San Juan snaps

I spent some time walking around Old San Juan and Puerta de Tierra the last few days.

Hera are a couple of frames I made.

Tech: Canon G10

La Perla digi infrared

La Perla

La Perla is one of the oldest hoods in San Juan. It was founded in late 1600. Modern day La Perla is a jewel of a location and is home to a very diverse set of people considered by many a tough place.

I hadn't been in La Perla since 2002 when I spent a day photographing addicts for the AIDS IN THE CARIBBEAN piece that ended up as Pulitzer Prize finalist. I went there with a couple of new friends/colleagues and a local community activist.

GEAR TALK: iPhone 3G

Coqui coqui coqui

If you come to PR you'll hear the sound of the Coqui all night long.
Coquis are tree frogs that allegedly are only found in PR. There was a
story in the papers not long ago that someone apparently took some of
these frogs to Hawaii and the things multiplied like crazy and there
non stop mating calls were driving residents insane. There was an
eradication effort and an outcry from Ricans who wanted to save the
lil bastards.

For the record what you hear is their mating calls, males say CO and
females quickly repond QUI. It's so fast that it sounds like one frog
singing COQUI over and over.

I found a song in iTunes that is probably the worst song ever
recorded. The singer basically sings coqui coqui coqui coqui coqui
coqui coqui coqui coqui the entire 4 mins.

This was shot with the G10, manual exp @ 200 iso.

Scouting snaps

Was scouting locations for a workshop in the upcoming NAHJ (Natl Assocn of Hispanic Journalists) convention in San Juan, PR in a couple of weeks. I'm helping out in a photo workshop and offered to find a couple of places we could take some of the students. I found a couple of things I had to shoot.

The old man smoking is selling billetes, traditional P.Rican lottery tickets. The pigeons are in the Parque de las Palomas, Pigeon Park, in Old San Juan.

G10 pics.

Mija & Federico polarized

Just playing around with the dogs and the iPhone.

More foto field trip: Arroyo and Salinas

Digital Infrared=Salinas

I went on a foto field trip yesterday w/my friend Xavier who works in a local newspaper. We've been talking about doing this for a few months and finally, yesterday, we took our first road trip.

Our first stop was La Villa Pesquera in Humacao's Palmas del Mar. We left in a hurry. It was a boring and sanitized scene. Then we made it to Arroyo and that was much better; a quiet Malecon, nice people and pretty visuals. We tried to make it to Guayama but all the streets were blocked for some event. Finally we made it to Salinas and to the Central Aguirre area. I'd never been there and was really blown away. Lots of abandoned buildings, nice plantation era homes, great scenery. Unfortunately it was late and there was almost no light. We will hit that area again next week.

Here's a "no light" 15 sec xposure w/my infrared set up on the G10.

More Digi IR

Stock photos

A couple of months ago I spent about 4 days bidding for a freelance project that I thought I wanted. I had to prepare a gallery of archive images showing my travel photography. Whenever I have to look for old photos it's a pain in the behind. I did it, found all the photos I thought worked and sent to the "client". Next day I get the news that I was "selected" from a bunch of finalists. This was a book deal so I was really excited about it until I read the client's contract and terms/conditions. Simply said, it was a terrible deal for me and a great deal for them. I asked for more money and some adjustments on the conditions. No go. They just wouldn't budge. In the end I'd end up giving them hundreds of photos from which they would choose what they wanted and they then would pay me a couple of months later. In the end, I'd only make about $10-$14 per image and create a bank of images for the client (which they'd keep for at least 6 years) to sell and split the revenue with me 50/50.

I called the pic editor and told him I wouldn't be involved in the project. He was pissed and told me so. Oh well, I am new to the freelance world but I'm not new to photography.

The good thing out of of this bad experience is that I got a shoot list from the "client". I am now using that list to put together my own PR stock gallery which I will display/offer on my PhotoShelter page. I plan on shooting for that gallery every week in different parts of the island.

Here are a couple of pics I shot with that in mind.

gear talk: shot w/a G10, P mode