First portrait session

*Bleh, my photo links keep on disappearing because I have sync the Web Album..

So, on Saturday I had the wonderful opportunity of shooting for my friend, William and his fiancee Irene. This will be the gift for their engagement/wedding. And the photos I shoot will be on the slideshow during their wedding! As this was the first formal portrait shoot ever for me since I started DSLR, to say I had the pressure is an understatement!!

To be prepared for the coming date, I had went over all over most of the works of my favourite wedding photographers (ie. Hasass & Albert Chou), scramble to test out working of flashes as fills, and several visits to the potential sites that I will shooting. The day has come, we started early as morning light is softer and is angled for easier manipulation. We encountered problems immediately as the site I have chosen was blockaded off by the policy for a emergency situation.

So I choose the next best alternative for the shots I wanted in a nearby location. The beginning was very rough, as I was very nervous and the couple were not used to me in their way.

From William & Irene Engagement

But as we arrive in the location in second set, Minoru Park, things got alot better, by this time I am much more at ease with shooting portraits and the couple really were great with each other, most of the time I would just ask them to be in the location where I want them to be, and a few postures I would like to see, they would start from there.

From William & Irene Engagement

From William & Irene Engagement

Also, I have tried a couple Story telling sets on several spots

From William & Irene Engagement

The couple watched the bride and groom stepping out from the Chapel

From William & Irene Engagement

William can't wait to drag Irene to Chapel afterward

From William & Irene Engagement

The couple playing hide and seek

From William & Irene Engagement

Fun continues

Overall, I am rather satisfied with the results of first day, despite some heavy criticism from some of my friends about engagement photos should be about love not child play. I still believe this captured the couple's fun characters. In the future, I will have to pay alot more attention to the postures and minor details of the couple. Afterall, portraits is new and a foreign territory for me.

PS. The second shoot at dusk actually went very wrong, I wasn't able to coupe with the dominate light of dusk, and the couple's dress were way to casual to work with.
I should avoid dusk as part of my set until I'm able to figure how to make use the light.

Lost in my work

For the last 5 months, I have posted 73 albums and over 1000 photos on Picasa, the actuation of my 40D has reached 110k since Dec. 2007.... Ya, I have taken alot of photos and I'm proud to say my skills in photography has improved steadily (both composition and post processing). Checkout the photos I have picked for the green club I joined. Or my first half 2008 picks



However, when I asked a friend of mine to check out my 2007 picked album, he provided a very important insight that I wholeheartly agree on. "... Your 2008 pics had better images over all, prettier ones to be sure. This album is much more personal and has deeper meaning. The other one has pretty pictures, this one is much more thought provoking. I love the captions you added to share a piece of your thought/emotion. ..."

Yup, I have made myself technically a better photographer.. but have I lost the inner drive that made me started photography at first place? Am I going to be fall in the same fate as many of the "pro" photographers who lost their passion after doing it so much?

I hope not! :P

無常, 業火, 道德 (1 month later)

Once again, I left this blog untouched for months... :/

I had a post that I wish to post but forgot to, it's about the fire I had experienced in first hand back in end of July, quite a shocking and traumatic experience (more so for the families involved).

Below is the recap of what I have drafted in my album:

From 無常, 業火, 道德

This is probablly one of my most shocking moment in my life, I'm put this album togegther not just for people to view but actually hoping to serve as a reminder to me and those who see this life can be so unpredictable and terrible things can happen so quickly.

On 3:30am on Saturday morning, I was awoken by the increasing loud cracking noises which I initiatially thought was rain and my room is turning orange bright. When I look out the window I saw the house in front of me is bright on fire... I fumbled for phone to dial 911 and ask for help of fire department. During my panic and some confusing moment, I grabbed my camera, and my dogs out to the car and drove to a safe distance from the scene... then I continue to take photos... the fire quickly engulfed first house and jumped on the trees on the side to the roof of the neighbour. The fire went on for almost an hour before it got under control, by the time, both house are destoried and 2nd house's owners were just standing there helplessly watching their house destoried by the fire. The first house's resident wasn't so lucky.... the children were taken by ambulance due to suffication to the smokes. I later found out a few heros who passed by resuced the mother & children from 2nd floor strained on second floor.

Early next morning an fire investigator came to my house and asked for information of what I saw, I relay what I saw and went to scene with him to go describe in detail what I saw fire originated. I gave him all the photos I have and he told me it was a very usful evidence about how & where fire started. Ever since then... I'm actually became quite confused and questioned my own behavior during that night. If I didn't grab my camera... cloud I have been more helpful? Am I morally correct in trying to take down all these photos?? Damn I'm confused...

Biking Trip on South Richmond

Monday:
After riding the bike for dinner @ friend's house (7.3 km, 21 minutes about 10 minutes improvement), I have decided to take a long way back to home, I took the route along the dyke of Richmond. The dusk was very enjoyable, but not the chilling wind & my bike breakdown toward the end. Oh well, great experience and I think I will do it more often in the future.

Friday:
Herman finally recieved his $400 IronHorse(鐵馬? haha) Warrior 3.0 and I was able to fix my bike finally.. This 5 hour trip covers 60% of Richmond... phew, I think I'm finally starting to lose weight hahahah... My legs are sored ><

PS. Here is the bike shot.

Summer, Biking time

Wow, feel ashamed for not keeping up with this blog... 3 months has passed since the last update ><

I'm having a great summer so far, purchased a bike last month and had been traveling around Richmond since then, great way to travel, exercise and of course taking photos :D

It's now 1 year and 9 months since my first time picking up my camera, I'm still at it! Having photo buddies really helps~ We had been out on every weekend for events/locations around Vancouver.

Hope I can keep up the updates...


Dragon Boat Race


Jazz Festival


Canada Day Performance


Night shooting in Vancouver Downtown


Biking to Finn Slough, Richmond


Day trip to China Town

Nature's wonders

To think I have missed this in all 15 years of staying in Canada, it's amazing that how much we have missed from our day-to-day life...

Today while I was taking a stroll around neighbour (a 3 hour walk, mind you), I heard a constant crackling noise (pretty similar to fire log's cracking sound under fire , but much much quieter and appear much more frequently) which prompted me for more investigation. Much to my surprise, it turn out to be pine trees in the process of spreading their seeds. The crackling sounds were result of pine nuts cracking open and using that force to eject its seed. The seed itself was attached with a single wing which acted similar to rotor blade of helicopter that will keep the seed hovered and travel great distances before landing. I stayed there for a long time witnessing this nature's wonder.

To think I have missed this event for the past 15 years is a wonder itself... and moreover, to think nature is able to develop such mechanism to maximize the specie's existance.... is also astonishing.

Spring Time?

I love this perspective of cherry tree


Cherry blossom this year has been a successful one


Beside Cherry, Plum is also featured in Vancouver


Daffodil is another prominent feature of Spring in Vancouver


The anemone

It has been one wierd spring this year, coldest since 1964. A hail just happened as I am preparing this entry. Despite weather anomoralies, this year's spring flowers have boloomed very beautifully.

It seems flowers are my new favourite subjects these days, perhaps it's because I grew tiresome of landscape photos. Or should I say, my cumulative experiences in landscape photography made me dulled with it. This seems to be a very common problem among photography hobbists. Perhaps I need time to adjust, or simply, find a new perspective in landscape photography.

Wish I have a crystal ball..

Which line do I follow?


My future house?

I feel embrassed for abandoned this palce for so long heh...

Life is such, full of up and downs, I wish I have a crystal ball, tell me of coming future, then again, "If life were like that" -Visa Card

Back from Taiwan, found what I was looking for

So now I'm finally back from the lovely trip, meeting friends, families and been to some places. I think I have finally found what I had been seeking for my longest time... You can't never know when you will find it and how you do that and no, I won't tell u what I have found too hehe.

Taiwan, what a lovely places to call home, hopefully all the political BS will settle down and start to function like south Korea! Enough gloominess for people lives in there.

Back to Taiwan, change of mood & sense of family

Yay~, finally the date has arrived that I'm leaving for Taiwan for a month! I feel excited as this will be my first time celebrating Chinese new year in Taiwan since I came to Canada (15 years).

Hopfully I will have alot of photo ops in Taiwan ^^, to be honest, I'm kind of bored of Richmond (photo wise).... and losing my car really cutting my ability to move around too >< Will need to take care of that when I get back.. sigh

Oh well, posting what I have taken in January in Canada before I leave for airport~~

PS. So hard to carry around my photo equips these days... especially going overseas.. I will need to find a bigger bag for them. My current lineup:

Bodies
Canon 40D
Canon 350D Rebel

Lenses
Tokina 12-24mm f/4.0
Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8
Canon 100mm f/2.8 macro USM
Canon 70-300 f/4.0-5.6 USM IS
Canon 70-200 f/2.8 USM IS L

Other
Canon 580ex Speedlite flash
Canon 2.0X Teleconverter
Benro A-257 + KB-1 ballhead (about 3kg!!)