Waterfront Bokeh

1.Watch your drink. it might spill out!

2. Think you had too much to drink?

3. Caught unawares

4. No idea

It isn't often that I go to waterfront for dinner. Its really expensive there once you start ordering from Toscani's or that indian shop that I completely forgotten what the name was...
The last time I was at the waterfront, I hadn't bought my 50mm f/1.8 lens so this time around it was much more fun :) I just love lenses that can take low light pictures :D .

It renders flashes unnecessary for one thing. Just got inspired seeing all the candles and color lights everywhere. The one problem was that, even at f/1.8, its still really dark at the waterfront so i set my iso speed at 1600. Noise reduction was turned off.

I wish I could type more but my mind is too busy now and im just too tired.

Reflector Fun

This is a photo of my neighbor [Francis]. He wanted a new profile picture so we set out searching for a perfect spot around the neighborhood and eventually stopped at a patch of grass near the basketball court. We actually took this picture a couple of weeks ago but I kinda forgot to post it.

We used a shiny car screen [you know, those things you use to cover the car windows inside when its really bright and hot outside] as a reflector. It was so shiny it was really hard to get a photo without Francis squinting his eyes. I don't blame him because when the sun is reflected back onto your face, its blinding and you can actually feel the heat on your face.

But then there's way of overcoming this problem, just tell the person you are trying to photograph to close his/her eyes and tell them to open them when you count to three and take the picture. That way you can get natural looking photos. I just like using reflectors cause it adds sort of a punch to photos, and works well as a fill light and also because I don't have a Flash Gun/Speedlite.

The first photo was converted to black and white in the RED color channel.
The second photo was cross-processed in Adobe Photoshop to get blue shadows.

Saturday Shoot

I should have posted this earlier. hahaha. But I have been busy...

This is a shoot Ki Choy and I planned last Saturday. We are horribly inexperienced in this but we decided we should just go out and try. The only other lighting we had besides the sun was a reflector that I made out of aluminium foil and a board of polisterine.

Gosh, polisterine really does NOT stick to most of the adhesives I know... I think those flat double sided tapes should work. The reason why I made one was because I dont really have Rm100 to buy those round, collapsible, alot more easier to transport reflectors... not yet at least.

anyways, well, I was happy about the day, but of the hundred over pictures I took, I was quite dissapointed because only a few made it... well thats what usually happens but somehow I feel that I wasnt really on my game last saturday.

Models were Joanna and my sister Cheryl. Thanks to them because they were nice enough to volunteer :) Ikhwan joined the shoot later on and took some nice pictures as well :) we ended the shoot at Easy Way in Lintas, Drinking some ice blended drinks after such a hot sunny day.

Nokia Ad

Again, it seems like I like to turn my new purchases into advertisements. hahaha. I took this photo with all the lights off, and used a torchlight and table lamp to get this mishmash lighting.

I got this phone a few days ago. It was really cheap, less than RM200. The keypad is flat so it will take time for me to get used to it while typing SMSes.

A camera phone is really not what I need seeing as I already have a DSLR. This phone also has radio capabilities, which only works with the supplied earphones, and the signal is not really good when I use it at home. I probably have to pose in a weird position to get any kind of clear signal, it should work better outside.

Overall, simple features, colour screen, nice design, just what I need. :)

What Car Do You Drive? [Photoshop Reality]

This is my Ferrari.

Yeah right.

This is actually a composite of two images blended together. This is just some crazy edit idea I had because I got bored. The Ferrari picture and the background parking lot are two separate pictures. Mind you, the picture of the Ferrari is actually a picture of the toy car that I got from SHELL gas station.

You can view the original toy car picture Here

You can view the original background picture Here

I only photographed the toy car. I didn't photograph the background image,
I found the image from this website
Credits for the background image goes to the original photographer.

Oh and the light effect from the headlight is actually a blended image of the LED torchlight from my handphone directly pointed at the camera in total darkness so that I could isolate the light.

MSJ Photography Studio Shoot

There was a photoshoot at the MSJ Photography Studio on Saturday and I was only actually there to follow Ki Choy pick up his club t-shirt. It was my first time at the studio and it looked awesome. Since we had time to spare, we volunteered to help and be assistants to the photographers doing their assignment.

I took these photos because I got excited watching the photographers take the pictures, I was itching to take some photos too. At first I was dissapointed because the preview on my 1000D screen didn't look sharp even when the aperture was set at f/11.

I was so relieved when I got home to examine the photos on my computer because they were actually tack sharp showing details all the way to the individual eyelashes. I love this lens xD. Photos were shot in RAW. Images were scaled down and compressed for quick upload.

Thanks to Melanie for the great poses.

Model: Melanie
Theme: Glamour/Fashion?
Lens: Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II
Lighting: 1 main light, 1 fill light ,1 rim light/hair light

New Kicks : My Nike Ad

ACE '83 AUTOCLAVE

EXAM IS OVER!! YAYYAYAYAY!! hahahaha...

I guess the pressure is finally over. I might be able to sleep at night now. Its been so many nights of crazy ass insomnia it was really getting annoying.

I got these on [7/7/09] :D My old pair of sneakers are finally put to rest. Their days of being glued back over and over again are finally...well...over...

Here's a photo of my shoes. It took quite a while to get the proper lighting setup. I wanted to make it really look like an advertisement. :p [not sure if it does]

I barely know anything about lighting so this setup just came up because it looked right to me. :p
Just trying to be creative with the only lighting source I could use.

Creeping Closer

Just as I was wondering what next to post on my blog, I saw this spider on the side mirror of somebody's car when I reached City Mall this morning. I'm not really sure what spider it is.

Just as the spider, my exams are creeping closer so I probably wont have time to get new photos to post on my blog for the next two to three weeks tops. Good news is its the holidays after the exams so hopefully I would have more time to take more photos.

Keep checking back though :)

wish me luck! :D

An Eye In The Sky

It seems like every time that there is a power cut, I go outside to take a picture of the sky. Truth is, I was talking to my neighbor outside because the whole neighborhood was engulfed in darkness, so there was no point staying inside doing nothing. We looked up at the moon and noticed it was creating this sort of colorful halo.

I went back inside the house, grabbed my camera and a tripod and began to take pictures. it was difficult to get a proper exposure of the moon, halo and clouds, because the moon was immensely bright, it hugely overexposed in slow shutters.

I thought of another way to get around the problem by taking a few exposures and rendering an HDR image of it. It was only taken with three exposures so the moon is still slightly overexposed, but at least the clouds got decent exposure as well.