Bridal Portrait

Bridal Portrait (for more photos). This is my first collection of bridal portraits, as a matter of fact my only collection, so far. These photos were taken during our bridal portrait photo session in our advanced class. Everyone was pumped, excited to shoot. The moment we arrived on location, people just started shooting away. I thought it was a lot of fun and challenging, especially getting the proper exposure for each shot. We shot both indoors (studio) and outdoors. Outdoor shots were more tricky. Aside from minding how the model poses, you also need to constantly mind your exposure settings, since the light source is variable. Indoors, lights were controlled, the environment is controlled, thus, you don't have to always vary your settings and you can focs more on the pose of the bride. According to our lecturers, bridal shoots are a lot more harder than they seem. In the actual event, it's a lot faster since you only have minutes to shoot the bride before walkng down the aisle. It is also very tiring and intense at the same time, but financially rewarding, that is if you do it properly.

Mickey

Mickey. Yet another one of my attempts at shooting a still life - more of like a product shot actually. I shot this in my room with nothing but a flashlight. I think I haven't got it quite right yet. I need more practice - I have failed to properly illuminate Mickey's ears. Anyway, I have to give credit to Mr. Victor Sison, a reknowned paintographer (painter/photographer) here in the Philippines, for teaching us this technique in shooting still life with nothing more than a completely dark room, a tripod and a flashlight as light source. I love this method of shooting. It gives you more freedom to choose the kind of lighting you wish to use and artistically create lighting effects in shooting a subject. It gives you the chance to express yourself in a whole new way.

Night Portrait

Night Portrait. Last night I was out looking for scenes that I may use for my photo essay assignment for the last day of my advanced photography class. Instead, I ended up shooting night scenes and portraits. This is a portrait of my best friend shot at the Bay Area of SM Mall of Asia, one of the few people, so far who willingly poses for me in any situation, without hesitation (hehe). We were supposed to shoot nearer to the bay but to our disappointment it was raining. After a few shots we left and went to buy some stuff for my still life assignment on fish. I'm still working on that, but as soon as I get a good shot I'll be posting it here.

Aliwan Festival 2008

Aliwan Festival 2008 (for more photos). The country's largest gathering of different festivals from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. Held last May 1-3, starting from the Quirino Grandstand and culminating in front of the Aliw Theater. Sorry for the late post. Anyway after almost 2 weeks of not posting, I'm aching to kick of this month with some of my shots during the festival. This is actually my first time to watch an event as huge as this. More or less 22 different contingents gathered to fight for the 1M pesos grand prize for the best street dance performance and for bragging rights. The mood was very festive. I was there as early as 930AM. Because after reading other blogs, I figured that there would be thousands who will also watch the show, so I thought, in order for me to shoot good pictures I ought to find a good vantage point early. As early as 2PM, me, including several other photographers were already all lined up just below the judges stand. There was some tension though when some of the organizers said that only media personnel and official photographers were allowed in that area. I approached this very nice lady, I think the head organizer, too bad I didn't get her name and asked if we could at least occupy a small area so that we could shoot for their photo contest. She asked me to show her my camera so that she could confirm I was legit and not some spectator just wanting to get a good view. After doing so, she agreed. Otherwise I would've stood there for more than 5 hours, only to find out I won't have a good view of the festival. So at around 3PM we were all settled. Cameras already brought out, anticipating the big event. But to everyone's disappointment, at around 4PM, it started to rain really hard for more than an hour or so. Everybody scrambled for cover. This delayed the festival by 3 to 4 hours. I was hoping to start shooting at around 6PM where at least there is still enough light to get me good action shots. But to my disappointment, the street dance started around 9PM I think. As any problem with a standard telephoto lens - not enough light causes blurring due to low speeds. Which reminds me, I really need to save up to either get a better lens or a Speedlight. Anyway, through patience and sheer luck maybe, thankfully I have managed to produce shots without motion blurring. Another added problem was when after the rain, the area that was supposed to be occupied by photographers were already occupied by all sorts of people. And as you can imagine, there was a lot of pushing around which made it even more difficult to shoot at night. I took about more than 250 shots and saved about only half of them. Anyway, it was one heck of an experience. Good experience. Next year I know better. Not unless I have a better set of lens. I won't wait for them to reach the end of the parade. I'd go to the starting point and shoot away.