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About Juza...
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| Tanzania, 2008. Bathing in a waterfall near Lake Natron. |
I was born in Italy in 1985 and I have
always been fascinated by nature, travel, exploration. I
got my first SLR, a Nikon N60 film camera, in 1999, so I
begun taken photos of nature subjects. Initially
photography wasn't my passion - I toke photos just to
"record" the subject on film, but with time I have got
more and more involved into photography, that now has
become my great passion.
I switched to digital in
2004, and in 2005 I switched to Canon. At that time
Canon had far better technology than Nikon, but nowadays
things have changed a lot and both Canon and Nikon
offers excellent lenses and cameras. Even tough I own only five lenses - 4 Canon and 1
Sigma - I take photos with tons of lenses and cameras
from nearly every manufacturer...I often get lenses from
Sigma, Tamrom and other brands both for reviewing and for field
testing, and I really enjoy testing equipment. I am
fascinated by technology, in particular by high end
digital cameras and by lenses.
Nowadays, I am a
full time professional nature photographer. I have read
countless discussions about the definition of "nature
photographer"; honestly, I don't care very much ;-) For
me being a nature photographer means walking in
grass fields at sunrise to take macro photos; being
fascinated by the view of a little bug; watching with
awe a sunset between the mountains, when the landscape
is bathed into the golden light...
I have begun
using Photoshop years ago and now I consider it an
essential component of my work. Photoshop is an
extraordinary tool and I highly recommend to everyone to
spend some time learning how to post-process his photos:
being able to careful post process a photo is almost as
important as being able to master the techniques in the
field! In my photos, I try to depict vivid, intense
colors, rich contrast and great detail; post processing
helps to materialize the vision I have in my mind when I
take the photo...it is a way to give a personal style to
the photos. A very important thing for me is to maintain
a realistic look: I don't like the photos that show
evident post-processing artifacts, as composites and
many HDR photos; I believe that a well done post
processing should be "transparent": the final photo
should look great, but it must not look "artificial".
Other than nature, I love travelling and
exploring other countries. Until 2007, I had never been
outside Italy, then one morning of August I thought about
reaching North Cape with my car...it is just 11,000 km
away :-) Two week after I left Italy for a long
on-the-road trip between Germany, Denmark, Sweden and
Norway, until I reached North Cape. My only travel mate,
a Canon 20D, allowed me to take photos of the raw beauty
of Norway.
After this first - fantastic -
experience, I have done countless other trips all around
the world. I have a good lens/camera lineup and I don't
plan to change it until it breaks, so I invest all my
photo budget for travels...the world is large and I want
to see it all :-) In the image galleries of JuzaPhoto
you can see all the best photos I have taken both in
Italy and during my trips.
About
JuzaPhoto
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| Costa Rica, 2008. Enjoying the relaxing atmosphere of the magnificent Boungavillea Gardens. |
I have created this
website in March 2004 to showcase a dozen of photos,
and with time it has grown beyond every expectation!
I enjoy writing articles about photography,
equipment and travel, and when I have begun to
publish these articles on JuzaPhoto, they have
attracted great interest. Nowadays, the website
contains countless photos, hundreds of articles, an
active forum and much more!
A thing that makes JuzaPhoto
different from all other popular photography websites is the
lack of advertising. On my pages you will never see Google
Ads, banners or other kind of ads. I hate advertising and I
am glad to offer thousands of pages without a single ad!
I have created this website
both in my native language, Italian, an in English, so every
time I write an article I write it in both languages. Other
than that, I create by myself every page of the website
(except for the forum), using Expression Web for the HTML code
and Photoshop for the layout. It takes a lot of time, but it
is a work I love, and it is a great satisfaction to know
that my work is appreciated and it has helped a lot of
persons: today the website has about 2000 visits/day, and it
keeps growing :-)
Equipment
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| Italy, 2009. Handholding the Sigma 200-500 f/2.8 lens (no, I haven't bought it...but I loaned it from Sigma and I loved it :-) |
Even the best equipment does not guarantee good photos;
nevertheless, having the right tools helps a lot, in
particular for the technical aspects of the photo. A
camera with great AF helps to get more sharp photos; a
long, high-quality lens helps to capture shy subjects,
etc. I have carefully chosen each component of my
equipment; nearly everything is described in the
articles. Currently I shoot with Canon 1DsIII, Canon
500D, Sigma 12-24 f/4.5-5.6, Canon 24-105 f/4 IS, Canon
180 f/3.5 Macro, Canon 300 f/2.8 IS and Canon 600 f/4
IS, plus Canon 1.4x and 2.0x extenders and Transcend 32
GB CF and SDHC cards. I have a Manfrotto 055 XWNB tripod
with Manfrotto 410 gear head, Manfrotto 486 RC2 ball
head and PhotoSeiki gimbal head.
The Photographer
at work
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| Swizerland, 2007. Taking photos in the snow (at -20 celsius degrees) with the Canon 400 f/2.8 IS. |
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| Ireland, 2009. On the edge of Cliffs Of Moher...few minutes after this photo, the wind made my Sigma 12-24 fell down..ouch! |
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| Italy, 2007. Nature photography is watching with awe a sunset between the mountains, when the landscape is bathed into the golden light... |
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| Madagascar, 2009. Watching the landscape in the Isalo National Park. |
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| Argentina, 2010. The "La Estacion" in Puerto Piramide, Valdes Peninsula. |
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