Portland Google+ Photowalk: Recap

Old Town Portland sign – PDX Google+ Photo walk

Last Sunday I participated in a Google+ Photo Walk in Portland. The group met up at Union Station at 4:30pm. During the walk we made our way from the train station, through China Town, over the Burnside bridge and down along the east side of the river, and ending the trip at the Hair of the Dog Brewery. The weather stayed true to the Portland stereotype by Raining most of the evening, it was quite windy too at times.

Even with the weather as it was the event was a great success. After reviewing my images there are a number of images that I’m really happy with and I have also seen many images from other participants that are really great! Also, I learned a few things from this event:

1. My current camera bag doesn’t work very well for me and my shooting style – and basically a pain:

• It’s a funky shape that doesn’t make getting to gear easy on the fly – at least the amount of gear I want to store.
• The material didn’t hold up that well in the weather
• The strap design doesn’t fit my shoulders well

I have ordered a new heaveier duty bag and will review it if I like it in the future.

2. Don’t forget to bring a lens cloth. I was constantly having to wipe the front of my lenses off and had to use my shirt-sleeve as a backup.

3. It’s fun to shoot scenes with different approaches – I shot my 5D Mark II for most of the night but on my way back to my car I shot a few scenes with my iPhone and instagram and two of the images are among my favorites from the event!

4. Next time I will make sure to introduce myself to more people and socialize more – I was feeling a bit under the weather and was a bit of a anti-social during most of the evening. I definitely will need to talk to more people next time!

The photo walk was a great excuse to get out and photograph. It forced me to work a bit out of my comfort zone with the weather and the path being partially pre-chosen (I deviated a bit) at a few spots but for the most part followed it.

Here’s a some of images from the event:

China Town -- PDX Google+ Photowalk

PDX Google+ Photowalk --- Copyright Nick Nieto. All Rights Reserved

PDX Google+ Photowalk --- Copyright Nick Nieto. All Rights Reserved

Rain --- PDX Google+ Photowalk --- Copyright Nick Nieto. All Rights Reserved

iPhone + Instagram --- PDX Google+ Photowalk --- Copyright Nick Nieto. All Rights Reserved

iPhone + Instagram --- PDX Google+ Photowalk --- Copyright Nick Nieto. All Rights Reserved

iPhone + Instagram --- PDX Google+ Photowalk --- Copyright Nick Nieto. All Rights Reserved

21st Century Classroom Project

21st Century Classroom - Copyright Nick Nieto. All Rights Reserved

Last summer I did some architectural photos for Reverie Design Studio. They have been working with Maryknoll Catholic School in Honolulu, Hawaii to design 21st century classrooms that leverage technology and new thinking to help their students learn in a more effective way. The classrooms were really neat, they had media boards in each room, smarter organization and flow-design to promote new habits and flexibility, and materials that were sustainable. It was a fun project and got to enjoy a weekend on the island in the sun.

Tags: Architecture, Maryknoll, School

Nothing like fresh baked goods on a cold day

Holiday French Macarons - Copyright. Nick Nieto - All Rights Reserved

Lately, to my delight, my wife has been spending a lot of time in the kitchen baking numerous desserts and treats for the holidays. She has been busy perfecting her french macaron with flavors such as salted caramel, strawberries and cream, chocolate, chocolate with mint, peanut butter and jelly and more. She also, has been experimenting with other recipes as well, cinnamon spice cookies and cakes, biscotti and even soufflé recipes! It truly has been amazing for me and my stomach!

During the process I have began experimenting with food photography and really enjoying it.

Happy Holidays!

I would like to wish everyone a wonderful Christmas Holiday!

Tags: Bells, Christmas, Holiday

Set of abstract Photos

I really enjoy taking abstract photos on my phone using instagram – it is just a little project I do to keep myself always looking for interesting compositions throughout the days:

Tags: instagram, leaves, nature, Photos

My Brother’s Snowboarding Video

Check out this cool video my brother Mike did using a GoPro at Mt. Bachelor – I recommend watching it full screen and at 1080P

I’ve been wanting to get up to the mountain to do some photos of my brother for a while and after looking at this video it makes me want to get out their even more!

Here’s a photo I took a while ago of my brother out on the mountain.

My 12 Favorite Images (from the past couple years)

Over on the Photofocus blog Scott Bourne recently suggested a fun mini project for photographers to do over the holidays as they have some downtime. What he asked photographers to do is pick their favorite 12 images and make a mini portfolio/album out of these images. Then take a look at the collection you selected and learn from it. The general idea is to see what images you like yourself, find a common thread on what makes them a favorite, and give you direction on where to pursue your own photography in the future.I really liked this idea and have decided to take part.

The following images are my favorite 12 images that I’ve taken from the past couple of years:

Tags: Photos

Packing for Vegas

My wife and I are heading down to Las Vegas for a quick weekend getaway with some friends of ours for some fun and relaxation. Even on these short trips I like to bring my camera and photograph the journey. I wanted to show my thought process for packing my gear.

My philosophy on airline travel

When I travel via air my goal is to be light and nimble. On domestic flights my wife and I very rarely ever check bags, we always try to pack everything so it can fit in our carry-on luggage. Also note, when I say carry-on luggage I mean bags that easily fit inside a overhead bin, and not the over-sized gorrilla bags I see some travelers try to smash into the bins. The gorilla bag people really make me mad – they waste so much time hassling with their bags and panicking when they don’t fit that it causes the people around them to be anxious and frustrated and it also causes the plane to wait longer to get going. That is why we always try to pack within our carry-on bag limits! Plus, it also saves a bunch of time at the airport because you don’t have to wait for checked bags!

Now that you know my philosophy on air travel let’s figure out what gear to bring:

First, I always take my full sized SLR camera on trips. I have the “big” camera because I want the extra control and image quality in my photographs. Therefore it wouldn’t do me any good leaving it at home for the entire trip. In my case I’m going to be bring a 5D Mark II. The next question is, what lenses and accessories should I bring? Well that all depends on what I plan on shooting. I plan on shooting a lot of variety during this trip so to cover all the basis points I’m going to bring 3 lenses: My 50 f1.8, 70-200 f4, and a 17-40mm f4.

• The 50mm: I used to travel more with my 85mm F1.2 for portraits, but am leaning more and more to the 50mm. First, at f1.8 it’s fast enough for a lot of light situations and capable of getting that shallow depth of field. Second, it’s so small and light! This is important because I can keep this lens on my camera in my carry-on – the small profile allows me to pull it in and out of the bag quickly with ease when I want to take a photo. The last thing I will say is it’s so cheap! At around $100 I don’t worry about it getting damaged to much because I know it’s a cheap replacement (that’s not to say I don’t take care of it – but rather I don’t worry about it if disaster strikes!)

• The 70-200: is a great lens and will let me get the reach when I need it and also compress the scene

• The 17-40mm: the wide angle will be good for landscape and scene setting shots

Lenses

So now that I have my lens choices made – what accessories?

I always like to take a shutter release, my 10-stop neutral density filter, and a gorilla pod for long exposures. The first two items are small and don’t take up much space and the gorilla pod has come in handy too many times to not try and fit it in my bag. The rest of my camera gear is pretty standard: extra batteries, memory cards, and a lens pen. As far as computer related consumption goes I’ll just have my iPad. I like to go iPad only because it is small and light, has great battery life, can accomplish 90% of the tasks I do with my computer, and doesn’t need to be taken out of my bag at the security checkpoints at airports (time savings!).

Accessories - Cards, Batteries, Releases, Filters, and Strap....

Now that we know what I’m bringing – here’s how I’m going to pack it:

For this trip my wife and I are sharing a small hard-cased roller carry-on for our clothes. She get’s one side, I get one side (approximately). This bag is mostly for clothes but I also stick my Gorilla pod underneath the clothes as it fits extremely well between some of the bars that make up the structure of the bag. The clothes bag gets classified as Casey’s carry-on. My carry-on is a small overnight duffle that I am sticking my gear in. I recently found a great little hanging toiletries bag at Target for $20 that I am going to use as a lens bag. This bag has a big main compartment that will fit the lenses snugly and numerous small zipper compartments for the other accessories. This lens bag will go into the duffle with my toiletries pouch, iPad and actual camera body. I keep the camera on top of everything with the 50mm lens attached to it, I can easily pull it in and out on the and be ready to go on the fly.

Overnight Duffle

Final Thoughts:

So there you go, my thought process for packing my gear for this trip. Casey and I have started traveling quite a bit and I hope seeing my thought process may help make your next trip a little more streamlined during the travel process. If you have any comments or suggestions for travel packing I would love to hear them.

Tags: Air Travel, Gear, Las Vegas, Packing, Photos, travel

Winter Arriving

Winter is around the corner

Autumn Portrait of Casey

It is crazy but it feels like fall came so late and is leaving so quickly! The beautiful fall colors are steadily changing to bare twigs. As you know Thanksgiving is coming up this Thursday, and soon it’ll be December and we’ll be on to the Christmas season. I just cannot believe how fast time flies and the seasons change.

I want to bring this up because it feels like I barely got out and shot in the beautiful fall leaves. I missed a lot of opportunities I wish I could have back. The weather just wasn’t on my side this year and I compounded it by not using my time as wisely as I could have.

Over the weekend the weather was a hit or miss. There was rain, clouds, occasional breaks of sun and more clouds. However, I was fortunate on Sunday afternoon to get a break with Casey where the sun was slightly out and we found a patch of beautiful fall leaves. I’m afraid that I believe these will probably be the last opportunities I have for great fall backdrops this year. It just goes as a reminder to always take the time to get out and shoot and don’t let time pass you by.

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season, and remembers to get out and do the little things that you enjoy as time passes by.

Tags: autumn, Fall, Photos, Portland, winter

New Canvas!

Today we got a brand new canvas for our bedroom of a photo I took of the Eiffel tower from Artistic Photo Canvas. It came a day early so it was a nice surprise when I got home, my wife had it all unpacked and hanging above our bed waiting for me. It looks really fantastic and I wanted to share it with you guys!

This is my second canvas from APC and I’m really happy with how it turned out. I had a few worries about a some of the sections of the tower getting blown up with noise and clarity but i was pleasantly surprised and it turned amazingly. The colors are right on and the clarity and detail is better than I expected. The process of ordering our canvas was super simple you upload the full res standard file, tell them the size and they do the rest! I have nothing but good things to say about the company. I would recommend then highly!

update:
After seeing how terrific my canvas turned out. I have put it up for sale on etsy

Tags: artistic photo canvas, canvas, Eiffel tower, Photos, print