I have about 30 shots of this thing trying to get a good angle and good lighting. This is the best I got. This is zoomed at 200mm and then further cropped in editing to remove much of the sky. These are the times that I can say that sometimes the gear you have matters. A dedicated fast, telephoto lens could have done for this shot.

Anyhoo, hmmm… yeah. Just increased the blueness of the sky and cropped and… hmmm… not much else really.

I don’t know why, I just sort of did. I can’t explain why I wasn’t afraid the first time, but the last two times were making me curse why the wind had to even move.

Anyway, I took this shot and it was ugly as hell. I didn’t even have a “vision” for this shot and had very little to no plans on publishing it. So why I risked my life (well, it felt that I did) to take this shot, I just don’t know why.

In the end, the shot looked like Hell’s hound chewed it up and spat it out. Then came photo editing to help. Yey.

I chose this shot among the 10 or so death defying shots that I took since it was the one with the least amount of distraction, the straightest and I like the way the metal “beams” made patterns and nice lines. So what I did here was to increase the depth of the black of the night sky to remove all the unnecessary light and stuff. I also realigned the image as straight as I could. Then I made it look as low key but still nice as possible. And, viola.

For those that haven’t read my about me, shame on you. Read it. Now.

As you now know, I took up electrical engineering in college. For a while, I worked for the power utility company in our province so I know a few things about electrical posts. In this photo, it’s really well made (like I would know). But really, it’s clean. Well, so far. No stupid phone and cable TV lines are still attached to it yet. You see the thin line at the top most? That’s the neutral line. All other lines are the main lines, carrying high voltage power. There’s a lot more I can say about this since I should as it was my course and I did pass the REE board exam but it will be too much for just an article introducing the photo.

I just turned the photo to B/W as post process, nothing else. (EXIF data to follow…)

Anyway, as for the lion and the photo. I so wanted to touch the lion and bite it’s ear. Weird I know, but I sort of have this thing with wanting to bite the ears of animals. But I have not done so in my life. I want to. But haven’t. Anyhoo, the handlers were a bit strict and I could not find the right time where(when?) the lion was not agitated with the people and had the kind of temperment (both with the handlers and the lion) that would allow me to hug the lion. She(?) was beautiful. Well, I’m partial as anything mammal, less humans, to me are beautiful. I wish I had a pet lion. White, black, green, pink, I don’t care so long as it’s a lion. A lion would be a nice pet.

The photos were obviously post processed as composing with cage bars, little children, couldn’t care less lion, harsh noon lighting left me with very little to work with. That and I’m a lousy photographer. Anyway, with the first photo, I made it BW and increased the contrast as to make the fur stand out. I only wish I was a good enough editor to remove the chain and collar so the photo would not give off the feeling of “domesticated” so much. For the second photo, it breaks a lot of conventions and rules but I like it. I would have wanted to get more of her head/face into the photo but the rest were blurred shots and this was the only sharp one. Again, I increased the contrast to make the fur more prominent but retained some of the color and still could not edit it good enough to remove the collar. I will update this article later when I find the raw images since I was not able to extract the EXIF data.

Camera: Nikon D60
Lens: 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/500″
Aperture: f/7.1
ISO: 400
Exposure Compensation: +1EV
Metering Mode: 3D Matrix
Focal Length: 18mm
White Balance: Auto
Picture Control: Normal

Shutter Speed: 1/2″   Aperture: f/11.0   ISO: 400   Focal Length: 28mm

Shutter Speed: 0.769sec   Aperture: f/11.0   ISO: 400   Focal Length: 29mm

Shutter Speed: 0.769sec   Aperture: f/11.0   ISO: 400   Focal Length: 30mm

Shutter Speed: 3.3secs   Aperture: f/11.0   ISO: 400   Focal Length: 26mm
Coconut trees… that’s what I see. Here you notice that the shutter was open for 3.3 seconds. That’s because I wanted to get the rocket as it if flying before it explodes. This is where the low ISO comes in handy. If this was taken with an ISO1600 or even an ISO800, the surroundings would have been bright with the light from the street lights and other fireworks especially since the shutter was open for 3.3seconds.

Anyway, that’s it for my fireworks shots. If you want to see the first part, click here and here for the second part.

Shutter Speed: 0.625sec   Aperture: f/11.0   ISO: 400   Focal Length: 32mm
This particular one really reminds me of flowers. I see those yellow sparks as the pollen/stamen part and the pink/red parts as the petals.

Shutter Speed: 0.769ec Aperture: f/11.0 ISO: 400 Focal Length: 28mm

Shutter Speed: 0.769ec Aperture: f/11.0 ISO: 400 Focal Length: 28mm
This one seems like a sunflower for me. I know it’s not huge, yellow or has a big “face”. I think the way it “looks up” to the sky makes me think of sunflowers.

Shutter Speed: 0.769ec Aperture: f/11.0 ISO: 400 Focal Length: 28mm

Shutter Speed: 0.769ec Aperture: f/11.0 ISO: 400 Focal Length: 28mm
I like how the fireworks are arranged on this one. The yellow centers really makes me think of flowers.

That’s it for the second part. Click here to go back to the first part and here for the third.

Anyway, I will post some of the new photos I’ve got and from this I think I found a new technique in posting that will make me do it frequently and not be as irksome as before. I now plan to post a lot of photos in one post especially if they are all taken in the same time and place (duh… how could I take a photo of two different places at the same time?). So without much ado here is my first photo post for this year.

The following photos were taken from the First Philippine Pyromusical Competition in the Mall of Asia in Pasay City last February 14, 2010. I was there with Winston, Mica and Hannah. It was the first of, I think, 5 weekends of presentation. There was an opening act where most of my shots were crap and then followed by the first contestant, America where my shots considerably went much better.  Not that the opening act was crappy, rather I was unprepared.

Two things to take note of the shots are that they were taken handheld and on a bulb setting. A bit hard but not impossible as you can see with my *cough* amazing *cough* shots. As you will also notice, ISO was set in the lows and shutter is near 1 second. This is because when taking photos of fireworks, to be able to get the light as it explodes and become the fantastic glory that it is, you need to have the sensor expose for around a second. Why a second? Well, most fireworks that was in the show had the lifespan of 2-3 seconds. Most of the wonderful things happen during 0-1 second and the fireworks’ fading and death during the 2-3 second.  Then why bulb? It’s because the 2-3 second I said is an average. It could be shorter with smaller fireworks or it could be longer fireworks that have a lot of effects. So why the low ISO? Well, you see, these magnificent Chinese creations are explosives with a lot of bang and light. Though nothing compared to a strobe, floodlights or the sun, fireworks are still very bright. If you expose your sensor for even just a second at ISO 800, it’s gonna be really bright. In fact, if your camera can talk, it’s not gonna say anything ’cause you already fried it’s brains with the intense light. And lastly, why handheld? It’s because I don’t have a tripod.

I call this post as “Twilight Blooms” ’cause it’s night and the fireworks seem to “bloom” into the night. You will also notice that most of the shots I chose have the fireworks looking like flowers. I’ve also cropped some of them to be at the bottom of the frame to give it a “grounded” look so that it looks more like a flower. I think that’s about enough crap from me, so here are the shots.

Note: There are settings which are similar with the photos. I will place them here so that the post won’t seem so crowded.

Camera: Nikon D60
Lens: 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6
Exposure Compensation: ±0EV
White Balance: Auto
Picture Control: Vivid

Shutter Speed: 1.2secs   Aperture: f/11.0   ISO: 200   Focal Length: 32mm

Shutter Speed: 1/3″   Aperture: f/11.0   ISO: 200   Focal Length: 24mm

Shutter Speed: 1/4″   Aperture: f/11.0   ISO: 400   Focal Length: 35mm

Shutter Speed: 0.625sec   Aperture: f/11.0   ISO: 400   Focal Length: 36mm

Since this might make this page take so long to load and I dislike when the scroll bar reaches that short length, so I gonna make two more continuing posts. Click here for the second and here for the third.

The girl in the photo is a child of one of my officemates (duh…). I noticed her a lot since she was very friendly, well behaved and was polite to everyone around her. She fell one time and hit her tooth (or lip) and was about to cry but with a little consoling, she was up and about again.

I like this photo ’cause it captures her moment. When everybody else was busy doing something else, she was intently listening to the person in front. So I accentuated her a bit more. I made everything else’s saturation lower. I isolated her and made her brighter and more vibrant.

Camera: Nikon D90
Lens: 55-200mm f/4-5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/30″
Aperture: f/5.3
ISO: 500
Exposure Compensation: ±0EV
Metering Mode: 3D Matrix
Focal Length: 175mm
White Balance: Auto
Picture Control: Normal

Note: The big preview above is a bit screwed ’cause the photo is wider than usual. Just click it to view the actual photo.

This, obviously, is a shot of fireworks exploding. This was taken on a Saturday at 7:00PM on the Mall of Asia. Let me tell you something… We don’t have this in Davao. Fireworks are not allowed in Davao. The mayor forbids any form of fireworks to be brought in, sold, or ignited within Davao City’s limits. It’s kinda hard for the Chinese community since this is one of their tradition and belief. I kinda miss fireworks. I am very fascinated about it. I like how it is choreographed to explode in a rythm. I love how the colors mixed. I even like the smell of the explosive powder. So if you see me during a fireworks display, I’ll probably be giggling like a school girl so don’t bother me.

This shot… well I don’t remember much of it. I took this on the night of the day that we bought the camera. I was about as savvy with it’s function as I am dextrous with my left hand. Anyway, I would leave the shot details to the EXIF data below. As for post processing, I cropped it, made the sky darker and removed a lot of noise. I increased the saturation a bit. I sort of cheated got in between the lines and removed the smoke and light that leaked.

Camera: Nikon D60
Lens: 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6
Shutter Speed: 1″
Aperture: f/7.1
ISO: 360
Exposure Compensation: -0.7EV
Metering Mode: 3D Matrix
Focal Length: 18mm
White Balance: Manual
Picture Control: Normal