India 2009

Following up my Beas post I thought I might as well finish up the India pics with my short trip to Delhi. Although these pictures were taken before I went to Beas they required a little more processing. My stay in Delhi this year was a little more short lived than usual, spending no more than possibly 24 hours on the way in and 72 on the way out. Now one would think that I would have shot more on the way out, however due to safety reasons I had my camera packed away in my suitcase providing me little access to it :(. However on the way out I was more than happy to string it along on my neck. Most of the shots were in fact from the car as we drove from my uncles estate to the airport. Whilst I'm not a big fan of shooting from a moving vehicle some of these pictures were irresistible and had to be attempted. The remaining few were taken the night before leaving, with my cousins playing ping pong, so I thought to have some fun with my SB 900, blinding them in the process, and the morning before leaving when I encountered some rose bushes. Enjoy


the scariest cow I have ever seen


Kingfisher Airlines...did you know apparently its illegal to shoot pictures in airplanes in india...Whoopsie!o:)



A family friend of mine shot this image, and although its blurry I love it! I dont usually photograph well and it dismays me in its lack of sharpness :(. However as a tiny display pic it isn't very noticeable :D


quick self portrait of me and my new nikon


this temple is absolutely gorgeous! whilst I could only shoot it from the car this time, it will deff be a stop on my next trip to Delhi


I don't get to do very much flower photography and having a zoom macro lens with me I couldn't resist the opportunity


blinding my cousins at ping pong

Beas 2009

As usual, the family X-Mas trip constituted a trip to India, composed of us visiting Delhi and Beas. I was quite excited to go this year as I missed out last years trip (which was apparently amazing) due to the frantic antics of Directing and D.O.P-ing two short films with a lot of problems (one more so than the other), preventing me from making the trip. I was particularly excited at the prospect of shooting, something I didn't do as much as I would have liked, mostly due to the lack of cars and my cousins getting me hooked on Command and Conquer Generals which ate away the hours. That and simply catching up and seeing a lot of people I hadn't seen in a while. All in all quite a fun trip. Although an incredibly annoying cold didn't help much in me getting out either.

The day I did get out, since photography is not allowed within the walls of the Dera, I made my way to Beas station and started my little photographic walk from there. Although I have done this before I am quite happy to say that my eye has certainly improved. I saw Image opportunities jumping out at me more than ever, and I was happy clicking away picture, after picture after picture. I had only brought one memory card remembering previous years escapades thinking that no way would I fill it up. I was wrong. I reached a point where I was deleting on the go, a habit I am not particularly fond of as it keeps the lens away from my eye creating a sense of panic that I might be missing a shot somewhere!












One of the highlights of the day was finding this little lake, where I had the opportunity to juice out some bird photography! Especially moving birds! Despite being a third party lens and not a top of the range tier Lens, it continues to impress me with its sharpness and focusing ability. Albeit its a little slower than I'd like but pinpoint nonetheless!





I did also want to get some nice portraits of the local folk, and whilst I did shoot some naturals I did want to get my little flash involved. After having watched the OneLight DVD I felt that in my head my lighting fundamentals were in a much better place. Before I wouldn't think about things so much but rather just put my head on autopilot and flew by ear not really understanding what I was doing but getting results nonetheless. After having watched the DVD I tried to go for specific effects, such as messing about with my sync speed and aperture to get a good blend of ambient light and lit subjects. Although I did manage to get half way there when you're working quickly things have a tendency to fumble or not work out as they please. Such as I kept forgetting the inverse square law, one that I need to quickly familiarize myself with, as I have reached a point where I can pretty much gauge what aperture and shutter speed I will need for a certain look. The next problem is telling the flash how to react in those circumstances. Very often I'm amazed when i see the results one can get with a bare flash, but am unable to reproduce it under pressure because of my lack of familiarity with the device. I've had it hammered into me in the past that bare bulb = bad harsh light, but in my explorations of images and photography I've discovered that, that is not necessarily the case and am more open to experimenting what this little light can do. However I am still a whiles away from the level of mastery I would desire to have.

Bringing 2009 to a close

Well its been a couple of days since my last post, it seems that living in a Salon/Tv room with family coming out ones ears is apparently not the most blog-inspiring situation...at least not for me anywais. Whilst I love my family dearly theres only so much chaos one can take. Finally they have left, heading back to Europe :(. I am able to return to my daily routine and most importantly my room.

As I'm sure most if not all (I'd be worried if it wasnt all) of you have realised we have only just recently entered not only a new year but a new decade! This brings about a lot of change in the way people are viewing the new year, as everything we do for a first time particularly as a trendsetter has the potential to mark the outcome of not just our year but the next ten years! I find it particularly interesting that it was at the begining of this last decade that I found myself first coming to the Philippines to study...and yet here I am once again ten years later. One can only marvel at the co-incidences of the world. I wonder where I'll be when we hit 2020.

Anywho my close to 2009 was rather less glamorous than I would have liked. It involved a small family Dinner and then a sitting (or in my case frantically running around with a tripod to shoot the fireworks) and viewing of the fireworks, and then a return home, where my newly gifted xbox ruled my hours until the wee morning. Fun I know, but the option of partying the night away was rather difficult at this point. Something I hope will result differently next year.

Over the next few days I will be posting up the few remaining sets and posts of 2009 before I close it up with an annual review post & video so keep your eyes peeled folks!

Manila Bay The Third part

I realise after having seen my two previous HDR Images, it probably tends to leave one expecting a similar level of calibre from any following images, not exactly the wisest of my decisions in my attempt to impress with my photography lol. However despite that I did manage to pull out a couple more Images that I was particularly happy with that didnt require the processing and time spent in putting together an HDR Image.

This first one is my particular fave from the following batch.

It was taken from the very same boat as my original HDR as the sun was begining to set producing a beautiful oportunity for some sillhouwhettes. However unfortunately it was rather cloudy and the beautifull sunset I had been expecting promtly dissapeared behind a clump of clouds choosing to reside just over the horizon, ruining that moment of perfect light where the sun just about direclty shines through the boat giving me the perfect Image. But as is life and ESPECIALLY photography, you dont really quite get what you want.

As for the following images most were taken earlier in the day, I'm particularly happy with the one with the sea as a backdrop. I was quite pleased to see the way the sea reacted in the background as an out of focus subject creating some nice circular reflections. I'm not sure if it was because of the distance between my subject, the lens and the sea behind the subject, or weather the position of the sun had anything to do with the way it was beautifully reflecting back into my camera but further experimentation will certainly be on my list of things to investigate.

Now before I continue yammering on and put you all to sleep here are the remaining pictures:

Enjoy!

also I'm to lazy to continue to translate this into spanish xD I'm sure google translate will do an amazing job though :D

Salon Del Comic Benalmadena Pics Part 2!

So! Minus a few exceptions this is about 90% of the Salon pics! Enjoy! :D. I'll also be making the pics available on Photobucket where they can be downloaded, due to the fact that the Images on flickr are unlabelled and thus undownloadable due to security reasons. :)

Aqui estan las ultimas fotos del salon de comic, con la excepcion de algunas son mas o menos el noventa-noventa y cinco porciento de las fotos! que disfruten! Ademas tambien estare subiendo las fotos al Fotobucket donde si se podran bajar, como sabran en flickr tengo desactivado que se pueda bajar mis fotos por razones de seguridad :)

I'd also appreciate it if you all could point me in the direction of getting in touch with the following cosplayers as I'd like to make sure that they get images of their cosplays as well as arranging private photoshoots with the cosplays. Thanks all!

Tambien lo agradeceria si alguien conociese algunas de las siguentes cosplayers que se pongan en contacto conmigo por favor, me gustaria entregarle las fotos en calidad alta, y ver si les interesa unas sessiones de fotos privadas con sus cosplays. Seria una gran ayuda si me podriais ayudar! Gracias :)

2oo8 A Year in Pictures

Its that time of the year again, as the hours into 2009 slowly tick away we make last minute reviews on our year, was it good? Bad? Will the next year be any better? What will my resolutions be? So I thought it's about time I did the same with my year as a photographer. However if you really aren't intersted in reading my valuable pearls of thoughts, and want to go straight to the images my book, " 2oo8 a year in pictures" is available for sale right here! right now! with prices starting at about 30 quid for a large hardbound book. The perfect Item to help bring you and your coffee table into the new year :).

sample pages from 2oo8 A Year in Pictures:




Hope these will entice you to purchase a copy! To order one just drop me an email, or pop a comment down saying you are interested and a full price list will be emailed to you.

2008 began quite slowly for me as a photographer, but with two particularly important shooting oportunities. One beeing my trip to paris producing a vivid new environment for me to shoot in, resulting in some of my fave images of the year. I was also able to have my first proper photoshoot after having joined the NAPP and benefiting from the ounces of knowledge made available to me. throughout the month the only other memorable shoot was the opportunity to shoot the 3 kings celebrations as they passed the floats through the streets.

three kings/xmas celebrations





Febuary and March were rather slow months for me as a photographer, the only pictures beeing results of "work". In Febuary aside from a party at my dorm that I was asked to photograph and som other random social portraits I was devoid of proper shooting oportunities. However despite that I was quite happy with the results of some of the images from the party proving my slow but steady mastering of flash photography.



March As I mentioned was devoid of photography minus some portraits for Asian woman of Director Imtiaz ali and actress Karen David. which due to ownership issues I cannot at present post.

In April my photography picked up considerably, with some shooting done at the local airport, portobello road market, and of course Photoshop world! bringing to me my latest upgrade in photography my new camera body the 40D! and my Pocket Wizards and additional strobes giving me full power on off camera flash photography, and of course my first oportunity to try it out, the photoshoot I did with my cousin in the tight confines of my room which ended up producing some rather impressive images.



May once again slowed down due to the increasing ammount of deadlines and procrastination, however that didnt stop me from my seccond photoshoot making use of my off camera strobes



June
In June the photos began to pick up once again as I was home for the summer. I also took the oportunity to organise a sunrise photoshoot on the beach which turned out brilliantly!

July Continued with my photography, however this time it was based more on clearing backlog from previous months and some heavy duty photoshop studies. However despite that I managed to arrange a little shoot to help me try and shoot jewellry in a fashion context. This is the month that I also began my travel to the US stopping by LA and in August New York. I was also able to shoot at the salon de comic de benalmadena in malaga extending my networking into the local anime community.



August Began in New York a gorgeous city for photography, with oportunities cropping up left and right. However what followed, the city of pittsburgh proved to be the complete oposite as it always does. However thanks to Model Mayhem I was able to meet with a lovely model who introduced me to an artists hangout, a brilliant photoshoot and her husbant another fellow photographer.


September brought the beggining of the end of summer. I was also able to work under Nacho Alcala a National Geographic photographer who although having only met him twice was able to greatly open my photographic eyes. I hope to meet him more often upon my return to malaga. Aditionally I also spent a weekend in madrid, proving to be very exhausting and usefull as I met Hitesh Sawlani (www.hitkaiser.com) and his merry band of photographers to go and shoot a classic motorbike run and the famous anual white night of madrid!




October brought the return to uni and a frantic house hunt/move in leaving little time for photography except for a shoot for Asian Woman of renowned Bollywood film director Karan Johar
November brought me back to the studio as my friend Lavina volunteered to do a shoot with me, resulting in much better shots than I had anticipated. Certainly since my last time in the studio which was January.

December the last and final month of the year has been quite photo heavy, with me making a trip up to bristol, adn finally making my first trip with the London Photo and graphics meetup group and an anime group which I meet weekly, as their oficial photographer designer (North East london anime society). The London Photo and Graphics meetup went extremely well and I hope to frequent it much more in the comming year.



In Conclusion 2008 has certainly been an impressive year in terms of my photography. With the resources made available to me and the oportunities to shoot i feel I have made leaps and bounds in the quality of my photography. Something that I hope will continue in the comming year.