Ricardo's Blog

There are of course a lot of blogs, websites and articles online about how to light a subject properly for stunning portraits. This small article talks about a very simple technique you can use to achieve rich portrait lighting that makes the facial features of your model come to life beautifully.  The technique uses only natural light, of the type that comes through your window.

First of all, in most portraits you will want to achieve different levels of light on the face of your photographic subject.  This creates some shadows which make the picture look tri-dimensional.  If you make your light very even on the face you will make the face of your subject look flat.  There is some movement towards even lighting nowadays, especially in fashion and editorial portraits, but you will see that in that case, the volume on the facial features might be achieved with make up or any other means. 

If you are shooting with studio lighting, the way you achieve different levels of light is by placing one lamp at a higher power or closer to the subject (this is called the main light) and a second light at lower power or far from the subject (this is called fill light).

If you are new to photography a simpler way to achive this for practicing is to place your subject close to a large window that lets natural light in.  Position your subject in a way that the light coming from the window lights part of the face (it can be most of the face actually) and part of the face and body have shadows.  Experiment with different angles on your model (relative to the window) and different camera positions.  You should expose to the light on the brighter side of your model (that is, expose to the main light).  Be careful that the light differential between the illuminated side and the dark side is not too big, because that can create problems.  A light differential of 1.5 points is very good between the main light and the fill light, because that creates a 3:1 contrast ratio that looks very good in the resulting image.

Here is an example of this.  The Model on the shot is Finnish Top Model Olivia Kortelainen.  We shot this entirely with natural light coming out of the window.

Any photography questions please leave a comment or contact me in twitter at ricardocarreon.

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I am starting to build a new alternative model album on flickr.  This album is for model Kodoq, also know as Katie.  Kodoq is a very sucessful alternative Polish performer and model that lives in Finland.  Kodok is also a member of Model Mayhem, where you can find her portfolio under the number 70561.

Here are two photos from Kodoq Katie, you can see all photos published on my Kodoq flickr set.

Kodoq black later dress

Kodoq Katie black latex dress floor shot

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I shot this picture of Katie at Magito studios, in Helsinki Finland.  Katie is a Polish alternative model/performer that focuses on goth/fetish/industrial type of looks.  In this photo she is wearing a Goth hairstyle with blue dreadlocks and fetish leather lingerie from backstreet.fi . I used Elinchrom flashes for this shot, using light modifiers that produce a relatively hard light, not as hard as the bare bulb, but certainly much harder than softboxes.  The modifiers were honeygrid boxes of about 16 inches.  If you click on the photo you can see it in a big size over a dark background, which I strongly recommend.

Credits:

Model: Kodoq, MM# 70561

Make Up Artist:
Cemille

Wardrobe:
backstreet.fi

Post-processing:
Ivan Matuck

Shot at Magito Studios, Helsinki, Finland

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I was recently in Nice, France for TM World's Management Forum 2009.  Nice is one of the major cities along the famous Cote d'Azur at the French Riviera.  I took this gorgeous shot of a lonely man walking through the narrow streets of it old district Vieux Nice.  Click on the picture to see it large at its flickr page.

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The Ponte Estaiada Otavio Frias de Oliveira has quickly become one of the most significant Sao Paulo landmarks.  Enjoy here a widescreen format version of it (16:9 ratio).  You can click on the picture to see it in large or see more beautiful pictures of Sao Paulo.

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A kid's Pizza Parlor is probably one of the last places you will go to shoot great photos.  Think again, there are many lights colors and movement you can capture there.  Here are some pictures from my 9 year old birthday party at one such place.  Click on any of them for its flickr page.

 More picture to come soon.

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This scene caught my attention while walking through the beach at Lagoinha beach at the north end of Florianopolis.  Five people, each different and each in different activities were standing close, but actually making completely different things.  The kid in the front is particularly oblivious to the rest of the people playing with his board.

See more pictures of people at the beach at my Beach Candids flickr set.

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This picture has become an instant sucess on my flickr photo stream.  It is a rather simple photo, but there are a couple of reasons that are behind its sucess: 1) the fact that the lady walkingthe beach stands tall above the crowd and 2) the irresistible red hat on her head.  I hope you enjoy it too.  Click on the picture to access its flickr page.

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Gorgeous Washington Apples under a beautiful light at one of the little fruit stores at the Pike Place Market in Seattle. Pike Place is a market like no other in the United States.  It is esentially a large Farmer's Market that is permanently set up in a series of very old, historic buildings.  A place you cannot miss when you visit Seattle, Pike Place has 10 Million visitors every year.  Click on the picture for its flickr page.

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I took this picture last week while visiting San José. California, in the heart of Silicon Valley.  The picture is a candid shot of two young people waiting for the bus early in the morning.  What makes the shot interesting is the combination of early morning light (as you can see it is still very yellow) and the shadows created by that light.  The compostion becomes more interesting than shooting the same scend under broad day light.  Let me know if you like it.

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I have always been fascinated by the sculptures, fountains and other city elements that are placed in public spaces and that allow interaction with them.  For example, the Olympic rings fountain in Atlanta is a wonderful place for kids and adults to go and get some relief from the hot summer heat. 

I was walking in the heart of downtown Portland, right in the Pioneer Courthouse Square and I bumped into a simple, yet very powerful sculpture.  It is the sculpture by American artist J. Seward Johnson which is called simply "Allow Me".  "Allow Me"is a natural size sculpture of a man in a suit that has an umbrella and seems to be trying to interact with somebody.  This sculpture, is so popular, that is clearly one of the landmarks of the city and its also a major photo spot for visitors and residents of the city.

Here are a couple of shots of people around "Allow Me".  More shots of Portland, Oregon available on my new Portland set in flickr.

This guy didn;t seem to be interacting much with the sculpture, but the scene of the two represent very well how the sculpture seems to be trying to reach out to the paper-reading guy.

Here is the sculpture and more people around them.  As you can see, it is a simple idea, yet one that makes a lot of people approach the bronze men.

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Interstate Highway I-35 between Laredo and San Antonio, Texas.

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Paraty is one of the most beautiful colonial towns in Brasil.  In addition to the cobblestones and gorgeous colonial architecture, Paraty has the added bonues of being a costal city with a charming port and a beautiful bay.  Paraty is south of Rio de Janeiro, and its the last municipality on the Rio de Janiero state coast line.  The next municipality going south is Ubatuba in the north coast of the Sao Paulo state.

Paraty is home to one of the most famous literary festivals in Brasil and Latin America.  Every year its "Festa Literaria Internacional de Paraty" FLIP attracts thousands of people from all around the world.  Its latest edition finished last weekend and it was, as always, a success.  Here are some pictures of Paraty at the time of the 6th Edition of FLIP.  You can click on ony of them to visit their flickr pages.

Striking image of the streets of Paraty at night. White houses and colorful doors and window frames and their reflection on water in the middle of a cobblestone street.

This is one of the large tents in which the FLIP was help.  You can see the silhouettes of the people participating at the event as well as the reflection on the nearby canal.

Two girls read with attention one of the Panels displaying children's art at the 6th FLIP.

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I recently bumped into this guy who was very proudly riding his light blue Chevy truck on the Fashion district of Sao Paulo, the Oscar Freire Street.  As you can see in the picture, all kinds of people were very excited with this very cool truck.  The color is also remarkable, as I remember that light blue was quite commen when I was a kid, 30 something years ago.  I hope you like it.  Click on the picture for its flickr page.   Can you see its Chevy logo with the map on Brasil in it?

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The winter in the southern hemisphere of the world is quickly approaching.  The water near the poles starts to get colder and colder and as a result of that many variety of fish emigrate to warmer waters traveling up north.  Right now, states like Santa Catarina in the South of Brasil witness the migration of large groups of fish like the Tainhas as they pass through their coast line.  

The groups of Tainhas are also identified by the presence of a variety of dolphins which is commonly known as Boto by the locals.  If there is Boto on the water, you can pretty much count with finding schools of fish around.  Tainhas are caught wising nets that can be either small and deployed by a person or large and deployed by a group of fishermen.  

I recently published a sequence of 12 photos showing how fisherman wait and then deploy their fishnets into the sea.  Here are a few of the photos, click on any of them to visit its flickr page and see the rest of the sequence there.  There are 12 of them, and only 8 published here.

This is the start of the sequence.  A fisherman has the fishnet in his hands and waits for the right tide to deply his fishnet.

This is the second picture on the sequence.  The fisherman starts to move his body similar to a golfer to be able to swing the fishnet as far as possible from the shore.

This is the fifth photo of the sequence.  The fisherman makes a powerful swing with the net to cast them as far as possible.

Picture 6 of 12: The swing of the fishet is in full motion.  Look how the movement of the fishnet is captured perfectly on this shot.

Picture 7 of 12: The fishnet is finally on the air as it goes out of the fisherman's hands.  The fisherman secures the net by a rope.

Photo 9 of 12. The fishnet is fully open and flying through the air.

Photo 11 out of 12: The fishnet starts to hit the water, fully opened.

Final photo: The rounded splash of ths fishnet is captured.

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Last Saturday, I was walking and taking photos in São Paulo’s upscale fashion district, the Oscar Freire Street.  Oscar Freire is basically a city street turned into a mall that hosts the most exclusive boutiques in town.  In many ways, it is not different from NYC´s Fifth Avenue or Beverly Hills´ Rodeo Drive.  The people’s behaviors are not different from those in other upscale fashion districts either: you see lots of well dressed men and women carrying bags with the most famous luxury brands in their hands.  The people seem to be trying to imitate fashion show models as they walk through the street.  They are serious and somehow arrogant.

But all of this was suddenly interrupted this last Saturday, June 14^th 2008.  The street was suddenly filled with cyclists participating on the global event, World Naked Bike Ride.  The event, also known as WNBR, it is an ecological protest against car usage in which its participants all ride bikes naked through the city streets.  It has been a very successful event in cities such as London, Chicago, Amsterdam and many others.  

In the case of the São Paulo version of WNBR, people were not allowed to ride naked. The police actually used violence against demonstrators at the start of the event.  Participants ended up riding their bikes on swimsuits. 

But coming back to Oscar Freire Street, the serious attitudes of the people in the district, all of the sudden changed.  People stopped to watch the parade of bicycles.  Most people laughed and made gestures of surprise.  People that were working in the stores went out to look closely with their own eyes.  In summary, the tight attitude was replaced by a very relaxed, Carnaval-like atmosphere.

Here are the photos of the event.  Click on any of them for its flickr page.  On my flickr account you can also find many more shots of the WNBR Sao Paulo 2008 event.

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Yesterday, June 12th was Dia dos Namorados, the Brasilian equivalent to St. Valentine's day.  For the ocassion I published a photo that was very visited in flickr.  It got more than 500 visits in a single day.  Brasilian's celebrate Lovers on June 12th, on the eve of the anniverssay of St. Anthony, which is said to be the saint for lovers. 

Here is the photo that I published for the occassion (in natural black and red) and then a black and white version of the photo.  You can click on any of the photos to visit its flickr page.  Wishing you a happy time full of love for this weekend.

"Feliz dia dos Namorados", the original photo in its natural colors.  The photo was shot with a long exposition time and using a red bulb to create the color seen here.

Dia dos Namorados in black and white.  For this version I created a much different feeling by making the image brighter and making the lamp much brighter than in the original one.

Which one do you like better?

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The Eye-Fi is a very cool product that combines a compact SD card with a built-in Wi-Fi Transmitter.  The whole product is built on the tiny SD card.  In other words, it is physically the same as any other SD card, but it has the Wi-Fi functionality built on it.  

SD cards are basically becoming the standard on many digital cameras given the compact size, the large capacity (now you can find cards up to 32GB) and its cost (they are way cheaper than Compact Flash, Memory Stick and other popular formats).  

To explain how this works, let me explain how it will work for me.  I own a Canon G7 that has a SD card slot.  If I had one Eye-Fi, I could simply set it up once to my computer and WiFi router.  From that moment on, any time my camera is turned on in a region of my house covered by my router, my G7 will automatically start to download my new pictures into my computer.  Since I take many photos every week, this is a true blessing and one that prevents accidents such as accidentally erasing photos that I have not downloaded to my PC when I run out of chips.

In summary, a great and very innovative product. The only caveat, its price: its $100.  Read another article from gizmodo on the Eye-Fi here.

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Here is a blog post in which you can skip the text completely and go straight to the comments section.  On this post the Engadget crew asks its readers what is the best entry-level DSLR camera.  With summer holidays quickly approaching and SLRs becoming a more common item, this is a very interesting place to look at for advice.

Of course, if you been to photography for a while, you will find no surprises… you will see lots of Nikon and Canon advocates with a few folks going for Pentax or Olympus.  Just like in real life.

Here is the address of the post.

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The Caribbean is famous for its wonderful beaches across many different countries and cultures.  Among other things, its beaches are famous for its colors, who usually range from green tones to blue tones with many different varieties in between.  Here is an interesting picture I shot recently of a Caribbean Island when I was on route from Miami to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic.  Click on the picture for its flickr page.

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I love the pink lights on this typical guatemalan dance on Antigua Guatemala.  Click on the picture to access its flickr page.

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Recently, I shot a good number of pictures of my Patricia wearing a colorful retro dress.  I have just loaded a few of them to my flickr account.  Here are a couple of pictures that I like a lot given her beautiful smile and expression.  Click on any of them to visit the photos in flickr and check out my Patricia set, which has dozens of great pictures of her.

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I was for a few hours in Mexico City yesterday and had about one hour to take some shots around the World Trade Center area in the south of the city.  I did mostly shots of people walking, people on their way to ride the Metrobus and in the Metrobus itself.  You will find the pictures published on my flickr strem in the next few days.  For now here is a picture of a section of the Metrobus (a rapid urban bus that runs through confined lines).  As you can see, by chance, this section was occupied by women.  Some of the women are absobred on their thoughts, some are watching the street and some are looking right at me as I took the picture.

Click on the picture for its flickr page and an explanation of how I shot this.

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This picture is from the bottom of a waterfall in the middle of a pool at the Termas de San Joaquin Hotel in Coahuila, Mexico.  It looks fantastic in LARGE or Original sizes, which are available on its flickr page.  Click on the picture for its flickr page.

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One interesting opportunity that is available for professional photographers and serious amateurs is to sell their pictures online at the Microstock sites.  Microstock sites are sites of stock photographies who are very popular for advertising and design agencies.  They usually charge a very small fee ($1-$5 dollars) for each picture that a customer downloads.  Beyond the small fee, microstock photos are usually royalty-free, which means that the photos purchased can be used many times and are not limited to just a period of time.  Traditionally, stock photos were "leased" for a fixed time and for a fixed use and usage beyond the limits was charged via a royalty fee.

But what is the business for the photographer, if the final cost for the agency buying the picture is let's say, $1 dollar?  Well, the interesting thing is that microstock, given its small prices becomes a strong incentive for agencies to buy and use more images.  A very good image can attract thousands of downloads and if each download is pay at let's say 50 cents that one image can make an income of thousands of dollars.

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A young man does yoga in this pleasant scene captured in Parque da Aclimacao in Sao Paulo, Brasil.  Click on the picture for its flickr page.

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Here is a very nice photo of the skyline of Miami's Brickell Avenue, the heart of its financial district.  The photo was taking from the nearby Mandarin Hotel.  I will publich more photos of Brickell at night in the following days or you can go to my flickr stream and see for yourself.

Click on the photo to get its flickr page, you can find also many other nice pictures about Miami in my Miami set, accesible through that page.

Miami's Brickell at night.  The brige in the lower right connects an island called Brickell Key with the Avenue.

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Well, it certainly seems that Flickr technical issues continue to pop up on a weekly basis.  Beside the all too common "Flickr has the hiccups" message, we have today another major problem: group pools seem to be empty.  This of course affects the many users who post their work to groups to reach a broader audience for their work.

There is no public announcement yet as to when this issue will be fixed. 

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I shot this picture recently at the World Economic Forum on Latin America opening dinner hosted by President Calderon.  This is an scupture of a Mayan Women with her kids, all lighted up under a very bright green.  Click on the picture for its flickr page.

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I visited Miami a couple of weeks ago (and today, but today I just have a very lenghty layover at the airport).  A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity of shooting pictures, both of beautiful South Beach and its people as well as from the Brickell Avenue skyline.  You can find them all in my Miami flickr set.

Here are some of the pictures of South Beach and its people.  Click on any of the pictures for its flickr page.  Have a great weekend.

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While the World Economic Forum on Latin America was about to start in Cancun, this Mayan girl was walking at the beach in front of the Hilton Resort and Golf Club.  The girl was probably completely unaware of the security measures at the hotel, the navy vessels parked close to the beach, the helicopters transporting the Latin American presidents to the gala dinner and the hundreds of VIPs that were at the Hilton for the event. 

I just love the tones of blue of the water in Cancun.  Click on the picture for its flickr page.

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Patricia makes a very joyful expression at this picture taken in Miami's South Beach.  Click on the picture for its flickr page.

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This is a nice candid scene from Ipanema beach in Rio de Janeiro.  Boy tries to get hug from a girl, until he gets it.  Click on any picture for its flickr page.

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These are photos I shot over the weekend at the gorgeous Oscar Niemayer Museum in Curitiba, Parana, Brasil.  I love how the yellow reflections of part of the main building illuminate the crystal floors of this corridor.  Click on any picture for its flickr page.

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I had the opportunity to spend this last weekend in Curitiba, the beautiful capital of Parana, Brasil.  Curitiba is a very well organized city, often seen as a case study for urbanism and public transportation.  I was there invited by my friends at Positivo Informatica, who as part of Grupo Positivo, were opening a brand new mega theater in the city.

The new Theater is called Teatro Positivo and its the largest facility of its kind in the state of Paraná. Teatro Positivo can accomodate up to 2,400 people on its main sitting auditoriunm and about 100 more in its private boxes.  The Opening of the Teatro Positivo was made on the day of the 315th anniverssary of Curitiba. The major of the city, the governor of Paraná, ministers of state and many different authorities were present for this grand occasion.

The inauguration night of Teatro Positivo hosted a concert by spanish tenor José Carreras and Chilean soprano Verónica Villarroel.  The night was wonderful as they sang pieces of Opera, Zarzuela and popular music.  The last song in the program was Granada, a song from Agustín Lara that is one of the favorities on Carrera's repertoir.  However, Granada just served as a great entrance to a long number of encores.  The encores featured Brasilian classics such as Manhã de Carnaval and Eu Sei que Vou te Amar. This last song was interpreted by Verónica Villarroel and was clearly one of the highlights of the night.

I will be uploading the photos of the event to this flickr set.  It only has a few photos now, but it will be mostly done by the end of this week.

José Carreras at Teatro Positivo opening night.

Verónica Villarroel at Teatro Positivo opening night

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The heat is starting to come back to parts of the US and Mexico.  I had the opportunity to visit Monterrey with my kids and take them to Plaza Sesamo theme park.  Plaza Sesamo is themed with Jim Henson's Sesame Street characters.  The Park has many different rides, including a section of water slides, pools, water playgrounds and a river.

The park is very nice, especially for little kids like my sons.  Many of the rides are actually designed for little kids (below 9), so they had a great time without experiencing too much fear.  Here are some pictures that I shot last weekend of kids going down a slide on one of the water playgrounds at the park.  On the pictures, I play with high tones, saturated colors and high contrast to build strong contrasts between the kids and the water splashing them.  Click on any of the pictures for its flickr page.

For more pictures like this, go to my flickr photo stream.  Subscribe to Ricardo's Blog on the upper right column to get the articles, photos and links by e-mail or RSS.

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My Patricia sometimes tries to express a lot with her hands and arms.  She does that a lot in person regardless of how many people are in her audience.  I guess it is something that comes from her Italian heritage as it is common to see Italian people in Brasil express a lot with their arms and hands. A nice by product of this is how she tries to express with her arms in photographs, usually placing her arms up and to the side as if sending a warm embrace thorugh the image.

Well, another nice representation of her ability to express herself with her arms is what you will see next on this post.  Here, you will see a series of five pictures taken last September in which she is playing with her arms and legs at the beach.  The result are figures drawn with Patricia's body.  The result is very pleasant and has brought out many different initial reactions in flickr.  Some people see it as funny, some others see it as a symbol of freedom and somebody suggested the idea of what she does can bue turned into a book. 

Here you have the pictures of Patricia expressing her self with her body at the beach.  If you like one of them just click on it to access its flick page.  The more traffic a photo gets, the better I'd know which one is the picture everybody liked best.

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I love to walk around the beach whenever I have the opportunity to visit the coast.  Sometimes I do it by myself and many times I do it with my beloved Patricia.  Sometimes I pick up my camera and like to catch people as they enjoy the water, the surf and the sand.  Here is a picture I took recently of a family in which a little girl is up in the air traying to avoid the waves.  Her mother and her silbing are next to her, completely calm getting the wave to hit their legs and feet.

Click on the picture for its flickr page. Find more pictures from my walks along many beaches on my Beach Candids set.

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Here is a scene that I captured recently our of Guaruja beach, near São Paulo, Brasil.  Click on the photo for its flickr page.

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Less than two weeks ago, flickr had a series of functionality issues that took more than 48 hours to resolve.  The issues back then were related to the inability of the site to display the latest photos from your contacts (see my blog article about it here ).  Well, there is a new site-wide functionality  problem today, and now it is one that strikes the very essence of the site. 

On Its latest problem, flickr is not been able to upload new photos from its users.  Yes, you hear it right, the service that is proud about having thousands of new photos added every minute, is not being able to add new photos for now.  Additionally, it seems that one of their server farms is down and I guess all the stored photos on that farm should be unavailable for the time being.

Is flickr having growing pains or it is just being poorly managed?  It just doesn't seem right that the service is having very basic problems that are impacting each and every user of the site and of all the blogs and websites who re-publish their photos.  Anybody has an idea of what is going on?

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Earlier on the week, I published a photo of Brasilian Model Marcia Ventura wearing a cowgirl outfit under very subtle light.  The photo has been very sucessful in flickr.  Now, here is a close up of her, with a different angle.  Tell me which one do you like best.  Click on the picture for its flickr page.

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On the SLR Photography Primer 3 I wrote last year, I was discussing the implications of choosing a low aperture or a high aperture of your lens.  In short, a small aperture number (e.g. 2.8) means a high aperture of the lens as the number is actually the full lens capacity divided by 2.8.  If you have a high aperture number, let’s say 11, you will have the shutter opened to 1/11^th of its capacity.

A large aperture (lets say between 1-4) means that the shutter is wide open and also means that the depth of field (DoF) will be pretty shallow.  A shallow DoF means that the focus area in the picture will be very small, maybe a feet or much less.  The focus area is usually calculated as the distance from the focused subject to the camera.  A shallow DoF is used for things such as getting a portrait in which the subject is focused, but the background is nicely blurred.  Beware of choosing a DoF that is too shallow, it can make portions of the actual face fall out of focus.

A small aperture (let’s say 9 and above) means that the shutter is quite closed and the DoF will be pretty deep.  In another words, the focus area will be quite large.  An example of this is pictures in which the focused subject is sharply focused and all the background is also in focus.  Use a deep DoF when you want your subject and the background to appear in the picture well focused.

Now, to help you calculate the zones of focus for your camera, focal length, aperture and speed, here is a very handy tool.  This on line DoF calculator can tell you for a given camera and lens focal length (leth say 70 mm) where is the area of acceptable sharpness.  Remember that the area where focus is acceptable is at a distance from the camera, so play a little bit with the calculator to know what is the right aperture to use for your shooting matter and style. For example, if you shoot in a studio at 10 feet you can see what are the settings to have sharp and well exposed pictures.  However, if you shoot landscapes you might need a completely different set of settings to make killer shots.

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Posted by rcarreon at 10:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is another one of the pictures that are coming out of the André Gardenberg Workshop in São Paulo.  On this portrait, redhead model Kika is illuminated by a very subtle light coming from one side.  The result is a very striking photo in which her face and main facial features are drawn nicely, her red hair lights up and her eyes shine like a star.  Click on the picture for its flick page and for more pictures of Models shot at the Gardenberg Workshop.

Posted by rcarreon at 02:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Last week I had the opportunity to learn more about lighting with one of the great masters of photography in Brasil, André Gardenberg.  I have been a fan of André for a long time thanks to flickr, but now I had the privilege to spend the whole Saturday and Sunday learning from him how to set up superb studio lighting to shoot people.  This was one of the Continuous Lighting Workshops that André organizes in several cities of Brasil.  If you are into photography and want to learn more about lighting, please do not miss one of André’s seminars.  They are really affordable and he packs a lot of value into them.

I will write more about the wonderful experience of André’s Workshops, but for now, just a few samples of what lighting can achieve.  All of the examples below were shot by me, using a Canon EOS-1D Mark III.  All the shots were done with models, and you can find the full reference of the elements of each shot by clicking over any photo to access its flickr page.  You can also checl all the photos of the workshop on my flickr set on Models – André Gardenberg Lighting Workshop.

More picture from the Workshop coming in the next few days (I shot more than 5,000 photos in two full days.  Subscribe to Ricardo's Blog and get all my articles, my best photos and links.  See the top of the right column of this blog for free e-mail or RSS subscription.

Model Marcia looks to the side and down wearing a pink cowboy hat, jeans and a white leather top.

Redhair model Kika looks aggressive on a black corset combined with very radical lighting to give her an aggressive look.

Redhair Kika, contrasting with her aggressive look on the last photo has a more cinematic look on this one.  Lighting, makeup and the way the photo is shot play a big role on creating this result.

Priscila smiles openly as a very subtle light hits her face lighting up her smile and parts of her face.

Posted by rcarreon at 11:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Flickr has been struggling for a couple of days with a rather simple functionality that allows people to see the most recent photos uploaded by their contacts.  This functionality shows everybody in their flickr home page a little window with the four most recent pictures uploaded by their contacts, friends and family.  It sounds pretty inoffensive, right?  However, it is a functionality that is key to the social fabric of flickr.

It goes something like this: a lot of people go and build rather large networks of contacts in flickr.  Those people care to comment on many of the pictures uploaded by their contacts. Their contacts typically return their favor by commenting on their pictures too.  This cycle of favors is one of those cornerstones of the community life at flickr.

Well now, that functionality has been down for a couple of days in what seems to be a rather nasty development issue that has not been controlled.  You could see photo streams from many people apologizing for not been able to keep up with their friends’ new posts.  The flickr forum discussing this is rather popular and has many replies to the subject.

When are they gonna give us our networks back?

Posted by rcarreon at 09:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I was recently in Las Vegas and had a chance to visit the beautiful Bellagio hotel for several shows that take place there.  The Bellagio is a large Mega resort with more than 5,000 rooms in one single hotel location.  It also hosts one of the best shows in Las Vegas, the highly acclaimed “O” from Cirque du Soleil.  It also has a gorgeous outdoor show in its beautiful fountains that plays every 15 minutes to large crowds who gather to see it.

Here is a photo I took of its colorful lamps in the lobby area, very close to the actual front desk.  I am posting more photos of the Bellagio and other Vegas attractions on my Las Vegas flickr set.  If you want to look at the flickr page for this photo, just click on it.

Posted by rcarreon at 03:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

My dear partner Patricia Pessi had its 40th birthday last weekend.  We had a little celebration at the beach and shared many wonderful moments together.  I was able to capture some of her joy and happiness in a series of pictures that I am publishing in my flickr stream.  Here is a sample of some of the photos.  Please click on any of them to get its flickr page and look for the Patricia set in flickr for more pictures.

Posted by rcarreon at 04:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I just created a set of Brasil Campus Party pictures shot this week at the Brasil Campus Party.  The set is just starting to get filled, so please come and check it out often.  Here are some selected photos of the set, you can access the set clicking on any of the pages here and then looking for the link to the set on the flickr page of any of the photos.

Please click on any photo to access its flickr page and my Brasil Campus Party set:

Posted by rcarreon at 05:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Yesterday, January 31st 2008 was the 5th birthday of my son Fernando.  Fernando is the youngest of my three sons and is quite a blast.  This is just a small post to wish him all the happiness in the world and many many years of healthy and happy life.  I love you Fer.

Here are a few pictures of his birthday.  Click on any of them for its flickr page.

Posted by rcarreon at 03:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I was in Las Vegas last week for a company congress and then spent a few days on my own visiting the city and going to a number of shows from Cirque du Soleil and others.  WHile I was in Las Vegas a large fire started on the roof of the 3,000 room Monte Carlo hotel.  The fire apparently started on the roof and quickly spread through the facade of one of the hotel wings (most large resorts nowadays have three wings in Las Vegas).  Here are a couple of the pictures from that fire accident.

Fortunately there were no casualties and only a very small number of peoploe had very minor injuries.  The hotel was evacudated and is still closed until today, January 28th.  Las Vegas had a couple of tragic incidents in the 1980s and nowadays has a very strict fire code. 

Click on any of the pictures for its flickr page.  You can also see a number of pictures that I took of the different Las Vegas sights.  Good week to all of you.

Posted by rcarreon at 12:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Watching kids playing at the beach is always fun to watch.  The combination of playing with the water and with other kids always brings out great non-diluted emotions.  But somehow it called my attention to see a boy and a girl playing karate.  You can usually expect that to happen between two boys, anyway.  Additionally, they seem to have turned their ice cream cones an lollipops into some sort of imaginary weapons.

Click on the photo to see its flickr page.  There are more photos of the Brasilian summer published recently on my flickr stream.

Posted by rcarreon at 05:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Right now we are in the middle of the Southern Hemisphere summer and furthermore we are in the midst of the vacation season on many South American countries.  In Brasil, it is customary that vacations take place heavily between New Year's Day and the Carnaval (early February) and this year is no exception.  The large cities like Sao Paulo look empty while the most popular beaches are packed with people look for a place to get a tan and enjoy time.

Last weekend I went to Guaruja, one of closest beaches to Sao Paulo.  It is about 120 Km from the city, but traveling times can vary from 1:20 minutes to 6 hours in the most congested traffic days.  The weekend was OK until saturday afternoon when a heavy rain started.  It rain for about 24 hours and sunday prospects looked grim right until noon.  Before 1 PM the sky opened up and the weather was very good on sunday afternoon, well on time to save the weekend.

As I was sitting on a beach chair on sunday afternoon, I watched this lovely scene of a very young girl walking with a baby boy on her arms.  She was quite young but she seemed to be taking care of the baby efortlessly.  She walked a good chunk of the beach with the baby boy in her arms and was very playful with the little child.  As she passed through the sunrays in front of me I had the opportunity of getting the silhouette of such tender moment.  The black and white on the picture is completely natural, as the picture was shot and processed in color.  Click on the picture for its flickr page. 

Posted by rcarreon at 10:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Santo Madero is a very unique church on top of a large rock formation on top of a hill.  The rock formation creates some sort of a hat (or sombrero) and the church sits on top of that sombrero.  Santo Madero is located in Parras Coahuila, a beautiful little town (pop. 45,000) in the middle of Saltillo and Torreon, Coahuila.  Traveling distance from Saltillo is about 150Km, from Torreon about 180 Km and about 230Km from Monterrey.

Here is a shot of Santo Madero at sunset, with the wonderful color show in the sky.  You can see more shots of Santo Madero and Parras in my flickr set Parras, Mexico.  You can also click on the picture to see its flickr page.

Posted by rcarreon at 03:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Very recently on this holiday season I had the opportunity of visiting the Mirador of Saltillo, a watching point very close to the Ojo de Agua neighborhood and Church.  The Mirador is a very nice point to watch downtown and the north of the city.  For there you can see most of Saltillo's main building, including the fabulous cathedral and its office towers to the North.

Here are some of the pictures I took on that day.  Click on any of them to access its flickr page.

Posted by rcarreon at 02:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I'd like to take this opportunity to wish you and your families a very Merry Christmas and a very prosperous 2008 full with all the great things that life has to offer.

2007 was yet another year of strong economic expansion in Latin America and this meant that millions of people moved upward the socio economic ranks.  This is the wonderful news about this economic expansion that is now on its fifth year of life.  My deepest wish is that the positive economic cycle continues and more families join the middle class and leave poverty behind.  Let's all work for our countries in Latin America to continue to prosper and provide better opportunities for our people.

And here a photo of the wonderful Christmas tress made of water and light at Mexico City's Antara Shopping Center (click on them for its flickr page).  Feliz Navidad!

Posted by rcarreon at 11:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Martin Parr is a UK photographer that is highly recognized for his unique eye and his interpretation of society.  One of his wonderful collections of photographs is called "The Last Resort".  The Last Resort shows low income English families taking a break from work in New Brighton, a beach area near Liverpool.  New Brighton is a complete disaster and looks more like an industrial dump than any idillic tropical paradise.  The result is people who seem to be trying to have fun in a very unusual place.

The work was heavily controversial when it was published, due to its highly critical view on society.  Here is a photo gallery by Slate where you can enjoy some of the pictures on Martin's Book. Just scroll through the gallery by choosing the picture number 2,3 and so on.

Idea for this post was taken by an article I read on Martin Parr's work on the Brasilian Magazine Fotografe Melhor.  They ran an article on Martin Parr on November 2007.  The article made me research more about the author on line.

Posted by rcarreon at 09:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Last week I had the wonderful opportunity of touring Latin America with Intel Chairman Craig R. Barrett.  As I wrote on this blog last week, I am posting dozens of photos from the visit to my flickr account.  Don´t miss the opportunity to see how a trip from Craig evolves.  Last week we had the opportunity to visit seven cities, five of them in Brasil and two in Colombia.  Of the more than 130 photos that I have published about the event so far, there is a group of photos that is getting a lot of attention.  This is the group of photos of the Amazon indians that participated in one of the activities in Parintins, in the middle of the Amazon.

Parintins has been close to our hearts for more than a year, as Intel invested with a group of IT&C industry partners to bring computes and connectivity to Parintins a year ago.  Two public schools, one community center and one hospital were connected to the Internet using WiMax technology donated by Embratel.  Now as we came back to Parintins we could see how much technology has become an important part of the lives of the people of Parintins.  However, there is still much to be done as most of the schools and hospitals still lack connectivity.

Here are some of the pictures of the Amazon indians who joined the Municipality as they celebrated the opening of an Internet community center within the public library in town.  Click on any picture for its flickr page.

Posted by rcarreon at 10:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Intel Chariman Craig R. Barrett is touring Latin America this week. On this occasion, Craig is visiting 7 cities in Colombia and Brasil.  As it is tradition, Craig's tours are filled with exciting events and announcements on each of the communities that are reached.  You can go into a new flickr set I just created to see the latest photos in the tour.  Please be sure to visit the set often.

Here is the flickr set on Craig's 2007 Latin America tour.

Posted by rcarreon at 01:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I just published a few days ago a new flickr set of photos about Miami.  The album continues to grow as I process the pictures that I took recently in the city, but it has already 52 pictures to look at.  Look at the architecture, the people and the different Miami neigborhoods on this new flickr set.  It includes many shots at the fabulous South Beach, both at its streets and cafes as well as on the beach. You can access this new flickr set here: Miami.

Here are some pictures you can find on the set.  Please click on any of them for its flickr page.

Posted by rcarreon at 03:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

As I wrote recently, I was in Madrid last week (7-9 November 2007) to launch the Conecta Latinoamerica progfram with Banesto and Microsoft.  I have been loading photos from both the event itself as well as from the gorgeous city of Madrid.  The photos are focused on the main buildings, particularly in the historical area as well as the people in Madrid.

Here you have a sample of the photos that you can find in my Madrid set.  Click on any photo to access its flickr page.

Here you can see a detail of the world-famous Cibeles sculpture.  The sunrays were very good enhancing the beauty of the lions of the sculpture group.

This picture shows a very interesting perspective created by the stairs and ceiling lines.  The perspective provides a lot of depth to the picture and guides your eye to the lonely person going up the stairs.

This picture shows Fuencarral street, a very hip street in downtown Madrid filled with trendy boutiques and very attractive looking graffitti.

On this picture you can see the subtle sunrise in the sky and the gorgeous building on La Gran Via being illuminated by the first rays of sun light.

On this candid shot, a group of people walks next to the gorgeous Palacio Real.

On this picture you can see the sculpture dedicated to Miguel de Cervantes Saavadra and his creation, Don Quijote.  You can also see the neighboring buildings illuminated by the last rays of sun behind Don Quijote and Sancho Panza.

You can find more than 30 additional pictures on my Madrid set on flickr.

Posted by rcarreon at 08:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Sometimes an average photo can be turned into a very interesting photo just by carefully choosing the right perspective to use.  The right perspective, which is heavily influenced by your actual point of view can bring things like depth and can guide the eyes of the audience through the picture.

Take for instance this picture that I shot recently coming out of the Madrid subway.  As you can see, the lines of the escalators and the ceiling and ducts create a perspective that guides your eyes into the lonely person going up the escalator and then into the exit.  The contrast of the white lines versus the dark tones in the walls, escalator and the person helps make the perspective lines even more preeminent.

Click on the picture to access its flickr page. This picture made Explore, the pages with the most interesting pictures uploaded into flickr every day.

Posted by rcarreon at 12:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Today my Flickr photo stream reached a major milestone, it got to 1,000 photos posted in it.  I started posting photos back in November 2005, but it has taken off in audience and number of people participating on it since January 2007.  To celebrate the occasion, I just published a few Rio shots that are very interesting.  Watch out for a Silhouette version of Cristo Redentor and another view of the Corcovado mountain and the Cristo Redentor taken from Botafogo. More photos of Rio are available in my Rio set.

Come and join my celebration on flickr.  Just click on any of the pictures below.  Thanks for your continued support of my photos.

Despite the fact that I was in a moving car, the natural light was so exceptional that I managed to get this shot.  Please go the flickr poage and see it large.  You will see the exceptional shape of the Corcovado mountain and the delicate silhouette of the Christ the Redeemer.

This is a Cristo Redentor Silhouette with silhouettes of the people at the base of the Christ.  The day was cloudy last saturday when we visited the last time but suddenly the sky opened up and created this great light for shoothing silhouettes.

Subscribe to Ricardo's blog and get the best pictures at the same time I post them to Flickr.  Subscription is easy, quicky and free.  Just click at the links on top of the right column of this blog. 

Posted by rcarreon at 05:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Watch out for a new set of pictures I am starting to build of Ottawa in the Fall. I visited the lovely capital city of Canada in October 2007 and I am publishing the photos from my quick visit.  Here you have some examples, as usual, click on any photo to access its flickr page.

The trees were starting to change their colors as you can see on this mixture of green, yellow and red leaves.

Who says pumpkins have to have one shape and one color?  As you can see there is a large bariety of pumpkins in many colors and shapes.

And tp close this little sample, here is the fabulous Canadian Paliament shot with an ultra grand angular lens.  It is quite perhaps the only way to make the whole building fit in a frame.

More pictures on my Ottawa flickr set. 

Posted by rcarreon at 08:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted by rcarreon at 01:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

See the story behind this picture on its flickr page.  Just click on the picture to access it.

Posted by rcarreon at 09:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I took this picture yesterday while visiting Miami's fabulous Mandarin Oriental Hotel.  The Mandarin Oriental is right in front of Brickell Avenue, the Financial district of downtown Miami.  The Mandarin sits on a small island called the Brickell Key.  Watch this and more photos from Miami on my flickr photo stream.  Just click on the picture to access flickr and look under tag Miami.

Posted by rcarreon at 10:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As mentioned recently, Flickr held its first ever community event in Brasil yesterday.  It was a very pleasant even in which we all had to get to know us on the real world.  It was great to finally put the faces and personalities to all of our virtual friends, as well as get to know a few new ones.  At the party, the best picture for all of the Brasilian states was show ased in the museum walls.  There was also a video showcase of all the photos submitted for the contest.

I built a set of the pictures of the event I took last evening.  On them you can see some of the photographers and their work as well as some group shots with the names of the winners so you can look at their amazing photographic work.  I will post pictures of the event here soon.

Look here for the event pictures: Fickr no Brasil.

Posted by rcarreon at 12:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It is that time of the year again.  On a very unusual season and still without a defined F1 champion this weekend we will have the Brasil Grand Prix at the Interlagos race track in the south of Sao Paulo.  The city is already very crowded as hotels and restaurants are full with the massive amounts of people that visit the city for the Grand Prix (some people estimate the event's attendance at 1.5 Million people over three days of competition.

I will have the opportunity to go again to Interlagos and capture the race and all the ambiance around it.  Don't miss the action in the track and outside of it.  To start to get us into the GP Brasil environment here is a link to a flickr set I built for last year's event: GP Brasil 2006.

Here you have also some of the pictures that are in that set. Click on any of them for its flickr page. 

One of the main attractions before the race, the Formula Una ladies.  On this pciture, Katie Larmour smiles in the paddock before the race begins.

A close up look at the wheel and the cockpit of team BMW Sauber.

And the race starts!  Pilots go around the circuit in a platform.

See you at Interlagos! 

Posted by rcarreon at 10:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

As I wrote recently, there will be a flickr community meeting in Sao Paulo next week.  It is the first ever community event organized by the flickr staff.  It is a wonderful recognition to the many contibutions that Brasilians and people who love Brasil have to flickr.

I was notified yesterday that one of my photos was chosen to be published in a book that will be published for the event.  The photo will be showcased at the MUBE Museum as well.  The flickr meeting will be held at MUBE, located on Rua Alemanha 221, Jardim Europa.  The event will be hold after 7 PM on that day.  I am really honored that my picture has been chosen to represent the wonderful state of Bahia. 

Here is the picture of what is called "Pelourinho" (click on it to access its flickr page).  The Pelourinho or the Pillary was a public pilar in which slaves used to be whiped publicly. It is today the historic distric of Salvador, Bahia.  The picture below was taken from the area that is called "Largo do Pelourinho" and is facing the downhill street.  Interestingly enough, the picture is of the area that has not been restored and therefore is not as manicured as the Largo de Pelourinho itself.  In another words, it gives you a very good idea of what the Pelourinho is all about.

See you all at MUBE next week. 

Posted by rcarreon at 01:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

I just arrived home from a two week trip that took me to places in Canada, the US, Mexico and Guatemala.  It was a great learning trip for me as this was my first time ever in both Guatemala and Canada.  Despite being neighboring countries to Mexico, they were unknown to me until now. On this note I want to focus on my experience in Toronto (I also visited Ottawa for one day).

Toronto is a very beautiful and modern city and arguable the main business center of Canada.  The city is beautiful, well structured, clean and very safe.  I walked through its streets for two days and a half day and night with all my photo equipment and felt safe at all times.  Besides its impressive buildings and public infrastructure the heart of Toronto goes far beyond its physical infrastructure.  The heart of Toronto is in the very pleasant culture of openess and embrace of cultural diversity.

In Toronto you can run into people from all national and religious origins and everybody lives in peace with one another.  In my brief stay I met people from all over Latin America that now call Toronto home, people from many places in Asia, India, Middle East and Europe. You could see people in the street living together in harmony.  A couple of places in which this is very strongly showcased: the University of Toronto Campus and CHinatown / Kensington Market.  In the University of Toronto Campus you could see people from all over the world moving freely through campus.  In Chinatown / Kensington Market you could see people from all nationalities buying and selling products from all over the world.  Latin American products were present and you could easily find anything from tortillas to chiles, to Peruvian and Colombian soft drinks to piñatas.  I'd love to have that here in São Paulo!

Canada is a good role model to the world that a strong society can be built on top of a strong deiversity and not out of fear for migrants.  As I walked the streets of Toronto I felt safe and welcome and very excited to participate, even if it was just for a few days, in the city.  For example, as I took shots through the city I nobody harrassed me and stopped me from taking photos as they did multiple times in L.A.  Yes you can be open and yes you can embrace diversity and the result is a stronger society and not a weaker one.  If only other countries would listen...

I am starting to build a photo set on Toronto.  It has already about 15 pictures but pretty soon it can easily7 get to 50 or more.  Here are some of the pictures that are alrerady loaded into flickr.  Click on any of them for its flickr page.  

The majestic CN Tower, the tallest tower of its kind in the world.  The tower height is 533.33 meters, of two times the size of the largest building in Latin America, Mexico City´s TorreMayor.

Billboards and Buildings light up the night in Dundas Square, at the heart of Toronto´s downtown in the intersection of Dundas and Yonge streets.

People wait for their light in downtown Toronto.

A closer look at CN tower, shot from the plaza below the tower.

And don´t forget to visit the flickr set on Toronto.  It has 15 pictures today and it will grow quickly to more than 50. 

Posted by rcarreon at 09:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

To all Flickr fans in Brasil, Flickr is going to hold a community meeting on October 23rd.  The meeting will take place at the MUBE Museum in Sao Paulo (located in the Jardins area of the city). As part of the event, there is a flickr group where participants can submit their best photos from all over Brasil.  The best picture will be chosen for each state and the Federal District and showcased at the event and in a commemorative group.

More details in the following web page (english and portuguese).  See you at MUBE!

Posted by rcarreon at 02:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

On this picture, my oldest son is looking at sunlight coming through a hole.  He is in an underground tunnel in the gorgeous Termas Sao Joaquin in the middle of the Coahuila desert.  My oldest son is joined by my youngest son an a cousin.  Watch the wonderful expression on my son's face and the textures and details in the tunnel by clicking on the photo and then selecting "All Sizes" right above the photo on flickr..

Posted by rcarreon at 11:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I am at an Education event in Guatemala and I just saw for the first time the EEE PC from Asustek.  The EEE PC is a low cost notebook that has raised a lot of attention since it was launched by Asus and Intel at the latest Computex Taiwan.  Here you have some shots of the EEE PC and some side by side shots with the Classmate PC and and Ultra Mobile PC from founder.  This can give you a good idea of the size of the notebook with is smaller than what I'd have expected (see it next to the Classmate).  It's design is really slick and it looks great.

As always, you can click on any of the photos to get its flickr page.

A shot with the monitor turned on and from the front.  As you can see the screen looks great and the overall clear design looks very nice. 

On this shot, the EEE PC was pictures from above looking down.

On this picture you can see the Classmate PC side by side with the EEE PC.  As you can see the Intel powered Classmate PC is bigger due to the ruggedized case designed to take the heat from little kids at school. 

Here is how the EEE PC looks next to a smaller computer, on this case an Ultra Mobile PC from Founder.

Finally, this is how the EEE PC looks in the hands of an adult.  Much smaller than a normal size notebook, but bigger than an Ultra Mobile PC as you saw.

Any comments? Other shots you'd like to see here.  Sorry for publishing the photos without post-production, but I wanted to give you a good idea at how the EEE PC looked like.

Posted by rcarreon at 12:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I was in beautiful Maceió, in the Brasilian northeast, last week.  Maceió is the capital city of the state of Alagoas, north of Bahia and south of Pernambuco.  Maceió is a relatively small city compared to the major coastal cities such as Rio or Salvador, but it has many natural attractions on its beaches, lagoons and other natural beauty.  I had some time to walk very early in the day before my event got started.  I walked up through the Cruz das Almas beach and witnessed a very safe, clean and naturally beautiful environment.  Many people were out waiting for the sun to rise or doing excercise at the beach.

Besides the wonderful sunrise I was happy to be on the state with Governor Teutonio Villela and Vice Governor Jose Wanderley for the launch of a leading program to promote Digital Inclusion in the state in which Health Care, Education and Public Safety are the main pillars.  Congratulations to the Governor and Vice Governor for their leadership on putting this together.

Sunrise as Cruz das Almas Beach in Maceió.  A couple jogs while a fisherman slowly walks through the sand of the beach. Click on the picture for its flickr page.

Posted by rcarreon at 12:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I just loaded a group of pictures of the lovely Tango show at Piazzolla's a very nice Galeria at downtown Buenos Aires.  I hope you enjoy them.  Click on any picture for its flickr page.  There are more great pictures about live Tango on my flickr account.

Passion is there, on every movement on every step on the dance floor.

Women look confident as the show starts at Piazzolla's.

This dancing couple seemed so confident and relaxed as they executed perfectly their routine.

They still looked confident and elegant as they were about to finish a great Tango routine.

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From one side of the Pedestrian Crossing of a busy downtown Buenos Aires street.  Click on any picture for its flickr page.

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Look at this photo of tourists about to go up to the Sugar Loaf in Rio de Janeiro.  How many cameras do you count among the front riders on the Cable Car?  Place a comment here and if you give up click on the photo and see the answer on its flickr page... maybe you can see a camera we couldn't see.

Posted by rcarreon at 10:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I am in the last few days of my two-week vacation and I wanted to leave you all with a bit of a taste of what I did.  I spent the time visiting cities in Brasil and Argentina with my father and Patricia.  The last and longest stop was in Bariloche where we had the opportunity to visit the wonderful ski areas such as Cerro Catedral, make lots of photos of the Andes and the neigboring lakes (including of course the gorgeous Nahuel Huapi) and visiting beautiful neighboring cities such as Villa la Angostura.

I am starting to download my photos to a new flickr set on Bariloche, please visit it here.  I also added many photos to my Rio and Buenos Aires sets. 

Skiers go down the mountain off the Condor Peak, one of the many attractions of the wonderful Cerro Catedral ski area.  Click on the picture for its flickr page. 

Posted by rcarreon at 07:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

David Garibaldi is a Sacramento-based Latino artist that is very proud of his heritage.  I recently had the opportunity to see him perform live and create a stunning painting of Carlos Santana in just a few minutes while dancing to one of his tunes.  He paints with brushes, sticks, hands, fingers, just about anything.  Go click on the photo below and follow the flickr stream to see the five photos and the final result. You will be surprised at what David does.

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I spent the week in the US, primarily in Portland, Oregon and San Jose, California.  In Portland I attended a leadership training which tought me some very interesting lessons that I will share with you all.  In San Jose, I attended the Hispanic Leadership Conference of Intel.  This one was a very strong eye opener in many fronts for me.  The attendants were mostly US based Latinos and a few people from Latin America.  It was great to see the passion of the Hispanic leaders in the US.  I have many interesting stories to write about that conference. 

I also decided to buy a new camera, the much praised Canon EOS-1D Mark III.  Stay tuned for photos from that beautiful machine to be posted here and in my flickr stream from now on.  For now, I'd have a cold beer and relax over the weekend.  Happy holiday for my friends in the US.  I am coming back to California after the three day holiday.

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I am in Portland Oregon for a class this week.  Yesterday at the end of the day I went to nearby Cannon beach and was pleasantly surprised.  Here is just a little taste of the gorgeous sunsets there.  This picture has no post production.  More pictures to come soon. Click on the picture for its flickr page.

You can get all of my best photos if you subscribe to Ricardo's blog on the upper right side of this blog. Subscription is free and you can stop it at any time.

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A couple of pictures of colorful yellow boats that I tokk off the coast of Brasil.  The first is a wooden boat used by fisherman and for tourist rides and the second one is a speed powerboat.  Both leave very interesting reflections in the water.  Which one do you like best?  Click on any photo for its flickr page.

Posted by rcarreon at 11:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Earlier in the year I visited the SIlicon Valley and I stopped in Pacifica, a small town in the outskirts of San Francisco.  I shoot some pictures there and walked near the shore line.  The picture shown here was taken from the top of a hill that overlooked this small beach.  As you can see there is a tiny little person on the upper side of that beach. It was a lone fisherman trying to catch some fish.

I love the colors, contrasts and textures of this picture, as usual you can click in the photo for its flickr page.  Have a nice thursday.

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Click on the picture if you want to access its flickr page.

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 I spend sunday and half day monday in Rio de Janeiro.  I took many photos on sunday that I will upload in the next few days but here is one that I really liked. I shot this as I was leaving Corcovado early in the afternoon.  The silhouettes made by the people against the sunlight were astonishing. You can also see the communication towers partially covered by thin stratus clouds on the back.  Click on the picture to see its flickr page.  The photo has already made flickr's prestigious Explore pages.

And here is another one taken very close to the first one.  On this one the sunrays create a golden  strip on the floor between the tourists.  Click on the picture to see its flickr page.

Posted by rcarreon at 06:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Click on the picture for its flickr page and to watch it in LARGE size.

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Here is a picture I took at the start of the day in my recent trip to Loreto, Baja California, Mexico.  I love how those almost vertical sunrays hit this big desert stone at the beach.  Click on the picture for its flickr page.  This and many other of my pictures are available as high quality posters from Imagekind (see details on the flickr page).

Posted by rcarreon at 08:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This photo applies the technique described in the article.  Click on the picture to see it large and appreciate the details in their hair, faces, sunglasses and in the water waves. 

I found this really good technique on how to sharpen your digital photos on photoshop without adding too much noise or undesired halos.  The article is from Photoshopsupport.com.  Find the article here.

Also, read more about SLR camera basics on the SLR Photography Primer.

Article I: It's all about the Light 

Article II: Shooting indoors without flash 

Article III: Aperture and Speed Explained 

Posted by rcarreon at 07:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It was very hard to shoot this picture I took recently in downtown São Paulo.  It is a common scene all over the world, but it is still a very hard reality to accept.  For the version you are seeing here I removed some of the color of the photo by mixing a Black and White version of the photo with the full color version.  The result is very interesting visially and keeps the somber environment, while allowing for a very nice contrast.  I hope you like it.

Click on the photo for its flickr page.

Posted by rcarreon at 11:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Starting immediately, you will notice a link on the upper right column of this blog pointing to Pictures of Latin American Cities.  The link will take you to my collection of pictures of the region in Flickr.  I actually have 11 sets of pictures of different cities in the region.  The sets are being updated constantly with new pictures being added to those sets.

The current collection covers the following cities:  Bogota, Buenos Aires, Cancun, Mexico City, Monterrey, Paraty, Rio de Janeiro, Saltillo, Salvador (Bahia), Santiago and São Paulo.  More sets are being added every month of so.  Let me know if you like it.

All pictures are perfectly OK for personal use (e.g. Screensaver).  To blog them just ask, I will grant usage happily.  For commercial use a usage license should be acquired for a fee. 

Posted by rcarreon at 07:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Felipe Calderon, Monica Mistretta, Margarita Zavala and me.  Photo by Rodrigo Sandoval.  Click on the picture for its flickr page.

I met Felipe Calderon earlier this year in the Los Pinos presidential house together with Intel Chairman Craig R. Barrett and a group of people.  We had a meeting in March that was refreshingly positive given the President’s enthusiasm about technology in Mexico.  All the group in the meeting had a great time discussing what to do to promote digital inclusion in Mexico.

But the second time I met Felipe Calderon was actually by surprise.  It happened earlier this week at a very good Mexican food restaurant in Mexico City.  Here is what happened and how I ended up in the picture above.

I was having lunch with Monica Mistretta, a famous technology editorialist and Rodrigo Sandoval, one of my colleagues at Intel.  We were chatting before lunch, sipping an interesting flavored margarita before lunch.  All of the sudden, a group of people arrived… it was President Calderon and the first lady and a bunch of folks in suits and uniforms.  We later discovered that they were mostly folks from the presidential guard and the President and his wife were making a stop to have lunch together at this restaurant.

Now, it is a very unusual situation to have the President of Mexico (or from many other countries) just stop by at a restaurant.  In most cases they have private meals and if they go to a public place, it is either during an event, a tour or for a private session.  Having the first couple show at a place impromptu and with a discreet security was actually a very nice surprise.  Furthermore, the first couple sat at a table next to us, which was an interesting situation to say the least.

It was only a few minutes into the presidential lunch and Monica was already building a plan to get an autograph from the President.  She was considering her chances of being stopped or denied, but at the end decided to go for it.  No single person in the restaurant had stepped into Felipe Calderon’s table, but Monica is not shy to be the one to break the ice.  At the end, Monica and I went to their table.  Monica said hello to the President, introduced herself and asked for the autograph.  I asked the President about the technology we discussed in March and he answered about it enthusiastically and right away.  We all engaged in a little conversation for a few minutes and finally Monica and I said good bye and we went back to our table.

Monica did ended up breaking the ice in the restaurant.  After our little appearance, other couples and small groups went by their table.  I am happy they were not that many, so the President and his wife had a good out-of-protocol lunch together.   Monica, Rodrigo and I continued talking though all of the lunch.  Earlier in the lunch Rodrigo gave me a little package, a brand new Canon G7 compact digital camera that I had bought and sent to him in the US.  He gave it to me at lunch.

By the time our lunch was finishing (and the presidential couple was finishing too) we found out the reason for the lunch the first lady and the president were having.  The restaurant staff brought a stylized individual birthday cake for her.  Monica became very excited… We all turned and saw the first lady blew her birthday candle.  Monica started to clap and cheer loudly and Rodrigo and I did the same.  Very soon all of the restaurant was clapping and cheering and the presidential couple faces were blushed red and very happy. 

Monica started immediately to say “Ricardo, you must take a picture of them. You take great pictures”.  I said to her that the only camera around was my new Canon G7, but that I was positive it had no memory chip in it. So, I started to look into the package Rodrigo gave me and I found the battery.  Placed on the camera and saw that the battery had energy.  I kept searching for a while and found a tiny 32MB chip (holds about 12 pictures only).  But it was as good as any chip, since we only wanted a picture.

Monica at first wanted me to try to get a paparazzi picture of the couple, but I said that despite being an avid photographer, I would not want to do the paparazzi on this occasion.  I said to Monica that if she wanted a picture we should ask the President and his wife and have somebody take it.  Rodrigo turned into us knowing what was about to happen and complained that he didn’t wanted to participate on that plan (he was kinda embarrassed about us).  Anyway, we both got up once again and Rodrigo had to take the shot anyway.

Monica got close to the President and said “Mr. President, we have to get a picture with you and your wife.  Ricardo has a great blog that is very popular”.  I blushed and felt on the spot of course, but it was too late to try to explain anything.  Felipe Calderon asked me for the URL of the blog and I give it to him.  We all got together for the picture and I asked Margarita Zavala, the first lady, how many years old she was.  She told me that she was turning 40, and that is why they decided to do something special.  I told him that it was a great gesture of them to come to a restaurant impromptu.  They looked really happy as we said good bye to them.

I’d like to thank Felipe Calderon, Margarita Zavala, Monica Mistretta and Rodrigo Sandoval for their generosity and for a great time last week.

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I left Loreto on tuesday to get to Mexico City.  My flight was an early AM flight, so I had to leave the Inn at Lorety Bay hotel early.  As in many quick trips from Brasil to either Mexico or the US, I am still operating under Brasil time zone a few days into the visit.  In tuesday morning then, I woke up at 4 AM local time (it was already 7 AM in Brasil).  I realized and went back to sleep.  However, less than a couple of hours later I woke up to the alarm in my cell phone and quickly went to my check out routine. I had agreed with a collague to meet at the lobby to leave to the airport at 7 AM.

So I rushed through taking a bath, fixing my bag and went to the lobby.  I thought it was already a bit past 7 and I was worried since the timing was calculated a bit tight, since the airport is not that far from the hotel.  So when I arrived to the lobby and saw that the other person that was upposed to meet me at 7 AM was not there.  I asked the person on the hotel to allow me to use a phone and I called my colleague.  When he responded he still had a sleepy voice and told me it was 6 AM and not 7AM as I thought.  No need to depart for at least one more hour.  To make my awkard situation even worse, the person at the hotel desk told me the airport was not even open at that time.

I apologized profusely to my colleague and to the person at the desk.  As I turned my vision to the pool and beach area I quickly saw a familiar scene.  It was a bit before sunrise.  And judging by the clouds it was promising to be a spectacular sunrise indeed.  I quickly forgot what happened and instantaneously knew what I was going to do with the hour I had won.  I shot pictures of that gorgeous Loreto sunrise.  It turned out to be one of the most beautiful sunrises I have seen in my life.  A weird mistake had in a moment turned into a wonderful opportunity. 

Here is the first photo I published from that day.  There are many more gorgeous photos of that day and I plan to publish them little by little to flickr.  Click on the photo to see its flickr page.

This Loreto sunrise has all.  From amny different types of clouds showing interesting tones of pink, purple and orange to mountains, rock, flying birds and even a boat.

Posted by rcarreon at 08:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Just a very short note to let you know that I am in Loreto for a business meeting.  Loreto is a very small village in the middle of the Baja California peninsula, in front of gorgeous Mar de Cortez.  I will write more about Loreto soon, but in the meantime, this is how sunrise looked today.  What do you think? Click on the picture for its flickr page.

Posted by rcarreon at 11:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Try to guess what is this and leave a comment with your guess. Try again.  And then, when you give up guessing, just click in the photo for the explanation on flickr.

Just a little game to get some fresh air and forget about Congonhas.

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I just published one of the pictures I took recently of jellyfish, while I visited Atlantis earlier in the year.  Jellyfish are simply fascinating to look at.  Enjoy the picture and click on it to see its flickr page and watch the comment on it.

Posted by rcarreon at 11:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Brasilia, the capital of Brasil has a wonderful modern hanging bridge over the Paranoá lake, the Juscelino Kubitcheck bridge. The JK bridge is only a few years old and has a very modern yet impressive architecture.  It has in a very short time become one of the most loved Brasilia landmarks.

Here are a few shots that I took of the JK Bridge over the weekend.  All of them are from below the bridge, since we were cruising on a boat through the lake.  Click on any picture to get its flickr page.

Here is the bridge in full shot from a point closer to the arc on the right.  It exaggerates the size of the arc making the right one look disproportionally big.

A close up of the bridge. The third arc on the right is covered partially.

This one is an interesting shot from below the bridge.

This has a sharper angle but the result is a very interesting and dynamic image, even if the horizon is clearly messed up.

See more gorgeous pictures of the JK Brige on this flickr tag: Pontejk. 

Posted by rcarreon at 11:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Last weekend we decided to go and make a portion of the Estrada Real.  The Estrada Real is composed by a series of roads that in the Portugues colonial times were used by the Portuguese crown to control the flow of gold, silver, diamonds and other precious stones and minerals.  The roads connected the mining areas (most of them in what is today the state of MInas Gerais) with the port areas in the Rio de Janeiro state. Here is a very nice site with information in portuguese: Instituto Estrada Real.

We decided to do a portion of the Old Road, covering from Paraty to São João del Rei.  It was quite perhaps one of the most enjoyable trips I have done in my life.  First of all it was very refreshing to discover the many hidden jewels of cities that Brasil has.  I love colonial architecture and the cities along the Estrada Real have lots of wonderful colonial architecture to offer. 

Paraty, our starting point is a very charming small city that has a very lovely historical district.  The city is right on the coast of Rio de Janeiro, south of Rio and just north of the São Paulo state border.  By coincidence we ended up in Paraty in one of the days that one of the major cultural festivals takes place in the city. The city was hosting the FLIP 2007, FLIP stands for Festa Literaria Internacional de Parati.  The event was visited by 20,000 people with presence from authoprs from more than 11 countries, including several Nobel prize winners.  Given FLIP Paraty was not only its regular beautiful self but was bursting with people all over the place. Information about FLIP can be found here (both English and Portuguese).

This is how one of the FLIP 2007 Pavillions looked this year. CLick on the picture to see its flickr page. 

It was a huge challenge to find a room in Paraty during the FLIP so reservations are a must to visit there.  Also, we used the route of reaching Paraty through a city called Cunha in the São Paulo state and got surprise with the fact that the Cunha-Paraty road involves a 9 Km portion of a very rough road in the mountains.  You can do it in a car with lots of patience, but if it rains, you probably will need an off road vehicle to do this.

After Paraty the Estrada Real goes along a series of very beautiful towns in the Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Minas Gerais states.  Some wonderful discoveries include Cunha, Passa Quatro and São João del Rei.  Cunha is a wonderful small city (pop. 25,000) which is in the middle of the mountains and has a wonderful climate.  The city has many old Fazendas that have been transformed into hotels.  The city has also a very vibrant production of Ceramics with many talented artists producing high quality work.  You can visit the many workshops and buy ceramics there.

Passa Quatro is a towen in the middle of the Mantiqueira mountains that divide the São Paulo and Minas Gerais states.  It is also a very charmin little town that has many mountain hotels including a major resort called Recanto de las Hortensias, which is one of the most complete hotels in the whole route.  Passa Quatro also has a touristic steam train that can get you to the mountains.

Finally, Sao João del Rei, it is a major city with a wonderful architectural heritage.  It reminded me a lot to San Miguel de Allende and Guanajuato in Mexico.  São João del Rei was chosen the Brasilian Capital of Culture for 2007 and therefore many major cultural activities are taking place in there through the week.   

There is a flickr group with photos from the Estrada Real, you can visit it here. I am starting to upload the many photos I took of the Estrada Real.  I will post as soon as I have a meaningful number of pictures to show.  For the time being here is a picture of the wonderful Municipal Theater in São João del Rei.  Click on the picture to see its flickr page.

Posted by rcarreon at 06:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I spent my last week over three very different environments on three different cities.  I started the week flying into Mexico City, where I had packed days visiting customers and catching up with some friends.  Then I flew to Atlanta for the CNN en Español feature that got on the air on monday, July 2nd, 2007.  Then finally, I flew through Monterrey to Saltillo.  However, my dad decided to invite me and my kids to go to "La Azufrosa" a tiny little village in the middle of the desert in the Coahuila state (northeast Mexico).

La Azufrosa is very tiny as I mentiones, with perhaps less than 20 houses, most of them belonging relatives.  It is place that probably will be deserted by people if it weren´t because smething sets it apart from other impoverished villages in the desert.  La Azuforsa has a source of waters that come out of the ground at very high temperatures.  The water source is rich in sulfur and therefore the name Azufrosa.  The place has a couple of thermas, one very simple owned by my family and one more sophisticated with a millionaire investment called Termas de San Joaquin.  Both attract different audiences and both are quite popular.

First of all I got impressed at the progress the area has achieved since a road that passes through there was built.  The road passes right next through Termas San Joaquin and can take you to Saltillo (via Paredon) or to Monterrey (via Icamole and then Garcia).  The road is in great condition and can considerably diminish travel time to La Azufrosa.  As my dad put it this week, my grand parents would have loved to see this road.  In their time getting from La Azufrosa to Saltillo was probably a three hour deal at least, nowadays is about an hour and a half.

I had a great time with my kids visiting both La Azufrosa and Termas San Joaquin.  Termas San Joaquin just opened a brand new luxury hotel that is a real resort in the middle of the desert.  In addition to the termal waters, the have a regular pool, gym, several playgrounds, Convention Center and other amenities.  The rooms are outstanding and will go for about US $220 a night.

My kids loved going to the desert at sunset and hunt for interesting stones, indian arrows and fossilized sea molusks.  Despite the fact that they are city dwellers, they just loved the desert as if they have always lived there.

Here are a few photos from La Azufrosa.  Click on any of them for its flickr page:

Rocks, cactus, stones, indian arrows, fossilized molusks and even pieces of marble can be found on the soil near "La Azufrosa"

Mountains, stones and desert plants in this landscape near la Azufrosa, Mexico. 

On this sunset shot, the light hitting the clouds createed three distrinct color patterns: the yellow and red below the clouds, white on the area opf strong sunbeams and blue in the rest of the sky above the clouds.

More pictures of La Azufrosa coming soon to my flickr photo stream.  You get all of my photos, blog articles and del.icio.us links if you subscribe to RIcardo's Blog.  See link on the top of the right column for more details. 

Posted by rcarreon at 08:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I did a quick visit to Atlanta this week to talk to CNN en Español (interview will air on monday at the En Efectivo section, look for more details soon).  I was very pleasantly surprised by the way that Atlanta has continued to evolve into a service economy powerhouse with a strong infrastructure for tourism (both Business and Pleasure).  Right across the street from CNN Center you can find the Centennial Olympic Park, one of the nice urban spaces that was built for the 1996 Olympiad. 

I had a bit of time there and found a marvelous spor in the Park called the Fountain of Rings.  In that place, you have a fountain that can spray water in many different ways from the floor.  The fountain is shaped in the way of the five Olympic rings.  People are allowed to freshen up in the fountain, creating a beautiful show of expressions, screams and many other demonstrations of sheer joy. 

Here are some pictures from the Fountain of Rings, with more coming up soon.  Just click on any of the, to see its flickr page.

Here is the fountain of rings very early in the morning, before is turned on.  It is a rather unusual look for this since during the day is always full with people and water.

This was right before a break.  The fountain creates a nice refreshing mist of water.  Kids and girls of all ages move to take a good spot along the rings.

Once people have a good spot, they position themselves in the rings waiting to catch a good water stream.

... and this is what happens when the water comes out.

Posted by rcarreon at 11:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I had a chance to visit Campos do Jordão last weekend.  Campos de Jordão is the most popular mountain resort area in Brasil, usually visited on the winters.  It is a very nice area with lots of things to do.  You can either practice sports, horse riding or some more extreme adventures.  You can dine or wine in its many restaurants and cafes.  You can shop on its top notch boutiques... or you can simply go to the place to see and be seen in the winter.

I captured a few shots on Campos de Jordáo, using my latest acquisition, a Canon 50mm 1.4 focal aperture.  It is a fixed lenght lens (you cannot move from 50mm) and you cannot zoom in or zoom out as with most popular lenses.  In compensation for the loss on flexibility however, yo get a very high quality lens.  For more about this lens look at its Amazon reviews here.

Now here is just a small token of what Campos de Jordão has to offer.  This is a picture of a couple of Araucaria tree silhouettes washed upon the pink and blue of the sunset sky.  Click on the picture to access its flickr page. 

Posted by rcarreon at 10:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This week I was lucky enough to wake up early several times and enjoy sunrises in the city where I grew up, Saltillo. Saltillo is in the Northeast of Mexico.  It is a major autocenter for GM and Daimler Chrysler, as well as many other auto giants who produce everything from autoparts to autos, truck and very soon trailers.  It is located about 200 miles from the US border and only 50 miles from Monterry.  The city's metro area has about 750,000 inhabitants.

Here is a shot I did at sunrise almost by sheer luck.  I was hunting the sunrise and finding a good, clean spot to capture the sun, the clouds and the mountains.  I was a bit pressured, because I was almos missing the sunrise altogether.  I stopper and started shooting the sun... and when I had enough photos of the sunrise I tunder back to a skyscrpaer nearby.  It is architecture is modern but nothing really exciting.  However that morning it was looking completely outstanding. 

The reason for that is that there were lower clouds of white and dark grey colors in the back of the building.  There were also those kinds of clouds someple in front of the building.  The result is that the building looked as if it was completely integrated with the sky... it looked terrific.  Suddenly the relatively simple reflective glass building looked like a jewel.

Here is a photo I took there.  The contrast of the sunrise clouds was so strong that the image looks like an HDR, but it isn't.  An HDR is an image that is made of three or more pictures with different levels of exposure.  The result is a photo that has deeper dark areas and more brilliant highlights.  Check this Wikipedia article for more details.

Here is the photo.  What do you think?  It is already one of the top pictures on my flickr stream with a couple of days of being published. Click on the photo to see it LARGE and access its comments stream in flickr.

Posted by rcarreon at 09:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

So I was lucky enough to capture sunrise again here in Saltillo.  This time, I shot pictures of both the rising sun as well as pictures with the sun above the horizon.  Here is one of those pictures in which the sun is above the horizon and partially covered by clouds.  Look at the many colors and tones that are created by that explosion of light!

This one is very special to watch large, so click on it to access its flickr page.  I also want to thank you for your support of my photos on flickr.  My stream has been visited more than 40,000 times as of this morning.

Posted by rcarreon at 12:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The day started like the picture below for me.  With a gorgeous sunrise when I was driving in Saltillo.  Fortunately I had my camera with me and was able to get a good spot to shoot.  Have a nice week.  Click on the photo for its flickr page.

Posted by rcarreon at 02:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Happy Father's Day to all of you who are fathers!  Sorry for the late post, but I was busy enjoying my kids.

Since one of the joys of being a father is seen your sons and saughters play, here are a couple of very playful shots. Click on any of them to get its flickr page.

On this one the feet of my son Jose Manuel look larger than life given the closeness to the lens.  I had to swing him hard and focus and shot at the right moment to get this effect.

Posted by rcarreon at 01:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Key West is the last of the Florida Keys, a series of small islands that start in the South of Florida and form a curved trail of pieces of land.  All of them are connected through U.S. Interstate 1, so you can go across them by car.  Key West is the last of the keys, the one most to the south and to the west.  It is regarded as the southernmost point of the continental U.S.

Key West is a very nice town with a very liberal atmosphere.  It has many restaurants, bars and shops.  It also has many activities for all the tourist it attracts.  Key West is located 130 miles south of Miami (and actually, only 90 Miles from Cuba).  It is the Mile 0 or starting point of the US 1.

Its sunsets are highly praised and there are many places along the waterfront for you to catch one of those special sunsets.  Here you have my version of the Key West sunset, captured in the sunglasses of a friend.  I highly recommend to click on the picture to see the picture in LARGE size.  Just click on it and when you are in flickr, click on "All Sizes" which is right above the photo.

Posted by rcarreon at 08:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

An image speaks louder than 1,000 words.  So here you go, this image is one of many popping up to protest censorship oin flickr.  This one is from flickr photographer brian199.  Click on the image to get its flickr page.

Posted by rcarreon at 07:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The movement against censorship in flickr is getting hotter over the last couple of days.  What started as a few people pissed off in some of the technical forums that discuss functionality has become a widespread movement.  A few developments have heated up the case and the flickr staff has been painfully slow to respond.  It seems that the website, which attracts photography enthusiasts from all over the world is hurting its hard earned reputation for nothing.

This is my recollection of the facts that have brought us here.  I am a very enthusiastic flickr user, so I have experienced them on my own.

• Flickr implemented recently a system of filters to filter off mature content.  Mature content was not visible on public areas (their acronym for that was NIPSA).  They moved into a system where the pictures are classified into three categories: Safe, Moderate or Restricted.
• The pictures can be classified in any of the three categories either by the photographer or by other people reporting content they might find concerning. 

Up until here the systems sounds pretty reasonable, right?  Well it is not reasonable at all in practice. Here is what happens in practice that has a lot of people pissed off. 

• Entire accounts are banned and their entire photostreams are automatically classified as Moderate or restricted if the Flickr staff feels like it.  This is typically based on reports from other users.  The problem here is that there are a very large variety of moral standards on the people who flag photos.  For example, a nude can be "artistic" to some, "offensive" to others and "not enough" to somebody looking for stronger emotions.  In any case, I have seen pictures from very talented flickr photographers like lanenamodelna that have been censored, both the photos which may cause some concern as well as photos that have nothing to be concerned of.  A very famous case was Malingering's.  Please take a look at the photos that were censored on her stream so you get an idea of how effective the system is.
• After a person has been censored, all of his/her photos are censored and covered with a blank screen with some noise in it.  If you have your filters on you will get that screen, if you want to avoid this, you should remove your filters.  Again, it is not fair that all photos from a photographer get censored because one or two people find one of their photos offensive.  Actually, in the case of Malingering, she seems to have been a victim of one or several people systematically flagging her photos, even those that had nothing harmful about them.

But wait, there is more to this soap opera.  As if the debate about the fairness of filters was not enough, a new bomb was trown this week when flickr released localized versions of their website.  About seven new languages were released and localized versions of the software became available.  But somebody had the great idea of censoring several countries at the same time.   So if your account is based in Singapore, Germany, Hong Kong or Korea you are not able to turn the filters off.  You are restricted to the censored content.  Even if you are an adult, even if it is not illegal in your country.  This of course has enfuriated everybody, including people who have access to content. 

An image protesting this spead like wildfire on flickr today.  It has been seen thousands of times, it has been turned a big favorite, and according to some it made the top spot in Explore (it is not in that spot right now).  It is an image that protest the censorship, gives the basic facts about the situation and points towards the discussion on this. If you look at the discussion, one thing you'll notice is the absence of the flickr staff on the discussion.  This is very unusual as they are regular posters on such discussions.

The image is getting a lot of traction from many people in flickr.  I can easily see this, while flickr has people from all ages, including young kids, most of the audience should be in adult age.  And most of the opinion leaders are adults and many of them very talented photographers.  Photographers that appreciate the freedom to create, including using elements that might be concerning to some. 

In another words, flickr is pissing off their best men and women.  The ones that generate the content that makes flickr a great site.  And excuse me, but I see more talented artists been censored and more of the shady memebers go unpunished.   So how long before all of the world gets the same treatment as the Germans, Chines, Koreans and Singaporeans? 

Posted by rcarreon at 12:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

As a person who grew up in Saltillo, Monterrey is a very familiar sight.  My hometown is only about 50 miles from Monterrey, so my family and I used to go there regularly.  In my current life as a person who travels through the Americas a lot, I also go to Monterrey often on my way to Saltillo or just to spend time with my kids.  This last Sunday I went to Monterrey and had fun with my boys.  I also had a chance to shot pictures and I am starting to download them into flickr.  I took my new pictures as well as some old ones and I also created my first set of pictures from Monterrey.  I hope you like them.

Here are a couple of the pictures I shot over the weekend.  As usual on this time on the year Monterrey was very hot and sunny.  Click on the pictures to get their flickr page.

"Puente de la Unidad (a.k.a. Puente Atirantado)

This is a nice perspective of the Puente Atirantado o de La Unidad.  It is a hanging bridge that joins San Pedro Garza Garcia with the West Monterrey neighborhoods of Cumbres and San Jeronimo. As you can see, it starts a highway that runs into the mountains.

"Clouds Over Monterrey"

This picture shows the Monterrey most famous landmark, Saddle Mountain below an interesting formation of clouds.  The clouds form some sort of a celing over the sky from the Saddle Mountain all the way to were I was located which was a very distant point.  The blue in the sky shows many different tones given the proximity to sunset time. 

"Melting Down"

This is a picture of my son Manuel as he was trying to cool himself with an icepop.  The weather was so hot that the icepop melted way before he finished it.  The burned background adds to the anxiety feeling.

Check for more photos on my Monterrey, Mexico set.

Posted by rcarreon at 09:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I found this neat little app that can display up to 200 flickr photos on a single web page at a time.  This is great if you want to look at streams that have many pictures on them (mine is approaching 700 photos).  If you go by a typical flickr browse, it wil take you 40 pages to get all my photos.  If you use flickr leech, you can do it in four pages.  The display is also amazingly fast, even with the 200-shots-at-once approach. 

I hope you like it.  Here is the flickr leech for my photos.  You can see also any other flickr photographer you like there.

Posted by rcarreon at 11:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

This is a photograph of a lady and her girl walking at the beach in Cancun.  I just loved how they followed the paths that other thousands of people imprint on that day on the white sand beaches.  I also loved the symmetry of those footsteps along the beach strip in Cancun.  Click on the picture for its flickr page (you can see a large size picture and see the textures of the sand and the detail of the dresses).  You can also find more pictures of Cancun and its surroundings on my Cancun set.

Posted by rcarreon at 07:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I recently blogged about a beautiful island called Holbox that is located off the North Coast of the Yucatan peninsula, near Cancun.  I showed you a tiny little islet that is located on one of the sides of the island called Isla Pasion.  Well, here you have a picture that shows you why you should visit Holbox if you love Nature.  This picture was taken with a regular lens and not with a potent telephoto.  You can be fairly close to many of the wonderful bords without causing any chaos.

The photo is great on large size. If you click on it you can access the photo on that size in flickr.

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One of the nice things about the Atlantis Mega Resort in the Bahamas is that they managed to create many different environments on the resort property.  One of those places is the area of the Marina, which has open spaces right next to the beautiful ships that park in there.  Here is a photo that can show you one of the most popular bars in the area of the marina.  I just loved the colored lights on this one, especially the magenta.  Click on the photo to access its flickr page.

Posted by rcarreon at 07:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I took this photo the last weekend at Atlantis (near Nassau, Bahamas). I hope you all have a nice weekend.  Click on the photo if you want to see its flickr page.

Posted by rcarreon at 06:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Atlantis is a Mega Resort in the Bahamas, very close to Nassau, the country capital.  Atlantis is themed after the mytical city under the water that has been around for centuries.  It is a multibillion dollar investment that seems to move a good portion of the economy of Nassau.

Atlantis has thousands of Hotel rooms targeted at different audiences, a Mega Casino, several shopping places, a Marina, Apartments (both time share and to buy), many water activities including wonderful water slides, Conference Center and meeting rooms and of course, white beaches overlooking the blue and green Caribbean Sea.  

I was there the last weekend for a customer event.  It was my third time at the resort.  It simply never ceases to amaze me.  There were a new series of water slides in the complex, a new Hotel towers and apartment towers being built in.  Additionally there was a new natural dolphin center and many new attractions in the complex.  It is worth looking at it for vacations and events.  You can learn more on their website here: Atlantis.

Here is a picture of how the mega aquariums of Atlantis look like.  I will add more Atlantis pictures to this post soon, so stay tuned. Click on the photo to see its flickr page:

Here is another photo of Atlantis, this one looking at the Royal Tower, perhaps the most distinctive Towers in the whole complex. Click on the picture to get its flickr page.

Posted by rcarreon at 06:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

While visiting lovely Cancun there are many different interesting areas to visit around.  Leasing a Car is not that expensive (can be $60 USD or less) and most of the areas are easy to access.  With a car you can easily get to Tulum, Xel-Ha, Xcaret and many other touristic attractions.  There is another gorgeous attraction that is definitively outside of the beaten path that is called Holbox Island (locals call it Hol- Bosh).  To get to Holbox can be a little tricky and even with a map you can get a bit lost. 

Actually we did ended up getting lost and as a consequence we lost two hours that we could have used visiting this gorgeous island.  To get to Holbox you have to drive in the Merida-Cancun road.  However, it has to be the toll-free road Highway 180 (known in Mexico as "la libre").  If you go to the modern toll-road you will simply are not going to get there (we learned this the hard way).  Going through the toll-free road you get to a point in which you have to turn North to the Northern coast of Quintana Roo. That point is a little town called El-Ideal.

At El Ideal you will find plaques marking the turn to Isla Holbox (or to Chiquila, the place where you take the ferry to get there).  Once you turn, it is basically going straight ahead until you reach the coast.  At the end of El Ideal there is a crossroads, simply keep to the right there.  Once you get to Chiquila, take the Ferry there.  The Ferry departs about every hour and a half and takes about half an hour to get to the island.  Alternatively you can pay a fisherman to get you there on a speedier boat.  A speed boat will take only 15 minutes to get to Holbox.  Once in Holbox, the best way if you have little time (like we did) is to hire a fisherman to get you around in the Island. 

Our lanchero chose to take us to a tip of the island where there is a beach that is submerged in whater and then a little channel and then a very small iselet called Isla Pasión.  Isla Pasión was smaller than a city house but it was full of birds.  When we saw a band of Pink Flamingos passing by us we knew the trip was worth it even if we ended doing it in a rush. 

Please be advise that there are many things in Holbox that are fairly simple.  Some sites say you cannot find an ATM there.  Some sites say there are no cellphones, but my cell phone worked OK.  The road from El Ideal to Chiquila gets worse as you get closer to the coast, but is still doable with some careful driving.

If you have an appetite for advanture, Holbox should be in your list of places to visit while visiting Cancun.  This is on a different league than some of the Pasteurized aventures available in town.

Posted by rcarreon at 04:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

I am going through a period of two and a half weeks of travelling related to business events.  Last week I was in Cancun for an employee event and had a great time visiting Cancun and its surroundings (Isla Mujeres, Tulum and Holbox).  I am starting to upload pictures from the trip to my flickr account.  Here you have some of the pictures. Check out for more pictures coming soon.  If you want to see the picture on a different size or see the comments on it, just click on it for its flickr page.

The Colors of Cancun.  This picture shows a parachute on top of a boat ready for parasailing in front of Cancun's white ssand beaches.  The amazing tones of blue are a signature of this world famous destination.

Isla Mujeres, a small island in fornt of Cancun.  The island has many of the blue, green and turquoise shades in its pristine beaches.  On this scene you can see people snorkeling near the shore at el Garrafon park.

The photographer.  A silhouette of a photographer about to climb a stair to make a photo of our group with the backdrop of Cancun's sunset.  You can see the photographer and his equipment well defined on his silhouette.

Posted by rcarreon at 06:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

SLR Photography Primer III: Aperture and Speed Explained

In most photographs your goal will be to get photos that are sharp and correctly exposed.  While sharpness is a function of correctly focusing the lens of the camera (either via auto focusing or manual focusing), the correct exposition is a function of setting your camera to let the right amount of light into the sensor (or film).  If you expose too much your photograph might come way too bright, with a burned look (bright objects are too bright or plain white).  On the other hand if you expose too little your photo comes out too dark, with the shadows and dark areas either not visible or hard to view.

To control the exposure of your photographs you typically have two controls beyond just adjusting the sensitivity to the light via ISO settings.  Those two controls are Aperture and Speed.  It can be argued that there are many points in which a combination of Aperture and Speed can give you the same results.  However, both controls also cause some different effects beyond the amount of light that is captured.  It is key that you understand the implications beyond the light management so you can use them appropriately. 

It is often said that the Aperture / Speed combination is similar to a water faucet pouring water into a glass.  If you open the faucet a lot (a lot of water comes through) you can fill a glass very quickly.  If you barely open the faucet (so that the flow of water is very light) then you can still fill the glass but you will need more time to do so.  A similar thing can be done with Aperture and Speed.  You can do a large aperture and shoot very quickly or do a very small aperture and then you will have to have a very slow shutter speed.

Aperture implications

Aperture is typically expressed in what is called f-stop numbers.  The numbers reflect a denominator of the maximum aperture possible.  That is an aperture number of 1 is actually a 1/1 of the maximum, while an aperture of 4 is actually 1/4^th.  In simple words, the smaller the number, the larger the aperture (e.g. more light comes in) and the larger the number, the smaller the aperture.

Lens typically offer apertures in the range of 4-22 f-stops, professional lenses can go even to higher apertures such as 2.8, 1.4 or even 1. 

Beyond letting light in, the aperture also controls the depth of field (a.k.a. DoF).  When you focus on a subject, typically the point in which you focus and all points at the same distance to the lens will be focused.  With a small Aperture (e.g. 2.8 – 4) all other points in the subject, even points at a slightly shorter or longer distance quickly fall out of focus.  Watch the couple of examples here, on the first, the child’s face is only focused on his eyes and mouth and the rest quickly falls out of focus (e.g. ears are out of focus and the background is completely blurred).  On the handrail you can clearly see how just a portion of the rail is on focus and everything before and after that area is out of focus. 

You can also shoot photos in which an object and all the background are on focus (nothing before the focused object, but just from the focus point and to the infinite).  For that you will need a very low aperture, such as a 22 (which is 1/22th).  I once heard that this is similar to when farsighted people close their eyes partially to focus better.  I understood immediately, as I have had farsightedness since I was a young child.

Speed

Speed controls how quickly the shutter is closed.  For environments with a lot of light (e.g. middle of a sunny day) you will have to shoot at a very high speed (e.g. 1/2000^th of a second or much faster).  In most cameras speed is expressed as a fraction of a second.  So when you see 2000 you are actually looking at 1/2000^th of a second.  High speeds are useful for very bright environments as mentioned, but they are also useful for freezing moving objects such as athletes, cars and other moving vehicles.  Water drops and falling objects can also fit on that category.  As I mentioned right in the beginning of the article, another goal of a good photo is to have a sharp photo.  Another benefit of high speed is that the blur due to hand shake when taking photos is minimized (not visible at all) at high speeds, so you might want to shot fast when a tripod is not around.

At low light environments or environments in which you want to create especial effects you might want to expose your pictures for a long time (from 1/20^th of a second to even 30 full seconds or more).  For example, in night shots or sunset shots it will not be unusual to expose for several seconds (the Guaruja bay photo below was exposed for 10 seconds with a tripod and a clicker).  In such an environment having a tripod or a flat surface to hold the camera steady is key.  Even your hand can create a blur when clicking the shutter at slow speeds so try to click with a remote clickr (there are wired and wireless versions, usually very cheap) or just use the timer function of your camera.

Typical effects with slow speed include things like getting the most out of night shots, creating a “white veil” on waterfalls or showing continuous lights in avenues instead of cars.  Beware that using slow speeds at day light might end up in just getting a big white frame. 

As with many other things in photography the way to get the right exposure is to use your spot meter.  Decide if there is any special consideration for DoF or speed to start with and then adjust for the right aperture and speed.  Some people like to have control on just one of the variables and let the camera automatically adjust the other.  For example you can go to “Aperture Priority” state that you want an aperture f-stop of  9 and then the camera will adjust the speed to shoot under a balanced light according to the spot meter.

Posted by rcarreon at 04:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

I asked around and looked for several solutions to the problem of storing large amounts of data.  As I mentioned recently I am adding as much as 20GB a month from new photos I am shooting every weekend.  A friend of mine suggested to go with a couple of 500 GB external hard drives (USB or Firewire).  I looked them up and this alternative is really a good one.  For much less than $200 USD you can have a 500GB drive that you can use on your desktop PC or take it one the road with your notebook.  If you buy two of those units and add some easy to get synchronization software you can also have a reliable back up system on the spot.

Here is a query I did of the options available in Amazon.  As you can see, with as little as $142 USD you can give your PC or notebook a lot of room to breathe. 

Posted by rcarreon at 06:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As I have said several time here, there is a show in the sky waiting to be seen by all of us at sunset.  Many of my most memorable shots have been at sunset spending the last hour of the day observing, waiting for the right moment and then shooting.  Additional to the color explosion in the sky therte is also another typical phenomenon in the sunset, the appearance of sunbeams or sun rays.  WIth the sun hitting on a more horizontal angle those sunbeams emerge of the holes in the clouds on the horizon.

Here you have a picture of sunbeams coming out of the clouds at sunset time in beautiful Poços de Caldas, Brasil.  Click on the picture to see its flickr page, the comment stream is already lively despite the fact that I just published the picture today.

Posted by rcarreon at 10:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

As I have got more and more into photography one thing has became of critical relevance to me: my storage.  To put this on perspective I am shooting between 10-20 GB per month.  I shoot about 2,000 pictures per month and all of those I store in RAW and hi-res JPEG.  The result is an almost infinite appetite for HD space.

 Now when thinking about storage there are a couple of things you need: your need plenty of space and you need your storeage to be safe and reliable.  On the amount, do not be surprised if your next big purchase for your family network is a Terabyte station.  You can add a network device to your home LAN that has a very generous capacity to store all the family data. 

When you think about safety and reliability think about things like virus protection and back up.  I am just recovering my face from a scare earlier today.  My desktop system started to report errors on a system file.  Initially it seemed like it was affectinbg all applications but then I realized it was a system file that got corrupted.  I have to run the arcane CHKDSK OS command to repair it.  But in the mean time I though that my computer was infected with a virus.  It is clear that we all need good protection and a good back up it things go wrong.

So if you are in the market for a new PC or laptop think about storage twice.  It might be that the HD space of 100GB that you though was a lot is not going to last you a full year.  I am consuming those 20GB a month on photos.  Just imagine my consumption if my hobby was HD-quality video!
 

Posted by rcarreon at 10:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

Flickr is hosting a global event on May 5th (the famous Cinco de Mayo).  The event is called 24 hours of flickr and its for photographers around the world to narrate their day in pictures.  The idea sounds very promising and I am sure will yield tons of great pictures.

If you are more interested on it, go to 24 Hours of Flicrk

Posted by rcarreon at 03:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Bees get very busy on top of these crystalized fruit candy in a sunday market in Poços de Caldas, Brasil.  Click on the picture to see its flickr page.  Notice how I used a very shallow Depth of Field and only the central group of bees and candy is clearly focused.

Posted by rcarreon at 03:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Look at the subtle sun rays and aure that come out of this cloud as it tries to block the sun.  The photo was taken in Poços de Caldas, state of Minas Gerais, Brasil.  Click on the picture to access its flickr page.

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