50mm and landscape do not go together...also 101 posts! WOOH

Yesterday was one of the most gruelling days in photography I have had in a while (rise at 4am crash at 12 at night). Albeit my shooting time has diminished tremendously as of late, getting a new camera in my hands has renewed my desire to shoot with a greater vigour than ever. However hand in hand with that in a strong sense of a rusty eye, and of course my continued lack of a complete range of viewing in my lenses, I chose to participate in this competition, more as a test of what I could do with my current gear than to actually win. Although in being frank towards the end of the day I did have a slimmer of hope that I would make the top 12 but alas it wasnt so. As I mentioned my day began at 4 am, having woken up to be early for the 6 am registration time, however much to my dismay there were already a plethora of photographers well ahead of me waiting to sign up for the registration. I did however take the oportunity to take a few shots whilst waiting.

I almost inmediately felt the lack of having a wide lens. I very quickly realised that 50mm would do little in helping me capture the entirety of the Ayala Tower one building, no matter how far back I went, I was unable to squeeze in enough of the building in such a way that it fit in nicely, let alone consider other components to add to it. Eventually I was moderately pleased with what I could it in, but I continued to find the Images lacking...so I did what a 50mm does best! I added people. I felt that in going with the theme of the shoot (Theres land, and theres ayala land) including the staff that make an ayala location so "special" would be of some importance. However, whilst the Idea was sound, my lens failed me again not giving me a pleasing constuction of the image elements. Then of course I had to communicate with my subject (not speaking much tagalog, this was another story of fun and games), and of course managing my SB 900 so he wouldnt be more than a sillouhette. Its at this point I was extremely thankful for my last minute tripod purchase as I'm not sure my semi dislocated shoulder would have been able to cope. Below is one example of the setup

After running around Tower one for a while failing to get anything satisfactory, I decided to hightail it to Greenbelt and try my luck there. As you can see the results were a little more fruitfull however I was far from happy. I simply just wanted to go wider. Whilst there was lots for my tele to pick up, little stories here and there, I felt that to relate to the concept my image would have to be wide...perhaps not super wide, but certainly wider than a 50mm portrait lens.

After having gone twice between the two locations and exhausting my options and Ideas of what to shoot with my Sigma zoom and my 50mm, I finally submitted two Images....the one of the cross you see above, aswell as one of the employee with the building. Neither Images I was particularly entrhalled with. Having considerable time to kill before judging, I decided to head over to Fort Bonifacio and try my luck with that assignment. Having never been to the fort before I was quite at a disadvantage not knowing any good shooting locations or anything to plan with as I rushed over. The first thing I did was recharge my batteries with a quick starbucks. Having sorted that I proceded to shoot what I could.

This did end up takign considerable time, and it was well past lunch by the time I was done. Once finished, again rather dissapointed by the quality of my images, I finally threw in the towel, submitted my two Fort Images and settled down to lunch. I then made my way back to tower one to await the judgement, and see what freebies I could get my hands on. As I expected I wasnt able to win, however I did learn quite a bit thru my failed attempts, and especially more so after seign some of the winning images, giving me a variety of Ideas of what I can attempt to shoot as practise to improve my work.

As usual the rest of the Images can be found here at my flickr