Alessio Michelini Photography

Now that I have a week of break from gigs I think it's better if I talk about some stuff I left behind, like the 2 days trip in Connemara I did this summer, or the photo shoot I did a couple of months ago for the band Fallen Rule, and I have also a couple of reviews to write about some of my gear, but before all of that, I just wanted to post some photos I took in late october and november around here, in Dublin, photos that are kinda lost in between the billion of photos of gigs, and I think they deserve a bit more attention, specially from me, like these ones I took between Townsend St / College Green, and Westland Row (where Pearse Station is):

(Buy it on RedBubble)

I don't generally like to sell my gear, maybe because sometimes I get too attached to these objects, maybe because I took so many good pictures with them, I don't really know if there's any logical reason or not, but I have to face that even if I still "love" them,  at the end they are still useful gear that are taking dust on my shelves because I don't use them anymore, and the more I wait, the more their value goes down. And even if part of me still doesn't like the idea, I don't see why I have to keep my old cameras on those shelves, and I better sell them, so at least someone else can use them. So, before putting them on adverts.ie, I wanna see if I can find someone else interested to by my old, but still perfect 7D, and the still good but not perfect 50D.

That's a super bargain guys, infact for a limited time, until december 2nd 2013, you can get the bundle with Adobe Photoshop CC and Lightroom 5 for only 12,29 euro. Finally a fair price, even if only for two weeks. Maybe it's some sort of mass apologize after the disaster of the hackers who stole the details of 150 millions of users from their server? Who knows. Anyway, the only downside for this offer is that you have to subscribe for at least one year, but if you need these two software, I don't think it's a big deal, and as long as  you renew this subscribtion, the price will remain the same. Not bad, not bad at all!
Anyway, if you want to subscribe to this amazing offer, click here!

UPDATE

The deal has been extended till the 8th of december!

UPDATE 2 - 11/12/13

Well, apparently Adobe wants to keep this offer going, as now it's extended till the 31st december.

Finally, after months of hard work, it's time for some holidays, and I'll spend next week in Crete, Greece, and the following one back at home in Italy. I'll try to make a post with a photo per day while I'm down there, obviously if the wi-fi of the hotels we book will work. For now I can only show what's in my backpack:

• Lee Big Stopper
• Lee ND Hard Grad 0.3, 0.6 and 0.9ND
• Canon 6D
• Canon 135mm f/2 L USM
• Canon 17-40mm f/4 L USM
• Canon 35mm f/1.4 L USM
• Hoya Circular PL Pro1 Digital
• Hahnel Giga T Pro II Wireless Timer Remote
• Battery Charger
• Western Digital Passport 500GB
• A pair of socks (you never know)
• A couple of USB Cables (for tablet and phones)
• 2 additional batteries
• Various SD cards
• 2 Manfrotto quick release plate
• Macbook Pro

Plus in my luggage I've my Manfrotto BeFree tripod, which hopefully I'll do a detailed review when I'll come back from my holidays.
So hopefully I'll post tomorrow night, or at least I'll do my best.

Tomorrow I'll have to take some promo shots for a local band, and as the band thought it was a great idea to take some photos on the Dublin Docklands, even if I already know that area quite well, I decided to go for a walk and to scout for some interesting places for tomorrow, as it's always a good idea to decide in advance where to shoot rather than wonder around until you find something. The place is quite interesting, and thankfully one of my favourite buildings, with related graffiti, is still there, and I'm talking about this one:

I love that wall. I know, it's a very simple graffiti, but the I love the mix of colours with the red of the wall, and hopefully I'll use it tomorrow as well!
Here some of the pictures I took today, for the long exposure ones I spent some time, while for the other ones not that much, it was just for me to photograph the places I'm going to use tomorrow, but at the end they are not bad shots.

This time I'm not going to talk about my photos or photography in general, but I'm going to talk about one of the best piece of software ever made, Adobe Lightroom. A few days ago I bought a new computer, as my 4 years old iMac had enough of me, and I got an Apple Mac Mini with a very good monitor, an Asus PB278Q. But now I have a problem: I have to move all my files, my email accounts, and especially the billion of presets I made over the years on Lightroom. Well, maybe they are not a billion, but for sure several hundreds. And while Lightroom does a lot of things well, there are a few where it doesn't really shine, and one of these is how to export presets (unless there is a secret button that I don't know). From the interface you can only export one presets at a time, and it's fine if you have a few presets, but quite insane if you have hundreds, as in my case.
But the Nerd there is in me felt that there were a quicker way, as these presets has to reside somewhere on my computer, as simple files I can copy in a few clicks, so I started to google around, and I found out that I was right.
All your presets, but not only those, as you can do the same with the export presets and your watermark, can be found at this path:

/Users/[user name]/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Lightroom/

or (If you are a Windows user) at:

C:Users[user name]AppDataRoamingAdobeLightroom

In this folder you will see several folders, the "Develop Presets" is the one where your presets are, but you can also see your Export Presets, Watermarks, Print Templates (if you use them), Color Profiles, etc... Which I can copy and paste (and do a backup of them is not a bad idea at all) on my brand new computer.

Before I post about my photos I took a few weeks ago in Connemara, I wanted to show this picture, which I took almost a month ago to test my brand new tripod, which hopefully I'm going to write a review soon, to see how stable that little thing can be, and the Liffey river is a good test, as it's always quite windy. Obviously after one hour of shooting, I came back with only one shoot, but I have to say that I started to be really picky on my photos lately, if possible, I'm way more selective from how I used to be, I think it's a good thing. Anyway, here's the photo, what do you think?

(click to see a bigger version of the photo)

A couple of weeks ago I wanted to test my brand new tripod, the Manfrotto BeFree, to see if it's a good product or just a waste of money (spoiler alert: is a damn good tripod), so I decided to go on one of the best places you can go on a sunny day around here in Dublin, and I've opted for Forty Foot.
If you love to swim and you are from Dublin you probably know this place, if you are a photographer who know well enough this city and its suburbs, you know this place as well. In the past few centuries has been the swimming pool for the dubliners, but it's quite hard to describe this place with words (at least for me), so I better show you some photos.

In the next months I've planned a couple of travels, a short one in Connemara, and a long one in October, where I'll spend a week in Creete and a week in Italy at home.
So, as I'm planning to do some nice landscapes, especially with my new filters from Lee, I'll need to have with me a good tripod, and while in Connemara I can bring my old & very sturdy tripod as I will drive to there, I can't do the same for Creete & Italy, as any kilos I can save on my luggage is precious, and in case I'll have to do some hiking, bring a 2.4Kg tripod on my hands is not that pleasant. In theory I could put on my backpack, but in reality it doesn't fit, it's too heavy, and it's not very practical. So I decided to invest some money on a new tripod for when I travel, and after I read a billion of reviews, I decided to buy the new Manfrotto BeFree, a nice little tripod that once it's folded, it's only 40cm long.
Anyway, this is not a review, as I bought it only last night, but hopefully this weekend I'll spend some time with it and I'll try to write a proper review next week. So far it looks a little beast, but lets wait until I've tested it on the field.

A week ago, myself, my girlfriend and a few friends, probably confused by the irish heatwave like moths when they see any source of lights, we decided to do a nice, but quite long (or at least for me) walk, from Sutton train station to Howth, doing to south coastal walk.
Obviously after 100 meters we started to complain, especially because it was pretty warm, even for a bunch of italians well used to higher temperatures. But despite the length of this walk, as it took three hours to get to Howth, it has been a beautiful experience, that showed to us, once again, how beautiful is this city, especially when it's not covered by the clouds. Obviously I had my camera, and obviously I took some photos, and even if the light wasn't the best for me, as for me the best moment is during the golden hour, I brought home some decent shots.
So, dear tourists, if you come to Dublin, and you spend your days only in Temple Bar, and then you come back to your home your saying that there is nothing to see in Dublin, well, next time try to move your bleeding arses rather than seat on a bloody fake "traditional" pub downtown.