I put together a video montage of my photographs from Phillies Phantasy Camp in 2011 and 2012. You can read all about my adventures here at Sarge’s Phillies Phantasy Camp Diary.
Phillies Phantasy Camp from Bryan Sargent on Vimeo.
Big thanks to the Royal Caribbean Blog for featuring my photographs from our recent cruise.
A couple of my photographs from my recent session at TUFFET in Williamsburg, Brooklyn were featured on the Zagat Guide website.
18-200mm lens at 60mm, f/5 at 1/25 sec.
18-200mm lens at 50mm, f/5.6 at 1/25 sec.
18-200mm lens at 120mm, f/5.6 at 1/15 sec.
18-200mm lens at 160mm, f/5.6 at 1 sec.
18-200mm lens at 155mm, f/5.6 at 4 sec.
18-200mm lens at 187mm, f/5.6 at 1/25 sec.
18-200mm lens at 100mm, f/5.6 at 1/60 sec.
18-200mm lens at 60mm, f/5.0 at 1/25 sec.
Today I finished my first class at the International Center of Photography. It was all that I hoped for. It was so good, I signed up for another class with the same instructor, Keisha Scarville. Our final project was simple: pick a theme and take a minimum of five pictures. As an experiment, I took a picture of my 1920′s Ludwig Black Beauty snare drum with my Gretsch Electromatic guitar in the background with extremely shallow depth of field (i.e. extremely blurry). I loved it so much, I decided I would base my final project around this. I would take very close, macro photographs of the things I love. It was such a joy. This will only get better.
18-200mm lens at 18mm, f/3.5 at 1/3200 sec.
An in-class assignment was given a couple weeks ago to us called “15 Steps” (not to be confused with this). It was very simple: go outside, pick a spot, walk 15 steps, snap a photograph, repeat and rinse. It was a beautiful, clear day and Bryant Park is only a block away. Very tempting, but a little too obvious. I took off east down 43rd Street. I stood on the southeast corner of 43rd and 5th Avenue and took my first picture. Not bad. Walked 15 steps and looked up for a nice vertical building shot. I looked through the viewfinder and a plane emerged from behind the skyscraper, and at that very moment I saw the perfect reflection of the exhaust trail in the window right next to me. I snapped off as many exposures as I could. Special bonus goes to the lone bird flying through my blue Manhattan sky.
18-200mm lens at 18mm, f/3.5 at 1/2500 sec.
18-200mm lens at 24mm, f/4 for 1/250 sec.
Back in April I started my first class at the International Center of Photography. As long as I have been taking pictures, it’s all been done under the camera’s control. Compose. Point. Press. Pray.
I was getting sick of not “knowing” my camera. Since I’ve started, I have become even more in love with photography, and I cannot wait to continue to further my education. Now, when a picture does not come out right, I know exactly why. That’s a wonderful feeling… well, sometimes.
One of our assignments focused on light… different times of the day, shadows, the various moods it evokes. Weather-wise, the week was a bust. Save for a couple beautiful sunny days, the week was a total wash out. One of my goals was to capture my neighborhood at dawn. Watching 2nd Avenue slowly illuminate in the morning is such a wonderful moment. For once, it was not raining this particular morning. It was still very cloudy, but there was a really lovely quality about the light. I threw on my clothes and headed out. In our previous class, we also were taught about white balance settings. This really added to the mood of the pictures I snapped that morning. I headed to the East River waterfront walkway. Even though the FDR Drive is directly behind you, there is this wonderful silence… the noise of Manhattan just flying off into the air, over the river and past the quiet souls on Roosevelt Island. I saw this scene and knew I had to quickly act. I didn’t know how long those lonely police cars would be there. I took two exposures and just like that, the cars left. The Island was still dark and quiet.
