The name of talent in this shoot is Sam Lee, and is one of the first Martial Arts Trickers I studied when I started in 2007. Today, he is a good friend of mine, opening his own Martial Arts studio out in Columbia Maryland. When I found out he was in a need of a shoot, I was more then happy to shoot with him.
Planning this video took a few weeks to fully plan. The inspiration came from listening to the song during tough finical times I was going through. I would listen to Everyday Netsky Remix to cheer me up, give me hope for better days. It was during this time where I would notice my other talented friends struggle in the same way I was. In repetition; I was slowly starting to develop a theme. I based the entire video off of amazing talent, presented in the vessel that most of us struggling artists feel like we look like to the rest of society.
The guy playing the main character is my brother Javier Macias, also a struggling artist. I explained to him the concept, and the attitude I wanted him to have when playing his role. Not as the cookie cutter tie and suit with a smile that has to be presented with talent in order to be hired. But the real feeling of frustration that is felt when all that is gained with our talent is chump change.
No special preparation was taken when making this video. For the opening shots, just a reflector filling in some shadows under Javier’s hat. The reflector was also important for the shot of Javier cleaning himself in the bathroom, due to the lack of good light in that Starbucks bathroom.
When actually filming the tricks, all that I used was my 7D and my glide-cam. As far as the street performing; Javier did all of the hustling himself, we made $9 and got brushed off a lot. It served as a good social experiment for us to experience how people really don’t stop to appreciate whats around them. During the shoot; I was reminded a lot of a video I saw with a similar concept as what we were experiencing.
With the video finished, I’m really proud in myself for being able tell this story the way I intended to. I thankful to have an outlet like tricking which I can use to tell my story. Enjoy.
Canon introduced the worlds 4K DSLR, something I was caught completely off guard with. Before hearing this news I was actually playing with a Red Scarlet and contemplating if I what my next investment to 4k would be. Canon introducing the 1D 4K had great timing for me because I was just looking into the 4K market.
The 1D 4K has a full frame sensor and can outputs video to 4096 X 2160-pixels (4k). To understand how big 4K is, here is a quick chart:
The advantages with going with Canon over other 4K camera, would definitely be the small form factors that made DSLR shooting popular in the first place. And the less accessories it takes to operate the camera.
The Cons would definitely be the lack of professionals features, like the XLR inputs, and advanced settings and frame rates. Although it might be to soon to tell what Canon will include in the 1D 4K.
There is a great amount of flexibility when it comes to shooting RAW. So much that I need to practice on more RAW photos to understand how much more I can do. For those who don’t know, RAW is a picture format that most high end DSLRs can shoot in. The idea is an uncompressed photo that retains all the data you camera would normally trim off for you. When shooting JPEG, your telling your camera to do all the post work for you, the exposure, saturation, white balance, contrast, trimming the highlights, mid-tones, and shadows, and compresses the files to the smallest size possible. So when taken to post, there is no work to do on the photo. Shooting RAW, your telling the camera to take the picture as is, retain all the data and leave it to work on later. When looking at a RAW picture you can’t think much about it. here’s the RAW file I shot:
Doesn’t look very impressive. So step two would be to take the photo into Adobe Lightroom and begin working. Because the RAW files retains all the data, editing this photo almost felt to free. I used Adobe Lightroom 3.
-Fill Light Slider: to bring out all the shadows in the picture. Doing so, made the front of his face (that I took with a ring light) really blown out, so..
-Recovery Slider: To bring back all the detail on his face that was blown out with the Fill light slider.
-Vibrance Slider: Brought it all the way down to give it a slight desaturated look that I really liked.
-Clarity Slider: Brought that up a bit to bring out more of the detail on the hair on his face.
-I finished off with the brush tool here and there to specific areas on his face for detail and I was done.
I got to enjoy the great weather last Saturday in D.C. for a Capoeira Roda. I had a lot of fun coming out and meeting all the Capoeiristas. Here’s a few of my favorite pics from the afternoon.
At the White Lotus Closing Gathering. Travis Wong; owner of White Lotus, invited out Will Coneys (from my team) to battle Anis Cheurfa. In what was going to be one of a kind battle to date. Then news came that my brother, Javier Macias and Jefferson Lewis were making it out to the event. Originally Javier was going to enter the bracket battles of the night. But since the strongest of our team was all there, plans changed. The main event; which was originally Will vs Anis, changed to include the rest of our team (Javier and Jefferson) vs now Anis, Daniel Graham, and Kyle Mclean to became and overall team battle, coast vs coast, CFC vs Lost Boys. I couldn’t have been any prouder of my squad.
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