photos of convenience...

very little time lately for anything...most especially my camera, but I finally was forced to pick up my camera and took the following photos.  hardware!! =D  But thankful for the opportunity to take photos and I'm thankful for friends who encourage me everyday.

visually amazing!

http://wvs.topleftpixel.com/11/09/27/

Flight from Sam Javanrouh on Vimeo.

visual love affair

James Brandon

inspiration ... climbing to the highest heights...

Tim Kemple Photography

Incredibly inspiring...on so many levels. 

learning, inspiration, following, copying...

interesting article...

When Being ‘Inspired’ Goes Too Far

inspiration

new day opportunity for new pictures.  thx for all the opportunities you give me. <3

inspiration

"When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down "happy". They told me I didn’t understand the assignment.  I told them they didn’t understand life."

— John Lennon

summer flowers

appropriate balance of negative space -- needs work. 

yesteryear

mj

love notes...

hi! been a while. this one is for carise, because she asked me to not give up on posting photos.  (also up late from late night super large milk tea O_O) this is how cutesie i am.  and i'll probably continue this series of photos, but not at when i have to work tomorrow.

basically the concept was love notes around the house...

the second collection of photos, i think would have been stronger if i had offset the you with blanks for the first two spaces, but i got lazy and didn't want to create blank photos...so pictures of my sponge and some lotion it is! maybe tomorrow, i'll try the kitchen. also, please don't look so closely. it is after all a bathroom.

tip to remember future self: when using on camera pop up flash and in a pinch white tshirt works well as diffuser, as well as hand to "bounce" light back in close confined spaces, but hand gives a red/flesh tint to things.

inspiration

when big kids play with their food

Toy Story

a life of ones and zeros...

you ask yourself after days of work, school, sleep, work, school, sleep...what is there left? photos.  this is what my current state of being looks like.


First shot, I was going for a pacman, original nintendo, atari feel.
Second, I've been wanting to play around with zoom and long shutter speeds...this ended up looking very tron.  (an you tell the second shot is of the same thing as the first?)
Third shot, something that can never be over looked...thinkpad nubbit.  It ended up a little dark, but that's how things have been lately.

Model	Canon EOS REBEL T2i
ISO	400
Exposure	1/30 sec
Aperture	5.6
Focal Length	55mm
Flash Used	false

Model	Canon EOS REBEL T2i
ISO	100
Exposure	10.0 sec
Aperture	11.0
Focal Length	18mm
Flash Used	false

Model	Canon EOS REBEL T2i
ISO	400
Exposure	1/30 sec
Aperture	5.6
Focal Length	55mm
Flash Used	false

Climb Time

On the side, I fancy myself a climber...sometimes...when I'm up to it.  Anywho, Friday was one of those days.  Here are some photos from the gym.  I wanted to emphasize the body shapes (how climbers tend to contort), so I moved the frame to enhance the lines of the body shapes.  I completely broke the "keep the horizon straight" rule.  And in some places broke the "give your person/animal/moving object somewhere to move into).  I hope it worked.  I would like to go back and punch up the color saturation.  It was really dark, indoor, so inorder to capture the speed and get not black images I put my camera into Shutter Priority mode, set the shutter speed to 1/200 and ISO to 6400.  I know...I hate the way it's so noisy.  But otherwise, I'd get some blurrrrrry dynos.  Things I would like to try, turn off the gym lights, get some studio lights and shoot away.  Also, might be cool to mount some head lamps inside of some jugs to get some interesting lighting on climbers faces.  Most of these shots were taken on the same V5 climb.  There's a top rope suspension shot and a V3. Special thanks to my normal climbing partner, Gary.  To Mike et friends.

Threw up more photos in my picasa.

Machinating Macronations...

taking over time and space...these macros are.   I would have liked to reframe the top photo to better place the stamens, but couldn't get things to focus right and the wind, and well...it was cold outside. revisited yellow jacket.  Definitely needs more light and a tripod wouldn't hurt.

M is for Marco.

Fotodiox Macro Extension Tubes play...I know...I need to still do reading and a homework set...and yes, I know that I need to cut ribbon and have another 11 hour day at work tomorrow, but WHO CARES!!! MACROSIOS!!  Better than honey nut cheerios!

Here's my first shots, can you guess what they are?? (ps the answers are provided in the text following the picture...and I didn't take the pictures of the answer because I didn't want to change my lens to do so, so I just googled. =P)

glowing pile of pink rocks?  (link) guess again!

Gold brick?  (link) Nopes!

Human Torch through the window blinds?  (link) Not even close.

I guess...you could say it's a sign!  Macro play is fun and everything becomes so INTERESTING! (what could be more interesting than my digital design book?...after all in each and every design, everyone needs a sign).

Some day, I'll fly away, leave all this to yesterday...

Silly pig, don't you know, toilet paper dreams are nothing more than just that, toilet paper, and we all know what that is good for.  Besides, you're a rock.

ISO: 200
Exposure: 1/50 sec
Aperture: 5.0
Focal Length: 42mm
Flash Used: No

Fear Through the Lens...

Assignment: Self-portrait with a prop.  I didn't actually enter, but this is what I put together for the assignment.

Camera: Canon
Model: Canon EOS REBEL T2i
ISO: 800
Exposure: 1/40 sec
Aperture: 5.6
Focal Length: 55mm
Flash Used: No

Lighting set up: Me, camera in front of a mirror with single light near my right shoulder.

Florabunda...

Flowers Revisited....Finished constructing 210 green and pink flowers (many thanks to Dana W. and Albert for doing majority of the grunt work) for my sister's upcoming wedding and as commemoration, did some more shots.  Here's how they turned out...and people seemed to wonder how I really took this photo, so I took a picture of the lighting set up/storage of flowers.

And the set up: 

Camera: Canon
Model: Canon EOS REBEL T2i
ISO: 400
Exposure: 1/40 sec
Aperture: 2.8
Focal Length: 50mm
Flash Used: No

Stu..stu...studio.

Camera: Canon
Model: Canon EOS REBEL T2i
ISO: 200
Exposure: 1/60 sec
Aperture: 2.8
Focal Length: 50mm
Flash Used: No

The set up:

The project objective: Take something small, make it look large, use one light, and anything I have available at home.   (Shampoo bottle is a travel sized bottle approximately 3.5")

How do you take something small and make it look large?  Answer: Dramatic lighting, lower POV for shot, portrait and elongate with lines.  

Lighting: Used black construction paper and hair tie to turn make snood (angled up toward subject to elongate light) and focus light on item and create more dramatic shadow to elongate bottle.  Used plastic folder to diffuse the light.  Used two compact mirrors for side kick lights.  Also, angled side mirrors to create light rays to focus on center image.  

Backdrop: 8.5 x 11 inch piece of paper laid against the wall. 

Things I would fix: Increase amount of light and lower the apperature to increase depth of field.  Use a tripod. 

Special thanks to Christine for the construction paper and mirrors.

Take off your pants and jacket...yellow jacket that is!

photographic impressionism

Camera: Canon
Model: Canon EOS REBEL T2i
ISO: 400
Exposure: 1/25 sec
Aperture: 5.0
Focal Length: 50mm
Flash Used: No

Technical: Manually pulled out of focus. Hung some crepe paper flowers from a hanger from a light fixture to get back light and glow effect.  Set White Balance to Fluorescent to get more warm overcompensation of fluorescent "crisp" light. (I don't know how to describe it, but fluorescent gives a light that makes things look white white to the point it looks blue...like a white LED).  Or well that's what I think. 

Artistic: Feeling kind of blue, wanted to make something that felt ethereal and delicate.  I wanted to capture the feeling you get when you look at an impressionist painting...you know how they use the pigment to capture something. You know it's a flower or a lake or a person, but that's not what's important in an impressionist painting, it's the feeling of movement (or this case, i wanted to capture the sense of aliveness -- though it's just crepe paper) or emotion.  

March Showers brought April Flowers

Model: Canon EOS REBEL T2i

ISO: 100

Exposure: 1/160 sec

Aperture: 8.0

Focal Length: 55mm

Flash Used: No
Lens: Kit 18-55mm 3.5-5.6f

Higher aperture to get focus at different depths, but still had cool depth of field effects. Found interesting sea star looking thing in the middle of the flower. 

Model: Canon EOS REBEL T2i
ISO: 100
Exposure: 1/800 sec
Aperture: 5.6
Focal Length: 55mm
Flash Used: No
Lens: Kit 18-55mm 3.5-5.6f


Higher shutter speed because wind blowing.  Had to hold flower still by the stem.  Lower aperture (larger opening) to get shallower depth of field to make the edge of the flower really stand out from the background.  


Critiques:
Photo 1: I should have isolated the flower more, the background leaves and other flowers are really distracting from the central focus of the star in the flower. 
Photo 2: Wish I were less predictable and played more with the shadows/light on the flower.

Defying the Laws of Gravity...

So I was inspired by a series of levitation photos...(and please feel free to translate inspired as I out and out copied).  And mine don't compare to hers at all...BUT!  really what I wanted to do was to get pictures of my brother around his school that are uniquely him.  He is such an amazing person, so unique, creative and just awesome in every way (yes, yes, I know...and NO I'm not just saying that because he's my brother).  Anyway, he was kind enough to jump for me and help me to make complete asses of ourselves, so I could get a neat photo.  It was really hard...she takes somewhere between 10-300 photos to get 1 shot.  We did about 10 the whole day...ours not quite to her standards. =P

Night of Worship

I went to see Francis Chan speak last week.  I wanted to take photos and capture something that I've only experienced so I could remember it.  Again this is a photoblog and as such, it's just supposed to be photos.  But to me photos capture feelings, emotions, who people are.  And if you've ever experienced the complete and udder joy and freedom during worship of a Heavenly father who loves you...that's what I wanted to capture...Photos help me remember things. 

So the following photos are to end on a humorous note, and well, i couldn't mixed them with the above photos...that just didn't feel right. 

baby wanders onto stage

i paparazzi a paparatzo (sp?)