New York receives exhibition to Latin American Competition

The contest that happened earlier this year exhibition held in November.

On 8 and 9 November New York receives some winning images of the Latin American Competition of Photography, which had its winners announced on October 11. Among the images chosen one of them is from Calvario Alvarez, UNITED PHOTO PRESS photographer.

The contest, open to professionals and students of photography and illustration, had its first edition this year, and lasted four months. Jurors had the month of August to make the selection, in September the winners have been notified and now the world can know the images chosen.

Besides the shows to be held in early November, the selected images will also appear on a limited edition book, as Mark explains Helfin, director of the competition. "The book is a limited edition, sent to art directors, designers and art buyers in North America. It will include contact information for each of the winning artists. "

Check out some of the selected images:

Calvario Alvarez - Chile (member from UNITED PHOTO PRESS)

ClaudioEdinger – Brazil

Marely Becerra – Mexico

Kike Arnal – Venezuela

Kenji Arimura – Brazil

Tatewaki Nio – Brazil

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Penguin ascension wins wildlife photographer prize

Everybody loves penguins. They're cuddly, funny and sometimes, like here, remarkably graceful. More interested than most, though, is Paul Nicklen. He has just become the Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer Year for this photo, Bubble-jetting emperors, which was no easy task to capture.

Nicklen was near a colony of emperor penguins in a frozen area of the Ross Sea in Antarctica. He found a hole in the ice where he hoped the diving penguins would exit, leaving him a perfect window to catch them charging up to the surface. He waited underwater, holding himself still against the ice and breathing through a snorkel to avoid producing bubbles.

By the time the penguins showed up, his fingers were frozen - and the birds were moving so fast that he had to wing it on focusing and framing.

"It was a fantastic sight, as hundreds launched themselves out of the water and onto the ice above me," he recalled, "a moment that I felt incredibly fortunate to witness and one I'll never forget."

Nicklen has made a career of photographing the animal inhabitants of the iciest regions of our planet. He's captured polar bears, walruses, leopard seals and dozens of other animals against the backdrop of magnificent tundra. Beyond aesthetics, though, he's concerned to show how our world is changing. He says one of his biggest concerns is global warming, having spent much of his life in frosty ecosystems, and that all his photos have a deeper environmental message.

"I think that what happens is that we become very busy, very isolated from the environment," he says. "We sit at our desk and then go home and watch TV, and all we hear about is politics and not the environment. How are we supposed to care about it if we don't know about it?"

Nicklen became a wildlife photographer after becoming frustrated with scientific expeditions into the Arctic that did little to ultimately help wildlife.

"Science was incredibly important but it didn't seem to sway decisions. Decisions seem to be swayed by politics," he said.

So Nicklen decided to try to reach people on a larger, more public scale with his photos, in the hopes that they'll get involved.

"I call myself an interpreter and a translator," he says on his website. "I translate what the scientists are telling me. If we lose ice, we stand to lose an entire ecosystem. I hope we realise through my photography how interconnected these species are to ice. It just takes one image to get someone's attention."

Natural History Museum

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10 Famous Street Photography Quotes You Must Know

(Above image by Garry Winogrand)

If you want to get a deeper insight into street photography and take better photos, I feel it is very important to study the work of the street photographers who came before us and paved the way for the rest of us. Not only that, but reading the quotes and words by these influential street photographers is a great way to train your mind to take better photos as well. Below are some of my favorite street photography quotes that are concise, inspirational, and have influenced me in one way or another.

1. “If your photos aren’t good enough, then you’re not close enough” – Robert Capa

This was one of the first quotes that hugely influenced my street photography. When I started to shoot, I was too timid to get close to strangers to get intimate with them and tell their personal story. Over time I started to build the nerve to get closer to my subjects and to not only frame them better, but also talk and interact with them.

However don’t mistake this quote for getting close simply for the sake of getting close. Simon Garnier put together a great post recently saying that you only need to get close enough to get the scale or perspective you need to capture the moment.

2. “Photographers mistake the emotion they feel while taking the photo as a judgment that the photograph is good” – Garry Winogrand

When you are out shooting and you felt that you got a “keeper” it is easy to run home, post-process the image, and upload it to the internet for the rest of the world to see. However this quote by Garry Winogrand helped me realized that it is very important to slow down this process, and to not let your emotions dictate whether the photo was good or not. Winogrand would even sometimes wait an entire year before looking at his images to judge his images on their form and content.

Nowadays I try to wait either a few days or a week before deciding whether my photo is a “keeper” or not. This has helped me build some more objectivity in my images, as there have been times that photos I first thought were good really weren’t.

3. “Since I’m inarticulate, I express myself with images.”- Helen Levitt

Street photography is all about telling stories, and also a mode of self-expression. When you look at the images of a street photographer, you are also getting a look into their soul. Cartier-Bresson was originally trained as a painter, which he expressed romantic images through his photography. Craig Semetko was trained as a comedic actor and writer for 20 years, and shows his humor through his images. I studied Sociology as an undergrad, which explains why I like to get close and interact with my subjects.

When you are out shooting, think about what story you are trying to tell– and how your images express a bit of who you are.

4. “To me, photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place… I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.” – Elliott Erwitt

Elliott Erwitt was the master of finding the beauty in the mundane and making it something extraordinary. Through his long tenure as a street photographer, he shot children, dogs, and ordinary scenes and made them fascinating. The beauty of street photography is that you don’t need to go long and far to take an interesting photograph. All the greatest photo-opportunities are right in your backyard, regardless of where you live.

Even if you spend all your time driving and commuting, Lee Friedlander had a series in which he shot America through his car and made some fascinating photographs. Keep your eye open for ordinary things and make them extraordinary.

5. “It is more important to click with people than to click the shutter.”- Alfred Eisenstaedt

Although I love to create memorable street photographs, I am even more interested in the people I meet or interact with. As a rule of thumb, I always try to smile and say “thank you” to the people I shoot. The vast majority of them give me back a warm smile and say “thank you” back. I find this is especially true when you get incredibly close to people. It is extremely important to be genuine with the people you shoot, as they are human beings and we must treat them with respect.

6. “I suspect it is for one’s self-interest that one looks at one’s surroundings and one’s self. This search is personally born and is indeed my reason and motive for making photographs.” – Lee Friedlander

Street photography is all about the journey to express yourself and finding who you are. Through my own street photography my style has evolved quite a bit. I first started shooting images similar to that of Cartier-Bresson, by focusing on scenes, geometry, shapes, people, and capturing the decisive moment. However as my environment changed, I found out that my interests in photography changed as well. The previous style of photography I was doing no longer interested me, and I wanted to try something new. I stumbled upon the work of Gilden, experimented getting close with a flash, and now it just feels right to me.

Finding your own style when it comes to street photography is a life-long journey. It is still something that I am searching for myself, so don’t feel frustrated if you can’t discover it over night. The only way to learn is to constantly go out there and shoot– and stay on the f*cking bus.

7. “I love the people I photograph. I mean, they’re my friends. I’ve never met most of them or I don’t know them at all, yet through my images I live with them.” – Bruce Gilden

I had the huge pleasure of meeting Bruce Gilden when I was at the Leica Magnum event in Paris and despite his rough and tough attitude, the guy was very down-to-earth, honest, and sincere. We had a discussion about his photography and he told me how he is often misunderstood for his motives when shooting. Gilden also studied sociology when he was in school, and he is particularly interested in the people he shoots and sees them as his friends. Despite that people may misinterpret him as an asshole, he is genuine about the people he shoots and feels a sense of closeness to them.

8. ”There is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera. That is the moment the photographer is creative. Oop! The Moment! Once you miss it, it is gone forever.”- Henri Cartier-Bresson

As street photographers, we are constantly trying to chase “The Decisive Moment”. It is part instinct, intuition, preparation, luck, and skill. However I would argue that the most important part is preparation. As Woody Allen once said, ”80 percent of success is just showing up”. Therefore in order to capture the decisive moment, you must always carry your camera with you everywhere you go and shoot constantly. If you have ever accidentally left your camera at home, you know how painful it is to miss the decisive moment and bash yourself in the head.

9. “Seeing is not enough; you have to feel what you photograph” – Andre Kertesz

When you are out there shooting, don’t only shoot with your eyes. Shoot with your heart. Put your soul behind your images and you will create images that not only inspire but touch the people you show them to.

10. “Be yourself. I much prefer seeing something, even it is clumsy, that doesn’t look like somebody else’s work.” – William Klein

Draw inspiration from street photographers you admire, but try to be different, innovate, and experiment. If you haven’t been shooting for a long period of time, it is easy to get your photography compared to the work of another. Try your best to stand out and be unique. Experiment with different focal lengths, angles, shutter speeds, apertures, and equipment. Find what you are comfortable working with and make your style your own.

If you want to learn more about how to shoot better street photographs and learn from the masters, check out my upcoming workshops in Los Angeles, San Diego, Chicago, Toronto, Tokyo, and Malaysia.

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Felix Baumgartner: life on the edge

Felix Baumgartner

The world’s first supersonic skydiver, Felix Baumgartner, said he has officially retired from the daredevil business after shattering three world records when he jumped from the edge of space.

Dubbed Fearless Felix, the 43-year-old Austrian pushed the boundaries of human endurance and science with his feat over the New Mexico desert this month, reported to have cost some 50 million euros.

Euronews reporter Andrea Bolitho spoke to him and asked what he was thinking when he was poised on the edge of his capsule with the earth 39 kilometres below him.

He said: “Well, I was focused on the way up because I had a lot of things to do and then I was climbing out of that capsule. For a couple of seconds I had the chance to enjoy that view and it was an incredible view because it’s very outstanding, beautiful. But when you’re standing outside you cannot stand there for a long time because as soon as I disconnect from my ship system I only have 10 minutes of oxygen for my bailout bottles and when you’re standing there you realise really fast that you are in a very hostile environment. That means you have to step off fast.”

Euronews: “So what happened after you jumped?”

Felix Baumgartner: “We knew that I am going to go into a spin because it’s just a matter of fact, there’s almost no air, you are almost in a vacuum, so I knew I was going to over rotate a couple of times and it was just a question of how fast I was going to be able to stop that spin. And I did, I had to use all my skydiving skills to stop that spin and I did. So I really had to work well, to perform in those four minutes and 20 seconds.”

Euronews: “This is the spin that I’ve heard called a death spin, how exactly do you stabalise yourself when you’re whizzing round head over heels?”

Felix Baumgartner: “The thing is you cannot practice for that spin, you either go for supersonic or you don’t. And while your spinning you have about 50 seconds to find out to stop that spin so you have to use your arms and legs and you have to do everyhting gently because you have to remember you are travelling at 830 miles an hour so it’s really hard to find out how to stop that spin but I did.”

Euronews: “Were you aware of when you passed through the sound barrier? What was it like?”

Felix Baumgartner: “Actually I didn’t know when I was passing the sound barrier because there were no signs. I had been told there was going to be a shockwave going through my suit, I never saw that shockwave. I did not hear the supersonic boom because it happens way behind you so by the time I opened my parachute I did not know if I had broken the speed of sound or not but when I landed I was told by a lot of people that I broke the sounds barrier because they heard the supersonic boom on the ground.”

Euronews: “At what moment did you allow yourself to think you had made it, that the worst was behind you?”

Felix Baumgartner: “At the press conference when Brian Utley (an official observer monitoring the mission) came up with the numbers, that was the first time when I heard that I broke the speed of sound. And that was a good moment – believ me.”

Euronews: “So up until the moment your feet actually touched down on the earth you were still thinking ‘oh my goodness something could go wrong’.”

Felix Baumgartner: “No, as soon as opened my parachute I knew everything was over, the rest was just another day in the office.”

Euronews: “You pushed yourself to the limit – physically and mentally – how do you prepare for something like that?”

Felix Baumgarter: “Everytime you do a BASE jump, a high profile BASE jump it is difficult so I knew how to deliver if the heat is on plus I have been doing a lot of testing over the last couple of years. We have high altitude skydives, low altitude skydives, inside the suit, pressurised, not pressurised, we have been in a wind tunnel we also did a full dress rehearsal inside a chamber and we were testing the capsule and myself in terms of temperature and altitude. Then we made one flight from 70,000 feet, we made two flights from 90,000 feet so actually on that day when we were doing it for real and going all the way up to 129,000 feet I was totally prepared, mentally and physically.”

Euronews: “The jump was postponed because of bad weather and then it took about two and half hours to reach the right height – how do you keep your nerves under control?”

Felix Baumgartner: “Well it is not an easy thing, it is something I have had to learn over all these years because you are seated for a lot of hours and it is not easy – just sitting here (in interviews) for six, seven hours is not easy and it become really worse if you are in a pressure suit, just breathing oxygen, the only thing you hear is mission control or your own breathing noise. But you have to remain calm otherwise you’re not going to be successful.”

Euronews: “You have done several dangerous stunts in the past – why do you think are you drawn to taking these sort of risks?”

Felix Baumgartner: “I think is mostly, I started skydiving when I was 16 years old and I think when you stay in a sport for such a long time you want to push the limit to a certain level and this is what I did over all these years and when are you a young skydiver you always look up to Joe Kittinger because he’s the one who set the highest and the longest and fastest freefall in history and you always look up to that guy and I always though it would so cool to break that record and I never I’m gonna be that person but I got that chance in 2005 and I took it.”

Euronews: “You and your team had been preparing for the skydive for years, what were some of the most difficult technical challenges you had to overcome?”

Felix Baumgartner: “There have been a lot of difficult challenges over all these years. There has been the suit development because our suit is based on a standard airforce suit and then you have to change everything because an airforce suit is made for pilots who do everything or mostly in a seated position but I need to skydive in this suit. We also had to develop a lot of safety equipment just in case something goes wrong because safety was our main priority. We had to develop a capsule, a life support system in the capsule and also – you have seen all these pictures so what we developed over all these years is a flying TV studio and those pictures, I think they speak for themselves.”

Euronews: “The jump was amazing, but was it more than just a stunt? What was the scientific relevance?”

Felix Baumgartner: “Well it has not been a stunt, this has been a scientific challenge. We gained a lot of data and we proved to the world that a high altitude and safe re-entry is possible.”

Euronews: “One of your team Dr Jonathan Clark, lost his wife Laurel Clark in the Colombia space shuttle break-up, designing a suit that could protect an astronaut at high altitude must have been very close to his heart?”

Felix Baumgartner: “Oh yeah, I mean he was part of this whole programme and he really enjoyed working with us. And he was the one who was really interested in it and everything we have developed because what happened to his wife, could have saved his wife in the future, because our suit can withstand the sort of speed, we proved it was flying at supersonic speed, all the safety equipment that we developed would keep alive just in case something went wrong.”

Euronews: “What’s your response to people who say it was a waste of money?”

Felix Baumgartner: “Well people are always saying this but look at politics, look how much money they waste. This has been money that a private person, he was raising that money by selling Red Bull all these years and we brought a lot of happiness to people, I mean the whole world was watching and that speaks for itself.”

Euronews: “So what’s next for you?”

Felix Baumgartner: “I think I am officially retired from the daredevil business and I had a second dream when I was a little kid and that was flying helicopter so since 2006 I have my commercial helicopter licence and this is what I’m going to do in the future. Put my skills into public service, I’m gonna work as a firefighter, mountain rescue so again I’m in there, this is what I belong to.”

Euronews: “All the best with that Felix, thanks for joining us on euronews.”

Felix Baumgartner: “You’re welcome.”

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I'm ready for my curtain call: From a drenched pooch in a shower to puppies at play, amazing images from Kennel Club Dog Photographer of the Year contest.

This soaking dog may not be smiling while peeking out from behind a shower curtain, but maybe it hasn't heard it's just received a special mention in the Dog Portrait Gallery.

The picture, taken by Opal Seabrook, was among the best of the Kennel Club Dog Photographer of the Year competition, which has recently announced its winners.

Held annually, the contest is open to both professionals and amateurs, young and old, from all around the world - and this year attracted 5,000 entries.

Got any sham-pooch? This sopping wet hound was given special mention in the Dog Portrait category. It was taken by by Opal Seabrook

Let sleeping dogs lie... awkwardly: Third place runner-up in the Puppies category. Photo taken by Pam Langrish

On the scent of victory: This year's overall winner was Catherine Laurenson, from Glasgow, for her photo of a Border Collie

Intense? Sure I can do intense: Second place runner-up in the Dog Portrait category. Photo taken by Jason Banbury

Who let the tots out: Second place runner-up in the Man's Best Friend category. Photo taken by Catherine MacGregor

Sea looks a bit ruff... Winner in the Dogs at Play category. Photo taken by Doug Jewell

It's spray time: Second place runner-up in the Dogs at Play category. Photo taken by Ben Burfitt

Lots of cows and bow-wow-wows: Second place runner-up in the Dogs at Work category. Photo taken by Jon Oakey

The competition has six categories: Portrait, Man’s Best Friend; Dogs At Play; Dogs At Work; and I Love Dogs Because – a category specifically for those aged 16 and under. There was also a new category this year, Puppy. 

This year's overall winner was Catherine Laurenson, from Glasgow, for her photo of a Border Collie set against a clear blue sky.

In addition to the new Dog Photographer of the Year trophy, she was awarded a glamorous Uggie collar and lead from Holly & Lil.

The pair's image will appear on the front cover of the Kennel Gazette and put on display at Discover Dogs and Crufts. 

Meanwhile, Jessica Keating, winner of the Under 16 category, will receive a day at Crufts 2013.

The winning images will be on display at Discover Dogs, which takes place at Earls Court, London, on November 10 and 11.

Let leaping dogs fly: Third place runner-up in the 16 and Under category. Photo taken by Joshua Carter

And they call it poppy love: Third place runner-up in the Dog Portrait category. Photo taken by Sarah Brown

Bubble and sleek: Winner in the 16 and Under category. Photo taken by Jessica Keating

I've got this competition licked: Winner in the Man's Best Friend category. Photo taken by Emma Carter

Now that's setting the dog among the pigeons: Third place runner-up in the Dogs at Play category. Photo taken by Tracey Adams

WHO'S IN THE LEAD? FULL LIST OF KENNEL CLUB CONTEST WINNERS

Straw dogs: Third place runner-up in the Dogs at Work category. Photo taken by Leanne Graham

Overall Winner: Catherine Laurenson

Dogs at Work (winner): Catherine Laurenson
Runner-up (2nd place): Jon Oakey
Runner-up (3rd place): Leanne Graham

Dog Portrait (winner): Shane Wilkinson
Runner-up (2nd place): Jason Banbury
Runner-up (3rd place): Sarah Brown
Special Mention: Opal Seabrook

Dogs at Play (winner): Doug Jewell
Runner-up (2nd place): Ben Burfitt
Runner-up (3rd place): Tracey Adams

Puppies (winner): Rhian White
Runner-up (2nd place): Tracey Jarvis
Runner-up (3rd place): Pam Langrish

Man’s Best Friend (winner): Emma Carter
Runner-up (2nd place): Catherine MacGregor
Runner-Up (3rd place): Sarah Brown

I Love Dogs Because… (winner): Jessica Keating
(16 years and under)
Runner-up (2nd place): Conor O' Beolain
Runner-up (3rd place): Joshua Carter

How does your garden... growl? Winner in the Puppies category. Photo taken by Rhian White

I'm a puppy... get me out of here! Second place runner-up in the Puppies category. Photo taken by Tracey Jarvis

Best buddies forever: Third place runner-up in the Man's Best Friend category. Photo taken by Sarah Brown

Reflections in the forest: Winner in the Dog Portrait category, taken by Shane Wilkinson

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How To Take Pictures Through A Fence

If you've ever photographed animals at a zoo or taken pictures of kids playing any number of sports, chances are you've had to try to shoot through a chain link fence. If you happened to do it just right, you may not have noticed much different from a normal shot. But if you didn't know the best approach, you may have ended up with distracting bits of fence between you and your subject. If you really did it wrong, you ended up with a picture of a fence and not much else. So here are a few tips to up your chances for success the next time you need to shoot through a fence.

- First of all, get as close to the fence as possible. Ideally you'd like to be next to the fence and position your lens so that it's avoiding the fence altogether or at least minimizing its influence at the edges of the lens (and therefore at the edges of the frame). This is the ideal way to make pictures without a hint of fence interference, but it isn't always practical to be right next to the fence. What you do need to do, though, is ensure that you're at least closer to the fence than the distance from the fence to the subject. If the subject (and therefore your point of focus) is 20 feet beyond the fence, make sure you're within 20 feet of the fence yourself.

- The use of a longer telephoto lens will help to minimize the depth of field and maximize scene compression—as well as your chances that the fence won't interfere with the finished picture. The wider your lens, the more noticeable the fence will be. So choose the longest lens that you can make work for your composition. 

- Set the aperture to wide open. This usually means f/2 or f/2.8, or whatever the smallest number (the biggest opening) is on a given lens. This will create the shallowest depth of field possible, minimizing the influence of the fence on the scene. 

- Watch the light. First off, definitely don't use a flash or you'll risk illuminating the fence and, even worse, creating a grid of fence-shaped shadows on your subject. Even if you're not using flash, though, you've got to watch the light. Pay attention to the position of the sun, and try to position yourself so that it is neither backlighting the fence (which can create highlights and flare that take away from your shot) nor directly front-lighting it (which can make the fence appear brighter and therefore more prominent in the scene). A diffuse source from a cloudy day will be helpful, but even direct sunlight from the side or an overhead position that doesn't create too much drama can help the fence recede into the proverbial shadows. If you can find a spot in which the fence is shaded, try shooting through that area to minimize its effect even more.

- Manual Focus. If you rely on autofocus—which I find is so often tricked that I prefer shooting in manual mode unless I have a specific reason not to—you're bound to accidentally focus on the fence instead of the subject beyond. So choose manual focus and control what's sharp—ensuring it's the subject and not the fence. 

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How to make great images after dark

Night photography can be quite a challenge. After all, you're chasing light that's barely there, and you have to work your camera in the dark. 

You can solve the latter problem with a flashlight, but you need skills to handle the photographic hurdles. Keep reading for a breakdown of equipment and techniques that will help you conquer three popular night photography scenarios: mixing ambient with flash, photographing fireworks and capturing star trails.

EQUIPMENT AND EXPOSURES

Whether you're working with a point-and-shoot or a DSLR, the first ingredient for night photography is manual control. You don't need to be a master of exposure, but you should have a camera that allows you to adjust shutter speed and aperture. Use your lowest ISO (either 50 or 100), and set your camera to manual mode. Then you can begin modifying the aperture and shutter speed to create the effect you're after.

In most cases, you want to produce a deliberately long exposure, so a small aperture (such as ƒ/16, ƒ/22 or ƒ/32) will help you create shutter speeds in low light that are in excess of 5, 10 or even 30 seconds long. These long shutter speeds allow for any moving lights in your scene, like fireworks or stars, to move across the sensor and create a beautiful streak of light. 

FIREWORKS 

Photographing fireworks is a rare opportunity, so it's important to make the most of your efforts. Start with a camera locked down on a tripod and a cable release, and choose a composition that allows you to photograph the fireworks-filled sky, as well as some context. Trees, buildings or people in the foreground are ideal to set the scene and provide scale. 

If at all possible, arrive early to set up while it's still light; it's easier to see your camera settings and to choose a composition. No matter how early you arrive, though, you're bound to have to make some adjustments once the show starts. Make them quickly because the beginning of the show is the best time to shoot: The sky isn't yet filled with smoke, and any residual sunset glow will provide a deep blue background. 

Start with a low ISO of 50 or 100 and an aperture in the middle range of ƒ/8, ƒ/11 or ƒ/16. Focusing at infinity ensures your fireworks are sharp, and setting the lens to manual focus stops the AF system from hunting in the dark. A smaller aperture can increase depth of field and lengthen exposures. This is good on two fronts, as more depth of field means you can ensure compositional elements are sharp, too, and longer exposures mean better motion blurs, which means better-looking fireworks. But there's a downside to longer exposures. Too many fireworks going off in a single frame can muddy a scene, so rely on experimentation verified via LCD to quickly hone in on an ideal exposure—likely somewhere from a few seconds to 10 or more to produce a good amount of blur without washing out the colors.

NIGHT PORTRAITS

Photographing a person at night (or in very low light) is the one time you can break the typical night photography rules: You need a flash, but you don't need a tripod. Off-camera flash is ideal, but even a point-and-shoot with an on-camera flash will work. 

You may say, "I just use my camera's Night Portrait scene mode to make night portraits." That's fine, but knowing how to achieve that look without auto assistance will make you a more empowered photographer. And it can help you make better night portraits when Night Portrait mode falls short.

Because shutter speed changes only affect ambient light, you can control flash and ambient separately in a single exposure. Imagine you're on the Las Vegas Strip, wanting to photograph a friend against a background of bright neon. (A glowing sunset or the lights of Paris work equally well.) With your subject in relative shade (so the long ambient exposure won't illuminate them too much), you can set your camera for, say, 1⁄60 sec. at ƒ/5.6, and allow your flash's TTL metering to help create the right flash exposure. If you prefer manual flash control, start with a relatively low power of 1/8th or so. Once you've achieved the appropriate flash power to match a fairly wide aperture, you can proceed to the next step. 

With the flash illuminating the subject just right, you'll notice one glaring problem: Your background is totally black. Simply lengthen the shutter speed from 1⁄60 to 1⁄30 sec., and you'll notice it gets a bit brighter (while the subject stays the same brightness). Continue lengthening the shutter speed (1⁄15 sec., 1⁄8 sec., and so on) until you achieve a background that looks just right. With your camera on a tripod, the background will remain sharp, while handholding can create interestingly abstract blurs in the background, which is good or bad depending on how you see it. 

STAR TRAILS

When you get right down to it, there's not much difference between photographing star trails and photographing fireworks. Because the Earth is rotating, you can photograph moving stars throughout the night with nothing more than a tripod, a long exposure and patience. 

The most popular way to photograph a star trail is to use your lowest ISO and smallest aperture (say, ISO 100 and ƒ/32) to allow for the longest possible exposure without building up unwanted ambient light from Earth. It really can be as simple as focusing at infinity (again, with a manual setting) and opening the shutter. 

To make things a little more interesting, consider a composition that allows for some foreground subject matter—say, tall trees entering the frame or a vantage point that allows you to shoot a landscape with stars all the way to the horizon. This requires not only an open view of the horizon, but it's also helpful if you're in a remote location without much interference from city lights. 

Pointing your camera toward the North Star will create star trails that rotate perfectly around this axis, which makes for a stunning composition. And a little flash fill added to foreground subjects is a great way to make a star-filled photograph a little extra-special. 

To make star trails, you have to allow plenty of time for those stars to transit the sky. That means exposures in the range of many minutes to several hours—or even all night long. So you want to position your camera carefully in a place where you're comfortable leaving it for the night (protected from humans, animals and the elements) that still provides for a good composition. 

There's another way to photograph stars, which is a relatively recent development. Thanks to ultra-low-noise sensors, photographers now can make short one- or two-second exposures at very high ISOs that render stars with pinpoint accuracy and show a star-filled sky in context with earthbound elements. Crank the ISO and keep the shutter speed short to make stars just as sharp as the land.

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Fashion Week 2012 Larios Málaga consolidates its second edition

Ten Malaga Couture designers with the finishing touch of Agatha Ruiz de la Prada and seven commercial firms and fashion show filled the main street of the capital for the weekend

Agatha Ruiz de la Prada, Miguel Angel Ruiz, Susana Hidalgo, Rafael Urquízar, Montague, Gemma Mele, Javier Alcantara, Jesus Segado, Angel Palazuelos, Antonia Sonia Peña Galiano and showed their new collections of haute couture on Friday September 14 at the gateway Europe's longest at 300 meters long which paraded over 60 professional models.

The event ended with the presentation of the Golden Pin career Zotano Designer José Pedro, surrounded by his friends and colleagues in a moment full of emotion, and the recognition of the Madrid designer Agatha Ruiz de la Prada for their contribution to the fashion world through an artistic, cultural and intellectual of extraordinary interest, by the hand of His Excellency Mayor of Málaga D. Francisco de la Torre and Councilwoman-Municipal Executive Board of Central District No. 1, Gemma del Corral.

On Saturday September 15, commercial firms were in charge of filling the catwalk with their latest collections: Gioconda Brides & Parties, Classic Nouveau, Tornay, Olimara, Accessories Dibuf, Momis and Rio de la Plata. This time, Esther Molina, Delegate Area Business and Employment Promotion of the City of Malaga, next to the president of the Association of Malaga Historical Centre, Trinidad Fernández-Baca Casares, presented the award to the firm's oldest historic center Michelangelo Piedrola entrepreneur, owner of the firm Rio de la Plata Dating, by its 85-year history.

Fashion Week 2012 Larios Málaga consolidates each year, with the aim of promoting and publicizing the city of Malaga, its artists, fashion, and place it among the best cities, as far as fashion is concerned. This initiative has been made possible by the City of Malaga Provincial Government Tourist Board of the Costa del Sol, Historic Downtown Association, Association of Guilds, a professional team of management and organization, designers, companies, professional models, the hairdressing team led by Carlos Rufo, Mochi, Fali Hairdressers, Diego Montiel and Damian Fernandez, Arteness makeup team and partner companies Kapyderm Laboratories, Hyundai, Linda Magazine, Hotel Room Mate Larios, Gorki, Tapas Bar, Brigade 10 , Serramar, Fame Academy, Solan de Cabras, John Lucas, and Visuales2000 Emeshel.

Photography
Frank Ramos
United Photo Press

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