. Below is a picture from the Reflection wall at the Vietnam Memorial.

While in DC I visited such places as the Smithsonian Museums, the Zoo, Washington Monument, Mount Vernon, Arlington Cemetery, Lincoln Memorial,  WWII Memorial, and many more places!

Next post should be of some photos for the Technician that I’ve shot and my shoot I had with my friend this past friday, that will probably happen in the next few days.

So, I was going through my photos in Lightroom today, and I noticed that I did 4 photo shoots with the last 30 days. 3 of them were in the last week. I decided I might as well show my favorites from all of them as now that summer is coming around I’ve been able to start heading outside to take pictures.

The first of the 4 shoots, was a favor for a friend. She made/designed the Latin Dance groups dresses (she got a friend to help her make some of them).  So I took a pictures basically for her profile.

NCSU Dance Team Members

After that, I did another favor for a friend, this time it was taking a picture of her writing on another girls back. It turned out really cool. The model that she got I met that day and due to traffic my friend didn’t get there until after the other model got there. So the model and I took some pictures until my friend go there. This next picture is one that I took during that time.

Model posing with my bowler.

This past Friday, a friend invited to me to go take pictures with her. We decided to go to the Arboretum. We walked around and ended up in one of the green houses. She let me borrow her macro lens. I was happy I was able to get some some water droplet photos.

Plants in the greenhouse after being watered.

My friend, Rebecca, with whom I went to the greenhouses.

Forth and file photo shoot was a fun. I made a new friend, Michelle, she put on her Yukata and Obi and we went to Pullen Park. We found this really cool bamboo section that we cused to great some nice Japanese style scenary to fit with the apparel. Oddly enough when we were leaving the area we ran into a worker at Pullen. Really nice guy, he apparently used to go hang out over by the Design school so we had a nice chat about that and finding peace in Raleigh. In the end I was glad we had a talk with him, because it just goes to show you never know what kind of conversation you can have with strangers.

Michelle playing with the water while wearing her yukata and obi.

That’s all the new pictures for now. I’ll probably upload some of my renders that I”m finishing up tonight and in the morning. I will also be going to the Carolina Hurricane game on Wednesday night to shoot for the Independent, so I’ll probably post a picture from that.

So I’ve been slightly delayed on my post but boy has a lot happened. I’ve been busy on all of my Design projects and the whole not getting sleep. I’m hoping to post my design projects in my next post.  Lets start with the bird.

My friend rescued a bird from a women who protected the fallen bird from a cat. She put it up on Craiglist and so my friend drove 30 mins out of her way to rescue it. She was doing her physics work when people got annoyed hearing the bird chirp in the box, so she called me up and ask me to babysit the little creature. I asked my friend Sam help me set up lights to photograph him. I didn’t want to use  a flash mainly because I didn’t want to harm his eye at all, I did some reading before about how flashes of light could cause the bird to go blind for 30 mins or so. This is mainly at night but I just wasn’t in the mood to take a chance.

Bird in a Box

On that Thursday (same as the pictures from the fashion show below) I went to the ACC Tennis Tournament that was held at Cary Tennis Center. It was actually a very nice place. My main reason for posting this picture is that it amuses me like most reasons why I post sports pictures. Our women’s team lost on the first day. Men’s lost during the second.

Jaime Purglar at the ACC Tennis Tournament

While I was there, my friend Jonathan was trying to take a picture of the flowers that were at the Center, so since his camera died he was trying to use mine. So this is basically what I took for him to try and pop some color.

Flowers at Cary Tennis Center.

So a few days after that (April 16th) the seniors of the College of Textiles had a fashion show, Threads. Being a good NCSU Photo Club Meetings Coordinator that I am, I helped get this together (somewhat) and went myself to shoot some fashion photography. Now I know fashion photography isn’t exactly my thing (mainly the fact that’s a runway) I still had some fun and got some interesting shots out of it.

Girl fixing up her dress she designed before the show.The model posing with the dress.The model posing with the dress.

model posing on the run way

different designer

Please look at the really nice yellow/gold dress.

Was looking at Photoshop as a way of accenting colors and detail of the dresses.

So last weekend was simply one of the most busiest weekends I’ve had in awhile. It started with portraits of my friend in Pullen park then  a Step Show and First Friday on Friday to a Pillow Fight, Gymnastics Competition, and Grains of Time (N.C. State’s all-male a cappella group) performance. and what wraps us up to today is I scanned black and white film.

Portrait: I was talking to my friend, Susannah, and it was just So nice outside that we decided to go to Pullen Park for me to take portraits of her.  I took pictures down on the grass and by the Train tracks.

Train tracks lead towards Downtown Raleigh

Step Show: The National Pan-Hellenic Council Step Show was Friday night, it was a competition for Fraternities and Sororities at State and around North Carolina. The winning Fraternity was Alpha Phi Alpha and they won $1000. (Not going to lie, was a little jealous). The picture is linked to an audio sideshow that I made for the Technician.

Alpha Phi Alpha member doing a step show themed to Dark Knight.

First Friday: So my friend, Michele, and I went to Downtown Raleigh for First Friday. After going to the Fish Market we were walking around. I was trying to find a certain look for a Brick wall with a particular lighting direction. It is to replace the photoshopped brick wall of the Harvey Quinn that was in a few posts ago. Well I was having fun taking pictures of Michele after I took pictures of the wall.

Michele on Wilmington St. in downtown Raleigh.

Pillow Fight: It was World Pillow Fight Day on Saturday, April 4,2009. A group of people got together in Moore Square for their own pillow fight. It was advertised on such places as Facebook and Couchsurfers.com. I would say about a good 60 people came out, ranging from 5 year olds to maybe late 40s. During the fight,  a girl dressed as Spiderman came out and started joining the brawl.  I didn’t get her name so I couldn’t use it for the Tech, but it definitely helps you get a feel for the atmosphere.

Spiderman(women) getting hit and about to hit people at Moore Square.

Gymnastics:  The NCAA Regional Tournament was held in Reynolds Coliseum. Our girls didn’t do too great, mainly because of the balance beam. We placed 6th; however, junior, Taylor Seaman, did well enough to go onto Nationals in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Taylor Seaman during her floor routine.

Grains of Time: It was the 40th anniversary for the existence of Grains of Time. They had a special concert to commemorate them. During the show my sister’s friend, Jessica, was called up on stage to be sung to.

Jessica being sung to by Grains of Time

Film Scanning: So ask I’ve said in previous post I’ve started to scan film. Last time I was doing my color roll. This time I started scanning my black and white film. I would have most of the first roll scanned but the program crashed on me before I got to save them. But here is one of my favorites that did get scanned. I don’t remember which film this was, sorry.

Christin sitting at the computer.

So as one can see, very busy. But quite pleased with what I’ve accomplished. This week is also special because I have finally gotten a twitter account. Name is Kutsuphoto , much surprise there I’m sure. Also, look to some interesting photo shoot coming up. I have been making plans with a few people and I’m Quite! exited.

So last week or so, people of N.C. State were to submit photos to a contest sponsored by IRC (InterResidence Council) and today the results were announced.
I’m proud to say that of the 7 categories, I placed 1st in 2. Then placed in 2 or 3rd in 4 categories.  I didn’t place at all in 3 categories. I’ll let you do that math
That being said, I won $50, WOOT! not a big money maker but it’s a start and definitely an ego boost. Between today and tomorrow, I’m also going to post my latest design project.

Enjoy:

So this is going to be an in between mainly because I feel like some things have happen in the past few days that is posting worthy.
First thing:
I got a bag FULL! (so like somewhere around like 40 rolls of film) of free film. My adviser at the paper had some film that he didn’t want anymore that has most likely expired. I have already shot 3 rolls so far. Hopefully going to develop them tomorrow, and will hoping have some interesting effect of them. Yay for free film.
2nd thing: Last weekend I was in Greensboro, NC for a orientation because this time next I should hopefully be in Japan. I got passed all but the last leg of the decision process. I’m really hoping they accept me. Things that will come with me going to Japan is an almost daily posting. I will have my digital cameras, film, and hopefully a film medium format camera with me. For anyone who is interested, I am going to Beppu, Oita, Japan. Oita is the prefecture that Beppu is in. I will be there from March until August studying web design.

3rd and most hilarious thing this week. Yesterday, Tuesday, March 24th, I went to the Courtyard Marriott to take pictures of the Playboy auditions. I met the playboy photographer, Kim Mizuno, who is actually a freelance photographer but does do a lot of work with Playboy. Talk to him while I was waiting for girls to come up. The reason why I was taken coverage for is because in the October issue, there will Girls of ACC and N.C. State was one of the places they were going to. Mizuno let me come in at the end to take some pictures of him taking pictures of this girl, he also let me try out his strobes, which were awesome.