Daylife

Photowalk: Souvenirs

alexdifiori@gmail.com (Alex DiFiori) — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 03:02:00 +0000

I was walking up Market St. a few nights ago with my camera and couldn't help but notice all the broken umbrellas lying around.
Considering it was raining, I thought the whole thing was a bit ironic.

*To see the photos larger, click here

"Multiplicity"

alexdifiori@gmail.com (Alex DiFiori) — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 01:57:00 +0000

My new blog: http://multiplicity.alexdifiori.com/
For those of you that follow me on facebook, this is where you will find all the things I used to share from now on.

Photowalk: The Tower

alexdifiori@gmail.com (Alex DiFiori) — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 07:39:00 +0000

Took a ride out to a TV network's broadcasting tower array this week with my friend Hieu.
I'm trying to shoot something new every week.
Also testing out a new format for slideshow presentation. Enjoy.

*This new format is 100% javascript based, so it works on basically everything.

Photowalk: "Enter Here"

alexdifiori@gmail.com (Alex DiFiori) — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 02:53:00 +0000

The mood during the midsemester evaluations today was tense, so just walking around for an hour with my camera seemed like a good idea to decompress afterwards.

The weather couldn't have been better.
These are the first photos I've shot outdoors with direct sunlight in at least a month.

In other words, it was a really, really good walk.
Hit the jump for more photos.

This past week, a former teacher of mine who is now doing, quite successfully, fine art for a living came to lecture at one of my classes.
His talk, and reoccurring input from a lot of my teachers and peers, has got me thinking hard about doing series' of images, rather than just standalone works.

Even when I shoot without any goals in mind, I find that I shoot a lot of things that tie together. On this particular walk, I shot 255 images in about 1.5 hours. The majority of what I shot was nice, but this theme of doors and square compositions was shared by several of the images.

Like I mentioned in my previous post's video, photography is very much a subconscious art. Sometimes you have to take a step back and look at everything before you decide on anything.

Video: What is Photography?

alexdifiori@gmail.com (Alex DiFiori) — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 05:54:00 +0000

This video comes from a bit of inspiration on the walk home from school, which I thankfully recorded with my cellphone (just the audio).
If I revisit this question, I will produce something of a higher level of quality.

But for now, I think this will do just fine:

*RSS readers click here

Video: Chinatown

alexdifiori@gmail.com (Alex DiFiori) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 22:16:00 +0000

Over the past 3 years, I've walked through Philadelphia's Chinatown on an almost daily basis.
I've shot there with everything from my cell phone to a 4x5 view camera.
However, I've never shot video there, until now, of course.

*RSS readers click here

I guess it's the exotic feel of Chinatown that keeps me interested.
The mix of people, the odd smells, the old buildings, Chinatown has it all.

Mid Semester Images: Spring 2010

alexdifiori@gmail.com (Alex DiFiori) — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 23:12:00 +0000

This is my final year in the Photography Department at school.
I'm already feeling nostalgic for the sulfur-stench of the darkroom and the quiet hum of the old projector used at evaluations.

Anyway, here's what I'll be showing at the mid semester evaluations:

"Cheap Product"

"How-To Book Cover"

"Liquor Ad"

"Idiom: The Weakest Link"

Video: Taxi!

alexdifiori@gmail.com (Alex DiFiori) — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 06:09:00 +0000

Just a quick one.
Trying to change the tone of my work a little.

*RSS readers click here

Video: TRANSIT

alexdifiori@gmail.com (Alex DiFiori) — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 03:42:00 +0000

My videos often raise the question "why not just shoot stills?"
Well...
Still images only capture a single moment whereas video captures every moment from start to stop.
I'm trying to develop my film/video making skills into something larger.
I'm trying to capture the essence of a photograph (composition, perspective, etc.) in moving form. The B-roll of films like "Taxi Driver" and "THX 1138" are my inspiration. They develop the feel of the film into something beyond just visual appeal. They give the film a world to inhabit.

And on that note, enjoy:

*RSS readers click here

This video is available in HD

Work in Progress

alexdifiori@gmail.com (Alex DiFiori) — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 23:32:00 +0000

For school this semester, I have to put together a new portfolio.
I'm working on it right now, as a matter of fact.

I also recently purchased the Apple Magic Mouse, which is a rather awesome little toy. Scrolling with "momentum" is the best thing since sliced bread.

That's it for now, more later (of course).

Keeping Busy

alexdifiori@gmail.com (Alex DiFiori) — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 06:30:00 +0000

It's been snowing like crazy here on the east coast.

But I've been keeping busy all the same.

This is the first of a series of ads I'm doing for moko, an eco friendly salon that I've been working with since last October. They're really great folks and it's been a joy working for them.

I also recently did some portfolio pieces for an NY makeup artist.

February is turning out to be a very busy month for me.
It's currently snowing and we're expecting about 18 inches over the next 24 hours here in Philly.

Weather delays, hopefully, won't affect the delivery of my Kodak Zi8.

Sorry for the lack of posts recently, when I haven't been busy, I've been sick, and busy.
More posts (and videos) soon, I hope!

Taking January Off (without telling anyone)

alexdifiori@gmail.com (Alex DiFiori) — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 05:48:00 +0000

I took the liberty of suspending activity here on the blog until January, but I couldn't help myself.

Why? Well, I'm hyper active at night, and some cool stuff is going on in the next few days that I want everyone to know about.

Firstly, I'm beginning my "big light" acquisitions. Adding Alienbees to the camera pack.
Secondly, I will be purchasing an HD video camera (Kodak Zi8) and plan on using it to video log the third item of business...
...THIS IS MY LAST SEMESTER OF PHOTO CLASSES AT COLLEGE!
It's a very exciting time for me, and I want to share that with everyone.

Until I get my hands on the Zi8, everyone will have to make do with some SD videos, the first of which should be up this Friday if everything works out.

And of course:

I'm keeping myself busy.

More info on the videos Thursday night.

Thanks for coming back!

///
The new nav bar above the posts is directly linked to my website now, to make everyone's lives easier of course.
Honestly, it feels good to update this old thing.
Anyway, if you haven't seen the new site yet, just click through the links above the posts.

Where Have I Been?

alexdifiori@gmail.com (Alex DiFiori) — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 06:15:00 +0000

December has been one busy month this year, for me at least.
In between wrapping up both the semester at school and my photo of the day project, shooting two weddings, and getting ready for the holiday season, I haven't been sitting down to play much with my "real" camera.

I did squeeze off an HDR "autoportrait" recently though.

Hit the jump for more photos.

I've been relying mainly on my cellphone's camera (not an iPhone) to pickup the slack these days.

When 2010 rolls around, I'll be back to posting and shooting real stuff, until then, hang tight!

As you may of noticed, the ole' "Daylife" blog is looking a little different. The next post will be all about that (leaping out of joy yet?). If you're confused by the changes, chances are it's my fault. Let me know what you think in the comments of this post!

The End

alexdifiori@gmail.com (Alex DiFiori) — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 02:51:00 +0000

I never realized how hard taking one photo every day was until I started my photo of the day project.

Today marks the end of the project.

I didn't do anything special to mark the occasion mainly because I didn't think it was necessary.
The result of the project is a photo album with 365 photos in it that took me a year to make.
Every photo represents one day of my life over the past year.
Getting to share that has been awesome, but getting to do it has been an inspiring process.

After school wraps up this semester I'll be posting a recap of the project with a selection of my favorite images.

Thanks for following the project.

Doing What I know Best

alexdifiori@gmail.com (Alex DiFiori) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 04:28:00 +0000

My photo of the day project is nearly over (21 days left).
Some of the photos are great, most of them are just pretty good.

And some, well, I'm not gonna talk about.

Today's photo, at least as I see it, is one of the better ones.

All that being said and shown, I'm canceling my video of the day project for 2010.
Mainly because I know I can't do it, but also because Photography is what I'm best at, and I want to get a lot better. However, I will be making videos more frequently next year.

I'm still planning a project for 2010, but I'm not ready to say much about it yet.

///
Amazon's Black Friday page will be up and running on Monday, bookmark it now.

Life in Monochrome

alexdifiori@gmail.com (Alex DiFiori) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 05:23:00 +0000

Something I've always found interesting in photography is the idea of using a limited color palette. Painters do it all the time, and since digital has taken over, I think photographers have even more options than ever before.

With digital, we have unlimited control over basically every aspect of our images, so more often than not we go for the maximums.
Maximum blacks.
Maximum saturation.
Maximum sharpening.
The list goes on.

In my opinion, this is why we see more color images floating around than black and whites.

I'm not saying this is bad, just that a full range of colors, or even color itself, isn't always important.

This is a shot of fire, but did I really need to include the colors for you to know that? In fact, wouldn't color take away from the mystery of the image?

The use of color, now more than ever seems to be tool rather than a limitation.

Use it how you will.
My only advice is to pay close attention to the content of your images and whether or not color helps or hurst it.

Some of the best photos every taken would look like crap if they were made any other way, Then again, maybe doing something different would have made them even better.

If Only... (Portrait Class, Week 7)

alexdifiori@gmail.com (Alex DiFiori) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 04:19:00 +0000

There comes a time in every photographer's life when something you overlooked comes back to bite you. My time came this evening.

Yes, I forgot to put a sandbag on a light stand, with a profoto head on it.
Yes, this is all that's left of the flash tube.
No, I didn't cry.

When life throws you a whack ball, sometimes you have to throw one right back at it.

Needless to say, my friend Hieu is a character.
Right after we got the jumping shot, the wind picked up... You can guess the rest.
But I got the shot, and no one died.

Another successful shoot, sort of anyway.

Winter Light

alexdifiori@gmail.com (Alex DiFiori) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 01:10:00 +0000

This is one of my favorite times of year to photograph outdoors.

With the sun being so low in the sky, it almost looks like it's late in the day.

This sort of light makes for some really dynamic photos.

This time of the year is the reason I walk to school.
In other words, hop on your horse, it's go time for us photographers.

A Great Ad

alexdifiori@gmail.com (Alex DiFiori) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 05:37:00 +0000

If you haven't seen it on TV yet, it's probably because your TV wasn't on. The lo-fi audio harshly contrasts nearly every other commercial on air and it's visually amazing, without being over-produced or under-developed. When it comes on, I pay attention.

If the goal of an ad is to make you want to buy something, I would say that this ad makes Levi's look like a really great brand. It feels genuine, it looks "real." But most importantly, it doesn't say "this product will make you better." The ad speaks to the times we live in, and the heritage of an original American brand and leaves it up to the viewer to decide how they feel about what they've just seen, rather than tell them how great it is.

Portraits: Week 6

alexdifiori@gmail.com (Alex DiFiori) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 04:38:00 +0000

Working outside of one's comfort zone is always a challenge.
For me that means doing group shots.
I don't do a lot of them and my experience has always been the school/team photo. So shooting five of my peers in a studio portrait setting was a bit of a refresher, to say the least.

Whenever you shoot someone's portrait you have to find a scenario that fits them, lighting included. With one person it doesn't take much. Two requires double the thought, etc.
If the goal is to walk away with a great photo, especially in a group shot, posing the model(s) isn't necessarily the key. Look through any fashion magazine and you'll see page after page of awkwardly posed models with blank stares. Are those the ads we pay attention to? I hope not. The ones we really stare at are the ones that capture a moment, something special that you know happened in an instant and was gone as soon as the shutter closed.

This shot isn't the world's greatest photo. The placement of the "models" (yes, they are real photographers) isn't perfect.
But the moment is perfect.
The lone photographer, with his point and shoot camera, looks like he's facing a "firing squad," and it's not just because he is.

This is why I like taking portraits so much. As time goes by, we often forget about those little moments that helps us connect with other people. The more of those moments I can preserve, the more connections I can help make possible.

When one of my portraits is used for an ad, I want the viewer to look past whatever my photo is selling and see the person it's of. In thirty years, I want the people I've photographed to have something special to look at whenever they can't recall that funny joke or witty story that made them laugh.

Tethering Lightroom

alexdifiori@gmail.com (Alex DiFiori) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 01:02:00 +0000

Here's a video tutorial on using Lightroom to shoot tethered.
I used the new public Beta of Lightroom 3, even though LR2 works just fine.

///My tethering software///

Speaking of Lightroom, I used the print module to lay this out:

I'm finding myself using Lightroom for more and more things these days.

"50"

alexdifiori@gmail.com (Alex DiFiori) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:47:00 +0000

Today's photo of the day marks the beginning of the last 50 days of the project.
I wanted to do something special to mark the occasion, so I had my brother help me out.

This project never ceases to amaze me.
Some really exceptional photos have come from it.
With so few days left I'm starting to feel a little nostalgic for those days when I was just starting the project and crossing my fingers that I would actually do it (still crossed, of course).

News, and the failure of Tumblr

alexdifiori@gmail.com (Alex DiFiori) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 03:36:00 +0000

For whatever reason, my tumblr blog is no longer updating, which blows because I was really enjoying it working.

///UPDATE///
The tumblr blog is working again, I guess anyway.
It's missing about five photos though, so I still recommend using the RSS feed for now.
///

At any rate, for now the best method of seeing my photo of the day is here.
Subscribe with your RSS reader of choice and get the photo of the day in your whatever-box everyday!

In other news, the winners of the Windows Throughout Old City design contest were announced this evening.
The contest was a collective effort of DesignPhiladelphia and the OCBC and I was proud to have been able to help them out as a photographer.

Click the above photo to see the entries.

These fine folks were the winners of the contest, all their info will appear on the OCBC/DesignPhiladelphia's websites.
Click the photo to see more from the event.

This one is my personal favorite:

The thing that strikes me most about this photo is the woman in between the two guys. It's not that her expression is priceless, it's that she's one of maybe two people in the entire photo without a smile on their face.

If you've ever paged through Robert Frank's "The Americans," you'll get why I love this photo.

P.S.
Don't forget to check out my new website!

///
Sorry for the post drought, mid-semester is upon me.
I'll be posting more again soon.

October 14th

alexdifiori@gmail.com (Alex DiFiori) — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 18:53:00 +0000

My new website goes live this Wednesday at noon.

I'm proud of the new work I'm putting up and I'm inviting everyone to check it out when it goes up.

www.alexdifiori.com

Week 4

alexdifiori@gmail.com (Alex DiFiori) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 23:48:00 +0000

This week I shot my friend AJ.
He's a DJ in Philly and has got some skillz.

While I was waiting for AJ to arrive, I walked around campus with the goal of shooting "creepy" photos.

I walk these halls almost every day, and I've shot in them more than a handful of times, but I always manage to find something interesting to photograph.

You can check out AJ's music here