Chris Acuña Photography

The photos below are the result of constant nagging by my friend Loida to take her on a “photo adventure” which is basically her way of telling me that she wants to have her portrait taken in some form or another. So I agreed to a portrait session and we set a date, but on this particular day it was incredibly overcast and the rain was coming down with no signs of stopping. So, naturally my model was already making other plans and getting ready to call it quits before we even left her apartment. Fortunate for us, I was able to convince her to put aside her fear of getting wet and go out and take some damn photos!

You can tell in some of the photos below that the day was very wet and you can definitely see some rain drops in some of the images below. Regardless, the adventure went on and we came away with some pretty cool photos and a lot of good laughs from running around Pinecrest Gardens and having fun in the rain.

I’m a little late in posting these images, but I wanted to get them online either way because I am really happy with how they turned out. I photographed the majority of Easter with a new Nikon lens I purchased on Ebay. 35mm ƒ2.0 for the curious, and the quality was something I was really impressed with. If you follow my work at all you would know that I love my background soft and out of focus, especially with portraits, and this lens delivers excellent color and some great Bokeh.

SO anyway, Easter this year was a blast. We celebrated Annabelle’s 1st birthday along with the Holiday and the day was perfect. Nice an sunny on a Sunday afternoon with family and friends is always a good time. Food was provided by the Crepe Maker. I was also able to shoot a roll of film that day which was pretty fun

I received a decent amount of criticism last year about my photos. Some was constructive and some were just commenting on my editing style for certain photographs. The majority of the comments I received were compliments, but I received a lot of comments about the photos looking “fake” or “unrealistic”.

I’m not sure what a “real” photo is supposed to be… I mean is a black and white photograph a “real” depiction of reality? The world exists in color so I would have to say no. That does not make the photograph any less valuable or less appealing to me. In fact some of my favorite photographs happen to be black and white photos.

Naturally the photos in question were mostly my HDR photos because of their very vibrant colors and sharp details. I’ve been criticized for “over photoshopping” certain photos and even relaying too much on photoshop for my digital photographs.

Now I don’t take the criticism personal, but it did open my eyes to something: maybe I do fall back on the versatility of digital photography. I try to challenge myself constantly to improve my vision and technique, but lately I have not really felt that I’ve been pushing myself to the limits that I should.

So I decided to take on a project this year where I photograph on film more often. I’m not setting any deadlines or milestones for myself. The goal is to push myself further and go back to the basics in a way. I will be focusing on composition, exposure and overall concept for my photographs. Just me, a Nikon FE2 manual camera, and a 50 mm lens. Like this I will have no choice but to slow down and plan my shots better and execute with more focus (pun intended). Rather than spray a barrage of photos and choosing the best of the bunch I will shoot one photo and try to make that the best possible shot.

So far this has been a challenge, but it has also been incredibly refreshing and rewarding. It takes me back to the beginning of my photography days shooting with this same exact camera. Even the look of the film photographs is very nostalgic. At the end of this year, like the last, I will look back at my body of work and evaluate my progress. Hopefully I will be able to say that I’ve improved and taken a step further as a photographer and as an artist.

And since this is a photoblog here are some of my favorit film photos:

It’s the most wonderful time of the year!
Christmas is always a fun holiday to be celebrating with family and friends. We had a small fiesta at our house with all of the decorations and all of the food you would expect from a Cuban family gathering. I’ve been traveling a significant amount for work lately so it was really great for me to be able to see the whole (mostly) family in one place and having a great time. And, as usual with the Christmas time, there were lights and colorful decorations all over the place which made it very easy to photograph and produce great images.

Last week my family and I went out on a short photo adventure to take some family portraits. Having two photographers in the house makes it easy to convince everyone to go out and shoot some photos. It had been a while since we had all gathered with the intention of spending some quality time together and since the day was beautiful we took advantage and spent an hour taking photos in Coral Gables by the public library.

Lolypix doing her thing.

After the shoot we all went to Benihana for dinner

My Mother and Father really are the best.