Frederic Mancosu's photostream

It is cold these days in Zurich, very cold actually. At a blistering minus 18° C most of the city has frozen over. Even parts of the lake are covered in ice. Ideal conditions then for a walk around town!

Hey folks!

I'm back! I am almost done with the monster project I have been working on all this time and I have finally come 'round to shooting a little again.

Here's another excerpt from zurich's nights. And as all the other ones, it comes with an unusual story. Last night, while in the pub, we came up with the idea of visiting the Tanztheater, or dancing theater in plain English. So after fetching something to eat at a buffet, we ventured out into the night to find the venue. Little did we know of what expected us.

We were led down some stairs which seemed to lead into a cellar. Around us were many artsy people, the creative type, who seemed to be quite knowledgeable about what we were about to see... to us, it was but a total mystery.

As it turned out, we were in luck. What we were presented with were five pieces, none of which could last more than twelve minutes. Some of it was experimental, some conceptual, some dynamic, some romantic, some critical and all of it of very high quality. One performance however stood out. It was a simple story, picking up the lifecircle of an affair. While the topic was quite a bit more touching than the others an the execution very subtle and fine felt, what really put it ahead for me was the use of light. All through the story the stage was lit as if it was for an image. As a photographer, I couldn't help but to notice and love that about the piece.

When we later met with the artist for a chat, I mentioned it and pretty soon, we were agreeing on a time on which I'd pop by the next day to take a couple of images during the training session.

Ok, right off the bat, this shot has been published here before, therefore, some of you guys might know it. All I wanted to do was to change it to BW in Lightroom, just to see how it'd look without the color. Lightroom however, took that as a reason to repost the shot. So, without any intention on my part, here it is again, courtesy of Adobe.Inc.

I had been out that night, testing my freshly arrived 85mm. This lens is manual focus, which on the 50D's little viewfinder makes it quite a challenge. If you hit something is anybody's guess. I therefore went over to focus bracketing, in order to get the shots I wanted.

As you can see, this is Kreis 4 in Zurich on early Sunday morning. The Plaza, which is a place to go when other places have already closed their doors, is starting to get emptier and cabs are lining up in front of it to ship the joyful crowds into a morning of little sleep and hangovers. Just a few people are still roaming around the streets, alone, drifting away into the shadows.

On second thought, maybe it isn't such a bad posting for a friday night after all... thanks Lightroom ;)

UPDATE 2: Hi folks! In case you have been wondering why it has gone a bit quiet here in the last days, it is because I'm working on a non-photo project which is both vital and extremely consuming these days. I have to meet a deadline which is approaching way too fast for my liking and therefore am taken pretty much day and night. Regular service however will be resumed shortly after I'll be done and will have handed in my paper. It is the longest piece I've ever written so far and it is beginning to eat every bit of me... I can't wait to see it finished and I hate it dearly on the one hand. On the other hand, it is like a piece of my head ripped out and smeared across a couple of sheets of paper... or my screen for that matter. I do then love it at the same time... a bit like a (figurative) baby...

Oh and while I'm at it, thank's Steve, for making the mac such a nice tool to write on.

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UPDATE: Over 6000 views on the stream! Thank you all for the time you've spent here. Your visits are greatly appreciated and I hope you'll continue to enjoy the images rolling out here over the next couple of weeks... or months, or years, who knows ;)

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Bern Bundesplatz. We were sent to Bern with my company yesterday and while we had a tight schedule, I still brought along my camera. I like Bern a lot and didn't want to miss the occasion if we'd have a bit of free time left over. As it happened, we did and I didn't. After we left the federal administration we had been visiting, we decided to remain in the area and enjoy the evening sun a bit on a café's terrace. We therefore went on in the direction of Bundesplatz, a square right in front of our parliament, which has water fountains shooting out of it. In summer then, many kids toll around in the spray here (which you can see here: flic.kr/p/8mtC6M, here: flic.kr/p/8mwHRu or of course here: flic.kr/p/8mwACG).

With the winter coming closer however, they are way less prone to getting wet, which leaves the stage open for this dog, who was obviously very fascinated with the water shooting out of the ground. As they say then, when something exceeds one's ability to understand, it becomes truly magical... even for a dog.

I took the occasion to get better befriended with my wide-angle and found out something significant about using such a lens in street-snapping. It was about light. So far, I had been shooting mainly at nighttime and therefore, my 24 had yet to encounter the mother of all light sources. Yes indeed, the sun. Granted, my photographical relation with the sun has not been without its ups and downs and quite frankly, I rarely like the light it provides. However, when it's low enough, it creates dramatic contrasts and picturesque shadows, which in turn, are to be liked a lot. This then, is one domain where the wide angle feels really at home. It is a bit like its front lawn actually. Yes, in real life, the house behind the front lawn is where the serious bits are happening, where the inhabitant actually is who he is and does what he does. Following our analogy, the house is the proper use of the wide angle for the wide field of all it is able to do, landscapes, interiors, environmental portraits, the lot.

The front lawn though, is where the inhabitant shows off what he's got best. A respectable car in the driveway signalizes success, a good trim on the grass denotes control and some carefully arranged beds of roses stand for style and a sense of esthetics... right out front, for the world to see. With a wide angle, it is quite similar and shooting it into a powerful light source like the sun makes for dramatic shots which show off its most valued qualities. The long shadows running at the viewer show of the singular depth one can achieve with no other type of lens, including the light source or at least its reflection into the frame creates a bright spot deep in the picture, drawing the viewer into it and if composed correctly, some context can still be given "around the image" due to the stretched field of view without being obtrusive.

While the world can of course not be made entirely out of front lawns and the properly great images remain the ones with message over method, this is still a valuable point to keep in mind on the steep learning curve one is presented with when using a 24mm lens.

Here's to blurred images!

This is me playing with a wide angle. As many photographers, I have found out early that wide angles are difficult beasts. You get a lot into the frame, granted... but with that comes an awful lot of clutter which makes it excessively hard to compose a compelling image. I'll hand it to you, some people who are knowing what they do are using wide lenses to the most stunning effect. But, for the rest of us, they tend to produce rubbish most of the time (I know, it is not really the lenses fault... I know... sigh ;). The name of the game is to fill the frame? Try that with a 17mm...

Over years and years I have therefore tended to primarily use longer lenses. Most of my stuff then, as you might see from my photostream is shot somewhere around 100mm-180mm. As for the wide range, I have so far used it mostly for landscapes and landscapes only. It is obvious then that my favorite lens would be something like my 135mm or at the very least, my 85. And they have a lot going for them. Amazingly short depth of field, relatively tight framing making simple and minimalistic compositions easy as well as greater working distance, preventing you from sitting in your subject's face when shooting. They do however have one capital flaw: compression. They give almost no depth to the image. So even with a couple of very nice representatives of the short-tele species in quasi permanent use, my favorite lens has strangely always been an old twiggly 28mm 2.8. It has the same age as me, is a great bit smaller than me... and than most other lenses for that matter and has cost me almost nothing. I bought it used a couple of years ago and paid about a hundred quid. Even the APS-C 18-55 kitlens I got with my 20D back in '04 was more expensive. It is then, by no means a fancy bit of kit my little 28, but it produces brilliant results. The combination of its vignetting and the depth it gives to the images make for an awesome look. Only seldom do I find something adequate to be shot with it, but when I do, I love it.

That is, on the 5D. On the crop things are a little bit different. It magically loses its vignette due to the 1.3x tighter frame, the very little bokeh it had vanishes, the focal length is awkwardly off and quite frankly, as an object, it looks quite bewildering on the large camera body. I therefore had to find something else to go with. This came in the form of the 28's - focal length-wise - smaller brother (who is actually a whole lot larger physically speaking). It is a 24mm and it carries all the love I have for my 28mm over onto the crop (ending up at somewhere around 30mm with a depth of field of about f2). What a fun lens... I went out with it yesterday and shot the image above among others. I still have to get used to finding ways of reducing the omnipresent, composition spoiling, clutter. Then again, it is my firm intention to have this thing be my go-to lens from now on. Yes, I have had a 28 for a long time and other wide lenses before that, but I have used them only for environmental portraits, landscapes or for the eventual dramatic ultrawide action shot (even though fisheyes seem to be more suitable here). Now however, for the first time, I will really try to learn how to use wide angles properly. I will - no doubt about that - be producing a lot of rubbish in the process, but who knows, maybe that's a necessary prerequisite.

So, in other words, expect a lot of poor photography coming up on this page ;)

EXIF:

Mode: M
ISO: 400
Tv: 1/13
Av: f/1.4
FL: 24mm
Effective FL: approx. 31mm