April 25, 2008
Comercial Photgraphy & $1500 cash back!
Last summer one of my Landscape Architecture clients, Daniel Weinbach & Partners asked me to shoot one of their projects just south of the University of Illinois Chicago. It was the old Fulton Markets. These six buildings were cold storage buildings that were build in the 30's and recently rehabbed to loft condo's know as University Commons.
The shot below is taken from the public roof top deck of building #4 towards of building #2 & the Chicago skyline.
I was so inspired by the beautiful gardens, the pool, the view of the city, local parks and only a walk to quick shops and not more than a mile to full services shops that I decided I should have a look at the loft condo's at University Commons. The great views, 15ft ceilings, access to a pool in the summer, work out room and party room modern bathrooms and much more. I was hooked and days later I put in a down payment.
The from Morgan looking west on 15th street at University Commons, Chicago.
Ok, so you've got to be wondering about the $1500 by this point. So University Commons is willing to give me a small amount of money for a referral and I'm willing to pass that on to you. In order to receive the $1500 from me, you must register Robert R Gigliotti of 1111 West 15th Street Unit 320 as your referral at your initial visit to the university Commons sales office on 15th street, between Racine & Aberdeen. After you close on your beautiful Loft condo, I'll write you a check for $1500. You have nothing to loose and everything to gain. If you're looking for a condo in a already up and coming area, you've found your spot. This is the last true horizon for Chicago. Most area's have been over run with development and or are just too busy. This is a quite neighborhood that the sounding area is owned mostly by UIC. You'll be amazed at how nice it is here in the summer.
Garden walkway between building's 1 & 2.
If you'd like to see all the photos I took of University Commons, just click here.
Thanks again for reading! If you plan to move into University Commons, why not get an extra $1500 cash back after closing?? They won't give it to you...but I will.
Posted by Robert at 03:04 PM | Comments (0)
January 22, 2008
Framingham, MA (Just west of Boston)
I’ve been shooting for years and being in the right place at the right time to catch a moment does not happen often with me. Living in the city you tend to see more strange or interesting things to shoot more often than not. But at the same time, how often do you take your camera with you every time you go out?
This particular frame was shot at 1/15, F-18, ISO 100 @84mm and cropped at 16x8 aspect ratio.
I don’t take my camera with me as much as I should. I don’t for simple reasons really. For starters my camera is big and bulky. I have one lens that is a bit more versatile than the rest and works great in most situations. (24-105mm with image stabilization) I shoot with a Canon 5D and the 24-105 is attached most of the time and ready to go. But to carry it with me all the time can cause problems. One, if I leave it by mistake, chances are high I won’t get it back. I’d like to think people would call me to tell me they found my camera…but with something of such value, the good doer turns to the dark side. I know this from experience as I’ve left my camera in the past, never to see it again. (it was a 20D with a 18-55mm. Insurance covered it and I bought a better camera) As well, in the city, you increase your risk of being robbed when you carry an expensive camera. This is never happened to me, but sometimes you don’t want to add to the possibility of losing your identity.
Hand held due to high traffic on the road. Shot at: 1/250, F-4.5, ISO 100, @24mm
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Posted by Robert at 01:59 PM | Comments (0)
November 27, 2007
Chicago City sticker design contest
Please help my assistant, baby sitter and former student, Grace Pisula, win the Chicago City sticker design contest here in Chicago. If she wins nearly 1.3 million cars will be showing off her design and she'll get a 1k towards college.
Every year Gallery 37 / After School Matters (where I teach photography & creative writing to students) has a class of talented students from all around the city work on the design for next years Chicago City sticker. For those of you that don't live in Chicago, The city sticker is required to stick on your windshield as a resident and local to the Chicago Land area to park on the streets.
Please click the link below find her name and design, (bottom left of page) click in the box, page all the way to the bottom of the page (you don't have to enter your email to vote) and click the "click here to submit" button. You'll be asked to confirm and the process is over. Please pass on to anyone you like. She can't win this contest with out your help...so please do your part! Please note, you only have till Friday the 30th to vote! Please vote early and often!
http://live.everyonecounts.com/app/104/185
Grace's design is below:
Posted by Robert at 11:11 AM | Comments (0)
November 13, 2007
Robert R Gigliotti take's a shot
Blog's, I have so many, but one finally dedicated to the art, craft, technology & technique of Photography. This is just the start of what I plan to be, as the title states, "everything photography". Over time I'll be adding to every aspect of this Blog that impacts me as a Professional Photographer, Chicago Photographer, A teacher of Photography, Landscape & Architectural Photographer and generally the guy at every family function that's not in the photos.
Give it some time and you'll find that this site can be not only a great resource, but also a photo forum & a place to visit & critique photography.
For starters, please enjoy a photo I took one early morning while the fog rolled into Oak Street Beach here in Chicago. I was sitting at the time taking a break from my early morning walk. I wasn't feeling well and I was able to capture just that...an eerie sort of floating sensation creeping into the shore.
Thank you! Robert R Gigliotti, Photographer
This photo can also be purchased on-line by clicking this link
Posted by Robert R Gigliotti at 03:21 AM | Comments (2)
June 06, 2007
Maine Workshop Day 4
Day four and in class early (8am I think). I again brought in everything I shot the day before, pining them to the board. Another classmate followed suit, making cheap color copies at the local Kinko’s. To be fair, he was from out of town and didn't know where he could get high quality prints. I print everything on my Epson 7600 on Ilford Pearl (semi gloss) paper. Class has been starting at 8am and finishing up after 7pm, needless to say I didn't have much time to color correct my work. I did a general edit to get rid of the obviously bad shots and did it twice more to find the best shot of the subject at hand. My point of the last two sentences is that Pearl or semi gloss paper is very forgiving and often hides imperfections that I had to gloss over due to lack of time. Glossy shows every last detail with nowhere to hide.
The Rem Koolhaas-designed campus center at IIT, Chicago. This was shot with my Tilt shift 24mm with two shots.
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Posted by Robert R Gigliotti at 12:45 PM | Comments (0)
May 31, 2007
Maine Workshop, day 3
Ok, so we're at day three and still no portfolio review. Their were 12 people in the class and we've been going over about 3 or 4 a day. It seems to be standard operating procedure to only spend 10 minutes on anyone's work that is brought in digitally or from a web site. But if you bring in a printed body of work, then Norm will spend 30 minutes and if you're really good, 45 min to an hour!! Seeing this trend of the pleasure of viewing printed work on a desk or pinned to a board I took it upon myself to print my work from the past two days and pin them to the board for review. At the time I wasn't ready to print my digital portfolio, but I must admit I now see the importance of doing so. Photos really look different and in some cases viewing them digital can be a let down. Yes, computers have brilliant colors and a capacity of viewing them in the millions of colors. But when you print your work something different than what you saw on screen jumps out at you and makes you think more about the work you did to get that image on paper. I've sometimes been blow away from seeing a print on screen then printing to see an better photo than I was expecting.
Rookery building interior designed by Frank Lloyd Wright
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Posted by Robert R Gigliotti at 04:33 PM | Comments (0)
May 20, 2007
Maine Workshop, day 2
Day two was another day of portfolio review in the morning that dragged on a bit longer than necessary (about 1pm) for a few classmates and not long enough for others. Mine was yet to be reviewed again and would have to wait till tomorrow. We did however spend time reviewing work shot from Monday. We used an over head and I must admit it was difficult at times to compare and contrast to other works with out the ability to look at all photos at once on a table or board.
The old train station on the south side
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Posted by Robert R Gigliotti at 03:04 PM | Comments (0)
May 15, 2007
Maine Workshop, day 1
In a previous entry I wrote of further education with photography. What I did this year for my further education as a professional photographer was attend the Maine workshop that travels around the country with noted photographers teaching the workshops. In Chicago this year the workshops hosted an architecturural workshop. Its one of their "travel workshops" and was hosted and taught by Norman McGrath, a noted and well accomplished architectural photographer, born in Ireland and has been living and working for years in New York.
Norm in Chicago
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Posted by Robert R Gigliotti at 03:27 PM | Comments (0)
May 10, 2007
Photography education
There was a time when I thought I should attend a university for my masters in Photography. I did some research for schools here in Chicago that offered masters in Fine Art with a focus in Photography. Two of the schools I visited and poked around at were Columbia and The Art Institute of Chicago. Now, let me preface this with the fact that I'm a self-taught photographer. I didn't think photography sounded like a cool idea and thought "I should go to school for that". I picked up a camera from a sparked interest derived from cinematography. After years of taking photos on my own, making calendars for friends and family and doing a shoot here and there as a favor I took a chance on my creative ability and took the next step. I should mention I spent three years working in Digital Imaging and Traditional film sales in the Drug and connivance mart division of the Chicago Land area for Kodak. As well did about six months working for Ilford as a Regional sales manager for their digital paper and traditional film sales for professional photographers. It took years to walk the walk and talk the talk. I'm still learning new things about photography every day...
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Posted by Robert R Gigliotti at 10:56 AM | Comments (0)
May 05, 2007
Dust on your sensor
I’m sure we’ve all had this happen…You take a photo, get back to your studio, download the photos to your computer, open them up and see in the sky’s the same black dot that show’s up over and over again. Reluctantly you open the file in Photoshop to rubber stamp out the dust.
To my dismay this happens more often than any of us like to admit. But unless you have kept the lens on the camera from the day you bought it, your going to attract dust to the sensor of your camera.
In the photo below, you can see in the sky specs that are not birds. I took the liberty to use red arrow's to point them out.
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Posted by Robert R Gigliotti at 05:22 PM | Comments (0)
April 25, 2007
When you find your photo(s) have been misused, The conclusion...
If you're wondering what this entry's about, please read part one of When you find your photo(s) have been misused to catch up.
I contacted a lawyer that's in my family and with my help we constructed a letter with particular verbiage of my intentions to still come to a conclusion amicably with out taking the case to the courts. The letter was more of a help than actually a letter from a lawyer. But if you were to read the letter you could tell I consulted a lawyer. As well, it puts in writing my thoughts and intentions for the client to clearly read and hand off to other members of his staff for review or even his own lawyer if need be. The term, "put it in writing", does have a sort of concrete and serious tone to it.
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Posted by Robert R Gigliotti at 10:08 AM | Comments (0)
April 15, 2007
TS-E 24mm f/3.5L
The Canon Tilt Shift lens is a must have if you're a landscape or architecture photographer. One common problem that architecture photographers have is the subject matter often recedes or falls away from the view point creating an incorrect perspective. The TS-E 24mm can correct this issue and is useful for creating seamless wide-angle shots from two shots as well as capturing objects with great distances between them in focus. Other uses for the TS-E 24mm depend on how creative you want to get with your lens. But if you got one...you'll love it.
Wide angle shots
One of the very cool features of this lens is the ability to sift the lens +/- 11mm creating a 13mm wide angel shot when the two photos are stitched together. The only way to do this seamlessly is with a tripod. With a conventional lens you'd take a shot and move the camera a few degrees and take another shot. Even with a tripod, stitching the photos together you’d loose a considerable amount of data on the top and bottom due to bending when the two are brought together with software. This bending is because both photos must be warped to make them match up because of the movement when taking the photos from two different locations. With the TS-E the camera stays in place and the lens can shift giving you a full frame panoramic wide angle shot.
To show off this feature below is a photo I took from the Rookery building interior here in Chicago. It was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Click on the photo to see the full size version.
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Posted by Robert at 12:32 PM | Comments (0)
