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