Aleksanteri, Fuengirola: There's a First Time for Everyhing

I'm quite sorry about this post got out 3 days delayed. So much has happened during last week, which have made a strong impact on me. My first PR-photoshooting, my first self-constructed HDR-pic, a harsh week with no free day on press or on other shooting sessions and a huge amount of new acquaintances. This blind hurrying has made me strangely enough more focused at a task at hand. The feeling is almost as strong as it was during my military service. Maybe it is a bit odd, that all this fast paced work makes me feel better in a way I can't describe.

 My first HDR-picture, without a stand. 

At first I have to tell you that there's nothing special about this picture. It's not even a good one, and I don't like it much for various of reasons. Still, as a HDR-pic, It represents something I've been planning to do for almost 6 months so far. For me it is a triumph on its own to realize how easy it is to make these "High Dynamic Range" photos. 

My excitement for HDR picture originates from finding a way to justify using RAW format on my Nikon D800 during last week. These whopping 36,2 megapixels on this full frame I have in this camera, come also with a big problem. This problem is called "file size" - or, to be more correct - the long time it takes to move a file from camera to memory card. I simply just don't like to be restricted to shoot just a few shots per second, while I was shooting RAW instead of jpeg.

For a comparison:
Imagine you would have the fastest car in the world, but it would heat up so quickly, that you would be forced to stop every once in a while in order to continue your journey.

Luckily I found a way to circumvent this problem. Instead of driving this car in the first ditch, I changed my camera RAW settings to shoot 12bit compressed files, instead of 14bit uncompressed, which it used to be. Someone could say that I'm fool for not using my camera at its fullest potential, but I prefer beign able to take those sodding pictures at the right moment.

For example, getting these colors present at the same time in 8 bit jpeg would have been near impossible work for me. Or at least it would have taken a long time to achieve this goal. I think I have fallen in love with this controllable RAW format. Photoshopping has never been as easy for me as it is now.

Last week we also had a new face appear to our press. He is also a photographer on a apprenticeship in our newspaper and I can tell that this man knows more about taking high quality photos than most of the professional photographers I've met so far in my life. Although I made these discoveries about file format and HDR on my own, I have to say that I've learned a lot from this guy.

Especially proper use of flash, has been something I've been trying to control for quite a while. Just few tips and explanations from him about the flash, made this area much less fuzzy and mysterious for me. It also seems that there is a certain option enabled in my flash, that I should take a proper look at, if I am going to use it at its fullest potential.

Aleksanteri, Fuengirola: Spain is different

"In Spain nothing works but stuff still just seems to happen anyway." This is a line I made when I finally got fed up with certain mischieves I happened to cross in this land of sun and sea.

I arrived to Malaga-airport in the very first day of this year. It was spooky. Everything was closed and no-one was around. Just a few taxi-drivers were waiting in the airport and the lady in the info point was almost sleeping. I felt sorry for her when I asked few instructions from her, interrupting her daydream of sorts.

After a while I met my real-estate dealer, who had promised me a very nice furnished house for rent. Off we went to check the house and I found out that he had almost forgot, where it is. Needless to say, I got worried. Eventually we found a house but this clearly wasn't the same he had mentioned before. Though it was dirt-cheap I wasn't satisfied at all. I could go-on for hours about the things, which were not there and should have been but lets just say that some furnitures and an owen were the only things which were working properly there. Even the very basic things like a shower was broken and there was no pillow or heating in the apartment.. I quickly found a new place to stay using my existing connections from my uncle, who lives in here and plays a bass in a local band.

He is called Risto Hankala, a former bass player of Havana Blacks.

After I sorted out my residential problems I could finally concentrate on my work as a magazine photographer. Introduction to my work and my workmates was simple enough and after this first week I am pretty confident that I enjoy quite a lot of this line of work.

In a newspaper everything works to serve the next release. You know, when you have to hurry and when you have time for yourself and planning ahead is a virtue of its own.

My experience as a studio photographer is quite different. You can plan ahead a bit but you never know, when you have a lot of work and when you can take it easy, since people might need your services almost without a warning. This - for me - creates an awful amount of totally unnecessary mental stress.

The everyday life of Fuengirola is amazing. I found out these amazingly accurate sand sculptures in the beach. Later I saw this man making them and he had a box, where you could donate some money for his work. I was impressed by that skill and didn't even think about it as begging for money. He was doing art for the people, and people paid for him, while he did the work. A certainly something I appreciate.

As much as I like how pleasant the streets of Fuengirola are in terms of feasts and everyday life, I quickly found out that there is also a darker side for all of this as well. Gangs are a thing in here and there are many reasons why it is so.

Spain is economically in a bad position and so are the youngsters. Youth unemployment is way over 50% and especially these frustrated boys try to find some economical solace by mugging rich tourists and selling drugs to them. From what I've seen and heard so far, it is not a good idea at all to be drunk in the evening especially if you are a woman. Eventually these things will even out but now I cannot recommend traveling here if your plan is have fun in nightclubs. You might find other sorts of clubs in the streets of dark night.

All and all, this first week has been quite an experience. I am happy to notice that I've found a lot of enjoyable company in here and my lack of speaking any Spanish hasn't been that big of a deal.

I'm sorry that neither of these pictures are HDR-pics, but my schedule has been extremely crowded and now the most important thing regarding this blog is get it done. So here you go. ;)