Younes Bounhar Photography

The best camera…

…is the one you have with you.

Needless to say that no matter how great your vision is, not having a camera with you will not help you get any pictures. It is simply a practical reality for me that I can’t have my SLR with me every day when I head to work. For the longest time, I just pestered at the missed opportunities, blamed this and that, and the other for my inability to take pictures. Yet, nothing said that a picture MUST be taken with an SLR. So what was stopping me? OK, you can’t really answer this question (it’s not that you can’t, but I just won’t let you, cuz I know what you will say, especially you Justin, yes I mean you, you know who you are …anyway, I digress).

Enters the iPhone. Other than the fact that it’s just a great piece of technology, the main reason I got my iPhone was specifically to be able to take pictures at will, whenever I feel like it.

The advantages are two-fold: 1) obviously, you have a camera on you at all times, that’s a big plus; 2) contrary to an SLR, you have almost zero control: no lens changes, no aperture or shutter speed setting, zero, nada, zilch. The result is in fact quite counter-intuitive: by restricting your possibilities, you in fact free your mind of its constraints. You have a set of parameters to work with, it’s now up to you to do something with them. From a creative perspective, I must say it is liberating. Instead of going for a different lens to produce the look you always produce, now you have to come up with a different way to view the same subject.

Now each week from now on, I will try (time allowing) to post an image I took with my iPhone.

Posted on February 9th, 2010 in Creativity iPhone | 8 Comments »

Follow the curve

Sometimes, you just never know where you will find your next subject or when inspiration will hit you and start your neurons firing all over the place. As I was heading to board my plane to Brussels a few weeks ago, I came across this odd sculpture at Toronto’s Pearson airport, when my head said “Jackpot”. This thing has photo opp written all over it and I couldn’t help but take a few snaps in the very limited time I had with it. Before you knew it, I had my Nikon 14-24 on my D700 and I was happy shooting. Here I was particularly drawn to the strong curves and the color contrast between the various structures and the twilight sky showing behind the glass.

Moral of the story: always have a camera ready to go. No, it doesn’t have to be your super duper top of the line D75000XPFS, but any camera is DEFINITELY better than any camera. In my next post, I will be displaying a shot or two taken with my iPhone just to demonstrate this point.

Posted on February 8th, 2010 in Creativity Images | 2 Comments »

When the human mind just blows you away

Today’s post is a bit out in left field, but I came across something I simply just had to share. I am still giddy at how creative and beautiful this actually is. Definitely the sort of stuff that just keeps you wanting to get better and try harder. Just watch this video (and listen to the music, it’s pretty nice too)…

Posted on October 25th, 2009 in Creativity | 2 Comments »

The benefits of stability

“Do you use a tripod?”, he asks.

“My camera is permanently stuck on my tripod” is my usual answer…then again, may be I shouldn’t be so categorical all the time. I just can’t help it, too lazy to deal with nuances…

It turns out that it’s not always the best option. In this case, the rain and cool weather has brought an ever so slight mist on the valley. The quality of light had a little je ne sais quoi that I wouldn’t be able to explain. Yet, the trees in front of me weren’t exactly of the exotic variety. Instead of going for the straight shot, I opted for a little game I like to play from time to time: vertical panning.

All you have to do is set your camera for a slow shutter speed (1.6 s in this case). To achieve this, I lowered my Iso to 100, set the aperture to an ungodly f/36 and put a polariser on the lens. The low shutter speed gave me enough time to pan the camera up and down during the exposure to blur details. The amount of time you need will depend on the effect you are trying to achieve, your subject and the focal length you use. As I often say, it’s up to you to experiment and have fun. The idea here is not to be bound by any rule, but rather just go out there and try whatever your heart might fancy (well don’t go too crazy there, but ya know what I mean).

Off for some celebrations now, burying my 30th year tonight .

Posted on August 24th, 2009 in Creativity Photography Tips | 4 Comments »

One subject, One lens, One focal length, so many possibilities

I am not going to make much of  a speech today, I will let the photographs do the talking instead. The bottom line is that there is many ways to look at one subject. All these photos were taken with the same subject at the same focal length using the same settings. These images are, you will have guessed it, taken in the Adirondack Mountain Reservel’s West River Trail on my way to Lower Ausable Lake.

On a separate note, come back next week for an interview with a very special photographer. Some amazing images coming your way. Stay tuned.

Posted on August 6th, 2009 in Creativity Images | 4 Comments »

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