Bleeding Love

The reason for this Christmas season - Jesus. (Above) Photo of our christmas lantern (parol) made out of recycled items. (Below) Bleeding love. This is the cross at the center of our lantern, which sums up why Jesus came to Earth to become human in the first place - to die on the cross, for ME and YOU. Merry Christmas and enjoy the yuletide season rememberting God's great love for us.

Cig Lighter

This is my dad's cigarette lighter, although he already quit smoking for years. It's nice to have one of these things around for display or for still life subjects. I was practicing with the flash mode of my camera. I'm trying to utilize the flash effectively without making the picture look "washed-out" or too white because of the built-in flash. One thing I've realized in this exercise is the importance of the use of white balance. In Manual mode shooting, it is best to adjust the WB according to your shooting environment to have the best results, in this case I used the flash white balance option. I still have to work out on the glare seen when shooting shiny, metal surfaces --- the natural way, meaning no photoshop.

Bread and Fish

"They all ate and they were satisfied..." Mark 6:42.

Five loaves of bread and two pieces of fish. This is my still life attempt on fish, given as a photo assignment last May. It took me more than two days to figure out how to interpret the topic. Finally, I decided it would be interesting if I can tell share the story of Jesus feeding 5000 people with just 2 pieces of fish and 5 loaves of bread in just one picture. I had to find a nice basket to place the bread and fish. The bread is actually spanish bread and the fish are little "galunggong tinapas" I found at the supermarket. I arranged them and after employing the painting with light technique, I shot about 100+ shots to get the perfect one. When we were taught how to shoot still life with nothing but a flashlight, I was fascinated by it. Couldn't wait to try it at home. And once I tried it, I realized it wasn't as easy as it looked. It took a lot of trial and error to get a really good shot. That's why it took me more than a hundred shots. At first, most of my shots were way underexposed. Eventually, I got the hang of it after about a dozen shots. Anyway, when the time came for judges to critique our work, I received some interesting comments on my picture (which was fun by the way). There were some who appreciated it. Some even suggested ways for me to improve it. Some of course didn't like it. Everybody is entitled to their own opinion, but it was all good. Great learning experience, especially from the experts. There's just one comment I would certainly never forget. I remember one judge saying the the fish doesn't go well with bread, it should have been shot with garlic rice on the side (famous Filipino breakfast). I tried containing my laughter, but perfectly understood where he is coming from. We all have different perspectives and interpretations on what we see. He just happened to be an advertising photographer (forgot the name though), thus, he wanted to see a material more inclined to advertising or promoting a product, I guess. Anyway, I'd be definitely doing more still lifes shot this way. It's totally cool, fun and at least something new to me.

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.

Still Life

Still Life. This is my first real attempt in shooting a still life photograph. Still life photography is the art of putting inanimate objects together in an artificial setting or purposefully arranging related objects together, or at least that is how I understood it. I admit, this one was difficult. Lighting was important to create a good effect and I had a really hard time. I wish I had a studio (wishful thinking). It took me more than an hour to shoot this one (Whew!). I shot this in a very dark room and used only one light source. I tried backlighting it to minimize the glare, but apparently was quite unsuccessful. I think I shall practice shooting some more.