Boško Martinović Photography

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Old Passage

I love using Belgrade passages. Some of them are closed, some are restored and repainted, but some of them still reflect some other times. This is the view up from a passage downtown, named Nikola Spasic’s Passage. It has been a common target of many photographers for years, because of it’s rustic appearance. Today, as I strolled through it, I decided to give it a try all the same, and capture the part which was not restored. (Photo taken in March 2010)Old passage

CATCH THE LIGHTNING 2.0

In June 2013, I remembered to adjust the white balance on my camera in order to avoid the reddish tone of the photos.

The story was the same as in 2011 take. Shooting photos from my hand and getting lucky. But, this time I tried a completely different approach with the parameters. I used ISO 800 (as opposed to ISO 100), which enabled me to shorten the exposure time. I set the exposure to 1/4 seconds (as opposed to 5 seconds) to avoid getting too bright photos due to high ISO.  Last time, 5 seconds allowed for shaky photos and a higher risk of mistakes. This time 1/4 second exposure is still rather risky (without tripod), but definitely more stable. The problem is that I didn’t have the 5-second time window anymore, to wait for the lightning. When shooting at 1/4 exposure, there is no margin of error, you need to take the photo at exactly the right time, immediately before the lightning hits. Win stability of the image but be ready to lose some really great moments due to shorter exposure.

And… I made it! The photos came out great. Check out my favourites below:

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Milky Way time-lapse – August 2011

Milky Way Time Lapse Photography – 22-25.08.2011 from Bosko Martinovic on Vimeo.
(Check it out in full screen mode)

 This was my debut attempt at time lapse photography, from August 2011. Also, this is my first Milky Way photo session ever. The video consists of 394 still photographs, shot with Canon Rebel XS (1000 D) and a 18-55mm kit lens, on a tripod. All frames were done with 30-second exposure, and I tried to use a different white balance on the second night. Which was a mistake,  the sky turned out brownish… Light pollution was significant, and the final part of the video is problematic since that night was windy (camera was not completely still due to the wind) and even clouds appeared to spoil the session.

The cropped cover shot shows non-stationary satellites reflecting sunlight or passing meteors. I’m not quite sure, but I’ve been spotting satellites since I was a kid, and this was not different. The beginnings of the lines are exact locations where two dots appeared, some 5 seconds apart. The shot had 30″ exposure, so what you see is a trail left by two “dots” appearing and later disapppearing.

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Here it is again, zoomed.

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Aaand, another zoom for more details. IMG_5900zoom2_tn

Neat! What do you think?

So, why was this session significant? Once more, I expanded my activities related to photography, which resulted in a video originating from a camera that does not have a video mode. When I saw the results, it was clear that my ideas had definitely outgrown what Canon Rebel XS (1000D) had to offer. When I bought it, I considered its ISO settings to be advanced (which they were, for a regular user). Nevertheless, I still (2013) have the same camera and I will probably be using it for a year or two more…

This photo above is actually one of the two favourite photos from this session (the third night). Here is the other one:

mikly way

Ps. Music was also composed by me. The track is “Cat’s Mood” and is a part of the Cat’s Mood demo recorded from 1999-2003. You can check all the tracks on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/boskomartinovic

 

Greenet café, downtown Belgrade

This photo was initially supposed to be a contrast test, that is, how the (analogue) camera behaves in cases with high contrast. Now, this photo is one of my favourites from the first film. Had I known that I would get this film noír effect, I would have continued to shoot more. The car from the 1980s and the old tram in the distance just contributed to the magic. Of course, the composition of the shot is awful, details are nice,  it’s going to be a big help for future work.

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Making of a matchbox pinhole camera

In 2011, I stumbled upon this website http://www.matchboxpinhole.com/ and was instantly bought – I just HAD to do try this stuff! Instructions were rather simple, and I felt up to the task.

So, everything was ready to start, as I gathered all of the stuff required. You can see the early stages and almost finished pinhole camera.

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The only thing I replaced during the work was the can opener, as I found a better replacement (an opener from a beer cap). I don’t know about your matchboxes, but the ones I had could not be cut perfeclty clean. There were small tears and particles everywhere, which in fact produced an interesting result. The most important thing was the black tape! It keeps the light out (most of it), it makes the setup rigid. If you cut it nicely when you finish, you can reuse the camera several more times (until it falls appart, of course).

This is how it looked in the end:

Matchibox pinhole

Thanks http://www.matchboxpinhole.com/  for this interesting project!

 

And what about the photos? Did I succeed? You’ll be the judge of that, but as far as I’m concerned, the achieved results exceed the expected ones (failure). Check them out below.

Details: The photos in this serieswere all taken using a hand made matchbox pinhole camera I made in September 2011 (see it in another album). Exposures range from 1 second to 20 minutes. Film used was the common Fuji ISO 200 film. The edges of photos were produced by unevenly scalpel-cut matchbox cardboard. The first photo studio scanned the film automatically, which cut off  parts of photos and skipped a few. The second photo studio did the positioning manually so I have everything. Anyway, I am happy to have some results from project, this challenge of mine. I hope you like them and try it out yourself. Anything is possible. Thanks to http://matchboxpinhole.com

#1    Students’ Park

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#2  Students’ Park

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#3    Students’ Park

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#4 Students’ Park gate and Philological Faculty in the background…

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#5 Students’ Park gate and Philological Faculty in the background…

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#6 Students’ Park

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#7    Republic Square, National Museum and Prince Mihailo monument

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#8    Greenery

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#9    Greenery

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#10    Greenery

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#11    Mess in the kitchen

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#12    These two photos overlapping were cut when scanned, so I reconnected them, regardless of the error.

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#13    My love Milica

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#14    I want to ride my bicycle

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#15    A test shot of the Church of St. Petka, as seen from Milica’s stroller. You can see my finger tips as well 😀000036

#16    George the cat

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#17    George

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#18    George the cat moving his head000040

#19    Walker

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#20    From my balcony

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#21    Room

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#22    Zeleni Venac bus station, and a glimpse of the market

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#23    Night shot from my kitchen window. Exposure approximately 20 minutes.

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#24    A bit distorted perspective of my living room corner. The face on the wall is usually beautiful.000001

What projects?

From time to time I get the urge to try something new in photography.  The stuff I try may be old news to you, but it’s a challenge to me. I could even say that trying out that old Yashica SLR and shooting film after so many years was a serious challenge as well. All the benefits of the digital gear that have spoiled us over the years made me learn the basic principles again. So, stay tuned. I just might come up with a new challenge. So that’s what the “Projects” category is going to be all about.

Kids enjoying winter

This scene reminds me of childhood so much. The grain only adds to the feeling that this is distant past. In fact, it was 2012.

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Winter in the park

Yes, I could edit these photos to make the daylight brighter (it was twilight), but they appear more gloomy like this so I left them like this.

In the park

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