Younes Bounhar Photography

Attitude goes a long way

During my early morning round on twitter today, I stumbled on a tweep that said something along the lines of Thank God it’s Friday. My heart jumped in excitement and joy (I don’t hate my job, but I really like my week-ends). Then came utter disappointment, well, it’s only Thursday.

Fast forward to an hour later, I decided to reply to the tweep in question. Initially, I was thinking of saying something like “why the heck did you do that to me, not cool”. Then thinking about it, my final answer was: “For an instant you made believe it was Friday. Short-lived, but intense joy Thanks”. You see, it just got me thinking, on how often we choose to get down on ourselves, choose to see the glass half-empty instead of half-full.

The same happens to me at times when I go out shooting. You are chasing your next amazing shot, you are looking forward to that great display of light. You wait an hour, two, a day, the light just never makes it to your spot. You are disappointed, you mutter, you pack your gear, you leave, disgruntled. When that happens, you just have to remember why are doing this in the first place. Take note of your surroundings. Remind yourself of the beauty of the nature surrounding you. Sure, the sunset may not be the epic one you were praying for, but gee…do you have to take those mountains for granted too?

Just remember that whatever situation you are confronted with you can either cry and whine about it, or try and take the positive and run with it, it’s YOUR call. If all else fails, I often turn to Bobby McFerrin’s words of wisdom: Don’t worry, be happy.

Posted on April 30th, 2009 in Random thoughts rant | No Comments »

Tools of the trade

“Gotta have a big camera, eh?” (yeah, I live in Canada) That’s a question I often hear when people look at my photographs. My standard answer (after several rounds of tongue biting) is somewhere along the lines of “Yeah, it’s HUGE”.

The thing is that the camera is, well, just a thing. It’s true that having a good SLR and a good set of lenses gives you options and more freedom for exploration (unfortunately I am still waiting for the hot models to come flocking my way…I guess that’s what dreams are for). The fact is, though, that the picture-making process is about vision, creativity and conscious decision-making. Pressing the shutter release is just the culmination of the process. This doesn’t mean that I never go snap-happy like Rambo in a shooting gallery, but in general, there is some work involved behind every shot.

Beyond the preparation aspect that I discussed last week on Darwin Wiggett’s blog, every shot involves a set of conscious decisions:

- what is your subject matter?

- which part of the subject matter do you want to reflect, emphasize or present?

- what focal length would better achieve that result?

- how do you frame your subject matter in a story-telling composition?

- how much depth-of-field will be needed to convey your story?

When you have answered all these questions, you can now turn to your camera to record the moment. Your camera comes in handy to measure the amount of light on your subject in order to calculate the required exposure. But even then, it only measures what it perceives as proper exposure. Your sensor/film will take in as much light at f/8 for 1s as it does at f/2.8 for 1/125s, yet the resulting image can be completely different. Similarly, your camera’s meter exposes for midtones (18% gray to be more precise), but is that the proper exposure from an artistic point of view. You may want to underexpose your subject to add more mistery, or to make it stand out from other parts of the image. Overexposing your subject (ah the dreaded blinking highlights), can also be desirable at times. Again, your camera may give you pointers and tools to make your images, but unless you take over and make conscious decisions on what you want in your images, no camera will ever make great images for you (well until the invent the D5billion with the “nocrapimage” button, that is).

Posted on April 29th, 2009 in Gear rant | 7 Comments »

Balancing Act

After a week of non-technical posts, I am going to spend most of this week discussing, well, mostly technical aspects of photography (sorry Jenn, you know I just can’t resist it). Did you really expect anything different? I mean come on, I am a scientist, hardcore geek, a nerd. And for the record, I fully embrace my nerditude, so your efforts to deride it will be vain, ha! I also expect that someday geeks will rule the world, but I digress…

One of the most overlooked parameter in digital photography has to be White Balance (I mean with a name like that are you really surprised!). Most people simply set their camera to Auto WB and just leave it at that. In fact one of the main reasons I shoot in RAW is to have the flexibility to modify the WB in post-processing. Granted RAW gives you other things as well, but WB flexibility is high up on my list. Most of you already know this  (I actually found out there are people who read this blog, so I don’t have to pretend anymore, really pumped!), so I won’t dwell on this. Instead, I would like to focus on a little trick that makes WB even more invaluable.

Read More…

Posted on April 28th, 2009 in Photography Tips Post-processing techniques | 7 Comments »

Power Showdown

When I made the image above, I was far from guessing what was transpiring only a few kilometers away, closer to my home, real close. It certainly was an unusually hot and beautiful day, but even as the forecast called for thunderstorms, nothing prepared us for what was about to happen. So here I am snapping pictures away as the storm front is approaching, hoping to catch a few lightning strikes…on my memory card, that is. I narrowly missed getting completely soaked as the rain front sprinted across the valley in front of me.

So far so good, I leisurly drive back home, enjoying the thunderstorm cracking its whip in the sky above. As I get closer to home, the scene suddenly looks oddly chaotic. The world around is strangely abuzz, traffic lights are off, there are police and fire trucks all around the places, a few fallen trees here and there. Odd, but nothing alarming. I finally make it home, only to see that the big fir tree in the center of my backyard, well, is no longer in the center but rather comfortably lying on my garage. Ain’t it lovely. A quick visit to the nearby park (and I mean 300m nearby), made it all fall into place: a tornado (yes a TORNADO! In ONTARIO! What the heck were they thinking!) had just ravaged its way across the neighbourhood, uprooting and breaking dozens of trees in its passage. Thankfully (and amazingly), there were no casualties. As a collateral, I ended up having no power for over 24h, which just shows you how dependent we have become of this electricity thing, it sure felt like a looooong 24h!

The Texans, Floridians and Cubans among you are probably muttering in their corner on how their kids eat these tornados for breakfast. And sure, it wasn’t Hurricane Katrina. That said, it hitting so close to home, and being so devastating can only give you a glimpse of how powerful and awesome Mother Nature can be. Just a “gentle” reminder that no matter how advanced and cocky we come to be, it still owns us and can inflict much pain if it “chose to”. I truly find it fascinating how giving and an unforgiving it can be all at once, how it deserves all our awe and respect.

Update: fellow photographer Neville Uitdenbosch, generously provided a link to his pictures taken very close to the “eye of the storm”. You can check them here and here.

Posted on April 27th, 2009 in News | 1 Comment »

The non-glamorous side of Photography

They say, better late than never! So here is today’s post, a short one to end the week as you’ve probably had enough of my ramblings so far (I am just pretending that someone actually reads this stuff, see how this parenthesis is just getting longer and longer, I am just drifting to see if anyone is following, so if you have read this far, thank you and please accept my apologies…).

I know there are many of you out there who think about doing photography professionally (as in full-time). Yes it sounds great to get paid to take/make pictures, but it ain’t all glamour, sex and rock-and-roll (well if you are into landscape and nature photography, there is none of that to start with, that’ll teach for chosing a subject that offers none of that). Anyhow, behind the art of photography, there is a huge business component. While some people do enjoy that side, I am certain that many photography enthusiasts don’t have that in mind when thinking of professional photography.

For all of you who really think that this is your calling, please make sure you take a look at Richard Wong’s blog “The field Report” at http://fieldreport.wordpress.com/. It is an endless mine of information and resources that will help give you a better assessment of what you need to make it in this profession.

Now if I haven’t discouraged you, I wish to send you to another link, a  post by Canadian photographer David DuChemin on “how he got to the why”, why it’s all worthwhile after all.

Posted on April 24th, 2009 in Marketing/Business | 5 Comments »

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