2011

I thought I could upload old pictures. In this article, those I took in 2011.

Actually I do this because I want to see my progression which is an important thing to know, I guess.

It keeps motivated and gives the will to keep on going.

When I got my first reflex camera, I was focused on portraits. I have always been interested in people. They're all fascinating and different. When I was a kid, I used to draw a lot, and what I drew the most, was, of course, people !

I won't show the way-too-ugly stuff I used to take, I can see them, it's enough :D

But I upload here this picture:

It's my long time friend, she's a great model and not just because she has big blue eyes and a beautiful face!

What I wanted in this time, was getting technically correct pictures. I wanted my friends to look great on my images and most of all, showing their true personality.

And let's say it was the best way to learn the photography technique. I never really actually thought about it. I was just like "oh i can do this ! this is so awesome!" or "what's that ISO number ? oh my god my picture is lighter, stunning!" 

And discovering all this stuff, while taking pictures of friends, is just awesome.

That is just why I want you  all, who are SOO hurried to know everything about everything, and hates learning technique AAND wants to get everything right away just right, TO CALM DOWN !

Come on! If you take it easy and learn things calmly it becomes a lot more funnier and you suddenly realize a few months later that you actually KNOW all this technical stuff ! 

Oh, and I just need to say that. You don't need to know the technique 100% to be creative ! (and I also gotta say that you need creativity to learn the technique faster and it will also get funnier :))

I don't even know why I'm explaining all this stuff because nobody's gonna read it :D But I'm having fun writing and maybe one day this article will help someone! Let's hope !

So, the same summer I guess, I learned HDR photography, it was so cool, so unreal :D ..

I shot everything I could just to see how awesome it looks in HDR. 

Like this one !

It's a little bit in the Harry Potter train style :D Hah.  Actually, I think it's a lot like Harry Potter ! (The third one when the ugly and mean dudes from Azkaban come and try to eat Harry's soul in the train)

But anyway, I was kind of proud of this picture back then ! 

When I look at it right now, I'm not like "uugh this is horrible" but I think it's interesting. I don't think this picture looks bad, I just think I would never take this kind of picture again. Let's say I've found a kind of photography I like a lot more !

Autumn 2011 is when I "exploded" in photography !

I started my first 365 days project. Unfortunately I didn't finish it. But, damn, I learned so much !

Of course I worked hard on my portraits. I wanted them to look just GOOD ! Catch more feelings, get better color tones with photoshop..

I stopped focusing on my friends' personality, but I started to focus on mine ! I saw an interesting thing on TV (a photography master class by Oliviero Toscani). He said that every portrait is a selfportrait. He was so right ! That changed a bit how I feel about photography and what I'm gonna do with it.

Some weeks later I realized I can do crazy stuff with photoshop and I decided to give it a try. The picture above doesn't look like anything and that's because I didn't have any particular idea xD. I just improvised something "cool".  It had its great parts in this horrible photoshop try. I simply discovered photoshop. And it became my passiiooon! Now photography and photoshop complete themselves. Of course I love getting great pictures without photoshop without making crazy compositions..etc But what I love the most I must say, is composing awesome stuff and spending hours and hours in front of my computer with my Wacom Tablet. After 10 hours straight of photoshop, when the picture is ready and I'm proud of it, I get a kind of crazy feeling, like "drugged", and I'm the most happy and excited person in the world. When the feeling gets its end, I simply do everything again, I shoot, post-process and get it back. Like I'm addicted

Maybe that's something everyone gets by their passion.

It's like love. When you love someone, you get all kinds of feelings (when you have a happy love I mean!) that make you crazy.

But when someone doesn't love you back you get the same feelings I get when I fail a picture. 

I saw an interesting documentary about love. And it all happens in the same brain part than drugs (cocaine, heroine even cigarettes). The addiction part. 

You love to see the person you're in love with, because you addiction brain part is satisfied. But when you don't see them, you need it like you'd need cocaine ! Crazy, ain't it ?

Well, I guess I'm addicted to photography then. I think it attacks my addiction brain part or something, haha.

Damn, what am I talking about ? It's not the point :D

Oh, after talking about love and addiction this picture fits perfectly. Also the fact that tomorrow is Valentine's Day ;)

Anyway, when I took this picture, I just had bought a bokeh master kit :D It was funny, playing with bokeh and stuff (hmm 3 months after getting my 50mm f/1.8 ?)

And that was my fall's last picture. The next day, snow came, and I could finally try snowy photography :D

On the picture above, it's me with a baby face and a bokeh ! sweet :)

Here's winter's first picture then ! A selfportrait !

And yes, the smile is REAL ! My friend was throwing snow on me and some cold nice ice was just in my neck.. aah...

And the camera took 10 pictures in one time. (I used to do that because the chances to get a good face picture get higher.)

The mini-camera I'm holding, is nothing but a mini lamp and a necklace! I loved it, (a chinese friend of mine, Andy gave it to me :D) but I lost it in my room some weeks ago. (I really should clean it.)

The most important moment of my photography life comes next.
I took this picture of Hiski with an epic idea in my head. Aaaand.. It was my first big photoshop work.
This day, I made the most important mistake ever. I FORGOT TO SAVE THE IMAGE WHILE POST-PROCESSING IT ! And photoshop crashed because it couldn't handle the size of the file.
Bye bye, 4hours of work. I don't know how, but I had the courage to start over again, right after the epic fail.

This is the oldest photo in my current portfolio. Daaamn I was so proud of it !

After taking this one, I decided to do some unreal photoshop works, without looking "photoshoped".
I mean, that the only thing that could say it's post-processed is the fact that I can't be twice smaller than a book.
The picture above (Wind Of Change), you can say it's photoshopped because of it's "painty" style.. I don't know how to explain.
But, yeah, so I went home in France, and got a crazy inspiration week and took exactly the kind of pictures I wanted to take ! Unreal and realistic in the same time ;)

They are all selfportraits !
Then it was the new year. And here my 2011 year came to its end ! Let's say, this year was just crazy. :D

Next article will be about 2012 ! Yes ! Awesome.