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Fun With Sony Cameras

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Michiel Schierbeek

Well-known member
Re: Fun with the Sony A7 Series Cameras( all of them)

Mmm that is a difficult question.. I'm not sure that I can answer, but may be some contextual information may help you understand what I'm after.

1) I'm selftaught in matters of photography. I have no special visual education apart of the fact that I shared the life of an architect for a few years. I have a scientific background having studied history/geography and specialized in urban studies and quantitative methods.

2) So I can tell you why the subject interest me : while I'm now retired, I have kept a strong interest in everything concerning urbanism, planning and architecture. I want to show the urban landscape and everyday's environment. I'm interested by space in general and how the human beings occupy and mark the territory. Those spaces are interesting to my eyes because this the frame/environment where people live. That is : I want to show unremarkable places because ordinary people live there. Well once you begin to ram a neighborhood, it is no more true that the buildings are unremarkable. You can see traces of different periods of the history and each neighborhood has its own character.

3) I know that I get more likes when I show the pictures of the two castles.. But they are a little too "postcardish". Even if I do still appreciate that view and catch a picture each time the light or weather is a little special.

4) Getting a good and successful picture of those everyday environments which a priori are unremarkable is much more compelling and probably a little too much for my skills. But I'm trying hard..

5) that building with its flat facade and the serial repetition and variation of the position of the windows has something fascinating for me. I liked the red toboggan and the dwarfed playground. That said : may be I shouldn't have shown that picture : in fact I would have liked a slightly larger view (but I only had a the 24mm and 90mm, while the 45mm would have been better.

6) I want to show the soul of these places. I have strange tastes when it comes to buildings .. I like everything modern and contemporary which many people think are ugly. But well, I'm probably not really up to the task. I examine carefully every picture of Michiel Shierbeek because his subjects of interest are near of mines and I study how he solved problems I also have (how he is dividing space, where he cut the frame, how he balance things, etc..

7) to sum up : I should leave my window and practice more in order to get better at what I want to achieve.

Thanks for looking.
Interesting read! And thank you for your credits!
I was a bit busy but I did write something yesterday evening about your write up, but sadly getdpi often has a habit to have you sign in again especially after you wrote a long piece which is a bit of an effort for me in English.So it lets you sign in again and everything you wrote is lost in oblivion. Happened to me many times. So copy before posting.

I too am interested in the more common places, or unremarkable place asyou call them, which are not directly interesting as such but only come to live when you give them your special attention. The other tourist highlights are already very well documented by everyone else and will only generate special interest to me when you do something different with these places like for example someone like MartinParr.
I learned a lot by looking at the work from other photographers. I just ordered 3 more books from photographers tha tinterest me.

I am now working on this series on the Côte d'Opale, Côte Picarde and Côte d'Albâtre. This coastline is very interesting to me because of the variation in scenery but also the changes that took place after WWII. The fast reconstruction of coasttowns, mostly in a sort of prefab concrete and often placed sobrutally on the most beautiful locations at the seaside. I will post an illustration of this within this post although it is not a Sonypicture.

Of course I am not the only photographer who is/was fascinated by this region. Somebody drew my attention to the book of Gabriele Basilico, published in 1984 already, called - Bord de mer -,a fantastic book in black and white. What happened is that this photographer had exactly the same point of view in a number of photographs as I chose much later in color. Very interesting.
Ialso ordered - The spirit of Dunkerque - by William Eggleston and Iordered – Uncommon places – by Stephan Shore. In another tread Imentioned already this fascinating book by Martin Roemers called -Metropolis -.

But anyway all this didn't stop me from making abook of my own on this coastline. It will be called - Opale etAlbâtre - also because these coastnames illustrate the colours present so well. I did write a piece in French for it and had itchecked by a friend, I believe the last sentence is still wrongbecause I had no time because of a discount deadline. Well it is onlya first proof, so time enough to correct.
Here is a link to the book publishing side so you can have a virtual look:
https://www.fotofabriek.nl/preview/?id=C0D52E6F888FB400F22EF88A3862AE30

So like you Annna I am also interested in architecture and/or otherremains of human interventions. And you inspired me to use my MamiyaShift 50/4 lens, which I should have done much earlyer! BTW a terrific lens!




 

Michiel Schierbeek

Well-known member
Re: Fun with the Sony A7 Series Cameras( all of them)

What a drag this was again to try to post a long text! It happened again but I copyed the text before posting. Then I pasted the text again after logging in again and the text was all changed and in black.
Well it is actually impossible to make a long post. Probably has something to do with my settings. Also I can't edit the text anymore because I had to make the letters white to make them visual PFFFF....
So the letter size is to big and words are sticking together, well it is not my fault.
 
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Annna T

Active member
Re: Fun with the Sony A7 Series Cameras( all of them)

What a drag this was again to try to post a long text! It happened again but I copyed the text before posting. Then I pasted the text again after logging in again and the text was all changed and in black.
Well it is actually impossible to make a long post. Probably has something to do with my settings. Also I can't edit the text anymore because I had to make the letters white to make them visual PFFFF....
So the letter size is to big and words are sticking together, well it is not my fault.
Same experience here. I have been caught too and fight with English too. And things get even worse when you are using an iPad.

Many thanks for taking the time to write it nevertheless. I appreciate.
I have to go out now and will answer longer later.

BTW : I'm the one who pointed you to Gabriele Basilico. He is one of my favorite photographer. I first saw his pictures at an exhibition : there were B&W pictures of high apartment houses densely inhabited by workers neighborhood of Milano, Roma and Torino. They were about one meter high and made a strong impression on me. I think that I have three books of him. I saw the accountancy there was between your coastal pictures and his work for the DATAR (his work was made on command)

I have to go now.
 
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dmward

Member
Re: Fun with the Sony A7 Series Cameras( all of them)

Anna, Michael;
When I am going to make a long post to a forum, GetDPI or others, I first compose and edit it in TextEdit. (Mac) I then cut and paste the text and, if appropriate, add image links or imbed them.

This approach also let's me use the text for more than just the one post. i.e. a post on my website or another forum.

Being mono-linguistic, I'm not able to appreciate the added frustration of writing in a non-native language with the grammar and syntactic differences.

I appreciate that you both are willing to endure the frustration to share your insights with us here on GetDPI.

Best Regards,
 

Michiel Schierbeek

Well-known member
Re: Fun with the Sony A7 Series Cameras( all of them)

Thank you David for your encouragements! :) You don't have the problem that after you paste the text from your text editor into the dialoque box, it appears to be black on the grey surface after posting?
 

dmward

Member
Re: Fun with the Sony A7 Series Cameras( all of them)

Michael,
When I click the post to thread icon on the lower left of the screen it opens a box with white background for inputting text which is black. When I click the submit reply button it opens the forum thread window with gray background and white text.

I'm using Macs. It works the same way with iMAC and MacBook Pro.

This text I typed into TextEdit and then copied and pasted into the reply box.

When copies it pasted text took on the same formatting characteristics as the previous text.

Other than being on a Mac using Safari I've done nothing to configure the GetDPI interface.

Hope this helps.
 

dmward

Member
Re: Fun with the Sony A7 Series Cameras( all of them)

We were in Texas a week ago.
One stop was San Antonio. Growing up in the north I heard about the Alamo and the Texas rebellion against the Mexican government in the 1830s.

It was my first visit to San Antonio and our hotel was only a few blocks away so I went back after dinner to make an image without all the people.

Here is the result:



And HERE is the gallery page with some other pictures of the San Antonio missions.
 
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camping

Member
Re: Fun with the Sony A7 Series Cameras( all of them)

To Michiel Schierbeek,
I just looked at your book link posted above. The summary of your photographic sequence is excellent. From this series I now understand your use of the subdued North European painting tones.
An attractive montage !
Paul
 

Annna T

Active member
Re: Fun with the Sony A7 Series Cameras( all of them)

Interesting read! And thank you for your credits!
I was a bit busy but I did write something yesterday evening about your write up, but sadly getdpi often has a habit to have you sign in again especially after you wrote a long piece which is a bit of an effort for me in English.So it lets you sign in again and everything you wrote is lost in oblivion. Happened to me many times. So copy before posting.


I do that too. Problems occurs when I start a short post and it grows longer than I thought it would be.. I do also compose outside of the small edit window in another program. I also got the black characters.. But at the top of the edit window there are three lines of buttons. There is one on the first line which allows you to choose the color of your text (an A with a dropdown box containing a color palette).

I too am interested in the more common places, or unremarkable place as you call them, which are not directly interesting as such but only come to live when you give them your special attention. The other tourist highlights are already very well documented by everyone else and will only generate special interest to me when you do something different with these places like for example someone like Martin Parr.
I saw that :) I like what Martin Parr is doing very much and have got several books of him.

I learned a lot by looking at the work from other photographers. I just ordered 3 more books from photographers that interest me.
I have a lot of photo books. I used to buy 3-4 each month while I was still working. But now that I'm back in my birth place there are less bookshops offering photo books (what they have is mainly mountain and sports books or travel books). So I have slowed down. But your post pushed me to look at what I have again and clearly I should take them down more often. When I say that I have no visual education it is not that I have no idea of the history of photography or of the work of actual photographers, but rather that I have never had practical visual training, like students get in a workshop.

I am now working on this series on the Côte d'Opale, Côte Picarde and Côte d'Albâtre. This coastline is very interesting to me because of the variation in scenery but also the changes that took place after WWII. The fast reconstruction of coast towns, mostly in a sort of prefab concrete and often placed so brutally on the most beautiful locations at the seaside. I will post an illustration of this within this post although it is not a Sony picture.
I really like what you are doing. It is very coherent and beautiful. It is always a pleasure to discover them


Of course I am not the only photographer who is/was fascinated by this region. Somebody drew my attention to the book of Gabriele Basilico, published in 1984 already, called - Bord de mer -,a fantastic book in black and white. What happened is that this photographer had exactly the same point of view in a number of photographs as I chose much later in color. Very interesting.
I also ordered - The spirit of Dunkerque - by William Eggleston and I ordered – Uncommon places – by Stephan Shore. In another tread I mentioned already this fascinating book by Martin Roemers called -Metropolis -.
Thank you for the references. In fact I do also like the photographers you mentioned and have some of their books too. I already wrote this morning that I was the "somebody who drew your attention to Gabriele Basilico". I do also have books of Eggleston, but didn't know about the "Spirit of Dunkerque" and will look for it. And I have that same book of Stephan Shore you have. I saw that thread in the Open Talk forum, where you linked to that book of Roemers. I looked for it at Amazon but finally didn't order it. I feared those long exposures could become a little repetitive, like a trick used too often.

I miss talking about books. Earlier at the beginning of the internet, I was participating in one or two Email based discussion groups and we used to talk as much about books and about the works of other photographers as about gear.


But anyway all this didn't stop me from making a book of my own on this coastline. It will be called - Opale et Albâtre - also because these coast names illustrate the colours present so well. I did write a piece in French for it and had it checked by a friend, I believe the last sentence is still wrong because I had no time because of a discount deadline. Well it is only a first proof, so time enough to correct.
Here is a link to the book publishing side so you can have a virtual look:
https://www.fotofabriek.nl/preview/?id=C0D52E6F888FB400F22EF88A3862AE30

So like you Annna I am also interested in architecture and/or other remains of human interventions. And you inspired me to use my Mamiya Shift 50/4 lens, which I should have done much earlyer! BTW a terrific lens!
This will be a great book. I had a look and love it. Please tell us when and how we can acquire it because I'm sure that I'm not the only one interested.
Concerning the introduction text there are one or two things that could be improved, in particular the last sentence. Was the person who checked it speaking French as his/her main language ? If you need someone speaking French natively, I could help.
 
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frozenbb

Member
Re: Fun with the Sony A7 Series Cameras( all of them)

Here are a few more "fishy" shots from yesterday.


'The fish arrived, pt. 1'



'Larger'




'The fish arrived, pt. 2'







'Watching'



 

dmward

Member
Re: Fun with the Sony A7 Series Cameras( all of them)

I was in Houston last week and went to the Sculptured in Steel exhibit.
Its an exhibition of art deco era cars and motorcycles at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts.

Here is a picture of one car as displayed:



HERE is the gallery with all the cars as displayed.
 

Slingers

Active member
Re: Fun with the Sony A7 Series Cameras( all of them)

Just had some rainbow lorikeets on the fence. A7S + FE 70-200/4





 

Michiel Schierbeek

Well-known member
Re: Fun with the Sony A7 Series Cameras( all of them)

To Michiel Schierbeek,
I just looked at your book link posted above. The summary of your photographic sequence is excellent. From this series I now understand your use of the subdued North European painting tones.
An attractive montage !
Paul
Thank you very much Paul! The whole thing is still in progres.
 

Michiel Schierbeek

Well-known member
Re: Fun with the Sony A7 Series Cameras( all of them)

Thank you for your answer, compliments and encouragements, Annna! The book is still in progress and I still need to find the funds to publish it, which is not so easy.
It was checked by a young man in paris and the last sentence has already been changed.

But if I may, I will send you a pm later, about my plans and the text. I want it to be in French, because I want to get some people in Normandy interested to do something with it.

BTW, I forgot about you mentioning Gabriele Basilico, I do remember now an Italian photographer on Facebook who showed me a photoraph in B&W from Basilico from exactly the same spot as I took it.
Funny isn't it?

It was this picture



Gabriele Basilico

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/ef/40/23/ef4023c07c7cabfa97dc5b1592200892.jpg
 
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