OCF Self Portrait - Week 3

It wasn't freezing out this week so I decided to try and take advantage of the warmer weather and try to find some Christmas lights outside for this weeks image. Well, turns out downtown San Mateo is pretty weak when it comes to holiday lights. But Jason and I found this tree that was pretty well lit. Two flashes here, key light on camera left and a little rim light directly behind. Next time, I'm making a note to make sure the pose doesn't make it look like I have a big belly. It's the lighting, I swear...

Scott Robert World Tour Los Angeles Revisited

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So, I know its been a while since I was actually at the workshop. But I've maxed out on my laptop's hdd capacity and going through some old stuff when I realized I didn't really look at any of the images I took during our last day in Los Angeles. So here's one that I liked. Below is Angela, she's one of photographers in the workshop and graciously posed for several of us that final day. You can see blog here.

Angela posing in front of the waterfall in flower garden of the Kyoto Grand Hotel in downtown LA.

Same photo, but with a filter effect applied. I just wanted to try it out and kinda like this one

Both side-by-side. Which one do you prefer???

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Off Camera Flash Portraits Project

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In my endeavor to refine my portrait taking, posing, and lighting skills, I've decided to issue myself a project. A weekly project to take a self portrait with different off camera lighting schemes. The first is shown below. I was actually trying to recreate this(posted by D Park Photography), but was not successful. I'll try again...

Week 1

See all images from this project on my Flickr set HERE.

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Break the Boredom

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So lately, I've been feeling pretty complacent with my photography. There just hasn't been anything I've shot that I was eager to get home and post process. Not since the workshop in LA anyways. And I'm eager to practice to try and get better. So I complained to Myron a bit and he and Sherrie were kind enough to offer to model for me. So I rolled over to the East Bay, grabbed some grub, and we just had a lazy little shoot. Some of the new couple and Sherrie's pup, Bean. One thing I know I need to work on is getting my photo subjects comfortable and evoking emotion out of them. Well, they happened to be watching SNL they had DVR'd and so I just had them keep watching TV while I snapped off a few shots. It worked to get them comfortable and just smiling naturally. Then when I realized it was getting late, I set up some strobes in a corner of Sherrie's super cool loft where she has a set of stairs. I LOVE that part or her loft. I don't think I did an adequate job of capturing it this time around. I'll try again later, but for now here's what I've got:

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Fu Family!

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I was down in SoCal this past week and got to catch up with an old friend, Jonathan. It also happened to coincide with the birth of his brand new baby girl, Ayumi. I don't get down to SoCal nearly as much as I should. Hopefully I can make it down there more in 2010.



Introducing Ayumi Fu!



Jonathan with Akemi



Ayumi spending some quality time with Grandpa



Karen and Akemi

Thanks for letting me crash with you guys!

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Chinatown

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I have some mixed memories of Chinatown in San Francisco. Growing up, I honestly thought all San Francisco had to offer were these dingy streets filled with short angry old ladies, vegetables hanging out on the sidewalks, and meat hanging in windows. I've since realized that Chinatown is only a small part of San Francisco. Anyway, these are some old pictures I had taken when I was just walking around with my camera. Kinda random. But I never got around to posting this pics. Just some random street photography.





I bet this little girl thought I was some random tourist taking pictures.






I think this is my favorite of the set

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On your marks!!!

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I used to swim in high school, but that was a long time ago - I won't say how long. I recently had an opportunity to go watch my younger cousin Aaron swim a race at a recent swim meet he had. He had a few events, the 100 Freestyle, 100 Butterfly, 100 Breast, and the 200 IM(Individual Medley). He reminds me a little of myself when I swan. I also swam IM and my best stroke was my backstroke. =)

Anyway, I was excited to get a chance to take some pictures of Aaron in action. So I pulled out the 70-200mm in my endeavor to capture some swimming. I think this is probably my favorite from that day - Aaron swimming the butterfly leg of the 200 IM - just as he's at the end of his stroke.

On a photography related note, the meet took place in the late afternoon while the sun still was still pretty harsh and there was a pretty harsh shadow halfway down the lane. I started shooting in Manual mode but everytime I crossed that stupid shadow, my settings were horribly off. So this is one of the few instances I've ever used Shutter Priority(Tv) and set the shutter at 1/1000 sec. This way I knew my shutter would be fast enough to freeze the action, and still compensate the other settings to maintain the shutter speed. Bad, variable lighting? Try using Shutter Priority.

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Nolan Ching!

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It's been far too long. A couple of huge life events happened the last month. My baby brother got married and we had a new baby cousin born. Just one picture today, but with the two new additions to my family. Judy and Nolan!


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Flash... BOOM!

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So I was laying in bed with my dog when all this flashing was going on outside. I got out of bed, looked outside and discovered an extremely rare lightning and thunder storm going on outside. So I decided to pull out my camera! Night photography from the comfort of my own living room, I could get used to that. The last time I went out at night, Myron came with me and I think he got sick, =(.

All these shots are pretty much straight out of camera. Just a little WB adjustment and some cropping(so I can use these for my next desktop background).

See the rest of the set on my flickr.

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Madeline and Roger Tea Ceremony

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So, I know its been a while since I've posted. But I just finished post processing a huge amount of pics from Roger and Madeline's Tea Ceremony. I plan to do a couple more, but just wanted to get something posted. The Tea Ceremony took place Saturday, August 8 at Madeline's house and it was a great time of celebration and FOOD! I loved the traditional vietnamese wedding dress, called an Ao Dai(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Áo_dài), its gorgeous in all its patterns and colors. And Madeline's was no exception. Roger's looked pretty cool too(even though he was sweating up a storm). Special Thanks to George for helping take the pictures while I attended to some groomsman duties that day.

Andrew making sure Roger is presentable

Andrew and Keith bringing in the whole roasted pig

I guess one objective of the tea ceremony is for the groom and family to formally ask for the bride-to-be's hand in marriage.

LOVE this picture. The girls are so playful and photogenic!

For the rest of the set go here.

On a side note, I feel like photography is starting to get a little dry. I'm thinking about figuring out some "assignment" to give myself to get my creative juices flowing. Maybe a 365 project??? We'll see.

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Mad About Roger

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Roger's one of my oldest friends. I won't say how long we've known each other, but its a looooong time. Last monday I kinda crashed their Engagement Photo Session with Michelle Walker and just kinda tagged along. I got to help her carry some of her gear. You can see a couple of Michelle's photo's on her blog here. I didn't want to interrupt their session so I didn't pull out my camera until after she left. Here are some I took:



Roger and Madeline enjoying some hot chocolate.



The beautiful bride and the cheessy groom. =)

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Pismo Beach at Night

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I've been completely MIA from everything for the past month because work has been crazy. But now that I have back-up again, I have a little more time for other things. This past weekend, I was at Roger's bachelor party down in Pismo Beach. While the guys were sleeping/resting, I snuck away to grab some nightshots. For those camera geeks out there, these are also the first nightshots I took with my new fancy shmancy 5D. Here are a couple that I liked:



This was taken on the balcony of the beach house we stayed at. The lights you see on the left are the cars that are driving along the beach to get to/from the Oceano Sand Dunes.




This kind of makes me think of a lunar landing.

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More From the Lou...

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I've been sitting on these pics for a while. I'm trying to purge my backlog of photo's to post process and post. Here are a few from the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner the day before the wedding in St Louis:



Jason and Abi waiting for rehearsal to begin



The Enemie's Gate is Down



Rachel with Mom and Dad



Mom and Dad giving Rach some lovin'




See the rest of the set here.

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