Following yesterday’s seismic events around Apple Aperture - which may or may not have a more positive interpretation, for example here, I decided to reacquaint myself with CaptureOne 7 Pro, and with its integration with MediaPro. No real conclusions yet, although CaptureOne is worth considering as an alternative to Aperture, but I was really impressed by two things: first, CaptureOne’s keystone tool and its black & white conversions. And second, and not for the first time, Apple’s RAW decoding really is very, very good. If CaptureOne is state of the art, well so is Apple. And CaptureOne’s much vaunted noise reduction, frankly, is about on the same level as Aperture’s, at the RAW decode level.

But enough of that, for now. I did end up producing some black & white versions of a few shots taken last week in St Tropez, France, in CaptureOne, that I’m quite pleased with. And that pulled me out of the OCD-levels of “testing” I’d got myself stuck into.

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As I mentioned a few posts back, I decided to sign up to an Olympus sponsored workshop in Venice led by landscape photographer Steve Gosling and Travel and Portrait photographer Neil Buchan-Grant.

Well, that’s now in the past, and it was a great experience. Neil and Steve are great photographers, excellent and attentive teachers, and wonderful people. They worked extremely hard to make sure all participants got plenty out of it. From my point of view I found being forced strongly encouraged to photograph the standard scenes of San Marco and Rialto thronged by tourists and in very harsh light, rather than skulk way off the beaten track to my usual dingy haunts frustrating at first but very rewarding at the end. I also found the very new experience of photographing models quite captivating.  Again, being encouraged to do this in the mid-day hothouse of Piazza San Marco, literally engulfed by excited tourists, really pushed the envelope. Neil set up the lighting, directed the models, leaving us to just grab the opportunities. I don’t think I’m going to branch out into yet another direction photographically, but it was a far more engaging and enjoyably creative experience than I expected.

From the cityscape / landscape side, Steve helped me a lot to put some order into my jumbled approach, and to point me in the direction of themes I had started on but not really recognised. I have to admit that at one low point, between being kept awake, dead tired, at 1am, with an alarm call pending at 4am, I'd decided to hit the pause button on photography after the workshop, but the next day completely revived me, even if some of my co-participants made a lot more of the 5am session at Rialto than I did.

Just for fun, here is a small selection of model portraits I shot. In at least two of these cases I was wilfully ignoring the directions / advice Neil was giving. I hope he’ll forgive me!

Olympus Pen E-P3, Panasonic Leica 25mm f1.4

Olympus Pen E-P3, m.Zuiko 45mm f1.8

Olympus Pen E-P3, m.Zuiko 25mm f1.8

Olympus Pen E-P3, Sigma DN 60mm f2.8

Olympus Pen E-P3, Sigma DN 60mm f2.8

Olympus Pen E-P3, Sigma DN 60mm f2.8

Thanks as well to our two very patient and professional models, Ira (first three) and Chiara.

The Olympus E-P5 was kindly leant to me by Neil Buchan-Grant. It’s a very nice camera, and the output is distinctly better than my E-P3. Quite shockingly so, in fact. There is far more dynamic range and the highlight rolloff is much smoother. However, it probably wasn’t such a good idea to use an unfamiliar camera in such an unfamiliar context.

About 3km from where I live in Switzerland is the town of Ponte Tresa, named after the bridge over the river Tresa, which drains Lake Lugano into Lake Maggiore, and marks the border with Italy. Ponte Tresa is actually two separate towns sharing the same name, with a Swiss side and an Italian side.

The bridge over the Tresa. Italy starts at the signpost.  Note the contrast between the spotless, perfectly maintained railing on the Swiss part and the rather more, er “relaxed” look on the Italian side…

Both sides, it is not unfair to say, are rather run-down. Old photographs show a much more prosperous past. Lifting of most border controls, and the shifting patterns of commerce have drastically lessened their status as frontier towns, with just a few fly-blown import agencies as reminders of past glories. But even so, the two sides are remarkably different. The Swiss town keeps up appearances, but seems lifeless. Even the banks are closing. But of course it is clinically clean, quiet and tidy, and the surrounding holiday homes and lavish apartments on the hillsides above and by the lake lend a solid air of Swiss prosperity. The Italian town, on the other hand, is scruffy, chaotic, noisy and vibrant. Even the dingiest bar serves great coffee at crazy low prices, the shops are open in the evening (gasp) and even on Sundays (even bigger gasp) - although the smaller ones take a healthy afternoon siesta. On Saturdays it’s great to just wander over the bridge for a jolt of culture shock and soak up the atmosphere. At weekends in the warmer months there are floods of German, Dutch and Swiss-German tourists, all eager to go bargaining in the wonderfully, ahem, authentic Italian market, where they’re sure to be fleeced by traders from authentic Italian locations such as Pristina, Poznan or Bucharest… or maybe on the odd occasion Palermo. But it’s all good fun.

Ponte Tresa feels like monochrome photography. So here are a few scenes from around town.  These are all taken with the Sigma 60mm DN lens, and converted in Nik SilverEFX.

Of course I don’t want to knock my adopted country, and there are some quite obvious economic reasons why commerce is dead on one side of the border and thriving on the other (and then again, why there are beggars on the street on one side and not on the other) - but even so, the difference in atmosphere is quite remarkable, given that both sides, in theory at least, share a common Lombardy culture and the same language.

I’m very familiar with the paving attributes of the Road to Hell. And speaking of which, the A4 Autostrada from Milan to Venice could often qualify as a strong contender for that title. Then again, it leads to Venice. And it lead me to Venice, in the company of my significant other, last Sunday. The principal objective was to visit the Franco Fontana retrospective, which was well worth the 3 hour drive, but, well Venice remains Venice, and a bright, breezy April afternoon with a surprisingly low tourist turnout was not an photographical opportunity to be missed.

So here we go. Another small selection of absolutely-definitely-not street photography from Venice. Dedicated to my friends at The Inspired Eye.

Tech footnote: all Olympus E-P3, with ZD 17mm 1.8 or ZD 45mm 1.8

Following my recent heavy exposure on the Inspired Eye blog, I decided I really ought to get with this street photography thing. So, on a recent visit to Bologna, I took along my black Olympus E-P3, taping over all the logos with genuine Street-O-Vanish black tape, and attached a (black) 35mm equivalent lens to the front. I packed several black dark blue shirts and of course shades, and slung my discrete street shooter Domke bag over my shoulder. We are talking Instant Cartier-Bresson here. No messing.

Well. It’s actually not very easy, this street photography stuff, especially when it involves actual people who may well not want their photo taken.  This being Italy, most people are quite happy to be centre stage, but those who are not, really are not. Still, most of them are in Palermo, not Bologna.  Also, I’d never been to Bologna before, so the unfamiliarity of the location didn’t help, and Bologna is a pretty unusual city.

Over 2 days I took 110 shots with the 17(“35”)mm lens. I took another 40 or so with the 12(“24”) and 45(“90”) lenses but these don’t count. As far as I can tell 110 over 48 hours is pretty pathetic for a street photographer.  But then I’m not really a member of that august set.

What I was trying to do here is to take shots with people - random people - as the principal theme and subject. I quite often use people as part of a composition, but generally they’re far off and anonymous. So are many here, but that’s because I didn’t get close enough. I can’t say I really enjoyed it, although at the same time I soon got over the awkwardness. It’s just that it’s far, far too late for me to venture into a new strand of photography.

But anyway, here’s a small selection, so you can judge for yourselves. In keeping with the spirit of the thing, these are largely straight from camera, apart from two where I’d decided on the crop in-situ.  I’ve also avoided the temptation of converting to black & white - I haven’t paid anywhere near enough dues for that!

Oh, and I nearly forgot…