Photowalk in Salcedo weekend market

It took some time for me to get back and work on this blog. I have been busy doing my day job for the past month. I only had a few time to hold my Canon 7d. Before writing this blog I'm thinking about getting myself either a Panasonic LX-5 or GF-1, something small with good performance that I can bring around all-day. I don't want to sell my SLR either, it would pay itself over time with some photo earning projects.

My wife decided last night that we have to go to the weekend market in Salcedo Village, one of the upscale places in the Metro. With this in mind, I decided to take my SLR with me and attached my 50mm 1.8. I just set my 7D at Av (Aperture Value), AWB (autowhite balance), ISO 200, AI focus and shoot away!

So here are some of my shots.

This is a crowded market, locals and expats abound

Cooked and Fresh food

A lot of guys are also taking pictures here

French guy selling French food

I enjoyed the whole experience of doing this photowalk and I wish I can do it more. It also reinforced my need to get 50mm 1.4. Why? I enjoyed my 1.8 so much, unfortunately I got this on the second hand market. I didn't notice a mold was inside, I always thought it was just a speck.

This has also made me think about getting primes, I love the way I can take pictures without looking like a "PRO" versus using my Tamron 17-50 zoom lens with the hood and all. Which sometimes frightens the heck out of people.

Cheers!

Getting things on the groove

The new year is such a great start, my wife gave birth to our first child late December 2010, family gatherings during the yuletide season was great. What I haven't done so much was focus more on photography, in my earlier blog about the new year I needed more focus on these things. I always thought that I could, unfortunately alot of things are coming up.

(1) It seems that having a baby is really difficult to start with (I'm a first-time dad), but the difficulty is always worth it. Also, I have to take care of my wife!
(2) New Year means new work, I mean MORE work!
(3) I'm taking up my Masters in Business Administration in University of the Philippines.

Even with those three things on top of my priorities God has been gracious in granting me Photography stints, so the Canon EOS 7d, 580exII, Tamron 17-50 and 50mm 1.8 won't be sitting in the drybox.

Here's a few in store for my January
(1) A Debut Party
(2) Environmental Portraits for a Developmental Report

Although I got to run the camera a few days ago for my father-in-laws birthday and to test my brother's Tamron 70-200 2.8 which I would have to write a mini-review this weekend.

Stay tuned!

New Year

2010 has been an exciting year for me. It was the year that I really "did photography", the year that I owned my own DSLR (I was just renting before). It was a year that I learned alot about photography. It was the year that I committed alot of mistakes. It was the year that I accepted paid photography work (four times). It was the year that I started this blog.

As 2011 is starting I have a few thoughts in mind about improving my photography as a whole. And here are some of the things that I have thought about or listed in my puny brain.

(1) Shoot, Shoot and Shoot. I need to shoot more to learn more. If I shoot less, I learn less. But here's the thing that I want to do for this year with shoots. I want to do themed shoots every week, say week 1 I'd do product photos, week 2 I'd do landscapes, week 3 I'd do studio fashion photography. I guess I want to make things better.

(2) In relation to (1), I want to be more concerned about having a theme in all of my photographs. Not just a matter of shoot and pray and shoot and pray. I want every shot to have a meaning, I want to work out my composition skills, I want to learn more about lighting! And with every shot that I want to take I want these things to matter, I want the light to convey a message as well as the composition. I guess this is a hard thing to do but I believe it is doable.

(3) Improve my post processing skills. I have books from Scott Kelby about getting the shot, also books about harnessing Photoshop CS5,  "Adobe Photoshop CS5 book for Digital Photographers" and I haven't finished reading them. I have another book about LR3 from "Vision and Voice" by David Du Chemin and I haven't read it too. Reading is always the start for me. 

I want to improve PP for alot of reasons, I see that my images colors differ as light changes (white balance), I wanted to recreate what I see and I want a generally equal look at the images I take whether the ambient light changes or not.

So far these are the two major things that I need to work out.

Wedding Photography Notes

I was lucky enough to be part of a wedding shoot of an officemate. She was too busy thinking about a lot of things for her wedding (if you are getting married get a wedding planner to make it easier) that she missed booking a pro photographer for her wedding. The photographer would have been Carlo Cecilio of ImagineNation who also happens to be a good friend and also the one who did splendid photographs of our wedding! If you are into weddings getting Carlo or any of the photographers of Imaginenation is one of the Best things you can do for your wedding!

Now back on my musings. During Joy's wedding I was given two days notice that I'll shoot. Given the poor camera equipment rentals availability in our country, I was again down with my trusty Canon EOS 7D, 17-50 f/2.8, 50mm f/1.8 & 580exii speedlite. Here are some of my realizations during that wedding.

(1) Do a prep (notes in prenup) would definitely work! Weddings and prenups are quite alike in terms of pre-planning. But things get so different on the wedding day itself. Check your equipment, check the venue.

(2) Know the parts of a wedding! All things happen so fast that you have to be ready, there are no retakes here. I MISSED a lot of shots as I was talking with guests, and the sister of the bride! (A bad thing if your tasked to shoot weddings!) I guess one of things to make this right is get the program flow of the wedding and attend weddings! Also write these down on a notebook and bring this with you! If you haven't attended a wedding in your life, ask the wedding coordinator!

(3) Like what I said on (1) things are different during weddings. There may be restrictions in the church like no flash allowed, upto where the photographers will be. Get to know these things before hand. This also left me shorthanded during the wedding since I was down to my 17-50 where a 70-200 is very very appropriate for closeup shots of the couple.

(4) If you have a friend who does weddings as his bread and butter, ask questions. Better yet if he is open to it, work for him as an assistant. One of the best ways to learn is to have a mentor. When I realized that I had so many things to learn as well as the mistakes I did during the shoot, I consulted with my brother(he is not a pro, but has worked in countless weddings as backup photographer and assistant). I also asked a friend that if he can spare some time that I'd work as his assistant, and I won't mind if all I have to do is lug around gear, hold the strobe or hold that reflector. In the exercise I know that I will learn by observing the pros.

(5) Here in the Philippines there is such a thing as "Fifty-Peso Wedding Photographers", well I name them as such because they crash into weddings, take picture of everyone, print in the nearest photo printing lab and sell the pictures ranging from PhP 50.00 - PhP 100.00 a piece (That's 1 USD - 2 USD per photo). I really bear no ill will against people trying to make a living but there is such a thing as courtesy in weddings, most of these photographers take pictures in front of the wedding march, literally at the middle! 

Watch that lady photographer in yellow
Take notice on where she is and what she's wearing

And when they have the pictures printed they either peddle it outside the church or they would go around while the ceremony is ongoing, pictures in tow looking for the people photographed and asks for payment for services they weren't asked of. My only thing against them if you're the wedding photographer is that they don't care about you, they would literally go infront of you and block your view. So there goes. 

Wedding Pre-Nuptial Photography

With the advent of digital technology, alot of people found so many ways of making use of digital photography. If we take a look at weddings these days, we have prenups, wedding day and even post nuptial photography! With HD Video on DSLR's it's another dimension added as well! 

I was lucky enough to have "tried" pre-nup photography for a friend. Now, it is not really my cup of tea but if you have a DSLR, you would always get proposals to shoot: birthdays, weddings, prenups, parties, etc. etc. Anyway here are my thoughts of about prenups.

(1) Ask for the concept, what they want to shoot. I find it hard to create my own vision yet. It helps that the couple already have a "theme" in mind. For this first prenup that I did a "movie theater" theme since the couple are soo much into movies.

"Popcorn"
f/5.6, 1/250 sec., ISO 400,
flash (canon 580ex II) on manual

(2) Be sure to know the exact time of the pre-nup shoot (especially for outdoor). And be there, recce/scout the location before hand. So that you will have an idea what to shoot, where to shoot, what is the quality of light during the time of the shoot. I was quite familiar with the venue so the recce was purely a way of looking at possible areas to shoot. My mistake was not bringing my cam with me which leads to...

(3) It would also help to bring a cam during the recce + a strobe if you think you will be using one. It would also help to have a stand in. So you can try some test shots. Record all your notes, create diagrams. I did diagrams and notes, without a cam and strobe in hand, I used my mobile phone to take pictures of the area. Using the pictures I did some rough sketches/diagrams of how things could be done.

(4) List down the equipment. Having done your recce is (3) you would know what lens you would be needing for a certain scene. It also helps to get people who will assist you in the shoot. Bring extra batteries! You'll never know what will go wrong. Rent/borrow equipment that you don't have in advance. I needed a 70-200 for a certain scene, I asked for the lens in advance (1 week) unfortunately it was already reserved and with the relatively poor availability of lens rentals in the philippines, I wasn't able to get one. :( I also asked for a step ladder a week before but couldn't get one also. It was murphy's law at its finest. Still you have to do with what you have...

f/4, 1/250 sec., ISO 200,
flash (canon 580ex II) on manual

(5) Making it happen. On the day itself be early, keep in mind that setup takes time. It would again be better if you have stand ins to try your final setup before placing your subjects.
It also helps to know your equipment & its limits to make things happen. I was limited to a 17-50 f/2.8 lens during this shoot (that and a 50mm 1.8 are the only lenses that I own). So I had to look for ways to compensate to do some shots.

During a photo shoot whether paid or not, it seems like a pressure cooker. Things could go awry with equipment or anything else. During this shoot it was a torture test for canon 7d's popup flash as commander. I was triggering an off-camera 580exii and after 20-30 or so continuous but not burst shots the popup flash sends a "busy" signal rendering the 7d inutile. It just simply lead me to think about purchasing wireless triggers.

I am not a good director of poses, so I need the company of people who knows how to pose people. Good thing one of my friend used to model so she provided valuable poses to the couple. Which leads me to think that I should develop my "directing people" skills.

"Heart"
f/22, 15 sec., ISO 100,
flash (canon 580ex II) on manual

(6) Lastly, have fun! Photography is about having fun and lots of it, that's why it would be great to have a rapport with the subjects (quite easy since the couple are my friends). Make sure that the shoot wouldn't be as tight ass as you want to be! :)

"Popcorn"
f/4, 1/250 sec., ISO 100,
flash (canon 580ex II) on manual

(7) Be prepared for post processing. I really am not into alot of post processing, though I want to learn to. If you shoot prenups you'll be forced to do post, if you have a colleague who can do it for you then well and good. Basically, I have to do post processing because the pictures from the prenup will be used for the wedding as well.

Guests Signature Sheet

Alot of more things are left unsaid but I will be adding more or update my learnings as soon as I am in another "prenup" shoot!

Cheers! 

posts for the weekend

Here are some things to look forward to during the weekend.

(1) Bridal Pre-Nup Shoots
(2) Wedding Shoots

I already have prepared the drafts and will be uploading them over the weekend so stay tuned readers!

Learnings from the Run

My first post on this page was about the Knowledge Channel KaRUNungan 2010. Aside from the pre-photo planning, I was reviewing my shots this week and I have noticed a lot of things that sparked areas of improvement on my photography.

(1) When shooting running people using panning technique look at first how the runners run. There are runners that bounce while running, when you pan your shots, you get distorted faces. Even with a flash! The only way to beat this is probably proper timing and shoot runners that are not bouncing! Or it could be because of the fact that I was nearly shooting the subject straight on. Or I was shooting too slow (1/30 sec.) But that is something I need to try out next time as to which is which is the culprit. Atleast I have a list of things to look into if I'll be shooting moving people.

"The Ring" Effect?!
f/5.6, 1/30 sec., ISO 400,
flash (canon 580ex II) on E-TTL 2nd curtain sync

(2) Hotshoe Flash. Use second curtain. Bring extra batteries especially if you have night shots, why? At night you'll most likely be asking your flash to shoot at full power. I was lucky enough that there was ambient light creeping in already that afforded me to discard the flash, but if the race started as planned? I would have missed alot of shots!

(3) Bring food or EAT before the event starts. We went to the venue at 2AM, briefing 2:30AM, the run started 5:30AM. I had a subway sandwich in the backpack, I thought, "Hey, I can eat while shooting." Alas, I was carrying a backpack, and a tripod on my back, My hand on camera which is also heavy (Canon EOS 7D with a 580EXII). Goodbye sandwich. An energy bar would have been great!

(4) Shoot Light. I mentioned in (3) what I was carrying. Inside my backpack are two extra shirts, card reader, some papers (race briefing), a notebook, a pen, a 50mm f/1.8, camera and lens covers. I should have left these stuff on the car. It hindered a bit of my movement, I was having a hard time jumping thru the concrete barrier to cross from one side of the road to another. I guess all the gear you own have to be planned for the right shooting purposes. I would have gone on the shooting day with a waist pack, housing a water bottle, a garbage bag (in case it rains pretty hard), an energy bar, CF cards, tripod and cam.

So far those are things that I think would have been essential on that day. I'm hoping that the next time that I'll be shooting a run/marathon I won't commit the same mistakes again.