DONE EXAMS!!!

You know what that means! Photoshoot!
Sorry for leaving for so long, but when its exams time I have to put everything aside and work on the things that matter.

I had a small photoshoot with my friend at the UofT St. George Downtown campus. It has a very old feeling to it and very prestigious feeling and that's why I wanted to shoot there. I also haven't had a full shoot with my new 85mm f1.8D lens. So for this shoot I went all natural lighting and brought only my 85mm lens. All I can say is WOW, this lens is AMAZING and probably will not leave my camera a lot! Here are the photos from that shoot.









What I learned
- Nikkor 85mm f1.8D is AWESOME
- Even the weirdest places/corners/alleys can turn into a great photo location

What I want to learn
- How to use reflectors
- Not to be shy when people come near me when I shoot LOL

Next shoot, Sakura (Cherry Blossoms) at High Park! Their at full bloom next week and I can't wait!

Dragonboat Profile Picture Trial

Last week my Dragonboat coach asked me to take pictures of the Dragonboat team. I had to get some test shots for him before we actually do the whole team. So I took one of my teammates (who happens to be the webmaster of our team website Rye-D-Boat). I wanted him specifically cause he had a set design for the website (REALLY good job on his side).

We sat down and jotted ideas of the design he had in mind, and how I could make my photos match his style. These are what we handed in to the Captain.






And for fun, I added one of our team logo's to my favourite of the set.



Now I'm just waiting for my Captain and webmaster to choose, and I will be doing the whole team when ready.

Ideas we had for the Website
Style 1
- We all wear our team uniform
- All left side paddlers will take their pictures looking at their right
- While all right side paddlers will take their pictures looking at their left
- With this we will make 2 columns on the website so that each side of the boat is looking at each other.
- Captains will be on top either looking triumphant or down on the team (to show their significance).
Style 2
- We can just use standard headshot profiles and be like all other dragonboat teams
Style 3
- You can give me some ideas for this ;) lol

Sorry for being late with this post sakaigirl >_<.

Keep the Eyes in Focus

Eyes are important in a portrait.
They can make or break the picture.
Eyes can express feelings, and emotions.
Focus in on the eyes.




Sister - Brother - Me

All eyes were shot using my new Nikkor 85mm f1.8D :)
Comment on your favorite eye editing technique :) I would love to know.

Lens Upgrade!

I've decided that I really like people photography and its the style I want to focus and grow on, and with that I decided to jump ship on a lens that a new friend is selling. This lens is the Nikkor 85mm f1.8D. There are a lot of great reviews on this lens, and I'm looking forward to using it! Because of this upgrade, I decided to sell my Nikkor 50mm f1.8D simply because I rarely use it, and its not enough reach for concert shots (when I do go). I might regret selling my 50mm but I am short on money and needed to sell this just to afford the 85mm.

Do you think I made the right choice? Comment :)

I am Samurai

Today was a very fun day. Met new people, learned a lot of things, and of course took a lot of pictures! I also had a chance to model and let me say this, props to models! it's harder than I thought and tiring.

The photographers I was with were more nature, and still photographers so it was hard for us to work with models and also be models. I'm still very inexperienced when directing models/people for my pictures and I usually go with the flow. I have a lot to learn with people photography. Here are the results for today's shoot.













Note: All non-watermarked photos were taken by Mark Su, one of the fellow photographers who was with me. Photos were edited by me. [Used my camera because the D200 had the fastest frame per second to catch some 'action scenes'.

What I Learned
- Modeling is HARD, I'll stay behind the lens thank you very much
- When looking at someone directly in the eyes for that serious 'I want to win this fight' stare, to keep a straight face look at the other person's forehead. It looks like you're looking at their eyes, but not really. Cause looking directly at their eyes will just make you laugh lol.
- Directing models is HARD, but with enough practice and guidance it'll be easier.
- Working with two people is a lot harder that one (obvious).
- You learn better in groups.
- I had two SB600's today and tried to do some cross-lighting. Cross-lighting is difficult to pull off. I'll stick to a single one for now and master it.
- Nikon CLS works farther than I thought (roughly 20-25ft), as long as the camera sees the infrared sensor. I think I will stick with this for now, I don't want to lose Sync FP for faster shutter-speeds in broad daylight.

What I want to Learn
- Editing like Chase Jarvis, and Martin Prohida photos. Mainly that dark, shadowy look, yet sharp.

Examples
- Martin Prihoda Editing 1
- Martin Prihoda Editing 2
- Chase Jarvis Edit

From my current knowledge:
- a lot is based on the lighting
- Unsharp mask filter in photoshop
- Dodging and burning

Other than that, I'm stuck, if you guys can link me on some tutorials or can help me out comment or email me raymon.atienza@gmail.com.

Thanks for reading!

Upcoming Photoshoot

I'm so excited about a photoshoot happening this Friday! (March 27, 2009). To make it short I'll list why:
- Collaboration shoot with 3 other photographers.
- 2 Samurai swords are involved
- Each photographer will also act as a model (not so excited about this part cause I'm usually the one behind the camera lol, but it will be good 'modelling' experience)
- Different locations (forest, open-grass, bridges, hill summits)
- On location shooting!

Hope I got you excited for this shoot, cause I really am! Be on the lookout for the next post!

Chris and Ellie Quick Photoshoot

Today I hung out with my best friend Chris and his girlfriend Ellie. We hung out for a couple of hours, and also asked if I could take photos of him. I agreed but only at sunset cause I wanted to practice more at sunset. After playing Resident Evil 5, we totally missed the sunset and had literally 5 mins left. I did what I can and this is what came up. (Thanks Ellie for being patient with us playing video games with you lol, it was Chris' fault!)






-Note about #5, I lost a lot of detail on Chris' jacket because I didn't have a second strobe. I used the on camera flash at a very low power to prevent shadows. The rest I fixed the exposure on Chris in photoshop.

Things I Learned
- Go earlier if you want sunset pics lol. (duh!)
- Need more strobes to properly light photos.
- Figuring out poses for the models are hard.
- Tree's are annoying and get in your way.
- Making the eyes 'pop' using Photoshop is harder than I thought

Shape of Bokeh

This is a quick note and just wanted to write it down before I forget. Today I was reading 'Understanding Exposure: How to Shoot Great Photographs with a Film or Digital Camera' by Bryan Peterson, recommended by Spencer Fu at a forum I always go to RFD! and I realized something which is kind of obvious but never really thought about it. I never realized that, I could control how my bokeh looks like.

The book explained that if I wanted a circular bokeh, I would shoot wide open, cause the aperture basically does not constrict the light and the bokeh just mimics the shape of the lens barrel. If I wanted a hexagonal shaped bokeh, I would just need to step the aperture down. Reason being, the aperture when constricted is not perfectly circular, but more of a hexagonal shape. When I read this it was one of those WOW moments, no matter how obvious/simple that realization was, I now know a simple trick that is subtle but could make a big difference in a future photo.

Ryerson Engineering Traditions [Covies Protest]

This past week I had an opportunity for some event photography. This event is a pretty odd one. It involves froshies (first-year students, in our case first-year engineering students) to get into their undergarments and parade through campus and one of the busiest intersections in Toronto (Yonge and Dundas).

Why a Covies Protest?

The Covies Protest is a tradition in Ryerson Engineering [RyEng] where froshies who tried out to be a RyEng frosh leader for the next school year have to "protest" to earn their covies. Covies are the blue overalls that past and present frosh leaders are wearing. These covies are very special and are not just given to everyone. They have to be earned through this protest. The following is the process.



RED ROUTE
During the protest, protesters have to leapfrog to the Lake Devonian (A man-made 'lake' for the Ryerson Campus). After they are given pen and paper and are forced to get 15 signatures from random strangers to petition themselves to be a frosh leader.

BLUE ROUTE
Next after getting the signatures, there is a conga line down Victoria Street to Dundas Square.At Dundas Square froshies are lined up and are then forced to perform the 'Macarena Dance' in front of everyone in Dundas Square.

GREEN ROUTE
After that we parade back to Lake Devonian to take a 'swim' (at the time of the protest it is usually the transition of winter to spring) so the lake is still frozen but not really so its quite painful.

PURPLE ROUTE
After swimming froshies are lead back to "The Quad" where they are to do a victory lap to end the protest. This whole tradition takes no longer 30-45mins and all froshies are in pain after.

All leaders have performed this, and I too have done it before. I proudly wear my covies cause I earned them. I was wearing mine at the time of this protest.

The following is a hint of the tradition. I won't post a lot of pictures from it because there are obvious reasons, mainly a lot of skin being shown.

Railroad Photography

I was at a family party today at a restaurant where I knew a railroad was located beside it. My brother and cousin’s wanted a new photo for their facebook profiles and I always wanted to try photos with railroad tracks. So after we ate, we left the restaurant and headed to the railroad. I like how the railroad are directly parallel and put some kind of symmetry in photos. Also the rocks that were scattered around the photos added a really nice texture in the photos. Today wasn’t the best day for lighting because the sun was high up and it was really harsh lighting. The weather on the other hand was really nice, not too cold and not too windy. These were my results.





On the last picture I lost all the detail on my cousin’s jeans. I totally forgot to look at my histogram when I was shooting, and I also forgot to change it back to RAW and I was shooting at JPEG (doh!).

Things I Learned

* Direct Sunlight photography isn't that bad.
* High-Sync Flash can make a bright day into a dark day (as I learned from my Strobist note)
* When shooting at a railroad, do not do it near a station where a station security guard can kick you out (lol).
* When shooting a model who is lying down, don't be afraid to get in the same level.
* ALWAYS check camera settings before taking your first picture (Nikon D200 changes QUAL to large fine jpeg when resetted, I always shoot RAW).

It's Been a While

I haven't updated this blog in almost a year (just one month short). I don't know why, but now I'm going to keep this updated as much as I can. I've learned a lot about photography in the year, and decided to focus on people photography with the strobist technique. I've updated my side links to show websites/blogs that I visit frequently. I've learned a lot from those websites and hopefully some people can too. So far I've had good progress in my photography and I just want to show some of them right now.