Click on the thumbnail below to download a full-size (1440×900) image.

If you liked it, please let your friends know about it by linking to this post on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or anywhere you wish. Thank you.

The theme of the calendar is Skies and Water and it has a page per month, illustrated with one of my best pictures.

This link points to a ZIP file which contains 12 individual PDF files, one per month. The files are all high-resolution for best print quality, so the ZIP weighs in at 189MB, but it’s really worth it.

Print the calendar and hang it in your home, office, shop, school, wherever you like. It’s free and you can make as many copies as you like.

If people are interested in personalized calendars, in different sizes and various languages, using any of my images, please leave a comment here and, if there is enough demand, I will try to satisfy everyone, possibly for a small fee.

Happy 2012!

Given the precedent, you might think I’m crazy for committing to doing not just one Project 52, but two of them.

I have resolved to do Don Giannatti’s new Project 52 and try to complete all the assignments like a good school-boy. I have learned a ton of new stuff in 2011 and want to bring my photography to the next level in 2012.

I have also started doing the Project 52 that’s been started by Giuseppe Basile on Google+ This one is going to be more free-form and relaxed, but promises to be as much fun.

The deadline for the first assignment there is tomorrow, so I spent a couple hours this afternoon to capture something that fit with the theme of “New Year’s Day/Eve”. I went down to the boat-bridge that crosses the Ticino river not far from home and shot some moderately long exposures at sunset. The idea was to use the flowing river as a metaphor for the passing of time that is marked by New Year’s Day. Maybe it’s a bit of a stretch, but the light was great and I came home with some interesting images. The one that accompanies this post was my favorite and I uploaded it as my submission for the week. Hope you’ll like it.

Yesterday I did something that my wife thought was completely crazy: I drove 200km to Bologna and back, just to meet Steve McCurry, listen to him talk and get one of his books signed. Luckily, we had a break in a long series of foggy days and the journey was without problems.

As someone told me, these chances may only happens once in a lifetime, so better catch them while you can.

Well, anyways, I got my book signed, bought a couple more books and got those signed as well, then attended his talk. This basically consisted in a slide-show of his most iconic photographs, together with some new ones that he shot during a recent trip to Italy, interspersed with commentary and a bit of a background about each picture’s story and circumstances.

Incidentally, the most recent photos denote a certain change in his style, but that’s maybe only because Italy and its people are so different from India or Afghanistan. That’s not I want to talk about, however. This post is about some reflections that were inspired by the examination of the photograph I included below.

In my opinion, this is just a perfect shot. The boat coming in from the lower left corner, the shape of the man, with his arm raised at the apex of his movement, perfectly framed within the V formed by the reflection of the sky in the water, the contrast between the warm colors of the flowers and the cool, blue-green tones of the trees and the water. The viewer is pulled towards the center of the frame and stuck watching the human figure and thinking about the story of this man, his work carrying flowers across a lake to a market somewhere, day in, day out.

If there ever was a decisive moment captured in a photograph, this is it. If the photo had been taken a fraction of a second earlier or later, a few inches to the left or the right, from a higher or lower viewpoint, all that delicate balance would have been destroyed.

You might think that this was just sheer luck and, to a certain extent, an element of luck was certainly involved. However, the story behind this photograph, as Steve McCurry recounted it, is that he spent eleven days on the shores of Dal Lake, in Kashmir, living with the people there, photographing them, and finally getting the shot. A great amount of pre-visualization was certainly involved, and there is nothing casual about this image.

Now consider that the guy was using film! So he had no chance to see whether he had captured that fleeting moment until after he had developed the film. With digital, he could easily have glanced at his LCD, but maybe he would have gotten complacent and lazy, thinking that he could always get one more shot and hit the lucky one. Knowing Steve McCurry a bit, I think this would have not been the case, but who knows?

In the end, I would love to have this image printed, framed, and hung on a wall in my home. Not just because it’s a beautiful photograph, but also because it would always remind me that there are certain heights in art that I will never be able to attain… not the least because my wife would never agree to spend eleven days on the shores of an Indian lake, watching the boats go by.

If you liked the review, please leave a comment on the article and share via Twitter, Facebook, Google+, or your social network of choice. Thank you.

Anyway, I managed to snap some cool streaks, swirls, and other cool effects by keeping the shutter open for a handful of seconds and hoping for the best. I’ve collected some of those in a gallery on Photoshelter, where you can order prints, if you liked them.

(In case you are wondering, I haven’t yet got my money back from the previous organizer, and there might still be an happy ending on that front, but I’m not holding my breath. Thanks to David’s generosity, I was able to attend the workshop, in the end, and that’s what counts, but if you want to read the sordid details, start from here.)

So, I don’t want to talk about past issues here, but just give my account of how the day went.

The workshop, which had 13 attendees of which only two were not local, started at 9AM with a brief introduction about David’s work, followed by the theory. David is an experienced teacher, and it shows in his style of presentation and in the confidence he inspires. Full marks on this part.

After lunch, we started shooting various lighting scenarios, using from one to three speedlights, various modifiers and gels. This, for me, was the most interesting and valuable part, as I don’t get to practice often. A few of us took turns modeling, while the others took pictures and tried to replicate what David had just shown us.

The plan was also to take some pictures outside, but bad weather prevented us from doing so and the day ended with a short talk on the business aspects of the profession and a group shot.

All in all, the workshop was a great introduction to the world of small flash photography. If you are fairly inexperienced with it, and a Small Strobes Big Results workshop comes near you, my suggestion is that you should not miss it.

Personally, I feel I’m ready for the next step. Having read pretty much everything that David Hobby, Joe McNally, Neil van Niekerk, and others have written, or watched their videos, the theoretical part was just a recap for me. However, many people aren’t so knowledgeable with the basics, so making sure the basics are well settled is always in order.

I hear David might have plans for another European tour next year, so if he decides to offer a second grade, more advanced workshop, I will definitely attend.

The workshop is organized by Eric Krügl.

The very active photography community on Google+ has embraced hangouts with enthusiasm and taken to doing hangouts very often, either impromptu or on a regular, scheduled basis. Trey Ratcliff has been one of the first and foremost adopters of hangouts and his are very popular and always overbooked.

The fact that ten people at most are able to participate in a hangout at once, however, is a bit of a limitation. Google has promised that it will be possibile to stream hangouts live in the future, but for the time being people are finding ways to broadcast them using various technologies. This way, even if one cannot actively participate, it’s still possible to watch and listen. It’s definitely better than TV!

Anyway, recently a group of people, including Maximilian Majewski, Jim Davis, and Craig Shipp has started programming regular hangouts, where a panel of experts discusses a photographic topic for about one hour, together with guests. Well, I am no expert, but I’ve been invited to take part in the first episode, that took place yesterday night, on the topic of landscape and architecture photography. Together with me on the show, apart from the aforementioned guys, were the fabulous Helen Sotiriadis, Cassius and Jordana Wright, and Martin Bailey, the host of what is probably the longest running photography podcast in history.

Aside from some minor glitches (including my fumbling with the mute button on the mike), the show went very smoothly, so kudos to the organizers and I am really looking forward to watching the next episodes. I reckon these will be streamed live, even though this one wasn’t. The recording is available on Vimeo and YouTube, anyway.

If you want to be informed about the next shows, follow @photohangouts on Twitter, or Maximilian on Google+. You will have the chance to submit questions to the hosts and, in case your question gets selected, you might be invited to be a guest yourself.

If you’re not already doing so, please consider following me on Google+.