photography by wasim.

Tag: imagelogger

An Afternoon Admiring Ansel Adams At The J. Paul Getty Museum

So for those of you not in my Google+ orbit, I wanted to share a set of images made last week when I went to check out the Ansel Adams exhibit at the The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, California. While we were prohibited from taking pictures in the exhibit itself for very valid reasons, I highly recommend checking it out if you’re around…standing in front of a perfect silver gelatin print of “Winter Sunrise” almost brought me to my knees. I found myself walking back in and out 3 different times for that particular image. In any case, after the exhibit, I was able to spend a few hours in the gorgeous gardens that are nestled in the middle of the property between all the buildings, and that’s where I was able to make these images. This marks the second outing in which I ditched the DSLR in favor of a strictly mirrorless camera kit, the trusty shiny happy Samsung NX30. Can’t say I regretted it…one single tiny bit. Loving this mini-beast! Click through the break to see the gallery…

In case you missed my first set of mirrorless camera images from a whale watching outing a few weeks ago, click here if you’d like to check them out.

For more of my madness: Instagram: @wasimofnazareth Twitter: @wasimofnazareth Google+: www.Google.com/+WasimMuklashy Facebook: www.Facebook.com/WasimOfNazareth

April 2, 2014
Let The Topanga Gradient Take Over Your iPhone!

Every now and again I throw out an image I feel fits well as a background for the iPhone, and now is one of those agains. Here’s an image I captured last week on the Samsung NX30 as the sun was dropping behind this Santa Monica Mountains ridgeline overlooking Topanga Canyon, California. The gradient of colors was insane, so figured why not bring insanity to your phone. Just right click on the bugger and save the source image (‘Save Link As…’), or click right here, and there you go.

If you’ve missed the past backgrounds I’ve posted, here they are again:

California Finally Got Rain And Left Us With A Gift – Another iPhone Background A Fresh Selection Of iPhone 5 Parallax Wallpapers If You Wanna
Happy iOS 7 Day! Here’s A Fresh Wallpaper For That Parallax iPhone Action!
Happy iPhone Day! Here’s Some Teasers & iPhone Stuffs
Some Autumn Themed Parallax Wallpaper Madness for your iOS 7 iThings

And as always, if you don’t use an iPhone and you’d like the background formatted for your mobile device, let me know, I’ll gladly do so.

March 27, 2014
I Ditched The DSLR And, Wait For It, Didn’t Miss It! What Have You Done To Me Samsung!?

So this weekend marked a milestone in my photographic adventures – I went fully 100% mirrorless. As a participant in Samsung’s Imagelogger program, I’ve been playing with their NX300 for the past several months and I must admit, I was extremely surprised and pleased with the quality of images it was producing. However, while I used the NX300 to produce most of my personal images, I had always brought it alongside my normal DSLR kit that I was using for jobs. However, things may have just shifted.

I just received the Samsung NX30 and everything I was missing from the DSLR on the NX300, well, those all exist, including, but definitely not limited to, a viewfinder and a comfortable, familiar SLR design and feel. The things missing, I didn’t miss – namely, the weight and bulk of a DSLR. As soon as I put it in my hands, unfamiliar neurons in my neuroplastic brain started firing that led me to a thought…this camera might actually lead me to finally “Ditch The DSLR.” But, well, I still needed to actually use it. So I jumped at the opportunity to go whale watching with a couple friends this past weekend in the waters between Southern California’s coast and the Channel Islands, and not only that, but perhaps more importantly, I actually left behind the Nikon kit for the first time, perhaps, since I’ve had one!

As soon as I was out there and in the ‘zone,’ all thoughts of what I left behind immediately melted away, replaced with thoughts of what I had in front of me – the excitement and energy and possibilities innate in learning a new tool. And being able to see what I was capturing as dictated by the settings I was using, directly in the viewfinder, was quite the ‘aha’ moment for me. It took me a few minutes to get used to the settings and controls – my muscle memories kept reaching for the positioning and layout of my Nikon – but as the minutes went by and I missed the first several whale sightings, my comfort level grew exponentially and by the end, it felt like second nature. I truly felt like this changed the game a bit for me…like I was literally experiencing the evolutionary process. And that rapid machine-gun fire burst mode!?? Woah Nelly!

Anyhow, I must say, if I was just now getting into the photography game, I may very well completely skip over the DSLR and any camera with a mirror in favor of these new systems, and the Samsung NX30 is an EXTREMELY solid choice. More to come in the following months, but wanted to share the first proper set of images I got out of this little beast. Thanks for sending this one out Samsung, and thanks so much for the perfect time Channel Islands Whale Watching – your cast & crew couldn’t have been better! We’ll be back…

For more of my madness: Instagram: @wasimofnazareth Twitter: @wasimofnazareth Google+: www.Google.com/+WasimMuklashy Facebook: www.Facebook.com/WasimOfNazareth

March 18, 2014
The Samsung NX30 – The One Time Less Zeros Puts A Smile On My Face.

A lot of you already know that I’ve been playing with the mirrorless cameras lately as one of Samsung’s Official Imageloggers. They started out by sending me the gorgeous brown leather skinned NX300 and a myriad of lenses to play with and I’ve had a lot of fun with those buggers for sure. Well, in this next stage of the program, they’ve sent out the brand new NX30, and I couldn’t be more excited! As much as I love the NX300, the one thing that my old-fashioned mind couldn’t quite get past was not having a viewfinder, so, well, that alone sold me. This one might actually get me to finally Ditch The DSLR after all! Can’t wait to share some images from this fine feller, can’t imaging it’s going to take me too long…but in the meantime, check after the break, I’ve thrown together a quick gallery of some of my favorites from the NX300 over the past few months. I have a feeling the Samsung NX30 is going to prompt a post like this soon as well. Enjoy.

March 12, 2014
Bluegrass And Treetops On The Topanga Trails

Topanga Canyon Hiking Trail_Sunburst Through Oak Tree

T’was a perfect day in Topanga Canyon, and to stay inside would have been a crime, so I grabbed one of my cameras, the Samsung NX300, threw on the ‘summer’ outfit, and headed out into the hills. As I was hiking through this, live bluegrass echoing through the canyon in the distant background served as my soundtrack. Don’t know where it was coming from or what it was, but it was perfect.

Perfect.

Click past the break for a few images from that Topanga Canyon hike.

February 18, 2014
Bad Days Are The New Good Days! Thanks For The Reminder Photofocus!

So I know you’ve probably already seen enough of this set of images, but, well, too bad! Ha! An image from this series keeps getting around one way or another – this time absolutely humbling me by showing up on the homepage for Photofocus.com as this week’s ‘Featured Image.’ This is Scott Bourne, Richard Harrington, Melissa Niu and company! It’s madness! Check it out:

CLICK ME!

The crazy thing is, I thought I was having a bad day that day when I just needed to get out and away so jumped in my car for that ride up the coast where I ran into these buggers on that hill. If it wasn’t for that ‘bad day,’ I would have never been able to make these images, rendering that day not a bad day after all – it actually turned out to be one of the best days of the year. Just another one of life’s funny reminders that you never ever ever ever ever know what’s going to happen and why things happen the way they do. Whether a frown or a smile, just roll with it…after all, neither lasts, but one of them is always sure to return…

Can’t wait for my next bad day!!

January 28, 2014
We Saved Rabbits And Got Away With Kidnapping…All In A Day’s Work!

Yes, it’s a been a fun start to the New Year. So just after getting the opportunity to shoot Cindy Taylor last week, I got asked to help a friend Produce and DIT (Digital Technician – an overly fancy term for downloading video footage onto hard drives) a short film. Though I spent close to a decade working on and editing videos and commercials and whatnots, it’s been a while since I’ve been on a film set and I must say, it wasn’t too bad, one because I was working with friends, and two, well, my title wasn’t Production Assistant! No offense to my PA brothers and sisters, but, well, those weren’t exactly the most savory years of my working life…

Anyhow, the production was called Rabbit Season, a film by Director Jimmie Rhee from Defy Agency in Culver City. It was a bit of a dark story, which I’ll share here once they’re done editing and ready to release, but we had some fun on set. It’s not everyday that you’re getting paid to find a 65 Cadillac, a way to make a fake rabbit look like a real dead rabbit, deflect a police officer who got a call from a pedestrian who witnessed a scene in which a girl was being thrown into the trunk of a car but didn’t see the camera filming it on the mountain top above, and collect chicken bones from lunchtime catering to try to pass as rabbit bones on film.

Rabbit Season_Defy Agency_Wasim Muklashy Photography

In any case, Lacy Street Production Center was one of the locations (some of the films that shot there included “Catch Me If You Can” and “Saw”), which is that crazy dilapidated looking brick building in the pictures below. The other location was Singing Springs in the Angeles National Forest, which was particularly nice as, well, we got to be outside, in the mountains, all day long without any reception. And you all know how I like to be outside all day long! The picture at the right was my office for the day…

Anyhow, no special lesson learned here or any particular words of any significance or importance, just figured I’d share a few production stills from a few scenes and locations from that shoot, all of which were shot on the Samsung NX300 mirrorless camera.

And don’t worry, no animals were harmed in the making of this film. As a matter of fact, we ended up saving the life of a rabbit that was marked to be butchered for meat and pelt. We gone done a good thing!! What you see in some of those seemingly gruesome pictures are just a rabbit pelt being stapled to a fake rabbit cadaver from our friends at Dapper Cadaver (yes, there’s a shop that specializes in this madness…only in Hollywood…)

Ok then…

January 21, 2014
Shooting The Gorgeous Cindy Taylor For WhoHasItApp.com

Hope everyone has had a wonderful 2014 so far. So I sort of disappeared for a bit, but hot damn, the new year began and everything took off!!! Hasn’t been much sleep but certainly has been quite a bit of action. There are some cool things in the works that will be revealed in due time, but for now, just wanted to drop a quick few lines. Last week I got to do another shoot for WhoHasItApp, the same client I shot Kyle Williams, Rod Streater, Stacey Dash, Gretchen Rossi, and the others for late last year. This time we got to shoot the beautiful model and TV host Cindy Taylor. Hit the ‘Continue Reading’ to see some of the images from that shoot (all shot with that Samsung NX300 and a 60mm/f2.8 macro lens). Just wanted to share. Hope you enjoy. (more…)

January 14, 2014
Thanks To Rick Sammon & Juan Pons, The Resolution Becomes The Focus. Hello 2014!

I cannot think of a better way to start off a new year! Woke up this morning to hear the great Rick Sammon and Juan Pons saying “he uploads some incredible work on the DPE community website” (at the 1:08:18 mark) on the latest episode of The Digital Photo Experience podcast. They were introducing the image above, “Family Time,” one you’re already familiar with if you follow this blog or me on Google Plus, that I uploaded to the show’s Google Plus community with hopes of being chosen as one of their critiques.

(more…)

January 1, 2014