New Home!!!

Hey to Y'all who might be recieving this. Incase you havent noticed the blog has moved to a new home!!! Its still at the same URL but now instead of using blogspot I've shifted over to wordpress (yay!) for a more robust and interactive viewing experience. However because of this the RSS delivery page has changed slightly, so you all might want to update your feeds. Its simple to do, I've setup an RSS button on the sidebar on the blog url, or just type in www.blog.sbalaniphotography.com into your RSS reader and it should detect the new address! Happy Readings!

DPS Weekend Challenge

So, I've decided I'm going to try to do the Digital Photography School weekend challenges, since obviously doing a 365 project is just too taxing atm :(. Which is a pity because I'd really love to be able to. I was inspired by stormtrooper 365 to do something with toys daily but I just dont have the time, so I'm sticking to weekends now. That and Photochallenge.org's monthly- week by week challenges are all I can do now on a day to day basis I think.

Anywais Enjoy the final image of the weekend challegne: Shadows!

The Idea was to have shadows involved in the image. Of course something easy, everything makes shadows. But the trick was to make them an important or creative part of the image. I really like how the clone trooper is backlit, but there is enough light seeping in so you can tell what it is (i hope). I'm looking to buy more toys so hopefully those should lead to some interesting pics :D. In the meantime Enjoy!



This image was processed entirely in lightroom. I didnt have time to bring it into photoshop, but I think I will try to do so from now onwards, at least for my fave pics, I've noticed I'm still not particularly happy with lightroom sharpening over unsharp mask...or maybe I just dont know how to use it, but I find photoshop holds back grain much better....anyone concur?

More Hong Kong

So here is a continuation of my series of Images from Hong Kong. I do apologise for last weeks dissapearance due to technical dificulties (aka rats arsed internet connection), so without further ado...

Thus my time in HK approached a quick and unwitted end, and much to my dissapointment my camera had spent far too little time sitting around unused. I was determined not to leave the city without getting a few pictures! So on the morning of my departure I strapped myself to the roof of a moving vehicle (actually  I just popped my head over the sunroof, and shot like a madman. Of course I made some stops too, as fortunately y flight wasnt till later that evening. And so here are my results after a frantic run-around HK.

A lot of the pictures are some I wanted to do at night, but due to time restraints I was unable too....but Deff somehting I plan to fix on my previous trip.

I also realised I've been getting VERY sloppy lately with my post-processing, resulting in minimal if not nil  image adjustment resulting in my images not being all they could be. So although it will slow down my uploads, I have decided to take a step back and get back to properly post processing my images. Well thats enough rambling from me! Enjoy!












As you can see a lot of these were taken up high, where my aunt and uncle live giving me awesome views of the city. My next trip over these will be night shots as the city really lights up at night!

Talk about an 18th!

A few weeks ago was my little baby bro's 18th birthday. And boy did he get a birthday, trip to HK, friends party, and family party. And of course like any birthday, cake was involved! And boy what a cake! I think I'll let the Images speak for themselves. And of course being the strobist afficionado that I am, I lit the bajeebers our of everything :D. I think my family are still recovering from spotty eyes. I'll let you all know how that goes :D.

Desert Before the Cake

Lit my cousin from his front, I was very pleased with how the lighting came out! I'm reminded of some old Adidas ads. Anyhow, as usual the flickr version appears to loose brightness when going from Lightroom to Flickr. And as always I forget to crank it up...DOH!

The Cake

My brother's amusement

what was left of the cake after............

Shab-zilla got to it O.O

The out-take AHEM!

Hang Kang!

Firstly I'd like to thank you all for your numerous comments on my Ipad post (ahem ahem!). The input was overwhelming, I simply could not keep up with everything you all had to say! -.-. However I must press on, for those of you suscribed to my flickr you will have enjoyed a healthy dose of these images already. For those that havent here we go!

I was fortunate enough to go to Hong Kong a few weeks back ( I think about 2-3 to date), a city which I absolutely love (although few will trump  the adoration I have for my one true love, London :D). It was a fantabulistic experience! I cherished the oportunity to reconect with old friends, and of course photograph what I could of such a vibrant and busy city. Unfortunately since I was there for other reasons my camera didnt make it out as often as I'd like I did manage to get a series of descent chance shots, so here are some for you all to enjoy! And as you'll notice the flavour's a little different from the last set of Images I took on my previous visit to this city. Oh yes and have I mentioned, I absolutely LOVE shooting with the D300. Its noise reduction capacity for a camera of this level is just mind boggling, I'm no longer afraid to push the envelope to 800 or even over a thousand ISO. I love it! Makes shooting with sub 2.8 lenses that less painful :D






More after the jump! (means click the more link if you're on the home page to see the rest of the post :P)

Apple, good, bad or draconian?

So I read a post on Scott Kelby's blog recently about the Ipad and photographers, and how it affects us. He brought up some very interesting points which I thought to address further over here. I've been told by several many people, and I'm sure that I'll continue to be told that I dont "need" an Ipad. Now I wont go into that discussion here, but as far as I'm concerned I do also WANT one (However I still to think I also need it, but thats a discussion for another time). Some people love it, some hate it. Some say it will never survive, with all the other tablets that are comming out, that theres no flash, etc. This is all true, but wasnt much the same said about the Iphone? And look where it is today. At the very least the Ipad will take the creative industry by storm. With the exception of flash the Ipad is the perfect creative tool. Its fast, snappy, gorgeous, easy to carry, and although simplistic you never have to worry about bogging it down with too much junk. When going to a meeting, presenting photos, etc, the most embarrasing thing one can have is a slow computer. next....next next shit nothings happening only to have it after a minute skip to the end of the slide-show or presentation. Not good. Although the I-series devices are very restrictive you can be sure you wont suffer a problem like this, so it has its pro's and cons.

Now as photographers I know for a fact many are starting to stress about the lack flash support. I've been told that Flash is the WORST format in which to design a website IF you're interested in SEO. Most photographers are not. They just want a pretty page to show off their potfolio. In fact thats what we have our blogs for. We count on the blog making the hits in the search engine, and thru the blog have the portfolio found. its quite a symbiotic well worked relationship. But with the coming of the Ipad, with web surfing on it a prevalent factor (I know my bedside, poolside, dinner-table side, and couch side surfing whilst watching a movie will all be done on my up-comming Ipad :D), Flash using photographers and designers are left with less options on how to present their portfolios :D.

Fortunately HTML 5 Comes to the rescue! Despite not being the standard yet most new iterations of the big browsers (Opera, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, IE(?!?!?!) ) come well equiped enough to handle anything HTML 5 can throw at them (I think). With things like javascript, jquery and microsofts own silverlight (I beleive its supported on the I-stuff) there are a few other options in rebuilding interactive, moving pretty portfolios. What will you do? Lightroom already offers a few basic Jquery options but are they enough? is it too "cookie-cutter" so to speak? I for one am planning to integrate a portfolio of sorts into the blog by having a moving header with Jquery. What will you do though? Will those of you who have static portfolios make a jump? what about flash users? let me know!

Saturday Tid-Bits

Hey guys!

Lots of news to get thru this week, its been quite eventful as I'm sure many of you know! Lots of new toys coming for us all to play with! The Ipad, Ipod 4.0, CS5, Wooh! I'm sure if you're any kind of tech reader you know this by now! Are you excited? Dissapointed? Stoked? I for one am pants on head excited! (term coined from Yahtzee over at the escapist magazine). 2010 is turning out to be one heck of a year! This coupled with with those constant game releases (Almost done with AC 2, bout halfway thru on Bioshock 2, and dont get me started on Dragon: AofOrigins. Still got Mass Effect 2 on my list and Just Cause 2 to pickup and probably the best Splinter Cell Game I've ever played (at least on the demo) Comming Up. AHHHH not enough time! To top that off we got Glee next week, and A brand new season of RedVsBlue. I'm in geek heaven. In between all this I need to squeeze in two jobs aswell as photography and design time. Not to mention I'm also learning to program for the Iphone (why do I feel that these Items should be prioritised differently o:)) God knows where I'm going to find the time....oh did I mention I'm also back into comics? And feverently learning japanese more so than ever? Yes I'm nuts. Anywho I'll stop on rambling. I've got another post comming up just for that :D, in the meantime enjoy these pics of Manila I've taken here there and around!








OH P.S. You will all be happy to know, after being the advocate of Worpress for the longest time, and recieving several complaints to make the jump the new website design has been finalised! :D. Now comes the fun part.....coding.....ugh, I'll keep you all appraised on how that goes! But if all goes well the move should be done in a few weeks! Enjoy!