Exposures

Wee, back from the trip, endured rain/hail... & rain.... & rain... still a very fun trip nevertheless!

Happy Holidays

Yay, going away for few days for a trip, finally it's happening!!

Revisiting

Near the end of 2007, Saturday, December 22nd, Richmond was blessed with snow in the morning and the sun shrines high in afternoon. I decided to revisit the place where I took my first exposure shot (not that I havn't been there since then but.. ) Standing at the place where I was 9 month ago.. alot of things really have passed and I think photography really changed me in many different ways...

Vignetting is the way to go...

"Vignetting is any process by which there is loss in clarity towards the corners and sides of an image"

Real effect from Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 USM IS










These days it seems 90% of the popular landscape photo will have this effect on it... the effect supposingly came from lens's own design when taking the photo, but these days majority of the effect you see are artificial.

Anyway, I love this effect and it really does add quite a bit of "mood" into the photo

New Tool : 40D!

Finally received my 40D from US last week, what a difference in terms of technologies used in 40D and my 350D!!

So I visited Vandusen Garden Festival of Light on Sunday, it is my first attempt to use 40D under dim light condition... Must say, I'm more then impressed by this new camera!! Excellent CCD & Focusing function, I was able to achieve accurate & precise shots even under low shutter speeds!! Lastly, the live preview is such wonderful tool to have for exposure shots!!

Wearing a mask

You see my eyes, but not my sight


Looking down at you, cold and one eyed

A little project to experiment on the light and background in interior shooting. This is a mask I bought in a flea market. You never know what you will find in there!!

Good laugh

Hehe, they said change of hair style can dramatically change a person's outlook... So goes for Pets!! Love what 2 Rubber bands did for her XD

Helping others with Photography

Update: I have received feedback from them
"I had no Idea it would be even close to that fixable! My mom cried when she saw it, it meant a lot to her just to have one picture!" What other compliment could a person ask for? I felt very gratifying. RIP Mayday 1996-2007

Ever thought about your hobby turn out to be helpful to other people?? At least I didn't... until yesterday.

*Side Story, skip if you like*
Let me back track a little, let me talk about facebook... I must admit I didn't find the idea of making friends over internet a overly thrill idea. The idea of facebook is neat, but I didn't buy it at the beginning... I started using it after my e-mail box were bombarded by so many of my contacts inviting me to join this site. First couple of month, I treated it as the tool to see the latest status of friends haven't contact (& still hasn't) for long time.

Things started changing when I discover use of group function... eventually I joined a photography group and begin share my works with fellow amateur photographers. I started to contribute to the group through sharing my own work, commenting and leaving feedback to questions asked. I really enjoyed it. I suppose some of you would ask, why not choose Flickr, or Deviant Art other much well known website for arts/photography? Well, maybe I liked the community like environment in facebook group? I had made freinds who are from Egypt, Swiss land, China and so on who share similar interest and all are learning.
*Side story ends*

A facebook friend who just started her photography hobby asked for my help in salvaging one of the very few photos (the photos are all blurred or out of focus) her family had with their dog, Mayday, which passed away just very recently. She and her husband is very attached to her and would like to have a printable version to put beside its urn.

Such an honour has bestow upon me and I felt very happy to be able to help... A Random act of Kindness eh ?

Effective & reflecting

This is what I captured on the other day as I was driving down the Cambie street. I can't help but praise at the designer of this "caution sign" as the author uses the essence & corner stone of human society to send a powerful message to us.

At the same time however, my spine is chilled by the fact of the NEED of posting this sign in the public. I guess too much construction had been going on and people simply forgot about or grew tired of driving slowly in construction zones.

4305 Photos...

I did a calculation on the number of photo I have posted on Picasa over this last year... 4305 photos... 102 Public Albums...

That's way too many, need to learn to control myself.. hehe

Photography is Fun... ?

Momoko having fun in snow

A friend of mine recently seems to have hit a bottleneck in his photography hobby. He seems to be discouraged by the quality of the professional photographs he has seem on the web. He hesitates on what he sees through viewfinder and the shots he took are compared against pro-photos he have seen. Naturally, the more he looked at his work, the more unhappier he become.

I was troubled by his thoughts too... I didn't want to lost more of already few photography hobbyists among friends. Until yesterday, when I started recognizing the key difference s between two of us when discussing about our works. I spent so much time talked about how individually shots are taken and why they are special to me. I remembered so much details of the process BECAUSE I really had FUN!

I enjoyed photography not only because of the result I produced, but I'm having fun & loving the process of doing it!

Painting with Photo

Ever try to image your viewfinder as the canvas and try to "paint a photo"? I explore the idea of color & line in this series of photos

First time...

Today, I went to see the Santa Claus parade in downtown, I was amazed by the amount of people showed up and the size of the parade. Yes, it's my first time in years.

Come to think of it, this year marks many of my first time in my life... first time been to many places, first time seeing snow geese, first time going on road trip just for sake of going, etc.

Well, I am glad that this hobby is changing things in my life. For that alone, I think it is worth it.

The angle

When taking a photo, ever tried a little bit of twist on your camera? Maybe you will find a totally new perspective to your world =)



By tilting my camera, I allowed the shadows of tree projected to different corners of the shot.


Through aligning the top of my viewfinder with the bridge itself, I created an light space on the bottom of photo.

From Walk on Vanco...

Again, through tilting, I allowed the curve lines to enter & exit at the same side of the photo.

Be fun & creative!

Orton Effect

Thanks to Tony for letting me know about this technique. Looks familiar isn't it, you should have seen this effect being used on many portrait shots (especially Asian Wedding Portraits).

Check out this link for how it is done!

PS. My mom looked alot younger =D,

Art & Photography

Today, Tony H introduced me with the term "Orton Effect" in photography. You must have seen it many many times already, it's a common technique used by wedding photographers which makes surreal effect that make bride & groom glow under photo. Anyway upon more research done on this technique, I stumble upon website of a long time pro photographer , Freeman Patterson who has 40+ years of experience in photography and won countless awards through out the years. Included on his website is a page describing his thought on photography & arts.

"Every artist is, first of all, a craftperson thoroughly knowledgeable about the materials, tools, and techniques of his or her particular medium and skilled in using many of them.

However, in my view, no amount of technical knowledge and competence is, of itself, sufficient to make a craftperson into an artist. That requires caring -- passionate caring about ultimate things. For me there is a close connection between art and religion in the sense that both are concerned about questions of meaning -- if not about the meaning of existence generally, then certainly about the meaning of one's individual life and how a person relates to his or her total community/environment. This is not to say that every work of art is or should be a heavily profound statement, indeed many may be very light-hearted, but rather that consciously and unconsciously an artist engaged in serious work is always raising or dealing with the question: "What really matters?"" - Freeman Patterson

This really illustrated how I felt about photography, as a mean and not the result to art.

Thoughts about photography

Today, as I was performing my usualy routine of virtually framing at pedestrians passed by while driving down on the street. I suddenly have a flash back, about a comment I made about this photography hobby...

Couple of months ago, when I was having dinner with one of my professor, I showed him my new DSLR gears (it was new back then :)) and discussed various things about photography, he was quite into film photography as well. At one point he asked me what I think about this new hobby of mine, I said to him "the only thing I'm regretting about my new hobby is that why didn't I learn about it sooner. I had been doing photography all my life through my eyes and now I finally have the medium to capture them."

That's what I said and I will say it again without hesitation.

Tiny, once we were

From Baby Nephew II

Today, when shooting a series of creative shots for my baby nephew Theodore with his dad Tony, I can't help but to feel how tiny he was... so we all were this small once upon of time... so much has changed since then. Our size, our innocence...

Diffused sun

Friendly advice to all fellow photographers, whenever you see sun is being covered by a thin layer of cloud (not just a cloud passing under the sun, but constantly masked by clouds) GO TAKE some shots!! Sunlight diffused by cloud makes a perfect light source without creating contrasty images. ;)

Making photo out of Ordinary

I always believed that a true photographer processes the ability to turn something ordinary into something special, unique and breathtaking.

Here is my attempt at such concept... not too happy about it though.

Absolute Darkness

Ever try to keep your eyes open for a long period of time under darkness? Your eyes started to see things out of darkness, some weird spectrum of light just like the polar light you see on TV. Very strange experience indeed. Try it sometime :)

Animal empathy

From Momoko

Took several shots of mom with Momoko yesterday, my mom has this ability to clam the most of animals she met. I guess I carry some of that in me too :) My mom is the first person Momoko didn't bark to at first sight!

Crying Clown

As I make my way to my car after taking some shots in Kerrisdale, I pass by a display where of a picture clown crying sitting on a chair. I stopped and backtracked to the display to take this shot. It reminds me of a Chinese song 小丑. I guess many people hide their sadness with a grin on their face. At least I do..

*Plurrrrr*

I can't help but laugh at this photo as my nephew Vijay trying hard to blow his mouth to create *plurrrr* noise. Ah... simple joy...

My darker half

From Dusk yet again

As I was waiting for the ship to sail into the position of dusk, my thoughts started to wander and the feeling emptiness creep into me once again. I'm alone... but at least this time my shadow is with me, just as the sail boat.

Sky is crying

From City Landscapes

I don't know, I felt odd when I stood in the rain taking this shot... Maybe someday in the future, the skylines will be so tall that I will not be able to see the sky from where I am standing anymore... Maybe I won't see it in my days, but what about my children or their children?