D’Angelo in Paris. Last minute tickets, worth every penny.

D’Angelo played in Paris tonight. Secured a last-minute ticket an hour before the gig! God damn it, he laid the funk down so thick I actually cried a bit. I haven’t been to a concert this good in a very long time. He was James Brown, Prince and Tina Turner, he was Marvin Gaye and above all he was himself. Really witnessed the definition of a selfless performer tonight.

like, subscribe, share, all of that stuff.

Vincent

Venice In Monochrome and 2:1.

We got into Venice after dark, and left just after midday the following day. With two days to travel just over a thousand K’s from Zagreb, Croatia to Montbrison, France, Venice was jumping off the map at us as a place to stop overnight. So that’s what happened: with a van full of circus gear and a hotel reservation, we made our way to Venice. Beautiful. I bought a very expensive pair of cashmere-lined leather gloves and ate pizza for every meal. Both were very good choices.

Click the photos to enlarge and enjoy.

The 2:1 format I chose for these photos reflected the wide-angle lens I shot some of them with, but also the horizontal orientation of the vistas of Venice. There seemed to be dead space in every frame, so why not crop it out?

Vince

Homeward Bound In Gothenburg, Sweden.

Sometimes taking photos of people on the street is hard. It’s too much trouble, I’m projecting the wrong energy, I feel like I’m in people’s faces in a bad way. When someone asks you to delete a photo or not take a photo, you have to oblige. A smile and a nod goes a very long way to calming people if they feel intruded upon, and the only thing you can do is be accommodating to their feelings. Public spaces are by nature public, but they can also be very intimate and personal places for the people in them. The relationship between a public space and it’s inhabitants fascinates me. The way people choose to interact with each other (or not) is exemplified on public transport, where people are forced to cohabitate with strangers for a set duration of time, sometimes with their bodies at a set distance from each other, in a predetermined location. This photo set was taken over an hour near the Central Station in Gothenburg, Sweden, and they are mostly about people going home or going out. Friends and strangers, together and alone, in any they combination with which they are comfortable.

Thanks for viewing. if you like them, share them! subscribe and like etc etc. you know the bloody deal 🙂

Vince.

Warming Up The Acrobats – PART 2

These were taken in theatres at the tail end of the tour, on the east coast of Australia from Cairns to Brisbane. Everyone’s pre-show rituals are different; body and mind requirements differ from show to show, and person to person. Some days you feel great. You spring into action and blast right through to the show. Other days you feel like a bruised slug, unable to get the motivation to do a single thing except stare blankly at the ceiling with wobbly eyes. Either way, you’ve got a show in 2 hours and it’s gotta be good. I attempted to capture different moods of my colleagues as they prepared for shows.

This set was taken with the Canon 6D & EF85mm f1.8.

Christian Schooneveldt-Reid and James Brown. This Side Up. 2014.

Christian Schooneveldt-Reid. This Side Up. 2014.

Thanks for viewing 🙂 like, sub and share to make my day! I’m a sucker for attention.

Selling Sprouts In Phnom Penh. Travel Photo #97.

The best markets in Phnom Penh start at about dusk and run well into the night. Fresh produce fares much better away from the heat of the midday sun, so meats and fish are slaughtered on the spot for the evening sale. This fellow, however, was just selling bean sprouts.

(c) all rights reserved. click to enlarge.

Photographing in this kind of environment can sometimes be too much, too obvious and too easy. Or maybe, you get tempted to take photos of everything because it looks so good, so photogenic, so posed. Sometimes you get lucky, and sometimes things are just one big cliche. Nonetheless, it’s one of my favourites in terms of subject matter and when I get to a new country or place it’s usually the night markets and nighttime in general that I find my first inspiration. The new camera and lens, Canon 6D and 85mm f1.8, really shines in this kind of environment. this was taken at f1.8, iso 10,000. A tiny bit of noise reduction applied and barely any post-processing, and here we are. This photo is summarises why I upgraded my photographic gear.

Thanks for stopping by 🙂 subscribe, like and share!

Vince.

More Of Footscray, Australia. – Street Photography

I guess there’s nothing particularly personal in these photos, they mostly just give a good view of the surrounding scene and vibe in Footscray these days. I’m also experimenting with different types of subtle black and white processing.

Thanks for stopping by 🙂 if you like it, share and subscribe! happy shooting.

A Day With The Canon 6D. Upgrade Achievement Unlocked! Preliminary Findings Forthcoming…

So I took the plunge and bought a Canon 6D. It’s good. I’m still getting used to the autofocus, the button layout and the ergonomics, but so far it seems to be worth it. Speaking of autofocus, everything you’ve heard is true. It’s very capable in low light situations, but the limitations of only 11 focus points sometimes rear their heads. For me though, coming from a canon 550D, the focus is incredible. A large reason I bought this particular camera was its promise of low light focusing capabilities, and it absolutely excels in this area. In terms of high-ISO capabilities, it is a revelation. I know I’m not going to need the bullshit autofocus or FPS madness of something like a 1dx or 5Dmkiii, and I also know I’m going to have this camera slung over my back for long periods of time while travelling and this thing is almost as light as my dad’s old 400D. These photos I snapped today while doing the things I did: rehearsal, market shopping, training, more shopping…

Saw this at Queen Victoria Markets today. It got me thinking, what could be substituted for a whole goat carcass? Dog maybe… not a nice thought!

Free compliments if anyone can guess the car.

Amy, a girl (woman? lady? acrobat? what do you think amy?) I trained with today for some shows next year.

friendly cat in Fitzroy near Blue studios.

Scratch my arse, he is saying.

This is High St, Preston. A typical rainy afternoon. The halal butcher, phone crackers and repairers, and one asian woman in the most amazingly kitch getup. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

What I’ve also noticed is the depth of field with the Canon 50mm 1.4 is much shallower than the Sigma 30mm 1.4 (50mm equivalent) on my old 550D. I didn’t realise this would be so noticeable, but it really is a wafer thin focusing plane unless you close the aperture up past about 5. I presume this is to do with sensor size. It was something i bought the camera for, but it’s causing me a bit of difficulty in terms of capturing things in focus. It has made me change my approach to focusing a shot entirely.

I’m looking forward to travelling the world with this thing for the next few years. I’m living the economical full frame dream! I’m glad I didn’t get the OM-D E-M1 or the GX7 or any of those ones, after I tried them in the shop it made me realise that no amount of reading reviews or forums substitutes for holding one of these cameras for 5 minutes.

Thanks for reading. If you dig it… subscribe, like and share!