Olivier Monteux Photography

My favorites Photographers blogs

Olivier M. — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:36:48 +0000

Lately, some of my friends asked me what are the best photographers blogs on internet.
I answered swiftly: “It depends of your own artistic view, after all, the best blog for a fashion photographer is different than the one for a wedding photographer”.
But I still promised that I’ll do a post with my own favorites! And I think in a future post I’ll write about my favorites websites too.
So here we go:

Blogs I check almost everyday:
- Strobist The best place to learn some new tricks for your lighting equipment!
- Chase Jarvis This guy is… Wait for it… Awesome! Really, he is a good photographer and never hesitates to share his thoughts with the community!
- Scott Kelby’s Photoshop Insider Lot’s of infos on photoshop and lightroom, great guests posts etc… A must!

Blogs I check once a week:

- Joe McNally’s Damn I dig this guy, he’s Funny and incredibly talented : Give him a speedlight and he’ll do a good shoot anywhere! (Even at the top of the empire state building)
- Zack Arias His Onelight Dvd is a must have for a beginner photographer and the blog is full of good tips!
- Vincent Laforet I think he is more a filmmaker than a photographer nowadays but, hell, he is good! (Remember the first canon 5DmkII video ‘Reverie’ shoot in 2days? It’s him!)
- Lighting-Essentials Don GIannatti aka Wizwow is a strong opinionated guy and I like that! Well his blog is also full of tips to learn how to light!
- Canon Rumors Well I’m a Canon Shooter and a Geek! (Worry not my Nikon lovers: Nikon Rumors is the place for you!)

Blogs I check sometimes:
- Joey L The young prodigy!
- Melissa Rodwell Nice Advices on the Fashion world!
- Lightroom Killer Tips By Matt Kloskowski hey I use lightroom for 80% of all my photos needs
- The F STOP mag Lot’s of pictures to activate your creativity
- Drew Gardner A talented Photographer who doesn’t blog enough! But when he does, it’s always interesting.

And that’s it! And you what are your favorites blogs, the ones you check everyday?

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Barcelona Mini-retirement

Olivier M. — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 19:46:35 +0000

Following Tim Ferriss Advice in his book The 4-Hour workweek, I’m taking my first ‘mini-retirement’ in May, I’ll spend 5 weeks in Barcelona, I’ve rent a nice flat (no hotel this time) and took my flight tickets. I’m planning to (re)learn spanish and try new things like Learning Salsa or just take my time to make new friends.

It’s my ‘first’ time choosing to go alone somewhere, I mean all of my life I traveled with friends, girlfriends or relatives and never really alone, I think reinventing yourself and creating new challenges, whether your a photograph or not, is always a good thing.
If, like me, your someone who gets bored really fast, you should really read Tim Ferriss book’s, it could open your eyes on so many things.

I hesitated a lot for this first mini-retirement between New-York and Barcelona but in the end I knew I wanted to spend at least 2-3 months in New-York, while this time I could only leave for 1 month, so Barcelona became the obvious choice.

I’ve already been to Barcelona last year for 14 days and enjoyed it, but I really didn’t do many things while in there, so this time I’ll really try to live like a Local, and shoot everything I can with my conpadre the 5D MKII !

You can see below some photos I took last year, with my little canon G10, I did travel light and regretted it, so seriously guys, if your a photographer don’t be a pussy and just take your big gun everywhere with you!

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Random thoughts

Olivier M. — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 18:20:17 +0000

First post in a while, didn’t really know where to begin so let’s do a little recap of the last months for me: Been to Barcelona, done a lot of shooting in Paris, got a little ill and didn’t had any feeling to post on my own blog for some months…

Well it’s a new year now and it’s time for me to work again, and I can tell you 2010 will be a good year for me!

I’ve done a little lifting on this blog, adding some new wordpress pluggin and I’ve changed my portfolio page using only the flash slider of flickr in it. Maybe I’ll do another website just to showcase my pictures or I’ll change the portfolio section again, don’t know we’ll see later.

On another note here is a book you should all read: The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich

It’s a life changer, weather your a photographer, a student, a CEO, or just an employee in some big company, don’t be fooled by the title who look like a scam and do yourself a favor: buy this book! I’ll certainly talk more about this book and the Lifestyle Design on some upcoming blog post.

This blog will be updated more often starting from today, I’ll talk mostly about photography and travel, so don’t hesitate to follow me on twitter, RSS feed, or on facebook!

I you wonder about the photography on your left it’s a picture I took in Barcelona at Park Güell with my little Canon G10

Barcelona Mini-retirement

Asomnie the film

Olivier M. — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 16:52:52 +0000

Asomnie is a short film directed by my good friend Damien Serban (www.damienserban.com) & Yann Bertrand, shot with a cellphone and produced by Arte, 3xPlus and Le Forum des Images.

The synopsis: “A young woman had an operation removing the need to sleep. We follow her in a world where dreams break out into real life.”

It will be diffused for the first time at Le Forum des Images (www.forumdesimages.net) in Paris the 13 June at 19h30 for the famous Pocket Films festival (www.festivalpocketfilms.fr). The entrance is free so anyone can come! The official website: http://www.asomnie.com

Damien and Yann have been doing shorts films for quite some time now and their film Silken won numerous awards : http://www.silken.fr (and was diffused on Arte, a French TV channel, this month)

Check the trailer here:

Asomnie (teaser)
envoyé par AbsintheStudio – Court métrage, documentaire et bande annonce.

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5D Mark II Firmware 1.1.0 Available

Olivier M. — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 16:32:36 +0000

The long awaited firmware update for my beloved Canon 5D MKII is here! We finally get manual settings for the video mode, yes !! And there’s some minor bug fix too, for others functions. Maybe I’ll try to shoot some videos with the 5D now.

So if you’ve got one, go update it here:
http://web.canon.jp/imaging/eosd/firm-e/eos5dmk2/firmware.html

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Lila’s shooting

Olivier M. — Sun, 03 May 2009 19:51:27 +0000

This week I shot Lila N (http://www.lilanoufais.book.fr) a beautiful french model i’ve know for 7 years now. I was a little intimidated since I knew she shot with others goods photographers. I wanted this shot to be really great so I needed to find a make-up artist in 2 days and Fleur (http://www.fleur-xu.book.fr/) came to my rescue!

I tried my best to do an edito/fashion type of shoot and I used my Profoto beauty dish as main light, a canon 580EXII in a JS apollo softbox and another 580EXII with a grid.

I think it’s one of my best series so far but I know I can do and will do even better in the near future!

Here is the lighting diagram using the cool tool on this website: http://www.lightingdiagrams.com/Creator

lighting-diagram-lila-shoot

And don’t forget to add me on facebook or twitter to follow my updates!

Joane first shooting

Olivier M. — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 15:57:08 +0000

Last week I’ve done my first test shooting with Joane a very beautiful new model, and i’ve been able to try for the first time my new profoto comptact R600 and beauty dish.
Well the beauty dish light rocks! (I tried the mola mantti beauty dish at the workshop ‘shooting and workflow‘ and it was also incredible, i’ll have to buy me one someday)
And I can’t wait to work again with Joane in a more creative shoot.

On a side note, I’ve finished reading ‘the moment it clicks’ from Joe McNally, and it was definitely good, i’ve ordered ‘The hot shoe diaries’ now.

Workshop People and Beauty

Olivier M. — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 20:14:37 +0000

Last week-end I’ve attended my first ever photography workshop. I’ve learnt a lot in this ‘shooting and Workflow‘ workshop (2days and almost 17 hours), a lot about lighting, a lot about profoto and some new tips for lightroom.
Olivier Chauvignat is a good instructor, if you have a decent level in photography and are interested in studio shoot. I wouldn’t really recommend this specific workshop to a beginner it could be boring for him sometime. But Olivier offers a lot of other workshops of different levels. Check it out on www.peopleandbeauty.com and www.olivier-chauvignat.com

I discovered that a workshop is, for me, a little frustrating, you don’t really own the shoot, I mean it’s not your photography. What I love the most in photography is the creative freedom it offers, but I really need to be the one in charge of the shooting not just the one who click…

Anyway I think I’ll try other workshops (but not too often), and maybe the medium format one, I’d love to try and learn how to use an Hasselblad.

Some pictures done at the workshop:

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Camille first Shooting

Olivier M. — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 18:21:32 +0000

Last week I was finally able to try my new camera in a real shooting with Camille. It was her first time in a studio shoot. She Had to warm up for a little time but after she was doing pretty good, a natural cute girl.
I have to say the 5D MKII is quite incredible, so much better than the first one or the 40D.

I had a small problem though, I shoot tethered to my macbook and lightroom 2 and sometimes when I took a lot of frames very fast, they wouldn’t be downloaded on the computer and I had to disconnect the camera (happily the photos were still saved on the memory card) don’t know if it’s because of the large raw files but i’ll have to test this again.

The shoot was done the strobist way, with 3 canon 580 EXII, pocket wizard, one softbox Wescott JS Appolo 70×70cm and one shoot through white umbrella.

Calibrating monitors…

Olivier M. — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 19:33:30 +0000

Today while I was editing photos of my last shooting I had so much difference between what I was seeing on my macbook, my cintiq 12WX and my Samsung SynMaster T260 monitor, that I decided to try to calibrate all my monitors using the eye-one display 2.

I first tried the normal way with the software offered with the eye-one : Match 3, the result weren’t really good on the macbook, so I decided to try the demo version of ColorEyes Display Pro, a software I heard of on some forums. After one hour , all I had was a blank screen and nothing I could do… Had to connect another monitor so I could change the profile… not a really good experience!

So I tried again Eye-One Match 3 with some advanced settings thanks to the blog questionsphoto.com (In French) and this time I finally got some great colors on my macbook ! Settings: White point D65, Gamma 2.2, Luminance 110cd/m² with less ambient light.

With 4 hours lost in total I don’t think I’ll try again calibrating with Coloreyes display pro, too much things to do but I would love to explore this software more since it’s supposed to be the top maybe I just did something wrong in the setup.
Update: ok on the website of integrated color they say there is a lot of problems with Mac OSX 10.5.6 (what I use as you expect) … Need to wait for the next version before I can really evaluate this software.

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