Yesterday afternoon I had a gig shooting Malcolm Mclaren for a couple of magazines here in Madrid at a Beefeater gin event covering the history of London punk. Normally using punk to sell something doesn´t sit well, but this is a vice and seems fitting. Anyhow, I met the next biggest thing in spanish fashion, Carlos Diez Diez and we took advantage of the fantastic location and did a few impromptu shots. This is my fav. For some reason some strange points of colored light where on his forehead so it looks like he was face down in the gutter....




Then I took a bunch of ambient shots of the old parking garage transformed into a fantastic party zone...








and this shot of a model getting made up.

casa cadiz, Luis Ramon Marin, and Luis's new place

I love the little bars in the center of Madrid that don't feel like you're in the center of a grand metropolis. Plus you get tapas with your beverage (not customary outside of andalucia).


This next shot was taken in my friend Luis's house. He was busy working on a new Dj session on Reason (a fantastic synth software) taking in the afternoon sun.


And this last shot was taken before going to see a great show of photographic work by Luis Ramón Marín from ~1920-1935 of Madrid. It was pretty spectacular to see some large format black and white shots printed extremely large that give a fantastic visual history of madrid. I also had a great conversation with an 88 year old man who was a prisoner of war during the Civil War here in Spain, and showed me the document proving the fact. Unfortunately I didn't get any shots of him. Looking back, that was really the one that got away this week....

I was watching this girl not move and watch everyone around her, while they sped by.

Harlan Ellison -- Pay the Writer

Just substitute writer with photographer and you'll get a feel for the industry right now. Creative industries in general are suffering because of this type of crap.

Kanye West

yeah, first video on my blog but soooo worth it.

chinese restaurant + brothel

I recently dug up these scans of a chinese restaurant + brothel that my friend Miguel from the band Catfish Haven bought.

Camara Oscura gallery

So I just went to the camara oscura gallery here in madrid. Interesting work up right now that the internet does no justice. Plus they have this really fantastic video piece that accompanies the photos of artist Carlos Cid. His landscape photos are transparent layers upon layers of trees. It makes a great reworking of a classic subject. I can't find a website portfolio so if anyone finds one, let me know.

casbah73

So I just can't sleep so I'm breaking the blog silence with new photos of casbah73 shot today in the sabatini gardens in Madrid. His myspace here. His work is funky and organic. Oh and he's also half Spanish, half American with a touch of a Scottish accent. Enjoy.

4x5s from whittier

So I was looking through my archives to drum up more stock images for photoshelter and came upon some of the shots I'd scanned from when I was in Whittier shooting my large format camera and a polaroid with 665 film. This shot reminded me what I missed about the area around my parent's house.

lusting over ham

It's been a bit since I felt like shooting anything in the streets of madrid that wasn't a bit controlled. I guess I just don't try and be a "street photographer". But every once in a while I go out with my camera and find something worth shooting that's all in the moment.



This is one of those moments. I see this all the time. People window shopping food. I mean if you walked by some place and saw like 30 cured hams, 70 sausages, and wheels upon wheels of cheese (give that you're not vegan) and it's lunch time you might be doing the same thing. Me, I was just loving the light and this woman just happened to be in the right place in the right time. This is one reason I also love my pentax screw mount lens. Small and inconspicuous, light and great bokeh (or background blur for you non photo nerds).

detail shots at home

So I was at home, hanging out with a couple of friends and mad posting here on friday. Afterwords I was really intent on creating some interesting detail shots of the people that were there. I limited my self to f16 and tons of on camera flash to get lots of detail and a terry richardson look (more or less, I mean he's really amazing, can't flatter myself too much). So here they are.

print exchange

Write me about print exchanges. Send me a link to my email caleb (at) calebcondit.com or a small jpg and we'll talk. 8x10's are best for this.

Sye williams

I'm really into this guy's work lately. He's trying to stay authentic, to explore. Here is his site. Definitely check out the video link on the front page. Its not the typical "look how cool my studio is and how hot this model is" video but rather about him and his documentary work. Real, honest. Love it.

tierra sagrada

My latest series I'm putting together is about my experience in Spain, documenting my first year here. Some are portraits, some "landscapes" and environmental photos of sorts.

m42 to eos adapters

So I love my canon L lenses. They're great, they're sharp and have pretty decent autofocus. But sometimes I miss just manual everything lenses and the tonalities I used to get on film with my old Pentax spotmatic camera. In comes cheap Chinese manufacturing to the rescue. For about 12 euros on ebay I picked up an adaptor and went on a search for the right lens. When I shot all manual cameras, I used a 50mm lens 99% of the time. When I was visiting Amsterdam in August, I went through the street market in search of a lens for my adaptor. The smc takumar 55mm 1.8 is pretty amazing. Sharp, a touch of warmth in the colors, and fantastic contrast. Here is a list of lenses compatible with a 5d, and here is a forum section dedicated to the concept.

The main issues to remember when adapting lenses to Canon Eos cameras are;

1. You're metering might not be perfect, so check your histogram, especially when stopping the lens down (ie f5.6 - 22 gives me darker shots at times) as there is no electronic communication to the camera about the lens settings.

2. Some wide angle lenses will not work with full frame Canon cameras as the mirror hits the back of the lens. Aps-c sensors such as on an xti, 40/30/20d etc will have more options but are harder to manually focus due to darker viewfinders.

3. You'll have to work a bit slower due to focusing manually and also focussing with the lens wide open and then stopping down to the desired aperture.

Ok, so I'm going to stop geeking out on gear and find something else to bore you with...

photoshelter collection

Photoshelter is starting a new stock collection. If you get images up and going before November 5, they give you a whopping 85% of all sales. The great things about the upcoming collection (coming from a collaborator's point of view) is that they are want to push the envelope and provide high quality non-traditional stock, allow photographers to price their own photos (nothing below $50), and everything is done via web as far as submissions go. In this day and age, sending a disk to a stock agency vs. just sending shots to the server via internet is wasteful in regards to time and plastic. Working out of Spain and sending shots to another country via fedex/ups/dhl is just one more business expense as well. In an increasingly competitive market, every penny counts.

Self Portraits

So I had an interesting conversation via email with a young photographer that just from where I also went to highschool, in Springville, Iowa. When I went to school there we had 10 cameras and a full black and white darkroom at our fingertips. I was lucky enough to be able to start shooting at a young age of 12 because of the great facilities.

Anyhow, her assignment was simple, an 8x10 print in an acetate sleeve of a self portrait. She sent me some examples and I gave my critique, some advice. Below I'll rehash my ideas the ol' blog.

In going in depth about what I thought made a good self portrait turned into what inspires me and what makes up interesting photography in general. For me it comes down to the fact that photography is a form of visual communication. I had a great friend, scott polach give me the advice to always try and tell a story. "Who doesn't love a story?", he said. That has stuck with me since then and been a great help when I'm stuck when editing my book or thinking about a new project. It's not that an 8 image narrative sequence is necessary and it can be much harder at times to say all you want to say in one image.

I then went to show her some of my images that I've done about exploring the summer house I stay in with my wife's family in Loja, Spain.


"capturing the light 1"

"exploring : bathroom"

In the end, when discussing self portraits and portraits in general, honest communication and good technical finishing really makes it for me.

Brand Spankin new blog

So, I'm finally starting a blog. Well it's actually my 3rd blog but I'm doing it right this time around, I promise. I figure that I'll try and keep all those updated that are interested in what I do as a photographer. I've learned so much from others and want to give back.