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!