Editorial landscape, travel, architecture and portrait photography | Professional Photography tips | David Giral Photography Blog

Weekly Facebook Cover Photo: Dusk on Seattle Skyline viewed from Kerry Park, Seattle, WA

admin — Wed, 16 May 2012 13:00:45 +0000

For this week’s facebook cover photo, we are travelling all the way to the west coast to the beautiful city of Seattle, Washington State. I had the pleasure to visit the city for 24h on my last roadtrip from San Francisco to Vancouver.

This specific picture was taken from Kerry Park, at the blue hour 30min after sunset using a D300 with a Tamron 17-50mm at 50mm, with an exposure of 5 seconds at F/7.1. This park is the perfection location to capture the amazing skyline and Seattle’s most famous landmark, the 604Ft (184m) space needle, built in 1962 by architect John Graham & Company.

Enjoy the cover photo below, right click to download at full resolution!

Interested in licensing or ordering a print of this picture? Click on the image below (right click to download wallpaper size).

David Giral is a published Montreal/Toronto based editorial and commercial professional photographer specialized in architecture, interiors, portrait and travel photography.

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright David Giral (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without permission from David Giral.

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Exploring Montreal: In the heart of the city, A new Jewel of Contemporary Architecture; the 2-22 building

admin — Mon, 14 May 2012 13:00:30 +0000

Once known as the red light district in Montreal, the corner of Ste-Catherine and St-Laurent is now the home of the “quartier des spectacles” (or entertainment district). Within this square kilometer of the city, one can find over 80 cultural venues, including 30 performance halls with almost 28,000 seats.

For this week’s blog topic of “Exploring Montreal”, we will focus on the latest addition to the district, a new jewel of contemporary architecture designed by one of the best architecture firms of the city: Ædifica. Built in 2011, this office building features innovative double walls and an angular facade. Windows are randomly placed across the facade will puzzle you and increase the architectural aspect of this magnificent building.

Let’s start with a general picture of the facade taken at dusk.

Now appreciate the geometry of the building with this side view

Adjacent to the building, you will find a true Montreal institution of the entertainment district: Club Soda. This theater has seen the likes of Oasis, Fine Young Cannibals, Counting Crows, Melissa Etheridge, Jay Leno, Soundgarden performing in its vincinity.

Here is a close-up of the angular facace:

and another one of the back of the building along Rue Sainte Catherine.
Famous for its graffiti, this lone building is one of Montreal well-known landmarks and is located a few meters from the 2-22 and is home of an ice cream store.

And to wrap up this editorial, here is a last picture of the facade at the blue hour.

along with another close-up of the angular facade.

Thanks for viewing!

David Giral is a published Montreal/Toronto based editorial and commercial professional photographer specialized in architecture, interiors, portrait and travel photography.

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Weekly Facebook Cover Photo: Blue Hour on Mont Boron Skyline, Nice, France

admin — Wed, 09 May 2012 13:00:41 +0000

For this week’s facebook cover photo, we are travelling all the way to south of France, in the French Riviera to one of the sunniest cities of Europe, Nice. Nice is the fifth largest city of France and became part of the country definitively only in 1860. It was known as Nicaea oppidum as early as the first century and is believed to be one of the earliest settlements of Europe.

This specific picture was taken from quai Rauba-Capeu, at the blue hour 30min after sunset using a D700 with a Nikkor 50mm F/1.4, with an exposure of 1 seconds at F/8. On this picture we can see the Mount Boron which constitutes one of the biggest parks of the city and which also constitutes a neighborhood of the city. We also can see the lighthouse of the port of Nice on the picture.

Enjoy the cover photo below, right click to download at full resolution!

Interested in licensing or ordering a print of this picture? Click on the image below (right click to download wallpaper size).

David Giral is a published Montreal/Toronto based editorial and commercial professional photographer specialized in architecture, interiors, portrait and travel photography.

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Weekly Facebook Cover Photo: A Stunning Sunset over Statue of Liberty from Manhattan, New York City

admin — Wed, 02 May 2012 13:35:30 +0000

Today’s location for our weekly facebook cover photo is a special one, and features an amazing landmark offered by France to the US at the turn of last century: the statue of Liberty, New York! Shining a new light and showing a different perspective on one of the world’s wonders is quite the challenge. For this specific shot, I was immensely lucky to have access to the roof and 25th floor of a building located a couple of hundred feet from the NYC stock exchange (check the map for exact location).

As you can guess from the light, this specific shot was taken at sunset, using a D700 with a Nikkor AF-S 70-200mm f/2.8 G IF-ED VR, with an exposure of 1/125s at F/8.

Enjoy the cover photo below, right click to download at full resolution!
Interested in licensing or ordering a print of this picture? Click on the image below (right click to download wallpaper size).

David Giral is a published Montreal/Toronto based editorial and commercial professional photographer specialized in architecture, interiors, portrait and travel photography.

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Weekly Facebook Cover Photo: blue hour reflections on Gent, Belgium

admin — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 13:00:01 +0000

For this week’s facebook cover photo, we are travelling to one of the most magnificent cities of Belgium, Gent. This town is one of the oldest of Belgium, its history starts in the year 630. From the year 1000 to around 1550, Ghent was one of the most important cities in Europe. It was bigger than London and second only to Paris in size. Because it suffered little bomb damage during the two world wars, it is still amazingly well conserved. Its medieval architecture is beautiful and inspired and it’s a place you’ll remember all your life if you ever get to visit it.

This specific picture was taken from Klein Vismarkt bridge, at the blue hour 30min after sunset. The stillness of the water of the canal made for a great mirror and reflections. I absolutely love the balance in colors between the cold tones in the sky and the white and warm tones of the city. I still consider this picture as one of my all time favorites.

This was captured using a D300 with a Sigma 10-20mm F/4-5.6 at 18mm, with an exposure of 8seconds at F/7.1.

Enjoy the cover photo below, right click to download at full resolution!

Interested in licensing or ordering a print of this picture? Click on the image below (right click to download wallpaper size).

David Giral is a published Montreal/Toronto based editorial and commercial professional photographer specialized in architecture, interiors, portrait and travel photography.

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Just Off the Press: A first cover for Montreal Home Magazine … and simple steps to getting your pictures ready for press!

admin — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 13:00:16 +0000

A few months ago, I was contacted by the editorial team of Montreal Home Magazine through my Photoshelter website and asked if I’d be interested in shooting homes for them.

Considering that shooting architecture and beautiful interiors has always been a passion and I was thrilled to be part of this new adventure. Working as an editorial photographer for a magazine was one my goals so I felt I had to seize the opportunity and make the best for it.

As I’ve learned since, being a professional is about solving problems. Even though working with a talented team of editors, art directors and stylists makes it so much easier, each assignment is a learning experience and you have to be prepared to solve issues.

One of my quirks is that I love being on location early, it gives me time to relax before everyone gets there and it alllows me to start early if necessary. It’s also perfect to visualize what I’m about to photograph, plan the shots and assess potential issues.

For that specific assignment, we were shooting an advertorial (editorial paid by a client). The home, as amazing as it was and valued around 3M$, had very few furniture so we had to be creative in the styling (done by stylist Jean Monet and editor Stephanie Whittaker) and photography. It is key for this type of assignments to show the location at is best by showing its best assets. In the specific example, the best thing about this ome was a spectacular atrium and that’s the shot that the publisher/art director picked for the cover:

Having received a hard copy of the magazine, my first action was to check the hardcopy and compare it to the picture on the computer. The first thing In noticed is that the paper version of the image was less contrasty and colors were a bit mute, to make it short the image looked flat. So I met with the art director and the meeting confirmed my intuition that I had forgotten about an important step in preparing my pictures for press (which is really a rookie mistake in my opinion).

That key step was converting the file from sRGB to CMYK and most importantly compensate for the white paper. So how does one go about fixing that in Photoshop?

in the view menu, choose the proof setup to working CMYK (being in Canada, I use CMYK – U.S. WEB Coated (SWOP) v2)
in the view menu, select proof colors. As you’ll notice right away, the contrast changes right away, the image looking less saturated and bit more flat.
Now on to the critical step, create a curves adjustment in Photoshop with the following settings (point:5,0 ;point 63,56 ;point:128,128 ;point:191,198 ;point: 250:255). What those settings do is compensate for the white of the paper by clipping both highlights and shadows slightly and by adding a bit of contrast (which increases also saturation). See below for the complete action that I use to convert a RGB file to a CMYK TIFF.
flatten the file (if needed)
in the file menu, select “convert to profile” and select working CMYK – U.S. WEB Coated (SWOP) v2 (check with your art director or printing company for the right profile)
finally, save to TIFF.

That’s it! Using those easy 6 steps, you ensure that your files are print ready and will look as contrasty in jpeg on your screen than printed in the magazine.

Thanks for viewing!

David Giral is a published Montreal/Toronto based editorial and commercial professional photographer specialized in architecture, interiors, portrait and travel photography.

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Top DJs: Armin Van Buuren at Bal En Blanc 18 in Montreal

admin — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 13:00:04 +0000

Organized since 1995 and now reaching its majority with its 18th Edition, Bal en Blanc has become a real institution in the north american electronic music scene. With more than 15.000 people attending the event year after year, the 14h long Easter event is one not to be missed if you’re an electronic music lover.

This year, the dutch DJ Armin Van Buuren, rocked the party along the likes of Nadia Ali, Steve Angello, Arty, Dany Tenaglia, Beat Service, Jochen Miller, Markus Schulz and Ferry Cortsen.

For the few who haven’t heard about Armin Van Buuren, this award winning DJ has been ranked as one of the top 2 DJs and producers in the world since 2007 and is the host of a famous weekly radio show called A State of Trance, which claims to have around 15 million weekly listeners in 26 countries, since 2001.

So for this week, enjoy the top 5 best pictures of Armin from the event along with 5 of his best tracks in music videos!

video clip: Armin van Buuren feat. Nadia Ali – Feels So Good (Official Music Video)

video clip: Gaia – Status Excessu D

video clip: Armin van Buuren vs Sophie Ellis-Bextor – Not Giving Up On Love (Official Music Video)

video clip: Armin van Buuren ft. Sharon den Adel – In and Out of Love (Official Music Video)

video clip: Armin van Buuren – Orbion (Official Music Video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNi4CKhWR8

Thanks for viewing! Come back next Saturday for the top 5 pictures of Markus Schulz at Bal En Blanc 18!

David Giral is a published Montreal/Toronto based editorial and commercial professional photographer specialized in architecture, interiors, portrait and travel photography.

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Weekly Facebook Cover Photo: Tour EDF, La Défense, Paris

admin — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 13:00:38 +0000

So for this week’s facebook cover picture we’re going directly west of Paris at La Defense financial district in Puteaux. Built in 2001 by architects Pei Cobb Freed & Partners,Roger Saubot and Jean Rouit, EDF building iconic skyscraper of 24 stories one of the highest of La Defense at a 165m high.

To capture this scene, A Nikon D700 was used along with a Nikkor AF-S 70-200mm f/2.8 G IF-ED VR at 70mm.Regular curves and levels adjustments were performed in Adobe Photoshop CS5.

Enjoy the cover photo below, right click to download at full resolution!

Interested in licensing or ordering a print of this picture? Click on the image below (right click to download wallpaper size).

David Giral is a published Montreal/Toronto based editorial and commercial professional photographer specialized in architecture, interiors, portrait and travel photography.

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Pro Tips: How to create a simple low key dramatic portrait

admin — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 13:00:17 +0000

Looking to create a dramatic portrait using simple lighting? look no further… This week’, we’ll be exploring how to create just that using a simple lighting setup…. enjoy!

1. Light Setup

This light setup is pretty straightforward.
Background is a black seamless and the talent, Olivier, stands about 4-5 feet in front of it.
Main light is an Alienbees AB400 flash at 1/4th power equipped with a Photoflex 30 inches white convertible shoot-thru umbrella pretty close to Olivier, at around 2 feet and slightly above his head. One of the upside of the shoot-thru umbrella vs a standard umbrella is that it allows for the light source to be close to the subject. Being close, light falls of pretty quickly giving a soft and contrasted lighting. Off axis lighting like this is often called “Rembrandt Lighting”. Its signature is the triangle that we can observe on the left side of the face.
Back light is a Alienbees AB400 flash at 1/16th power equipped with a 24×36″ softbox with a grid 3 feet from the subject. This back light just highlights the left cheek of the subject while keeping the light pretty dramatic.
note: This light could easily be replaced by a white v card bouncing the main light to the left side of Olivier or by another shoot thru umbrella (although the spill would be greater).

2. the shoot

Because Olivier is a agency model, it was pretty easy to get him to pull a classic focused and intense look to match the dramatic lighting.
For this first shot, I wanted a straight on headshot with high intensity and a little bit of mystery. I did do a version without the back light (24×36″ softobox), but in this case I liked how that back light added some dimension to his left side while keeping some drama.

For the second shot, I was looking for a classic “look away” headshot, so with the main light still at the same location, I asked Olivier to lower his head a little bit just enough so the light falls off dramatically on his left side. I did move the back light slightly closer to the camera just to just to get a hint of his left side. For this shot, the camera was slightly more to the right and the picture was taken from above standing on a stool.

3. the editing

Workflow for those two shots included:

Step 1 – Removal of skin blemishes (done in Adobe Camera Raw)
Step 2 -Removal of skin imperfections, small hair, red veins in the eyes using mostly the healing brush.
Step 3 – General curves adjustments using levels and curves adjustment layers and a mask based on channels luminosity to affect mostly shadows and midtones and not highlights.
Step 4 – Color correction: Most of the time, I like to tune the white balance by using a color balance adjustment layer.
Step 5 – Sharpening. In this example, high pass sharpening and luminosity masking was used.

David Giral is a published Montreal/Toronto based editorial and commercial professional photographer specialized in architecture, interiors, portrait and travel photography.

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Weekly Facebook Cover Photo: Lost Humans in the Valley Of Gods, Death Valley, California

admin — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 13:00:44 +0000

For this week’s facebook cover photo, we are travelling all the way to California on the road CA-190 E between Lone Pine to Stovepipe Wells in Death Valley (note that the location on map is approximative).

What’s remarkable about this shot, it’s the sense of scale that the couple gives to the picture. Add the clouds and you have the recipe for a breathtaking landscape.

This was captured using a D200 with a Nikkor 18-200mm F/3.5-5.6 VRII at 46mm.

Enjoy the cover photo below, right click to download at full resolution!

Interested in licensing or ordering a print of this picture? Click on the image below (right click to download wallpaper size).

David Giral is a published Montreal/Toronto based editorial and commercial professional photographer specialized in architecture, interiors, portrait and travel photography.

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