The model was a friend of my daughter’s in the late '90's. During a shoot with the two of them goofing around, I asked the girl to toss her head up and scream as loud as she could... at which instant I popped the shutter and the flash caught her hair in full flight!

Canon EOS 100 + EF 100 mm fixed focal with 2 x 250 Watt Elinchrom flash heads in 60 x 60 cm soft boxes. Shot on Fuji Reala 100 ISO print film, scanned to digital on a Canon FS 2710 film scanner. Only post processing was conversion to monochrome.

Christiane !!

Baptism of our first grandson Luigi Gallucci.

No flash natural lighting from bedroom window.

Luigi's Baptism

18 Carat white gold, 30 grams
Mirror polish
Green Tsavorite eyes (of garnet family)
Engraving inside band: “Leap of Faith”
Price: sell the Merc :-)

But this isn’t even the expensive one…
The owner of the studio where I work has an amazing daughter, Pam, who designs, markets and sells high end jewelry.
She walks in one day with a MASSIVE bird ring on her finger… same size as this one above, but with the addition of a couple hundred tiny diamonds and sapphires. Absolutely stunning.
So I asks her what’s her friendly price (like Valentine’s day’s comin’ up soon…) and she says “Fifty” and I’m feeling great cause I happened to have a 50 Euro note on me which I whipped out and slapped on the table…
OK, the look she gave me said “ummm, it’s the fifty with the big K after it… duh-uh !”
Ooops.

Meanwhile, an artist at the studio doing her first big album fell in love with the ring and also made the mistake of asking how much…
But there was a solution. Make a duplicate ring, but without the stones.
Which came to pass and the finished ring was presented today, in the bar of Studio C, with pink Champagne and there were smiles all around and everyone lived happily eva afta :-))

But before handing it over, there needed to be pictures. I set up my studio flash and stuff and reeled off 20-some macro shots, one or two of which did it justice (I hope)… and another 10 or so with the ring on the creator’s finger.

I found a shot I took of my daughter Melanie in her teens, looked kinda classy... so I took one of the shots of the duplicate ring on Pam's finger and placed it in the foreground while adding blur to the shot of Melanie to give the semblance of depth.

So you CAN wear the ring and keep the Merc :-)

Background portrait of Melanie: Canon EOS 100 + EF 100 mm fixed focal on Fuji Reala 100 ISO color print film.

Pam's ringed hand: Canon EOS 5D MkI + EF 100 mm fixed focal.

Bling Thing

I tried to explain to Scratch, our unforgettable Siamese, that this picture was a fluke and that he wasn’t really looking through the viewfinder… so he jumped up on the chest and did it again and snapped the shutter this time. Pity for him I didn’t have the camera out for that one. Silly, silly cat!

Canon EOS 100 + EF 28-80 USM, shot on Fuji Reala 100 ISO color print film.

Scratchfield

Four takes with Canon EOS 100 + EF 100 mm fixed focal on Fuji Reala 100 ISO color print film. Lighting: 2 Elinchrom 250W flash heads in 60 cm soft box.
Blended in Photoshop 6.0 using motion blur.

Hate The Camera

Our 2019 vacation in Montreal was the occasion of our 4th grandson's baptism. Probably even more hectic than the previous three, I honestly don't have a clue how daughter Melanie manages to juggle constantly tending to the four of them when they're all together at home, 2 of whom at this point are still in diapers.

So when this situation arose: Melanie feeding the toddler with Luigi and Romeo straight from the tub demanding equal attention... a natural reflex drew my camera's aim. Don't remember where Matteo was at the time. Probably raising hell with his dad in the next room...

Lady Madonna

Daughter Melanie with grandsons Luigi and Matteo, revving up for a thrilling descent!

One of my favorite portraits, I like the strong triangular composition, the perpendicular positions of the arms and the three variant levels of apprehension. Not to mention the fun!

Slide !

Our daughter Melanie was married to Arthur Gallucci in January. That was the civil wedding in Belgium which was an amazing event. But so was their church wedding which happened in August 2007 in Montreal where they now live.

I wasn’t the official photographer (hey, Dad’s gotta take a break now and then to enjoy a wedding, yeah?), but I did take nearly 400 pictures of which I probably got about 30 or 40 decent ones covering our two weeks in Montreal before and during the event.

This one just came up by chance. The priest was busy at the alter during part of the ceremony, and Mel and Art happened to turn and smile when I had my camera handy… which was admittedly just about the whole time.

Canon EOS 5D MkI, EF 16-35L, 1/20 sec, f7.1, 16mm. Eglise de la Visitation, oldest church in Montreal.

Dearly Beloved

The Palais de Justice in Brussels is one of the largest, and certainly one of the most imposing buildings in western Europe. It's where the courtrooms are, and if you ever have the guts to venture in without having done something bad enough to get you in for free, you'll totally understand what Kafka was about in "The Trial". A maze of stone corridors and somber court rooms.

Having used a wide angle lens, the angles were severely distorted. So I straightened the convergence with Photoshop’s transform and warp tools and also corrected some of the dynamic so the fabulous architectural features were preserved.

Canon EOS 100, EF 28-80 USM, shot on Ilford 400 ISO B/W print film.

Justice For All

They kept some of their animals in unusual cages, but this brick Flemish Renaissance Revival house was the last place I expected to find a rhino.

I was lucky enough to have my camera ready when he stuck his snout in the doorway!

The Rhino Cage

This house was next to my father-in-law’s place in the Algarve, southern Portugal, and every morning these dogs rested their snouts in these roof windows while taking a snooze. They couldn’t believe I waited almost a week before taking their picture!

Shot with a Canon EOS-100 SLR and 28-80 USM lens on Fuji Reala 100 ISO color print film. No post processing.

Algarve Dogs

Taken from top of the Empire State Building, NYC, 10:00 PM, sometime in July of early 1990's… all that was missing was the Batman logo reflecting off the overcast sky, and strains of Gershwin melodies riding on the wind.
In fact it was so windy up there I had to jam my lightweight tripod against the wall with my knee to keep everything still. Out of 8 takes from 4 different views, this was the only one to come out sharp enough to use...

Originally shot on Fuji 100 ISO color print film with a Canon EOS-100 SLR and EF 28-80 USM lens, scanned to digital on a Canon FS-2710 negative scanner, then seriously edited in Photoshop. Converting the color image to BW amplified the discreet effect that the evening smog put on the various light sources and increased the overall dynamic.

Aside from the BW conversion (simply destaurated the master), I have to admit this take has been seriously tweaked, mainly using level and contrast tools in Photoshop in selected areas… kind of like the way a dark room technician would dodge and burn a BW print from a negative a gazillion years ago…

Recently I decided to make a final edit and straightened the inward slope of the outer buildings resulting from the 28 mm focal length used for the shot.

I have sold more of this image than all the rest of my portfolio put together.

Sleepless In Manhattan

Don’t know how many times I stayed at the Achat Hotel near the airport in Frankfurt, Germany before I finally got a picture of their neon sign. This a was actually some time around 1995… stumbling back from a ‘good night out’, I’d said goodbye to everyone I was trying to impress with my cool, switched to super-geek mode, and went to my room and fished out the SLR and tripod (being a natural-born geek I never travel without that stuff natch)…

Not normal at all around that area to set up a tripod in front of a hotel at 2AM… but geeks don’t care about stuff like that. So I reeled off a couple of shots. And as this was taken on film, I wouldn’t know how crap these shots had turned out till I got the reel developed after I got back to Brussels, complete with 3,250 dust specks…. So now, many years down the road and with the aid of a neg scanner and a bit of digital pulling and stretching and tone adjustment and stuff, this is a cropped version which I think does this amazing facade justice. Finally.

Canon EOS 100 + EF 28-80 USM on Fuji Reala 100 ISO color print film, scanned to digital on a Canon FS 2710 film scanner.

Heartbreak Hotel

This is one of the first images I ever shot with an SLR, a rural winter scene in Tervuren, Belgium. Probably around 1985, but no way to be sure as on film all you got was the film type and ISO value... absolutely no digital date coding on the frame!

Canon EOS 100 Elan with EF 28-80 mm zoom, on Kodak 100 ISO print film.

Scanned to digital on a Canon FS 2710 film scanner.

Unusually for me, no post processing whatsoever. This is about as analog as it gets on my planet :-)

Winter In Tervuren

Slumming it in Montreux, Switzerland during a 3-day ski weekend put on by my wife`s company at the time, this was the view out our hotel window only minutes before cocktails and aprés-ski.

Took 3 panned shots on a light weight tripod (very rarely travel without that puppy) and stitched them together manually in Photoshop 6.0.

Shot with a Canon EOS 100 SLR + EF 28-80 USM on Fuji Reala, 100 ISO color print film.
Negatives scanned to digital with Canon FS 2710 film scanner.

Mountain Lake At Dusk

Florida is a state where historic treasure lies in the most unlikely places…
Nestled between the pristine lawns of Palm Coast`s elegant developments and the endless sands of Flagler Beach is the ruins of the ancient Bulow sugar plantation.

Accessing this beautiful state park from the beach, the change of scenery is amazing… overhanging trees covered with spanish moss, with the pointed leaves of palmetto shrubs jutting out like Flamenco dancer’s fans. And on this particular path leading up to the site of the decaying shell of the once flourishing mill, you never know what’s gonna jump out from behind one of those spooky trees and slither towards you faster than you thought it could…

When I took this shot, an afternoon thunderstorm was approaching from behind (like WAY spooky…don’t think I’d ever felt more alone and vulnerable to the elements in my life!), and I believe that such atmospheric change can affect the results you get from infrared photography.

Shot on Kodak high speed B/W infrared film with a Mamiya 35mm SLR (with manual film advance!!), 1/60 sec. at f16.

Print scanned on an Epson V500 flatbed scanner to digital, no post processing. See my image 

 for more info on shooting with Infrared film.

Gators and Lizards and Snakes... Oh My!

As Infrared film works on reflected heat rather than light, there are interesting contrasts between different surfaces. Stone and brickwork tend to process similar to conventional B/W film while grass and foliage become white as snow and blue skies become dark, sometimes almost black (see Alone On Stilts).

I felt the overall effect enhanced the feeling of isolation and decay that engulfs the actual loaction.

Shot on Kodak high speed B/W infrared film with a Mamiya 35mm SLR (with manual film advance!!), 1/60 sec. at f16 with red filter over the 50 mm lens.

Bulow Plantation

Shot on Kodak high speed B/W infrared film with a Mamiya 35mm SLR with manual film advance... the infra red frame counter on my auto wind Canon EOS 100 would have fogged the film. 1/30 sec. at f16, with a red filter over the 50 mm lens. No post processing.

The cool thing about infrared film is that you never know what you’re gonna get. As infrared is exposed by heat from reflected surfaces rather than light, atmospheric conditions can actually alter exposure values, especially in the late summer heat of Florida, so you need to bracket like crazy. This was one of 5 bracketed shots.

Plus the fact that the smallest amount of light will immediately cloud the film, so changing reels needs to be done in a totally blackened room.

Though infrared filters on digital cameras give similar results such as making green foliage look like it’s covered with snow, the added charm of the actual film is the heavy grain due to the high speed sensitivity.

My infrared film was developed and printed by someone who did the job much better than I ever could have. I shot this around 1995 and I don't even know who would be able to process it these days. This upload is from the print scanned on an Epson V500 flatbed.

Alone On Stilts

Location: Florida, Indian River Fruit stand between Palm Coast and Flagler Beach.

Shot on Kodak high speed B/W infrared film with a Mamiya 35mm SLR (with manual film advance!), 1/30 sec. at f16, red filter over the 50 mm lens.

Indian River Fruit

It’s the tackiest souvenir/shell shop on the A1A near St. Augustine, Fla. Which means it’s probably the most wonderful souvernir/shell shop in the world. The guy on the porch is actually a dummy, which I think was for sale. Or it was the shopkeeper’s embalmed husband… I should have looked closer I guess, but I was just so amazed at all the other wonderful stuff. Parts of the A1A are actually in danger of erosion from the ever receding shoreline. It will be such a sad day when places like this are no longer.


Shot on Kodak high speed B/W infrared film with a Mamiya 35mm SLR (with manual film advance!), 1/60 sec. at f16, with red filter over the 50 mm lens.

Print scanned on an Epson V500 flatbed scanner to digital, no post processing. See my image Alone On Stilts for more info on shooting with Infrared film.

Gaspar's Shop

We drove to Gibraltar with some friends. Having never been there before and had only seen pictures and tales of apes, I didn’t quite know what to expect. But I never could have dreamed I’d see this lenticular cloud just hanging out atop the rock as the morning mist rose. Don’t know whether or not it’s a common occurrence, but it was a sight I’ll never forget. This is one awesome place and I’m glad I had the camera.

Shot with a Canon EOS 100 + EF 28-80 USM on Fuji Reala 100 ISO print film.

The Rock

The early morning summer mist rises above Cape St. Vincent in the Algarve on the southwestern tip of Portugal.

For me, the Algarve, and especially the rugged coast near Sagres, has the most stunning land and seascapes in Europe.
Its history goes way back to when Portugal ruled the waves and many landmark discoveries that changed the world’s maps were launched from this magnificent place.

Shot on Fuji Sensia slide film absolute yonks ago, I’m still going through tons of negatives and slides that have been forgotten since the world went digital and took me along with it.

As for the shooting conditions, I don’t know what the fuk I was doing up at that time of day (Sagres was at least an hour’s drive from my cozy bed in Carvoeiro)… and this is one of the few times I felt that the presence of tourists worked for me in a landscape shot.

Canon EOS 100 + EF 28-80 USM on Fuji Sensia 100 ISO color slide film. Scanned to digital on a Canon FS 2710 film scanner, converted to BW in Photoshop 6.0.

Cape St. Vincent

OK, I know there’s a gazillion pier pictures out there…
So this makes a gazillion-and-one!

Taken at Flagler Beach, 45 mins south of Daytona, Florida.
Don’t know how many times it’s been knocked down into the sea by storms, but the people of Flagler like to fish and they need a pier to fish from and so they build it back up again even stronger than it was.
But for the mo, tide`s out, fish are snappin’…
No pressure…

Canon 5D MkI, 16-35mm, 3 bracketed shots put together and tone mapped in Photomatix.

Bill Funk

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