Chris Acuña Photography

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

Someone once told me that taking photos is easy and creating images is the real challenge. I couldn’t agree more. In continuation of my photo project this year exploring the capabilities of film and push myself further I decided to experiment a bit.

These photographs we mostly shot at a Botanical Garden in Napels on a day where I had forgotten to bring my digital camera. I know, I know, big failure to leave my camera behind, but I did have my film camera with me so I stopped at a local CVS and purchased four rolls of film to make use of the camera. I’m so glad I left my digital camera at home. Rather than just capture straight photographs of flowers and Nancy I decided to tray some double exposures and see what ort of results I could get. The process was extremely rewarding. I fell in love with all of the images instantly.

For the curious: the double exposure process is similar to photographing as you regularly would, the only difference is when you reach the end of the roll, you winde up the film and stop right before it enters the canister and begin shooting over the same roll again. The results that can be achieved through this process can be seen below. What I love most about this process is how unpredictable and unique the images are. It makes seeing the photos for the first time so much more exciting! I have several ideas I’d like to try with this method of photographing so you can expect to see more of this style again in the future!

All of the photographs below are taken straight from the camera with no Photoshop or image editing done. All were shot on 35mm film with a manual Nikon camera and a 50mm lens. Enjoy!

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.

It has become a family tradition for the cousins in my family to venture to the Disney Food & Wine Festival that is held at Epcot in Walt Disney World every year. 2011 was no different. We made the trip up to Orlando for the weekend adventure and it was a great time as always. Where else can you “drink around the world” without getting on an airplane? And I personally love Disney World because the scenery always provides wonderful backdrops for my photographs.