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From Russia with Love: Urban Landscapes

Last weekend I was performing with bass player Kurt Holzkämper in St. Petersburg. It was a blast being on stage with our tap&bass show again. And St. Petersburg is truly a beautiful city.
Here are a few pics I shot in-between performing and teaching a workshop.
The photos were shot with an Fuji xpro 1 and an iphone 5s.

Enjoy....

Urban Landscapes: Paris

Last week I was in Paris for the "Paris Tap Reunion". It was a wonderful gig and a great workshop.
Next stop: St. Petersburg with Kurt Holzkämper and our "Tap&Bass" Reunion.

Fine Art Prints at Society6

I decided to start selling some of my freelance photographs through Society6.com. All lot of those pictures are part of my Urban Landscape series and some street photography. I will continuously upload my work there, so please check it out.
You can find it here: www.society6.com/thomasmarek

Have a great day, Thomas

The wedding of Karolin and Till and more thoughts on the Fuji X system

I recently photographed the wedding of my very good friends Karolin and Till in Hamburg. Here are a few shots from that wonderful day.
It is now also been almost one year that I made the switch from my Nikon D3 equipment to the Fuji X system. For one year I only shot with those wonderful little gems and it is time for quick résumé.
My setup consists of one X100 and two XPro 1 bodies along with the 18mm, 35mm and 60 mm prime. And a little EFX20 flash ( which I love!)

First of all I am very much looking forward to the upcoming Firmware update in supposedly two days. Getting faster Af is always good and the idea of focus peaking is also quite interesting. Although I must say that I enjoy the cameras most in OVF mode and only occasionally make use of the EVF.
After one year I have really grown into the system and I like it more and more every day. Unfortunately my biggest priority on my firmware update wish list will most likely not be implemented: the ability to lock focus with a half pressed shutter button and being able to continue shooting while it is half pressed. This is standard for all SLRs since the mass introduction of autofocus and I can't understand why most mirrorless and the Fuji X cameras don't allow this. Because of lacking that feature you have to always engage autofocus again even when the distance to the object does not change or you have to lock focus with a second button. Either way it is not very convenient and time consuming and a little bit annoying.
Other than that I can hardly think of anything that I miss. Image and jpeg quality still astounds me every time I upload my pictures, white balance is very accurate and the lenses are a joy to use. I also find the cameras very reliable. In this year I never had any problem with the bodies. They seem very sturdy yet light and even occasional rain doesn't stop them, although full weather sealing would be nice.

My personal wish list for the next Xpro would be as followed:

- ability to lock af with a half pressed shutter button while continue to take pictures.

- full weather sealed body

- stronger battery

- a more resistant on off switch (it to easily turns on while being placed in the bag etc)

- a second SD card slot. And both slots placed somewhere in the side of the body.

- and of course always faster Af


Enjoy the pics...

//Thomas

Picture of the week #4

Landscape

Urban Landscapes #5

Teaching at the University of Washington

Soon after I came to Seattle in November I met visual artist Susie Lee (http://www.susiejlee.com) and she invited me to collaborate in teaching a photography class at the University of Washington. 

I was very excited about the project especially because the idea was to combine and research elements of tap dance and photography that both art forms have in common. We discussed different physical and musical exercises that could work together and lead the students to new ideas in their art making and we developed different ideas around time, timing, movement and space. 

Last Monday classes started and it was quite fun. We started off using exercises that I often use with my dance company to create an awareness of space, rhythm and time and that helps your mind connecting with each other and your environment. It was was great doing this not with dancers but photography students. We later combined these exercises with image making.

The class will continue for a few weeks and it's gonna be very interesting to see where this will lead.

Here are a few photos from our experiment.... 

//Thomas

On the streets...Seattle #1

Here are a few street photographs from the last few days. I just love to roam the city with my camera trying to capture a certain feel and atmosphere of the neighborhoods, the people and the environment.
Enjoy... Thomas

Urban Landscapes: Seattle #4

Urban Landscapes: Seattle #3

A beautiful day on Alki beach...

West Seattle

Two days ago I arrived in Seattle. I will be here for next couple of month spending time with my girlfriend, dancing and photographing a lot. I am living in a nice apartment in West Seattle overlooking the water. I took these photos this morning going for an early walk and recovering from jet lag.

All pictures are taken with the Fuji X-Pro 1 and converted using Silver Efex 2

More to come soon. //thomas

Flowers & Plants #3

Flowers & Plants #2

Flowers & Plants #1

Landscapes

More thoughts on the Fuji X-Pro 1: Roadtrip to the Herräng Dance Camp, Sweden

Last week my girlfriend and I  took a road trip to the Herräng Dance Camp, Sweden where I am teaching the tap dance classes this year. For the trip I brought the Fuji X100 and my new X-Pro 1 along with the 35mm f1,4 and the 18mm f2,0.
Here are a few pictures taken while being on the road. I must say I really like the 18mm f2,0 as well. I have always liked the field of view from a 28mm lens. The autofocus seems a bit faster than on the longer lenses which does not surprise me. But like I said before I think the speed of the autofocus is not a big concern for me and once you understand how it works, you get very accurate results.
I also played around with the jpeg settings a bit and so far NEG Std is probably my favorite. The colors are subtle and skin tones very good. I also really like how the camera handles highlights. The dynamic range is fantastic. Being a wedding photographer this is very important to me because it can sometimes be tough to not wash out the highlights on a wedding dress.
So far I don't miss RAW support for Aperture which I use for editing my photos. And even if they come out with it I will probably stick with the jpegs. They are still robust enough to post edit them a bit. Auto white balance is working great and I almost never have to adjust it manually. I can't say that for the Nikon D3 or D700. On those cams it is almost a must to shoot raw to get most out of them.
Right now I can only think of two features I miss on the X-Pro 1:
The first one is weather sealing. I wish the body and lenses would be a bit better protected. On my last wedding gig it started to rain heavily right before we entered the church and I had to switch to the D3. I use my cameras under a lot of different weather conditions and rather not worry too much about my equipment getting ruined by rain etc.
Secondly I really wish for a second SD Card slot. I am always very paranoid about losing pictures due to a faulty card. It has never happened to me before but I would still prefer a backup solution while documenting important shoots like weddings. This is not a deal breaker for me and i will use the camera on professional gigs but the possibility of loosing data because of a damaged card is always in the back of my mind.
So here are a few pictures from the trip….. More to come soon, Thomas

UPDATE! I just published a new blog post regarding shooting a wedding with the Fuji X100 and X-Pro 1

A Fuji X-Pro 1 review from a documentary wedding photographer | Part 1

Last weekend I had the pleasure to shoot the wedding of Svenja and Tommy in Hamburg. It was a great day and for the first time I was able to use my new Fuji X1 Pro in a real world shooting experience. I was already quite familiar with how it works because I used a X100 for the last couple of month.
What I like most about the new Fuji cams is the fact that they are small, silent and yet offer amazing image quality. What makes the XPro 1 so interesting for me is the fact that you can now change lenses.
For this shooting I only used the 35mm 1,4 though. So here are my thoughts:

- The jpeg files ooc are just superb. Nice colors and even more important pretty accurate white balance. In fact the X1Pro and X100 are the only cameras I only shot in jpeg mode. Just because they are so good.

- AF performance is good if you are able to anticipate the shot and don't chase the subjects. But coming from old school manual focusing in the film days I don't worry too much about that. I feel that the AF is still fast enough for almost anything I shoot.
The AF is also very accurate BUT you need to know about parallax correction with the optical viewfinder otherwise you might end up with the AF on the wrong spot. This is especially important when shooting the 35mm wide open at f1,4 where depths of field is very little.
- One thing I really love with the optical viewfinder is the ability to see outside the frame. This really helps me composing better pictures and I don't have to wave the camera around to see what is outside the "tunnel".

- I love the handling of this camera. Everything you need is at the right place: aperture ring, exposure comp., shutter speed. Just perfect. I love this "old school" layout better than the new cameras.

- The 35mm lens is simply amazing! It is super sharp and great colors. I love how it renders the picture.

- High iso is great. I feel I can use this camera under any lighting conditions.

Well, so far I am super happy with the camera. This week I will travel to Sweden to teach tap dance at the famous Herräng Dance Camp. There I will get a chance to test the camera a bit more. I will update this review as I gain more experience with it.

 So here are a few shots take with the XPro 1. Enjoy....

UPDATE! I just published a new blog post regarding shooting a wedding with the Fuji X100 and X-Pro 1