Mike Villa Visuals: The Next Generation

Ok, so maybe the title’s a bit dramatic, but it’s here! I finished the new blogsite!

So from now on, all blogging will take place on the new site. If you have this bookmarked, RSSed, homepaged, whatever, I suggest you move that on over to http://www.mikevillavisuals.com.

Peace.

Amanda & Joe [Engagement]

Blue skies, white fluffy clouds, and Tempe Town Lake. Beauteous. We’re tentatively labeling this set as “to be continued” since we were cut short due to out of control wind. Oy. Anyways, enjoy the lovies:

Rollout.

Reason #732 I Hate Newspapers

There’s a reason newspapers are falling out left and right. There’s a reason that my major (journalism) is currently filled with so much doom and gloom. There’s multiple reasons actually, and I’m sure that there are people who are way more qualified than I am who could explain them to you. But given the recent announcement from the New York Times to start charging for access to their website (under “certain conditions”), I’ve decided it’s time to voice my superbly pessimistic view of the dwindling industry that I have no desire to be a part of.

Before I start my rant, let me just say that I have great respect for the journalistic ability of the New York Times. There’s a reason they’re one of the most recognized newspapers in the world. I’m sure their staff is full of some of the top journalists, photographers, and editors in the nation. There’s no doubt in my mind about that.

Despite that, they’re clearly still struggling, just like all of the remaining papers. So why not charge for online access to their paper? They have to make money somehow right?

Something tells me that’s not  going to help. Why not? Because it’s the same thing they’ve been doing for the past 100 or so years. The current business model of newspapers – pay a subscription and in turn recieve a daily news source with stories and some photos – is terribly old fashion. And it should be; it’s been around long enough. There are fewer and fewer people every year who want to pay for that kind of service. And why should they? We all know we can just flick on the computer and get all of the same services free of charge.

So what exactly will this new model of charging for internet access change? Nothing. You pay a subscription, you get news and a few photos. Sound familiar? Of course, the news will be updated more often than once a day, and there will probably be a few more photos available for you to browse through in all of their htmled, 640×480 glory, maybe even a few “interactive resources”. Like polls. But in all reality, that’s just about it.

Maybe the newspaper diehards will subscribe to it, they’re the ones who are currently allowing the industry to limp along. But other than them, I’m not seeing a whole lot of potential income coming out of this. Example: Kelsey and Rachelle (Oh snap, call outs), you two don’t currently subscribe to the New York Times (that I’m aware of), but you’re congratulating them for finally trying to make some money. Will you two pay for that service? If two culturally in-tune, naturally curious journalism majors don’t think it’s worth their cashmoneyflow, what are the chances the rest of America will?

I tried to get more information about this drastic change the New York Times is making, but I wasn’t able to finish reading the article (because I don’t pay for a subscription). So did I immediately subscribe to the Wall Street Journal? No, I went to a different site that gave me the same news for free. Weird.

Why newspapers refuse to be creative, I have no idea. They have everything to lose (and nothing to gain) by simply throwing in digital versions of a business model that no longer works. Want more proof that they’re stuck in the past? Here we are, about to be invaded by the “media tablet” (I’m calling it now: January 27th, Apple, 10.1″ multitouch display, music, movies, games, internet, and a freaking sweet new way to read magazines), and this is the best that the New York Times can come up with (granted, it will probably be in color on the Apple tablet). “Let’s put our content on this”. Sports Illustrated sees the same device and is going to do something like this. “Let’s use this to revolutionize our content”. Done and done. Guess who I’m going to bet files for Chapter 13 first.

So that’s my rant. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the New York Times will make millions off this venture and save the face of newspaper. Doubtful.

Rollout.

Here

I wish I had something else besides boredom to blame this on, but I’m afraid that’s all there is to it.

Peace.

Boardom

The reason I haven’t been blogging lately is completely due to my boardation. In the past two and a half weeks that I’ve been home, my board hasn’t spent more than 4 consecutive days locked away in the storage room. So at a minimum, I owe you guys a few shots of my winter break:

More to come.

Rollfest.

Losses

Three things that are most definitely not unbreakable: Snowboards, iPhones, and hearts.

All three are injured. All three are still working.

ReBlog/Reesers [Family Shoot]

Welcome back folks. It’s been awhile, but I’m finally up and rolling again. Thanks to the lovelies over at State Farm, this Mikerophonity is coming to you straight from my shiny new MacBook Pro’s keyboard. Insurance is by far the best investment I made this year… Err… Last year.

Yup, yup. As you may have noticed, it’s now 2010, which means I should probably look back to this post and give you an update on the resolutions made there [spoiler alert: the results are surprisingly similar to most other people’s]. A new year isn’t all bad news… I’ve got some exciting stuff for your lovely eyes to check out coming up soon. I have my good buddy/Javascript genius Josiah whipping up a spifferific website for me, and a full on rebranding on the way.

I also need to throw up some Scotland shots, the results of my final photo project, and some fun snowboarding action. Needless to say, I’ve been busy.

But for now, I’d like guys to meet the Reesers; a supremely photogenic and fun family that I shot on the day after Christmas. You’ve already seen Brandon and Breanna strut their stuff in their ridiculously cool 30’s shoot. This time, they brought along the rest of the family for the party.

Rollfest.

Last Hurrah

Hello dearest readers (or at least dearest remaining readers who continue checking this blog after my recent blogging drought).

So it’s been awhile. A long while. My computer has been officially declared dead, thus the lack off blogationing from me. I have way too many awesome stereotyping portraits, London visuals, branding ideas, and drug-busting stories to post up here, but they’re all delayed until either my computer is repaired, or I visit the Apple store for a new addition the the Mactopian family. It’s up to my insurance to decide which it will be. Either way, it probably won’t happen until Christmas(ish).

My term at Roehampton University is over. Fine. Finito. Donzo. I’m ready to go home. See my friends, my family, my snowboard. I wish I was coming back though. Not to Roehampton, I’m not a fan of the school here, but just to London in general. It’s such a freaking sweet place. And I’ve made some bomb-diggity friends over here as well. To the Londoners: It’s been fun. Thanks for everything guys. If you ever venture out to the west coast, hit me up.

Tomorrow is roll out day. Our flight leaves at 7:15pm and we get in to Boston at 9:45pm. How’s that for trippy time traveling? I’m pretty sure British Air isn’t going to like me when I show up with my ridiculously heavy bags, but we’ll see what happens I guess.

That’s about it for now. Not much of a blog post I’m afraid, but I needed to bang out some type of semi-formalized, pixelated goodbye while I was still on this continent.

Bostonbound.

Peace.

My Apologies on Behalf of Apple

Hey folks. I would like to sincerely apologize to you on behalf of MacDaddy, the lovely MacBook Pro that normally handles my life for you all to enjoy in a visual manner. The past four days, he has not been listening to me. No matter how hard I pound on the keyboard, no matter how sporadically I click on the mouse, no matter how many times I take it apart, the laptop refuses to respond to anything. It just sits there. Smugly taunting me by running its screen saver and automatic back ups perfectly. Such is life when you work a computer to the bone. It was only a matter of time before it staged a revolution against me.

All that to say, sorry that the Scotland shots aren’t up yet. They’re just chillin’ on the hard drive; edited, exported, and ready to be thrown up on here. Just as soon as my computer decides to cooperate again. Apple store appointment is scheduled for tomorrow, so hopefully it’ll be up and running by tomorrow night. Until then, these library computers are suffering under my keystrokes.

Speaking of revolutions, we just happened to witness one today. Ok not a real one, but an acted out one. Us lovely Biolans went on our final “field trip” today that involved the Charles Dickens Museum, more food than I’ve ever seen, and a legit showing of Les Mis. A beauteous day in my book.

London is truly an amazing city. Every single time we go out we might as well be in a different country. Today we popped out of the Tube (subway for the non-British folk) and Bam! We were in a huge mall district that I’d never seen before. There is literally something to see here every single day of the week. I could easily spend another year here and only visit places I haven’t been. Crazy.

Rollout.

What Should I Buy?

I feel like that at some point, every photographer has to answer this question. Some of the best photographers I know hate talking about gear. They just don’t like it. I envy them. I constantly wish that I wasn’t naturally such a sucker for shiny things with buttons, but unfortunately for my wallet, I am.

So, moving along…

I get asked multiple times a week questions along the lines of, “What camera do you use?” and “What camera should I buy?” and “What’s your take on the new SuperGlam 5000?” So this is my best attempt to give a broad, general purpose guide to gear (in a completely subjective, Mike-tainted way) that covers as many of those questions as I can.

The first thing you should buy is the new Train album. It’s grand. I personally haven’t bought it yet, but I stream it (Jesus answers prayers through Spotify) at least four times a day. Seriously. It’s glorious.

Warning:
If you don’t want to read any technoblabber, go buy the album and have a nice day. This is where the techie side of me comes out.

My main set up right now consists of a Canon 5DmkII, Canon 35mm f1.4L, and Canon 135 f2L. I could (and probably do) 90% of my work with those three things. The benchwarmers include a Sigma 24-70mm f2.8 EX, a Canon 50mm f1.8 mkI, and a Canon 580EX Speedlite. Memory cards are all of the relatively quick (133x-300x) Sandisk and Lexar variety. I’ve seen far too many cheap cards go bad, so I try and stick to those two brands when loading up on memory. I personally like the Sandisk best; they look prettier.

What’s next on my list? Canon 45mm f2.8 TS-E. I’ll try and scoop one up once I get back to the States.

So now that we got me out of the way, let’s talk about you.

“I don’t currently have a DSLR, but want to pick one up and start taking some better pictures. What should I get?”

Anything. Every camera that Canon and Nikon currently makes will take some absolutely stunning images. You really can’t go wrong choosing any camera between those two companies. While some people are big Pentax and Olympus fans, I generally find that their cameras are a generation or so behind the latest and greatest Canon, Nikon, and Sony equivalents. And while they have a great selection of old-school manual focus lenses, they don’t have the huge range of current autofocusing glass that Canon and Nikon offer. Sony is the new kid on the block, and I think they’re on to something. They’ve come out with some great cameras, superb lenses, and innovative flashes in the past couple years. They’re whole system is still in its beginning stages, and they can’t match Canon and Nikon’s big range of lenses, so I don’t currently recommend them. However, give it a few years and that may change.

Go into a store, and try some cameras out. Go see which camera fits in your hand best. Figure out which one is easiest to operate. Then buy it. For most people’s purposes, any DSLR camera under $800 or so will do just about everything that the one sitting next to it will. Don’t get sold on megapixels. They’re not important. I promise.

If you are really thinking about getting serious about photography, then there are a couple more things to consider. The lower end Nikons (D40, D60, and D3000… maybe even the D5000) don’t autofocus with some lenses, and so I would avoid them. If I were stepping into Nikon and wanting to be serious about my photography, the minimum I’d grab is a D90.

“Ok, I have a DSLR, I’ve been taking photos for awhile now, and I’d really like to step up my game. What now?”

Learn to shoot in manual. Understand what the camera is doing. Be active in determining how aperture, shutter speed, and ISO effect your shot. If you really want to spend money, get a few photography books (I’ve heard that “Understanding Exposure” by Bryan Peterson is a good one).

“Check. Call me the manual master. I’ve got it down.”

Pick up a 50mm f1.8 for around $100. Both Canon and Nikon make them. They are cheap little primes (fixed focal length; they don’t zoom in and out) that are awesome for the price. I still use mine. They are great for teaching you about depth of field, shooting in low-light situations, and forcing you to be creative in your compositions.

“Sweet. I can take good pictures and I now own $918,494,843 worth of photo gear, but my photos still don’t look like yours! What gives?”

You can take great photos, but many times they need a little extra zing to top it off. This is where post processing comes into play. I process all of my photos through Adobe Lightroom and occasionally Adobe Photoshop CS4. Sometimes photos need some extra contrast, more saturation, or some cropping to really make them come to life. For what it’s worth, my “style” of processing usually includes lots of contrast, lots of clarity (or microcontrast), lots of vibrance, and warm colors, sometimes with green and magenta undertones thrown in. Grab a copy of Adobe Lightroom, Apple Aperture, or Adobe Photoshop (either Elements or the real deal) and a good Photoshop book or techie friend and play around a little.

It’s worth noting that shooting photos in RAW format will make a big difference when you process your images. You will be able to tweak the colors, exposure, and noise reduction even more than if you shoot in JPEG format. However, RAW files look much worse straight out of the camera, so I recommend shooting in RAW if you’re going to post process the images. I nearly always process my photos, so I nearly always shoot RAW.

“Gear: Check. Taking good pictures: Check. Knowing how to process: Check. My photos still don’t look like yours. What the heck?”

Duh. I’m me. You’re not. Your photos shouldn’t look like mine! Take photos that know one else sees, and process them in ways that people don’t think of. We call this style. Go get your own.

 

If you guys have more photo questions, email me, comment, text me, face my book, flik my r, twit my ter… Just ask.

Look for Scotland pics tomorrow, they’re all exported and ready to roll.

Peace.