Posts by regis

Recently I rented a Fuji GFX 50s for one week. During that week, I had scheduled a photoshoot with one model and spent a couple days camping near the Golden Gate Bridge. My goal was to evaluate if the Fuji was a possible replacement for my Canon 5D MK IV. I have heard great things about the Sony Alpha 7 R II but when I used it, I did not like the view finder and the ergonomics. In contrast, Fuji came with a lot of expectations about the natural ergonomics and ease of use. Plus a 50 megapixels camera was very interesting to me.  It is true, I was able to use the Fuji within a couple minutes without even opening the manual. Everything is right where you expect it,  it’s like putting on an old favorite jacket (including finding loose change at the...

This post should have been posted a long time ago, but life made it hard. In early April 2016, I booked a photographic helicopter tour over San Francisco. I was waiting for the right condition to go fly, and when I could not book the time I wanted on a short notice (the helicopter was already booked), I made a bet and booked September 26th. My thinking was that September is the warmest month in the area, if I can hit a nice day it would be awesome. That was a lucky bet, because September 26th was one of the warmest day and evening of the entire year. We were twice lucky when the small helicopter I had booked was not available, I got upgraded to the bigger one (Robinson 66), which made possible for my wife to tag along for a small price increase.  It was so...

A couple weeks ago, I had the opportunity to go and photograph the old train station (on 16th street) in Oakland,CA. This train station was abandoned in 1994, when the newer train station was built. For over 50 years, this station was the main train station for the city of Oakland, CA. It connected the Pacific Railways to the local elevated electric tram. Think of this: in 1912, Oakland already had an elevated electric tram. There is almost no furniture left but the main hall is beautiful and so photogenic. The building is a private property, you can’t trespass but there is a couple of meet-ups that regularly organize private days there. It’s really cheap and you get a good 90 minutes to explore the building (almost by yourself). Here some of my...

This weekend, we went glamping (short for glamour camping). I have been fascinated by the Airstream trailer forever. The aluminum-clad trailer with its mid-century modern look is incredibly beautiful, timeless and really expensive. A couple months ago, AutoCamp opened in the Russian River area. The concept is fairly simple, a luxurious campground where you can rent your own airstream on a per night basis. When I said luxurious, the shower is a no-step shower and has a rain shower head. The Airstreams are connected to all the utilities and arranged in a campground style. You don’t have to own the Airstream, you don’t have to tow it and you don’t have to park it, everything has been done for you. You just have to show up.  Once there, you...

Every year, I try to look back at the past year and see what I have accomplished, what I have not done I wanted to do, what I have done I didn’t plan for. In numbers, 2016 has been an incredible year, I kept 33809 images (I probably took over 60K images knowing my kept ratio around 50%), I have traveled to Turkey, France, South Africa, La Reunion and Cuba. I did 32 headshot sessions over the year. That was the good side, on the not so good side, I have only done on aerial shoot this year, I was planning more and I did not do ANY sunrise over the Golden Gate Bridge (some improvements are needed in that section). No need to say it but reducing so many images to just 10 is really tough. Here the images that have a special importance for me in 2016: I have also...