A Photo Shoot with Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao Before Their Historic Fight

Boxing superstars Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao are set to engage in a historic match tomorrow dubbed “The Fight of the Century” that’s expected to be the highest grossing fight in the history of the sport. Photographer Alexis Cuarezma was recently tasked with doing a portrait shoot of the two fighters for HBO.

Here’s a behind-the-scenes video in which Cuarezma offers a glimpse into the shoot and the personality of the two boxers:

“HBO has been a client I’ve always wanted to work with,” Cuarezma tells PetaPixel. “I love all the shows and programs they produce. I’ve been visiting them for the past two years showing them my book/work and building a working relationship with them.”

“I recently got asked to cover the press and the promo shoots for the fight. The relationship I’ve build over the years with both SHOWTIME and HBO helped bring this come about.”

Cuarezma did the shoot with a Canon 5D Mark II, a 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II lens, and Profoto B2 lights. “One for up lighting with a softbox and another up high with a 20 degree grid to provide texture,” he says.

Due to the hustle and bustle of the day, Cuarezma only had less than a minute with each of the fighters. “Manny is super nice and playful in front of the camera. Floyd knows how to turn it on. He’s a pro at it. All that helps on being able to get good photos in such a short time.”

Cuarezma has been covering the world of boxing for the past seven years now. You can find more of his work over on his website and blog.

The Online Depth of Field Simulator is Now Available as a Free Android App

A couple of months ago, we featured a helpful little web app called the Bokeh Simulator and Depth of Field Calculator. The website allows photographers to quickly visualize what different options in a particular shot (e.g. aperture, focal length, distance to subject) do to the bokeh and depth of field in the resulting photo.

The app has now gotten even better: in addition to some nifty feature upgrades, it can now be downloaded as a free app for Android devices.

Developer Michael Bemowski, the man behind the site, tells us that he has been working on improving the app since the first wave of public interest, based on the feedback and critique he received.

One improvement is that the model seen in the picture is no longer a flat 2D character. He or she will now have their nose, ears, and face blurred correctly according to each particular depth of field simulation. Here’s an example:

America remembers: U.S. marks 13 years since 9/11 with Twin Towers of light over Manhattan

America will today pay tribute to the nearly 3,000 victims who lost their lives in the September 11 attacks as the public prepares to tour the World Trade Center site for the first time on an anniversary.

The National September 11 Museum - which includes gut-wrenching artifacts and graphic photos of the attacks - will be open to the public as the area slowly becomes integrated with the surrounding streets again. Fences around the memorial plaza have come down, opening it up to the public and camera-wielding tourists.

But before they are allowed inside, relatives of victims will come together at the 9/11 Memorial Plaza for a somber name-reading ceremony honoring every one of the people who perished in the attacks on the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and inside the plane that crashed in rural Pennsylvania.

During the ceremony, six moments of silence will be observed marking the strikes on the towers, and the Pentagon, the collapse of the skyscrapers and the time Flight 93 went down in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

It comes after two blue columns of light representing the towers illuminated the skies over Lower Manhattan in a vivid tribute on Wednesday night.

But for some who lost loved ones in the attacks, the increasing feel of a return to normalcy in the area threatens to obscure the tragedy that took place there and interfere with their grief.

'Instead of a quiet place of reflection, it's where kids are running around,' said Nancy Nee, whose firefighter brother, George Cain, was killed in the attacks. 'Some people forget this is a cemetery. I would never go to the Holocaust museum and take a selfie.'

For others, the changes are an important part of the healing process.

'When I first saw (One World Trade Center), it really made my heart sing,' said Debra Burlingame, whose brother Charles Burlingame was the pilot of the plane that crashed into the Pentagon. 'It does every time I see it because it's so symbolic of what the country went through.'

'I want to see it bustling,' she said. 'I want to see more housing down there; I want to see it alive and bursting with businesses.'

Although the reconstruction has been plagued by delays, two of the new skyscrapers built around the site of the fallen twin towers are now open, while 1 World Trade Center, the tallest skyscraper in the Western hemisphere, is due to open later this year.

Against that backdrop, politicians, families of those who died in the attacks and other dignitaries will gather on Thursday to observe moments of silence and hear recitations of nearly 3,000 victims' names. It has become an annual ritual.

It is the first commemoration ceremony since the opening of the 9/11 museum and the adjoining repository for unidentified human remains at the site. That is an important milestone for families of the victims, officials say.

'For the first time this year, because the museum opened in May, family members will be able to visit the museum as part of the commemoration,' Michael Frazier, a museum spokesman, said.