Jerzy Biń Photography Blog: Catching Up With Time

Despite totally crazy weather this year in March, I have been constantly busy. Days simply kept passing by and I already lost the track of weekdays, just going by my planned schedule. Last week I had three concerts to shoot, 2 interviews, this week 2 more and then in April, story repeats itself, May seems to be even more packed.

At least I hope finally the weather will get a bit better and I will be able to shoot more landscapes as I start to miss quiet and natural atmosphere somewhere in the woods or mountains or by rivers. Visit to seaside would also be nice. I am thinking of going either to Poland or to Cornwall again.

From the other side I dived quite heavily into filming, found it very interesting and educational and have some totally new ideas how to utilize DSLR's video capturing capabilities. I even dug out some older cameras and gave them second life, this time as video cameras. Whole idea started from shooting multiple interviews with guitarists for GuitarMania.eu and StormBringer.at

Some days ago I shot short (30 minutes...) comparison of different polarizers I am using - B&W, Lee, Hoya, Singh-Ray - 'Testing Polarizers" - this film gave me idea to perhaps shoot way longer series about photography as very long term project enabling me learning new skills and gaining new experience.

I will also use some of the material for my workshops, initially planned for April, that had to be delayed because of totally strange weather conditions in our area. I honestly do not remember when I had to deal with snow and sub zero temperatures in second part of March. Yesterday, March 28th I was shooting by Lochnbach waterfalls completely covered by snow and ice! Video will come later as well.

Spring by Lohnbachfall, March 28th 2013

I am learning to cut the movies, extremely time consuming process, but necessary. When I come back from the session, I have 1-2 hours of footage, nobody will watch such long film thus I have to learn how to squeeze things to minimum at the same time showing what has to be shown. I hope with every next episode the quality will improve. Like it happened with my interviews. First onces either I messed up the sound or focus or light. I stopped using auto sound, only manual setting, also realized that certain cameras tend to ignore your manual exposure settings when it comes to filming videos, and exposure must be corrected once camera is rolling. So many new things to learn!

Finally I have to learn ...acting... and speaking clearly... it is so much different posing to a photograph than being filmed and having your voice recorded. Being an actor or moderator is not so easy as it seems.

Definitely more to come, and I will try to be more consistent with the blog. Now I have to get ready for Paul Gilbert shooting tonight!

Here are few of the interviews I shot recently:

Vernon Ried from Living Colour, shot in Bratislava: