Interview with Eric Kim on fear, books and why? (VIDEO)

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Recently Eric Kim and I ran a street projects workshop in Hong Kong (my blog review of that workshop can be found here). After the workshop finished we had a few days before Eric departed for his next workshops in Australia so I took the time to get him in the studio and my aim was to produce a short but slightly more serious interview with him to help him out and let people see a bit more depth.

In this piece, Eric talks about his fears when shooting street, some highly recommended books and reminds all photographers to ask yourself why do you shoot? Something I ask everyone I teach the moment I meet them...

Gary Tyson is a former British Army Photographer/videographer now based in Asia, shooting a variety of projects ranging from commercial to sports photography, corporate, travel an event videos, as well as being an avid street shooter wherever he goes.

His company F8 Photography also runs travel and street photography workshops all over Asia, specialising in Cambodia, India and now expanding in Japan and hopefully soon in Mongolia, Burma and Vietnam also.

For more information about Gary or F8 Photography please see our links below to public facebook page and website.

Gary's public facebook page

F8 Photography main website

VIDEO: How we process black and white with the Fuji X-T1

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A few people have been asking me how i process my black and white RAW files from the new Fuji X-T1 camera. I use Lightroom and Silver Efex Pro 2 to do this, and I have made a short video that goes into detail of how I process my files to get my own look.

Please see the video below, I hope its useful for people seeking out some ways to get a constant look with their black and white process, just tweak to your liking and save your presets and you can have your images edited in seconds in 1 or 2 clicks.

http://vimeo.com/f8photography/fujixt1bw

Eric Kim Street Photographer - Hong Kong (VIDEO)

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Eric Kim was recently in Hong Kong running a street photography workshop in partnership with F8 Photography.  After the workshop we had a few days to go around town shooting and on the last night we decided to catch Eric's thoughts in a short interview to get his opinion on how the workshop went and also ask a few other questions about his views on street photography in general.  There is footage of the workshop and shooting in Hong Kong mixed in with the interview.

F8 Photography continues to run photography workshops and training in Hong Kong and Cambodia and lots of student reviews and workshop information is available on the website and our blog which can all be seen via this link.

Special thanks again to Will Gell for supplying the background music, and to Nate Roberts for asking the questions and Trevor Smith as 'soundman'.

Here is the video: (can watch in HD on Vimeo).

http://vimeo.com/38560897

Thanks for taking the time to visit our blog, if you like our blog and website, please ‘like’ us on our public Facebook page and share this story with your friends with the Facebook and twitter links below.  You can also subscribe to our blog via the RSS link below.

F8 Photography provides commercial photography and training across Asia, with workshops on Street Photography and other photography and video training courses, more details can be found via the ‘courses and workshops’ link and upcoming events via the front page of our website.

Using a Steadicam (VIDEO)

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Many of us have been shooting more and more video with our DSLR cameras over recent months and years, which is great, as we get to use the shallow depth lenses for really nice cinematic effects. However, one of the problems we encounter, due to the size and shape of the cameras is excessive movement.  This can be countered by using a monopod or tripod, but sometimes you want moving shots, people walking, running, etc, and this is where the steadicam comes into play.

We have a couple of different steadicam rigs, some of them can get quite expensive, however one we have found particularly useful is the Wondlan Steadicam rig that can be purchased in Hong Kong at a relatively low price compared to other steadicam rigs - but with very similar and sometimes even better results!

We have put together a short video that shows some footage shot with the Wondland Steadicam rig, and compare footage to handheld, as well as showing how we set up the rig very quickly to be able to achieve these results, the video below is 6 minutes long, and Gary did almost fall off a cliff making this film as you will see at 1 minutes 42 seconds!

http://vimeo.com/f8photography/wondlansteadicam

We hope this video is useful for anyone considering getting or using a steadicam, it really does add a lot of production value to any video footage in our opinion, and gives you options that are simply impossible without a steadicam.

When using a steadicam, the way we think about it is we compare it to trying to walk (or run) with a cup full to the brim of hot coffee...its kind of a similar technique to how you would walk, certainly you cannot walk or run naturally, so you will attract a bit of attention whilst using one, maybe even a few laughs, but the footage stability speaks for itself.

Just be careful you look where you are going when using one, its easy to trip or fall over as we demonstrated :-)

Thanks for taking the time to visit our blog, if you like our blog and website, please ‘like’ us on our public Facebook page and share this story with your friends with the Facebook and twitter links below.  You can also subscribe to our blog via the RSS link below.

F8 Photography provides commercial photography and training across Asia, with workshops on Street Photography and other photography and video training courses, more details can be found via the ‘courses and workshops’ link and upcoming events via the front page of our website.

 

How we shoot Street Photography in Hong Kong (VIDEO)

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A lot of people have been asking us how we get close up pictures of people out on the streets in Hong Kong, so we decided to make a short video to show exactly how we go about getting these images. We attached our little GOPRO video camera to the top of the Leica M9, plugged in a wireless microphone to a small Zoom H1 to record the voice and then went for a walk for 2 hours round Mongkok, Yau Ma Tei and Jordan in Kowloon to see what we could shoot.

This video is a short insight into how we generally shoot our street photography, we really try not to offend anybody out on the street, some people are camera shy, that's normal, you have to just move on and not take it personally, theres millions more interesting subjects just waiting for you to photograph them...

We emphasise throughout the video the camera settings and techniques we are using, so this video hopefully can be of use to anyone that is unsure of what settings to use for fast paced street photography.

We are very interested to hear everybody's comments or critisicms as we are always striving to improve, so feel free to comment below on anything you have seen in the video or you think we should be doing differently.

Please feel free share this link on your blog, on your facebook and recommend it to friends, we are trying to get as much exposure as possible with these techniques to help anyone who wants to learn from it.

F8 Photography runs all kinds of photography training as well as upcoming street photography workshops, so if you are in Hong Kong and interested in this style of photography, contact us to register, we will soon be launching an events page with all the details of all our 'street' workshops.

If you like this post, please 'LIKE' us at the bottom of the page and Facebook via our links below.

[slideshowpro type="video" url="http://f8photography.com.hk/slideshowpro/albums/album-12/lg/streetphotography1.m4v" preview="http://f8photography.com.hk/slideshowpro/albums/album-12/lg/streetphotography1.jpg" width="600" controls="true" autostart="false" ]

 

Cambodia behind the scenes (VIDEO)

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This is just a short look behind the scenes on some of our shots from last trip to Cambodia. I apologise in advance for the quality of the editing, we didn't film anywhere near enough clips, as video coverage was not part of the plan for this trip, so these are just thrown together clips from iphones and DSLRs along with a few of the images so people can see the natural light when a shot was taken using lights to show the effects, etc.  Next time we go we will be shooting street photography with a view to filming much more with a dedicated cameraman.

If you like our work, please 'like' us a the bottom of this post, add us on facebook, twitter or google+.

[slideshowpro type="video" url="http://f8photography.com.hk/slideshowpro/albums/album-12/lg/Cambodiaroughcut-desktop.m4v" preview="http://f8photography.com.hk/slideshowpro/albums/album-12/lg/Cambodiaroughcut-poster.jpg" width="600" controls="true" autostart="false" ]

Party up the Peak (VIDEO)

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We recently collaborated with Rob Rogers (www.eventsman.com) on a very short notice project to put together and film several secret video interviews with friends, colleagues and relatives as part of a surprise gift for a 60th Birthday party up at the Peak Lookout restaurant in Hong Kong. The surprise went down very well and we were fortunate enough to be asked to film the event on the night, which allowed us to capture the great party atmosphere and emotional reaction of the birthday boy!

Here are the event highlights:

Tech info: Equipment used for this event was 1 x cameraman, 5D Mark II, 7D, slider, monopod, Zoom H4N and a batch of canon prime lenses, edited in Premiere CS5. [slideshowpro type="video" url="http://f8photography.com.hk/slideshowpro/albums/album-12/lg/WEBSITEMARSHALL-desktop.m4v" preview="http://f8photography.com.hk/slideshowpro/albums/album-12/lg/WEBSITEMARSHALL-poster.jpg" width="600" controls="true" autostart="false" ]

Shooting with Mikey from lightenupandshoot.com (VIDEO)

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Hooked up with Mikey from lightenupandshoot.com during his asia leg of the world tour. We went shooting on Lamma Island, Hong Kong and thought it would be fun to film it too. Heres a few stills I shot as well as the video itself. Enjoy![slideshowpro type="video" url="http://f8photography.com.hk/slideshowpro/albums/album-12/lg/lightenup.m4v" preview="http://f8photography.com.hk/slideshowpro/albums/album-12/lg/lightenup-poster.jpg" width="600" controls="true" autostart="false" ]

Behind the scenes - Corporate (VIDEO)

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Quick look behind the scenes on a small scale corporate shoot. [slideshowpro type="video" url="http://f8photography.com.hk/slideshowpro/albums/album-12/lg/liliana-desktop.m4v" preview="http://f8photography.com.hk/slideshowpro/albums/album-12/lg/liliana-poster.jpg" width="600" controls="true" autostart="false" ]

'Som Tot Moy' - F8 Exhibition in Soho, Hong Kong (VIDEO)

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We exhibited our images from recent trips to Cambodia in Soho in January & February of 2011, with the aim to raise money for a Cambodian children's charity.  Here's the video from the opening night.  Thanks for all the support, we really appreciate people taking the time to see our work. _MG_2328_tonemapped-Edit.jpg

[slideshowpro type="video" url="http://f8photography.com.hk/slideshowpro/albums/album-12/lg/exhibition-desktop.m4v" preview="http://f8photography.com.hk/slideshowpro/albums/album-12/lg/exhibition_thumb.jpg" width="600" controls="true" autostart="false" ]