Bonjour Mesdames et Messieurs, a couple of weeks ago, I went to Boston,
and I shot the city of Boston, and I went all the way to Portland,
Maine to shoot the lighthouse.
And I really wanted to share this adventure with you
so you can see what it takes to get a great photo.
I took a lot of bad photos until I had the really cool photo.
So I use a Sony A7RIII with a 24-105mm.
I use a Tiffen variable filter for the long exposure,
and I use this beautiful Siriu ST124 for a travel that I really like this one.
Join me, in Maine, and let me show you this adventure. Alright.
So I'm here in Boston. This is a classic view.
I always see when I see Boston downtown. You know,
when I take photo in cities, I love to walk around without a tripod,
just a camera. I have a 24-105mm at f4,
which is really great because you can zoom in, zoom out,
Also tonight, I'm playing with a star filter.
A star filter is something that's gonna make stars with the cars light.
It's beautiful. And the weather is really bad.
So when the weather is really bad, you have to wait for the blue hour.
The blue hour is gonna to be in about one hour
or two when the sky is gonna become blue
and all the lights are going to be up and we're gonna have like 10/15 minutes.
So what I usually do is I walk around
and I try photos and then I wait for the white time which is the blue hour and get the shot.
You know, I have no idea if I'm gonna make it because there's so much people like in any major cities.
The weather is really bad and photography of cities is all about the foreground element.
You know, this whole area is kinda nice,
but what am I gonna put as a foreground element?
That's what I'm looking for. It could be like a lamp like this.
Foreground is everything, you know. Because when you get something nice,
everybody can take a photo of it. But if you have a foreground,
middleground and background, right now I'm finding nothing…
The weather is awful. I'm not sure if I'm gonna get any photos,
but let's try.
Okay. So as I was driving, I saw a little bit of,
like, a flatiron building like in New York and I had this idea of finding,
like, a really cool foreground element. I think there is two one of my students on my coaching.
I have a coaching program called the Institute of photography.
He shot that, and I thought it was a great composition.
I got a tripod because I wanna erase the car. So let's see maybe this one or the next one.
So I love this whole neighborhood here because you have a little bit of a small building here,
and then you you have a lot of leading lines.
And so I try different things. I try to shoot, like, at a very high ISO by hand.
So, like, one thousand ISO f4. Or I try to shoot like at 5 seconds at 50 ISO that I have like the stars from the lights and all the cars becomes,
you know, like, just red lines. Why not?
There's almost no car. I'm waiting for cars to come by to sort of do a bit of a light painting.
And like all the lights are on in the city,
this is really the magic window, it’s right now we have I'm guessing another five,
ten minutes. And I really want to nail that street?
I like the little leaning lines that you have like with the sidewalk.
I'm just gonna take a few photos. This could be the photo of the day,
Boston. Boston architecture, amazing.
I'm always looking for a foreground elements and leading lines.
And I love these stairs here. I don't know if the photo's gonna be any good,
but it leads the eyes inside of the photo.
I always find this really interesting. So I'm always looking for like cool lamps,
you know, cool elements that can be a foreground, an anchor point from where you watch the photo,
and then like stairs or things that's gonna lead the viewer inside of the photo.
Alright. So I have a confession to make one of my favorite show is
this Netflix show called Somebody Feed Phil.
with Phil Rosenthal. And I've watched every show he's made on that show.
And, you know, he travels the world and shows,
you know, the food from the local people,
the high end food, the more street food.
I just love the guy. He's so uplifting.
So anyway, I got the idea of shooting Maine and shooting the lighthouse from Phil.
Now if somebody knows Phil, please tell him to come to Paris.
I don't know why he has done every city on his Netflix show,
But Paris. If he does Paris,
I will fly and show him around. I've been there for fifty years.
I will show you the amazing of Paris Phil.
You will absolutely it. Love it. In any case,
thank you for your inspiration. If you're not watching that show on Netflix,
go watch it. It's absolutely genius.
And voila. So now we are in Portland.
We're gonna have some nice diner
and then I'm gonna go and try to take an iconic photo if possible of
one of the nicest lighthouse in Maine USA.
It's the Portland Lighthouse and I have no idea what it looks like.
I've never been there. I've seen the photos
and I'm hoping that tonight we'll get a good golden hour sunset and a great photo.
So for now, let's have some dinner.
So is this going to work, I don’t know?
It's my first time here. And you know, they say that it's open until sunset,
but what is the definition of sunset, beginning of sunset or end of sunset.
because I wanna shoot the end of sunset, so I don't know how it’s going to work with the natural guards.
Are they going to kick me out, look at this place?
It's all about finding a foreground element and a leading line.
That's what I'm looking for a foreground element and leading line.
So I'm gonna put an ND variable on the camera
because there's too much light and I'm trying to get a long exposure.
So I need to stop the light from coming into the camera.
Per my experience, when you get like, you know,
some nice wave at about 1 second, they look the best.
Sometime one second, sometime ten seconds, you have to try things.
So I'm gonna try with this Tiffen variable filter.
So what I do is when I use an ND variable filter,
I first set the time.
So what I want is one second.
Why I want one second is I find one second,
gives a nice flow to the wave. So I put it on one second and then like f7,
and then I do the exposure with the filter itself.
And I always spot focus on something that's in the middle or in the back.
So I'm spot focusing right now on the lighthouse.
The only thing is, I think it's gonna be a failure tonight because there's a lot of clouds,
there's a lot of pink, and we arrive too late.
I stayed for the lobster roll. Thank you,
Phil. But, you know,
I sort of missed the time, but we'll see maybe the blue hour is gonna be interesting.
Right now, it's kind of boring. Alright.
So today was not great in the clouds.
My wife was very courageous. I was sleeping too much.
She went and took the photo from another spot that I want, it’s all about the foreground,
and we're getting kicked out by this mister,
by the National Guard. Because it’s
sunset, so no way to get the blue hour,
but I'm gonna come back tomorrow earlier and do a different angle.
I'm gonna get that shot. So it's actually working.
I love the photo. I love the photo.
So what I do is I go at like 50 ISO because I wanna make the sensor the less sensitive.
Then I go right now I'm at f18 and then I went all the way to 4 seconds.
I'm at 4 seconds and it's very bright.
And so 50 ISO f18 4 seconds look at the result.
And so what you do is you take a lot of photos Every photo is gonna have a different flow of wave,
and you see which one you like the most.
Kennebunkport, welcome to you. Alright.
So here in this small village, which I cannot pronounce.
And one thing that what I do when there's a lake is first,
I wait for the sun to be a bit lower because when the sun is lower,
there's something called a Fresnel effect where you get a lot of mirror in the water.
And also, I'm looking for foreground element,
and I found this small three little boats over there.
And I'm gonna be shooting and using them as a foreground elements.
And the problem is that, at first, I was shooting toward the sky to at the toward the sun,
the problem do that, it washes out all the colors.
That way, by going the other side,
you get better colors. So now it's just a matter of finding another have a good foreground element,
it's finding a middleground and a background.
So that's what I do around the lake.
Also, one thing I do is I always focus,
spot focus where you have a little joystick
and you can move around and I always focus on what is the further away.
That's how I do it. I love the light.
The light is incredible. I absolutely adore,
you know, when you were like, the light was really s*** all day.
You know, we wait eight hours and finally you get that.
You know, that's what photography is amazing about,
you know, getting this kind of photo I love it.
I love it. It's like fishing, you know,
you come back with something. And tonight, I'm gonna come back with something.
By the way, guys, all the retouching photo that you see are done with my preset.
You can get a free sample link is just under the video.
Welcome to the Acadia national park. This is our last stop on our Boston, Maine trip.
I've always wanted to come here. I've seen a lot of photos.
So we've been walking around the coast and we found this location,
which I kinda like. The sun is sitting behind me.
So it's a bit of a high dynamic Range situation.
So what I did is I went to 50 ISO, I put on an ND variable filter
and I have a basic exposure of five seconds.
But then I'm bracketing two f stop more,
the two f stop less Just to be sure,
because it's a really hard situation. I'm trying to get that leading line here,
to be between the background and all of that.
We'll see what happens
I'm doing a photo here. I don't think it's gonna work
because there's no really leading lines or foreground elements.
And life is all about leading lines and foreground elements
Alright, guys. I hope you like this. If you're not subscribed to this channel,
please subscribe to this channel and I will see you in another great adventure.