Alessio Michelini Photography

Years ago I used to go out for what we can call "photo hunting", and come back with a billion of photos, while now often, obviously apart from gigs where my average is still pretty high regarding the amount of shots taken, I come back with one or two shots, well for sure 100 shots of the same scene, but at the end all those shots are just to get one shot right. I taught myself to go out with some already in mind, obviously not all the times, I still need to scout for new places, but when I know what I want, I just go for that. I started to apply to photography what I generally do for shopping, I want that thing, if they have it good, if not I'm out in less than 5 seconds (and as you can wonder I'm generally quick for shopping, apart when I go to kitchen accessories, when I see a pan or a good set of knives I go bananas).
Anyway, a long paragraph just to introduce this picture I took a few days ago in O'Connell Street. I have to say that I'm not 100% happy with it, the sky is not perfect and maybe I had to wait another 20 minutes, but I had some friends waiting for me so I had to run away.

(Buy it on RedBubble)
 

I start to think that the guys in RedBubble really like me, as for the third time I've been featured in their "Found" section! For who is not familiar to what the "Found" is, it's essentially like the "Explore" on Flickr, which shows some of the best works everyday, but with the big difference that unlike Flickr, where pictures are picked by a mathematical formula based on views, favourites and comments (and sometimes you see awful pictures end up in the Explore while other amazing works get totally ignored), on RedBubble the best works are picked manually by RedBubble stuff, which is kinda nice and you rarely (or never) a bad photo or illustration on their homepage.
Funny story is that for the picture below meant to be totally different from what I thought to do, and I'll probably get to that place another time to shoot what I meant to photograph, but here we go, 5 minutes spent on Lightroom using a preset I did because at that time I was pissed off as it didn't turn how I wanted, and everybody love this photo (apart me).

(Buy it on RedBubble)

Nerdy moment: I think it's time for a new server. A little guy from far away says "why you don't buy just an external hard drive Alessio?". Because it's not enough. Just to make it clear, I have 3 external hard drives for my first backup, where one is for a general backup, one is for the last year of photos, and one is for all the photos, plus I have an HP microserver (which sound a very expensive thing, but it is not) where it holds 4 hard drives, for a total of 7TB, and where I have a second general copy of all my photos, and this is the current situation of my server space:

93% /media/Tethys
78% /media/Photos2
79% /media/Phoebe
99% /media/Photos

As you can see they are pretty full, and bear in mind that I still have to copy the photos I took in the last month. Another voice from far away says "But why you don't delete the rubbish photos, stuff that you never developed, or that you don't care?". Already done my friend, already done...
So I think it way about time to buy a new server, or at least to replace one of the hard drives with a 3TB hard drive, but it's a temporary solution, so I prefer to, how we say in italy, cut the bull's head, and I'm probably going to buy the newer version of the server I'm using at the moment, which is the HP Proliant Microserver N54L, which I can find if for a little bit over 200 euro, and it's a really good machine.
I know, some of you are thinking "I don't really care... show us more photos!". I'll do, but I'm still working on old photos, and for the moment I don't have anything to show you, apart my beautiful girlfriend:

Hopefully tomorrow I'll find the force to get the fuck out and go to take some snaps, so stay tuned!
 

Well, as I said, my few days in Italy were quite unproductive, and as I said, many plans but did nothing. To be fair I've a lot of nice pictures of the my girlfriend's family and our pets, but I'm still working on them. But that isn't the topic for this post, but instead I wanted to show you some pictures I took in the past two weeks, but as I can't find new places to photograph, these pictures were taken in the same places I went at the begin of this month: Pigeon Road and Grand Canal Dock.
I'm not 100% convinced about these shots, but to be fair I'm rarely happy with my shots.
Anyway, do any of you would like to suggest me some new places to photograph? Any ideas? Please leave a comment below if you know some cool places around Dublin.

When you are shooting outdoor you always have to deal with the biggest source of light that mother nature gave to us: the Sun. And when you are shooting landscapes, but this is valid for any kind of photography taken outdoor, how to use this source of light is one of your main concerns. For example, if you shoot facing the sun, especially in those rare occasions where even here, in Ireland, the sky is clear, you will get a very bright sky, and it's impossible to have the entire frame exposed correctly, because if you expose for the sky, the rest will be underexposed, if you expose for the land / city / whatever, the sky will be overexposed. Then if you turn by 180 degrees, with the sun on your back, you get a better situation, where the sky is more blue, and the exposure can be a bit more balanced. But then if it's midday, you are screwed. as the sun is on the zenit, and doesn't matter where you point your camera, because everything will look the same: flat.
In fact one of the common mistakes in photography is to believe that in sunny days, when there are no clouds and the sun is high, is the best situation to take photos. That's absolutely wrong. Especially when the sun is high, the light is extremely hard, and the fact that it's perpendicular as well it doesn't help at all. It makes everything look flat, no tridimensionality at all, no depth, just an awfully boring photo.

Finally, after 6 months without going anywhere (apart three days in Donegal, but they don't count right?), tomorrow I'm flying home for a few days (don't worry ladies, I'll be back on wednesday). As usual I've plenty of plans to squeeze in these few days, and as usual I will do nothing but playing with cats and dogs. But in case I'll find the energy to actually do something I need to be prepared, but because I cannot bring all my gear as on the way back I have to fly back with Ryanair (sigh!), I have to keep my backpack under 10kg, and as I have to bring my laptop (which it steals about 3kg), I have to bring what (I think) I will need for these days, so if you want to know (but I do understand that these are not information that can change your life) what I have on my bag, that's the list:

• Canon 6D
• Canon 17-40mm f/4 L USM
• Canon 35mm f/1.4 L USM
• Canon 50mm f/1.4 USM
• Battery Charger
• Lee Big Stopper
• Hanhel Remote Control
• Laptop

That's it. I could keep the 35mm at home, as that focal length is covered by the 17-40, but it's such a good lens for street photography that I just cannot bring with me, same story for the 50mm.
Do I need any telephoto? No I don't, I never use them when I go around, I love my 135mm but it's a lens that is not essential for me.
Now, tickets ready, baggages ready, tablet with a new book to read and plenty of games ready, girlfriend ready, so it's just a matter of wait for my flight tomorrow.
I'm not sure if I will be able to update the blog in the next 5 days, as playing with pets it takes a lot of resources, so if you don't see anything new in the next few days, don't worry, it's all fine, I'm in the right paws.

Here we are with the second part of my weekend spent with my camera. You are already excited isn't it? Anyway, let me go through this thing, I've done a part one and now I can't just skip the second part. So, Sundayyy!
On that day my girlfriend has to work for a few hours in Malahide, so I decided to be a nice boyfriend, and I went there to take some photos, so when she finished I was there, but before that, I wondered around that area trying to find something interesting to snap. Originally I meant to go to a point, not too far away from the town centre, where I could see the bridge that connect Malahide and Donabate, which it looks pretty interesting to photograph, but unfortunately that point is in a private area, so I had to give up.

Then I was hoping to get some nice long exposure in the sea, but with the low tide there were nothing really interesting to photograph, well, at least not like I wanted, and after a few shots like these ones...

This bank holiday has been pretty productive to me, as my girlfriend was working for the whole weekend, I have plenty of time to spend with my other love: photography. But going back a couple of days, on thursday I tried, again, to photograph a thing, that's the best word I can come up. It's a wall on the beach, in Sydney Parade (which it sounds like a place in Australia, but, big surprise, it's here in Dublin), and I dunno why they build it, for what reason, or who did it, but for me it's just a cool wall in the water.
If you want to go to see this place, here is the map:

View Larger Map

I tried to photograph it plenty of times, and I always got there with the low tide, all the fuckin times, and with the low tide that thing is pointless to photograph for me, even this time I tried, but it just doesn't work, it's not more than a "meh", so at the end the result, apart one single shot, was to photograph everything else but that wall.

A few days ago I posted a couple of pictures of a place here in Dublin, that I never had the chance to visit, even if it's not that far away from where I live, and as I had to bring the car back the morning after, I tried to give me another chances, and I woke up veeeery early in the morning (4.30am) to get to the same place but at sunrise. Obviously the place was amazing, nobody around, the sea was super calm, and so far it sounds very promising, but as we say in Italy, not all the donuts comes with the hole. Infact, even if it didn't rain, it was quite cloudy, so no sun at the horizon, no contrasty sky, but all pretty flat. Only at a later time, around 6, the clouds started to break a bit, but while with my eyes it looked quite good, on the camera you lose that sense of depth, and what it looks great at the moment, it's not that great when you look the pictures you took on the screen.
Anyway, these are okay shots for me, but I wanted to show you anyway, let me know what do you think guys.

Before I'm going to fall asleep, as I'm completely dead after two days of shooting for a client, and more than 3000 photos taken, I want to share these two photos I took tonite, despite I was barely able to drive as I had 0,0000001% energy left, I wanted to go in a place called Pigeon Road, which lead to one of the lighthouses of the Dublin bay (but it's only 5 minutes drive to where I live so it wasn't so hard at the end). Weather was perfect, light was perfect, I just couldn't resist, and even my also-really-tired-girlfriend couldn't say no, she wasn't happy, but she came with me anyway, and these two shots are the result of the half an hour spent in a beautiful day of May, here in Dublin, a city that after all these years can still give me some great new places to shoot.

(bigger on Flickr | buy it on RedBubble)

(bigger on Flickr | buy it on RedBubble)

Good night!