What have I been up to?

Original post: 14AUG2016

Gosh, what have I been up to? Not updating this site I’ll tell you that. But I have been up to a lot.

I haven’t been editing shots the same day that I take them. To be honest today was the first day I did any sort of editing. I have just been shooting and keeping the pictures in the camera. The reason behind this is because the process of editing film you would have to wait for the film to get developed. So maybe seeing the picture though “different day” eyes would give me a different interpretation of what I meant when I took the picture.

I have been taking my camera out more to different places and going to more local events to check out the variety of people that are around. I was just at an art and music festival in the town of Anacortes, WA and photographed some people there. I tried different approaches to take pictures of people. The simple “shoot candidly” and give them a head nod. To the walk to up them say hi and something nice and ask for their permission. I received good responses from both of them. I still like the candid ones more because it keeps them in their natural light and they aren’t forced to pose for me in any sort of way, also I am terrible at directing them to pose for me. Also they smile a lot. Maybe because I am always smiling when I see them.

That is what I will do, I will create a smile project. Whenever I see someone with a great unique smile I will get them to smile again for me.

Gahh, I am forcing this. Also I am not even going to attach a picture to this one. I also need to make the file size smaller on most of my pictures I want them to load fast on this site. I want to get rid of the ones that I have in galleries like 500px and flickr.

Fare well, till next post.

-Franco

Color Film

Now, I didn’t only photograph in black and white. After my intro to photography class ended I decided to take a color class as well. Which was a way more complicated method of processing and developing that I don’t want to get into here.

Unfortunately I dropped the class. I moved from where I lived, which was near the school, to about an hours drive away. But the distance wasn’t the only thing that caused me to drop the class.

What I was shooting my professor didn’t like. I wish I could show you what it was but the negatives are long gone. I was shooting these great murals that littered the streets on mid town Miami. From the Design district to Wynwood, all the walls were covered in beautiful graffiti. It wasn’t simple graffiti either, it was increasingly complex designs that boggled the mind. One quick googlesearch and you can see for yourself what is out there. The reason my professor didn’t like it was because there wasn’t anything exciting about it, sure it was beautiful and the colors were vibrant and amazing, but there was no “subject”. So I set out to add the subject. I asked around to meet these artists of the murals. The problem was that back then they were still done in secrecy and at night when no one was around. Now a days the “taggers” are revered as artists and are welcomed at every empty wall in those districts.

So I went away from shooting those murals, and I went way from being in the class room. That is when I started to shoot photos for myself. I was taking pictures of friends and of random things on my way to my other classes. But every now and then I shot something that really stood out to me and here is an example of that.

Full disclosure, this is not the picture I intended to share, not the security guard, but this is the closest I can find.

I always shot at 1/60 speed. I also used 200 Kodak Gold film. Nothing fancy, I didn’t even develop the film myself. I think I would drop it off at a local pharmacy and they would do it in house. Thats right, back in the day when they actually developed film in house.

This guy was totally happy, and when I pointed that camera he gave me a shot into his life. A loafer wearing, bike riding, security guard probably on his way back home after a long night of warding off the criminals that lurk in the shadows. I went way too far with that one. Anyways.

I was happy taking the photo as well. I mean, it was clean and simple, and gritty and even full of motion blur, but you know what? It is a darn good photograph. One that I am very proud of.

-Franco Pisano

P.S. Next time I will post something more recent.

Another Blast from the Past

Another photograph that my professor liked was this one. A style of photograph that I wouldn’t have taken unless I was drunk… and would you have guessed it, I was drunk for this photograph.

This was a drunken street capture that I barely remember taking

The great part about what I was doing this day is that I went to that party, not only to have fun, but with the intention on photographing something. I always had my camera at the time and when the opportunity knocked, I let him in. I roughly remember walking around the blocks of this Hialeah, FL neighbor hood with a couple of other friends and at some point I decided that I needed to lay down on the grass and capture this moment. Coming back to this picture I can see I did exactly that.

I love that it is low to the ground, I love that it was properly exposed… at night… lets be honest, that’s not easy to do sober, let alone inebriated. It is pictures like these that remind me how beautifully complicated film photography was. Money and time willing I will go back to taking a few photograph in film once I have honed in my skill at my craft.

Another thing is that this isn’t “street photography” in the sense that I like to describe it. When I think of street I think of people being in the shot. Regardless this photo is street photography and I love it and welcome photographs like this in the future.

By the way the cameras that I was using during this time was the Canon FT QL with a 50mm 1.8 lens. My absolute world, that I will miss for a long time to come.

I think I need to have a closing catch phrase. How about…

Shoot you later.. or Unstill next time… enough of that.

-Franco Pisano

P.S.

This is another photograph from that day that I barely remember taking but it captures people in such a beautiful way.

Amalio, what’s up brother. Good ol Hialeah

My First post

If I waited any longer to post something I wouldn’t have done it at all. So tonight is the night. I’m going to pull a picture from a long time ago. One of the firsts. I don’t have many of my photo’s from when I was in the photography class. Unfortunately my book of negatives got lost in a move somewhere and they will not be seen again. Unless the person that somehow acquired it sees this blog. Although those are gone, there are still a few remaining from the ones that I converted to digital.

It was the fall of 2007… incredible, it has been so long since that time, almost 10 years now and I can feel it as if it was yesterday. The people that I was friends with at the time. The house that we temporarily lived at in Kendall, the job that I worked at (FPL), the time that I took from work to photograph. I can listen to Dance Gavin Dance and be instantly transported there. It was a band that I was introduced to by a friend that was nicknamed Nappy (If you see this, contact me!) The dark room work, the developing on silver paper, waiting for it to dry, all of it really. Seeing it all come together made the experience really stay with me, and I have a feeling it will stay with me forever.

Luckily I still have some of the pictures I took from that time and I would like to share one of them with you today.

This was one of the photographs that was liked by my photography teacher at the time. I didn’t understand then, but now I grasp fully what I was taking a picture of. It wasn’t just a snap shot, it was a moment/emotion captured in time that will be remembered forever and can be instantly interpreted by anyone looking at it (hopefully).

Stay tuned for more nostalgia.

-Franco Pisano

New Site, Old content deleted.

Update: 29JUN2019

I have access to my old site. I will be passing over some of the old posts over. I want to make sure that I have a nice full site as a starting point. I am going to come back to posting surely.

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Welcome to my new site. Unfortunately everything from my previous site is lost to me. I’m sure there are many ways that I could recover the information but maybe this gives me a chance to start over. Clean site.

There might be some of my old content back up but in the mean time I will post until my hearts content.

I have a lot of new found time so I will try to make this the site I wanted it to be 3 years ago.