Ronny Gabriels Photography

Lately I'm doing some trials with timelaps photography.  It's actually harder than I thought, especially the changing lighting conditions when you do it during the day are a real pain.  I have put my first attempt on my site (watch it below). 
I'm not gonna give up in trying to make some really fun videos with timelaps, but I think I'm gonna need to do some more research.  Hope you enjoy this first try.  Let me know what you think and if you have any more tips for me on how to control the conditions, please let me know.  I'm very open to suggestions about this.

The first weekend of June saw the highlight of the still very young season of the BTCS championship with the 12 hour race at Spa-Francorchamps circuit. Saturday was jam packed with great races leading up to the big event. It started with the European GT4 Cup. GT4 might not be as popular as the GT1 or GT3 championships, but it's a unique race nonetheless, since the GT4 calendar is not that packed.



After the GT4 cup, the Belcar Endurance race was held over 150 minutes at the Ardennes circuit. Not only did we see the wonderful Belcar fields rolling out, the field was extended with cars from the British GT and Aston Martin Challenge to make for a very large and diversified field that actually had to start in two waves.



But then at around 2PM, the BTCS cars got the green flag to start their 12 hour race. Sadly I wasn't there for the start. I actually drove to Spa twice that day because I had to attend a wedding reception in Mechelen in the afternoon. But I got back about two hours before sunset and I must say that it had something magical. The golden hours of the day did not only make for nice pictures, but also for a wonderful atmosphere. I had to say I was a bit disappointed in the number of spectators, but it was great nonetheless. I actually didn't shoot too many pictures of the BTCS because it was just a treat to watch the race go by at dusk. As always you can find more photos on my site. The direct link to the gallery is: http://ronnygabriels.smugmug.com/Public/Racing-Season-2010/12H-of-BTCS

Almost a month after the fact, I finally got through all the photos of the Le Mans Series. I know it took quite a while, but I really let myself get dragged into shooting way too much frames. Over 4000 in one day amounting to over 12GB of harddisk space (luckily I don't shoot RAW at the races). But hey, I'm not complaining since I got some great shots, found some new angles of the Spa circuit that deliver high quality shots and in the end had a great time with my favourite of championships.


My price shot of the day must be this shot of the BMW M3 GT2

Here are some other good ones, and as always, you can find a lot more on my site. The direct link to the photos is: http://ronnygabriels.smugmug.com/Public/Racing-Season-2010/1000km-of-Spa-2010. Enjoy!

Last week, my sister invited me to go and shoot in a small nature preserve in Oud-Turnhout called "De Liereman". As good nature photographers, we got up way too early in the morning to go and shoot the sunrise.





Sadly, the sun never broke through the clouds that morning, so it wasn't as spectacular as we had hoped. Of course that didn't stop us from getting a few shots of.



You can find some of the shots on my site. Enjoy.

Last weekend I was invited by my buddy Kris to go and shoot a local festival with him. The "Straatfeesten" in Kalmthout is a three stage local festival that was at it's 34th edition this weekend. Kris is more or less the official photographer of this festival, so it gave me not only the opportunity to try my first concert photography, but also get some tips from someone who has done this quite a few times before in the meantime.

The first thing I quickly learned that fast lenses are vital for concert photography. So I worked with only two lenses all day, my "24-105 f4" and "50mm F1.4" and even with those lenses, ISO's had to be pushed towards 1000 or more quite often. So a camera that can handle those ISO settings without too much noise is a nice addition to your kit. And all this because artists don't like to flash, tssss. My respect for concert photographers has grown considerably since Sunday.

Luckily I had two seasoned phtographers there to answer my questions and give me tips. I have to say that concert photogrpahy is unlike anything I have done before. The rules of aperture, shutterspeed and light seem to be completely different because of the fast changing conditions of the lighting and actions of the artists. So it was a bit trial and error, but in the end the photos I brought home were not as bad as I had feared.


I uploaded the best photos to my site. You can check them out on my site. But the photos were also added to the official site of the festival. There my photos are paired with those of the other photographers Kris and Patrick. This can give you an idea of how my photos stand up to those of the more experienced guys. The website is http://www.straatfeesten.com/.

Lastly, big thanks to Kris for the invitation! You can find his work via his blog http://raptordigital.blogspot.com/ or website http://digital.raptor-tec.be/.

The end of April marked the occasion of getting our first membership cards of the Antwerp Zoo. We go several times a year and now with the membership we can go whenever we want without paying anymore, ... sweet. That means that you will be seeing some more animal photography this summer. OK it might not be as spectacular as last year’s trip to the US, but hey, the animals still fascinate me.


Our first trip was to the Antwerp Zoo (Planckendael in Mechelen is also included in the membership). Now the Antwerp Zoo's main attraction these days is the one-year old elephant Kai-Mook. A cute little fellow and something you can watch for hours especially the interaction with the other elephant. I'm always a little sad to see the pen being a little small and fenced in (Planckendael is better in that respect), but for the space they have in Antwerp, they have some room to play nonetheless.



I'm always surprised in how many different animals are actually in the Antwerp Zoo and although the big cats are probably some of the most impressive, there are others that, if they can be viewed outside like the hippos below, are very impressive as well.


There is also a lot of building going on. Some animals are getting new pens and those include the lions. Their current pen is just not big enough in my opinion, so I'm glad the see they are getting the upgrade.



But a Zoo is not only the big animals, but the small ones as well. The most industrious little buggers were definitely the meerkats. If you have ever watched the wonderful BBC documentary series on these animals you know they are busy animals in the wild. I must say, they are just as busy in captivity. Sadly because they have no predators to worry about, standing on their hind legs is not something you see often at the Zoo, but hey, they're just fun to watch anyway.



For more photos from our first trip to the Zoo this year, please check out the gallery on the website. You can go there directly by clicking here.

Finally some new photos on the site and this time they are from a shoot I did in Antwerp a couple of weeks ago.  The idea was to shoot the Antwerp justice building at dusk. It was something I wanted to do for a long time since I drive by that building every day and it is, in my opinion, one of the iconic buildings in Antwerp. Another reason for the shoot is the fact that I’m making a series on Antwerp for a photography store that shows different scenes from Antwerp in not the most obvious way. I think the justice building is not only a good subject at dusk, but the hyper-modern face of the building shows of the contrast between the old historic side and the new modern side of Antwerp.



A little “tourist” information about the justice building, "Justitiepaleis" in Dutch. The building was designed Richard Rogers, the man behind designs as Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Millenium Dome in London.  It was opened officially on the 28th of March 2006 and is considered one of the most important architectural highlights in Belgium of the 21st century. 



I love the building but I have to say that it’s a bit of a challenge to get a good shot of it. The most accessible side of the building is on the Bolivar place in front of the building and in this shoot I limited myself to that vantage point.  You can get shots from behind the building, but that’s much more difficult because most of the space behind the building are highways and private grounds.  It won’t be the last time I shoot this building, but I have to say I am happy with the result of this shoot.



You can find the album on my site here. Enjoy and let me know what you think.