His Own World

It took me 3 seconds to take this shot (my luckiest shot and most priceless photo to date).I usually take photos in RAW but this was taken in Jpeg out of a hurry. I glanced and saw that my kid(the kid assigned to me while we were in the park) was about to chase the pigeons on the ground so I turned around, turn my camera on,still the previous setting form the photo I took before this, took all the frames my cam can offer, and crossing my fingers, hoping to get 1 good shot. I got 1.
The Story:
My school(International Academy of Beijing) specifically the 7th grade middle school students went to Kaifeng, China and had the chance to visit the deaf school for kids as one of the itinerary for the trip. I wasn't expecting it to be this memorable. Each of us were assigned a kid to be the big brother for a day. They did a sign language with a song in Chinese that meant "Thank you from the bottom of my heart". I couldn't hold back the tears under my sunglasses as they were trying their best to please us (not to mention the drooling while they were doing the hand signals to convey the message). Sounds funny but deep with in me I was thankful to God that he has given me such privilege to live a "normal life", have a family that loves and supports me and at the end of the day, I can creep into a comfortable bed. Yes, these kids had the exact opposite to what I have. and to those who has parents among them, they don't get to see them after a year. These are kids aged 3-7. We had the chance to bring them to a park a mile away from their school and treated them at KFC for lunch, it was the first time for "my kid" to go to that park and eat at KFC; He's 7 yrs old. This is where I took this priceless shot. After lunch we left for another city. The kids didn't want us to go and broke in tears to see us leave, we didn't have a choice. I was humbled.

Strobist Info:
Natural Light with CPL attached to lens 77mm
ISO:200
Aperture: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/160

Knowledge Corner II

A continuation of what I posted in the previous blog. What was done here was first to conceive in your mind what Ratio of lighting you want to achieve in the final image, here I chose the 4:1 ratio (basically a 4 stop difference between the main light and the fill, or was it 2:1, Geese, I can’t even remember, so lets say your Main light is f8, (which was to the right of the camera) and that would mean your fill would be f2 (to the left of the camera using a strobe bounced using a brolly). Take note that a lightmeter was used here as this is a studio set up not an on location shoot! ☺ Now to get that high key effect but still maintain shadows in the subject, two back lights were used to make the grey backdrop appear white, yes it was grey! ☺ and the model was basically standing in a white plexy board (2x4m) I know, it’s that small but it doesn’t matter as we’ll blow that out later on with the lights. And so, after getting the reading for the Main and the Fill, we’re now ready to set the 2 lights, so I set it up to 2 stops up form the main light (if I remember it right), you could always set it t taste by checking it from your light meter (see? That’s why light meter comes in handy in studio shoots!) Why two lights as background lights? So as not to create a halo of white at the back of the subject and a vignette towards the end of the image therefore not overexposing the whole background and taking into consideration that I used plexy board where the model is standing so it would appear in the final photo if I wont totally over expose the whole thing aside from the model. Since I cranked it up by 2 stops so each light must be a stop each from the main light. The final step would be to take the reading from the model for the camera setting.
Next stop? Fire away and enjoy!

This one goes out to my photography mentors:

www.photosbykengo.com
www.flickr.com/photos/moetwain
www.ognita.com

Thanks guys, you’re a huge part of this passion that I have right now!

Knowledge Corner

"Knowledge is the asset innovation is the process"-D. Amidon
Today Ill deal more on what I love most in photography, playing with light. Only a year had past since I became a convert on what the mainstream calls as "strobists", thanks to David Hobby for that term. I've been in photography for 3 years but never did I take it seriously, not until last year when I realized that lighting in photography brings a lot of drama to an image. Since then, everytime I have the opportunity to shoot, I play around with lights to hit my subjects. I started out with a P&S camera back then, buying it just for the sake of having one to basically using it as a tool to freeze time coupled with light (be it ambeint or artificial) to shape the image from what I see in my mind. I officially call this year as my first birthday of being a "strobist" so to speak. Last year I knew how to speak Shutter speed, Aperture, ISO, this year I learned how to speak Sync speed, light ratios, proper exposure, off-shoe lighting, butterfly lighting, Rembrandt lighting...Man! I'm now a talkative kid!


I had the chance last summer to take a photo of this gorgeous Filipina model, it was the first time for me to handle models in an actual shoot (as I was used to having just my friends to act as models for me, or just covering events with my buddies and never really getting the attention of a specific person to let him/her act something that you want in front of the lens and not to mention the first time to do a 4 lighting set-up (I would talk about it in a little while)। It wasn’t really that bad at all! Thanks to one of my mentor Ken Go, for the knowledge he imparted on me as a student It was then I knew what my late dad always told me, “Get back to the basics, dig into the basics so it won’t be that hard”. (He was my adviser in my undergraduate thesis for Plant Genetics! I always bombarded him with questions even though he was in the middle of a board meeting, as he was also the director of National Research Center dealing on Root crops, taking the advantage of being a son. Lol! I know it’s wrong!) Right there I knew that knowing the basics in lighting set-up would give you ease in handling the complicated set-ups! So here it is: It starts with you positioning the Main Light to wherever you want it, taking into consideration the “appearance” of the model to compliment the pose with how you light it, broad lighting, narrow lighting, profile pose, etc but that’s another topic to tackle on, and then setting up the fill light, as it only takes the Main in the Fill basically in lighting up the subject (usually opposite the main light as to open up shadows but not to overpower and lose shadows as shadows are allies in photography, so turn that ACTIVE D LIGHTING FUNCTION IN YOUR NIKON CAMERA!) ☺
I'll show you how I did it on my next blog.

Scott Kelby's Photo Walk Beijing

Getting back to taking photos of landscapes after quite sometime was both fun and tiring at the same time. It was a Saturday afternoon, the closing day of the Beijing 2008 Olympics to be exact, when my friends and I were planning to do an on location shoot on one of the parks in Beijing with my friends wife as a model so I packed up my gears, not to mention the heavy tripod, a couple of light stands etc. etc. :-) and headed for my friends house to meet em, when we received a phone call inviting us to a photo walk. (Whats a photo walk?) lol..a what? that was what was on my mind, "okay, I get it, people basically walking while taking pictures" i sarcastically answered my friend. "No, its a competition put together by Scott Kelby which is basically done in major cities worldwide, where photographers would basically roam around the city taking pictures and at the end of the day photos would be submitted to the organizer of that city and Scott would choose a winner from each city represented". "Well, sounds fun I said" Everybody in?" well, they all agreed to give it a try so cutting the story short, we started at 6pm ending at 11pm, No!, we ended at 11pm cause the rest conitued taking photos until God knew when, I was too tired to continue so I convinced my freinds to get on the subway and go home! lol, well, it ended with all my friends chillin at my flat till 6am the next morning, uploaded the photos (http://www.flickr.com/photos/26490121@N05/2792114620/) and received the comment that I won. Good, I said, it was both fun and tyring in many ways! As long as I get to hold my camera and point it at someone or something, then its already worth it!

Photo info: Tiananmen Square, Beijing. Nikon D3 with Nikon 17-55 f2.8 lens, Handheld at f8, 1/5sec, 48mm, ISO 1000

"I do"

One of the sweetest thing you hear in your life is when your wife to be or husband to be says the word "i do" in front of all the witnesses you invited on your wedding day. I was invited to their civil wedding but never showed up. (my bad!!) I was in a beach somewhere enjoying my day under the sun. "Oh well", i said to myself, "I'll just make it up to them by being in their church wedding next year and by the time I see them back in Beijing, I would make them a portrait that would tell their love story as a couple". A touch of light was all it needed for them to portray their love to each other. May they live happily ever after. To Dom and Paula Cui.

Strobist Info: A 500w strobe with a softbox positioned to the right of the camera with a gold reflector to the left of the camera. f16, 1/125 at 76mm.

Inked for Life

"We all need a undeniable need to belong". People from all walks of life would have reasons, be it belonging to a group, express religious, magical or spiritual beliefs or personal convictions as to why he decided to have his/her body inked; I stand in the latter. For years I've been wanting to have this concept in my mind inked on my skin since my father passed away 8 years ago. Until last month when I was introduced to this superb artist ( www.skinworkztattoo.com ) from the Philippines who did the art on my friends body too. I gave him the concept of me loving the outdoors and with it would be the name of my father. He then came up with this Philippine/Polynesian design which represented the highlander and the lowlander people of the Philippines and with it was the name of my dad written in an ancient Philippine alphabet (Alibata). So here it is in my skin, the concept I had for years, inked in me for life!

Strobist info: a single 500W strobe with a softbox to the right of the camera set to 1/16th power, a gold disc reflector to the left of the camera, f8 @ 1/125.