Some photos from my last day in Rio de Janeiro - Walking Olympic Boulevard

On my last full day in Rio de Janeiro, I decided to take an Uber over to the Olympic Boulevard. I had heard about this location during the Games, but with the hectic Olympic schedule, did not have time to visit there.

For this excursion, I decided to take only the Canon G5 X camera. After 3 weeks of hauling multiple Canon 1D X Mark II cameras and a bunch of lenses, including the Canon 200-400mm lens, it was really refreshing to throw a camera in my pocket and go.

My walk started out at the Museum of Tomorrow. It is a very cool building, and I liked the Olympica sign out front.

I walked about the entire museum to get some architectural photos. It was fun to play with this little camera, using both the LCD on the back of the camera as well as the eye piece.

I was happy to see a little blue sky popping out behind the building. I stood in this location to shoot this perspective of the building, but also to include the Christ the Redeemer statue far in the background (to the right side of the frame).

Here is a crop of the same image. You can see the statue high on top of the mountain in the background.

This is a straight-on view of the Museum of Tomorrow.

The building reminded me of a dinosaur skeleton.

I walked away from the museum and headed towards the Navy building. I saw this small replica of the Olympic Flame. Since it was after the closing ceremony, the flame was extinguished.

I saw this sculpture of the Rio Olympic logo and wanted a photo of me here. I asked one of the volunteers to take my photo.

Since most of the displays and attractions were either closed or being dismantled, I decided to head off the boulevard and into the city a little. I saw this cool alleyway and took this shot.

I grabbed some lunch, and before heading back to the hotel, I walked over to the to the murals I had heard so much about.

This 3,000 square meter mural was painted with the Brazilian street artist, Eduardo Kobra. It shows indigenous people from five different continents. I knew that I would take some close-up shots of the mural, but saw this train approaching, and thought that it was a good composition, showing both.

I stood back and shot this photo straight-on.

As I walked back, I noticed that this modern building was in the background, peeking out from behind the mural. I really liked the combination of the two subjects in one photo.

I also zoomed the little Canon G5 X to show only Kobra's artwork.

I moved down the boulevard and framed this shot, once again including the mural an office building. (Photographer's tip: I shot these photos to try something different. I know that these murals were photographed countless times during the Olympics, and I wanted to try and capture something different. I saw most people taking selfies in front of the mural or shooting photos of just the wall. As a photographer, I pride myself on going beyond the obvious. Give it a try and you will find some cool photos that are unique to just you.) 

I also zoomed in and grabbed photos of the art itself.

I took photos in portrait and landscape mode (tall and wide).

I took this last shot of the mural to show you all the scale of the artwork. Kobra broke a world record by painting all of this in 2 months. He worked 12 hours a day to complete the project. You can check out the time lapse video here.

After taking photo of the main mural, I walked around the side of the building and even liked the simple paintings on that wall.

This last shot is really different. Can you tell what you are looking at here?

This is a reflection shot. I was walking back along Kobra's mural when a train pulled up next to me. I looked at the reflection in the train window and thought it would be an interesting photo. If you look closely, you can see the the painting and the passengers on the train looking at the mural from inside the windows.

And that my friends, is the last post from this trip to Rio de Janeiro. The funny thing is...my contact at the US Olympic Committee just reminded me that the Winter Olympics in Korea is only 75 weeks away. Yikes!!!

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And also, remember that you and your friends can enter your email address at the top right of this blog to get an email any time I write a new blog post or send my monthly newsletter.

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If you are interested in purchasing any camera equipment, please click here to go to B&H Photo, as I get a referral from them if you enter this way. It does not change the cost to you in any way, but it helps me keep this blog up and running.

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San Francisco - The Painted Ladies, The Haight, and The Golden Gate Bridge

Funny that I am sitting here in New York City writing a blog about my home town of San Francisco, but I have so many photos and stories to share with you all that I am running behind. My cousin and his family were visiting San Francisco a couple of months ago, and their daughter, Sydney, wanted to learn more about photography, so I spent the day with them up in the city. It was a great time, shooting and hanging out with them.

While I was teaching Sydney, I was also taking my own photos, so this gives me a chance to share the images with all of you.

I picked them up from the Ritz Carlton, where they were slumming it for the weekend, and drove straight over to the Painted Ladies. These are a famous group of victorian homes that many of you have seen on the TV show "Full House". The weather was overcast, which actually helped to make a better photo in this case. No harsh shadows to deal with.

Along with taking the "standard shot" that everyone takes, I was using my Canon 5D Mark III, and zoomed my Canon 28-300mm lens all the way to 300mm to get this photo of City Hall peaking out from behind a couple of the victorians.

And then we were off to the Haight Ashbury district to take photos of the graffiti and surroundings.

You can't go to Haight Ashbury without taking a photo of the street signs!

I love the art painted on the side of the local businesses.

...and then...there were some of the characters there...

I saw these guys and asked them if I could take their photos. They were totally cool with that, so I took some quick portraits.

After getting some lunch in the Haight, I drove them over to Fort Point, located at the base of the Golden Gate Bridge.

I was teaching Sydney about composition and framing. I took this first photo standing straight up to show her the perspective. But the shot is lacking a strong foreground.

For this second shot, I got down low and included the rusty chain as a foreground element. Notice how the curve of the chain helps to frame the bridge?

I was also showing Sydney how zooming into a shot changes everything. As luck would have it, the fog was slowly rolling in, constantly changing as it passed by the North Tower of the bridge.

I waited for this sailboat to get close to the bridge and took this photo. I wanted to show Sydney how the boat would "finish" this shot. And...as it turned out, the top of the North Tower also popped out from the fog just a little bit as the sailboat approached. A perfect moment.

Note: I posted this photo on my Facebook page, thinking that it was a decent photo, but not expecting much feedback. As it turned out, this photo had more than 1000 likes and a ton of comments. I was pleasantly surprised by this reaction. It just reinforced that photography is subjective, and even I can not predict what will be widely admired or disliked.

Here are a couple more photos of the bridge, fog and sailboat.

After shooting all these photos, I wanted to show Sydney that there is always a way to push further and get a shot that most people do not have.

I was talking to her when I saw the bridge reflecting in her sunglasses. Perfect!!! I had her turn at just the right angle to get the bridge reflection in both lenses and took this shot. I love how the dark blue glasses make the scene look totally different from the grey skies that were reality.

We had a great time catching up after not seeing each other for a couple of years, hopefully Sydney learned something about her camera and photography, and we got some fun photos too. That makes for a great day!

_________________________________________________________________________________

If you are interested in purchasing any camera equipment, please click here to go to B&H Photo, as I get a referral from them if you enter this way. It does not change the cost to you in any way, but it helps me keep this blog up and running.

_________________________________________________________________________________

And also, remember that you and your friends can enter your email address at the top right of this blog to get an email any time I write a new blog post or send my monthly newsletter.

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Awesome Graffiti and Dance Battle at Five Pointz in Queens, New York

Last week was yet another cross country visit to New York City for some more B&H events. (For those of you following my YouTube videos on the B&H channel, we completed another one which should be posted any day now.)

While doing one of the B&H events, a nice gentleman named Chris Ryan, who follows my work and saw some of my graffiti photos from San Francisco and Toronto, suggested that I go to a place in Queens called 5 Pointz to shoot their graffiti. This sounded really exciting. But, Sunday started slowly, with my brother (who I flew out with me for this trip) and I taking it easy. We had walked more than 50 miles in 4 days and our legs were tired. We both said that we would not walk too much on Sunday and that we would kick back and watch football for the day.

Well...If you follow along with the blog, you know that I can not sit still, and I was chomping at the bit to go and shoot something different on this trip to the big city. As we were sitting in the hotel room, 5 Pointz was calling my name. I looked it up on the Internet and determined that it would be a fun 4 mile walk from Times Square.

So, I convinced my brother that it would be a fun walk and off we went. I honestly did not know what to expect, and after walking for an hour and a half, hoped it would be worth it. But when we got there, boy did we stumble on something cool! But, before I give away the surprise, let me tell you how it all happened. (Yep, that is my tease!)

As I mentioned, we walked for quite a while, and eventually made our way into Queens. It was approaching 5pm when we crossed the 59th Street bridge and made the walk for the last 6 blocks to 5 Pointz. The skies were overcast, the light fading a little, and the area did not look great. My brother kinda gave me that "what the heck have you gotten us into?" look.  But then we came to the graffiti area and I was in photography heaven.

The artwork was just amazing with vibrant colors and really cool subject matter. And, because it was late in the day and overcast, I did not have to deal with harsh sunlight or shadows. Time to shoot!

I was teaching my brother to not only shoot the wide shots, but to key in on the details as well.

And speaking of details, as I was walking around and looking at the different painted walls, I saw this black cat hanging out by a chain link fence. I wanted a shot of the cat, but not by the fence. As my luck would have it, the cat jumped to a nearby wall, in front of some cool graffiti and voila, I got my shot!

I am truly impressed by the artistic ability of these street artists.

This was painted in black and white. Something very different than the other street art, but since I love things that are different, this really spoke to me.

Something is up with this one.

More vibrant colors...

This one made me laugh...

And then... as I moved around the corner, I heard rap music and what sounded like a crowd of people cheering. Being the ever curious person, I made my way towards the sound and found the most amazing site. It was a battle of street dancers doing their best to one-up each other, and taunting each other up on stage. 

This is the first view I had of the crowd, surrounded by endless graffiti (with 5 Pointz emblazoned on the building). It was awesome, and I knew that I had to get some shots of this up close.

My brother isn't as crazy as I am. I shot this photo of him watching the scene from afar. But I saw this as an amazing photo opportunity and could not wait to get into the mix.

I worked my way up to the stage, raised my Canon 5D Mark III (with 24-105 lens) up as high as I could, over people's heads and started shooting.

I love the taunting!

With all of this going on around me, I was loving every second of it. This was so different from anything I have ever photographed, and so outside my element. But it was a really calm crowd of people who were having a great time, and I felt totally at ease. My brother had to think I was nuts as I ran around saying "this is #$%#ing awesome!".

I always teach people to shoot with passion, and these people definitely had passion for dance!

When writing this blog post, I did a Google search to see if I could find any information about this event. It did not take long before I found this. I guess I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

As I was getting ready to leave, I saw this guy painting on a wall. I positioned myself to the side of the subject to get a nice perspective of him working.

And then I moved behind them to take a photo. They turned and I asked if it was OK to photograph them. Neither of them wanted to show their faces but were willing to give me this. I like it.

And then we were done, and we hailed a cab. My brother got in first, and then as I was getting into the back of the cab, I turned around and noticed that there were a couple more walls of street art that I had missed. I asked the cabbie if it was OK to wait a couple of minutes, and he and my brother patiently waited while I explored a little more.

I was so glad that I took the extra couple of minutes to capture the additional graffiti that I would have otherwise missed.

I really liked this art, painted across different textures on the wall.

Lastly, I came across this magnificent brush work. The painting of this person looks great from far back, but even more amazing when you look at the details of each stroke. All I could think of, as I edited each of these photos is, "whoever painted these is WAY more talented than I will ever be."

And then the day of shooting was over, and as I was walking back to the cab, a man came up to me and asked "Are you Jeff Cable?" I have had this happen numerous times in the past, but never in the back streets 3000 miles from home. He said that he enjoyed my blog and wanted to say hello. Thanks to Chris for telling me about this photographic goldmine and to Seamus for saying hello and making my day.

They tell me that the street art is constantly changing at 5 Pointz, so you can bet that I will go back and this again!