the one where the great buddha says hello

the one where the great buddha says hi
Originally uploaded by gezelle

since 2001, i have wanted to visit the island of lantau and have my photo taken with the big buddha. after 8 years, my wish was granted.

among the many shots i have taken of the sitting buddha, this one came out a favorite because of the unusually friendly expression of the buddha's face. from other angles, it seems to me that the buddha looks too dignified, too formal and impersonal. from this angle however, he looks as if he smiles and waves "hello," as if he knows my name.

i took three shots from this angle, bracketing with a difference of 2/3 overall exposure. i thought this was a good idea especially since the subject was backlit and i had little time to figure out how to expose my subject correctly. i used photomatix in order to generate the HDR image and photoshop to adjust the hue and sharpen the image.

the visit to lantau was during the third day of our 3-day trip. so although i had to catch my breath in each of the 268 steps and sweat profusely during the ascend to the "altar of heaven", i can happily say that it was worth it. i have saved the best for last indeed.

burst of colors

plastic no. 2
Originally uploaded by gezelle

saw several plastic bags hanging by the back of a chair in the kitchen earlier today. the colors immediately attracted me and reminded me of an abstract photo which i saw from a magazine. i thought it may be interesting to create something like it.

i took my camera and chose a setting of 1/8 for the shutter speed. i shot the photo and tried zooming the lens out during exposure. after reviewing the output, i realized that i needed more time during exposure to exaggerate movement and create a more abstract pattern. i switched to manual mode and adjusted both shutter and aperture. the final setting for the photo is: 1/5, f5.6, iso 100.

i dont really do a lot of zooming in or out when taking photos, so that was the most challenging part for me. perhaps from the photo, you can see that my hands were a little shaky. thats my left hand trying to adjust the focal length, hehe. may pagka-pasmado kasi.

Blue

Blue
Originally uploaded by gezelle

one of the many photos taken while i was on my home from work. this one is along edsa, somewhere in the QC area perhaps. i had the window of the cab opened and my SLR in Shutter Priority mode (fixed at 1.3 seconds and the lowest ISO). i pointed the camera at anything that was illuminated such as commercial establishments, buses, taxi cabs, motorcycles and waiting sheds. that night, i thought that the quality and the amount of light is important, but not as important as your willingness to just let things happen.

once i saw that my settings were enough to capture interesting patterns and record streaks of light, i switched to point-and-shoot mode and had fun. i had so much fun that i kept shooting even while crossing the street. right there in the middle, hehe.

please feel free to visit the "abstract" set in my flickr for other photos taken that evening.

The 10 Commandments in Photography

by Gezelle Rivera
1. Thou shall not covet thy neighbor's camera. Thou shall improve thy photography skills and match or exceed the performance of the camera before thinking of buying a new one. Though shall take good care of thy camera.
2. Thou shall not take the camera manual for granted.
3. Thou shall master the exposure triangle and respect the histogram.
4. Thou shall learn and follow good composition techniques but have the guts to break them once in a while.
5. Thou shall learn how to critique thy own work, be willing to have thy work critiqued by others and discover and develop thy own style in time. Thou shall avoid copying the work of others.
6. Thou shall learn how to lock the exposure, adjust the metering mode, the white balance, aperture, ISO and shutter speed of thy own camera by heart.
7. Thou shall not ignore the tripod, the various filters, the built-in flash, the off-camera flash, the reflectors and the diffusers and use them when necessary. Thou shall not rely on image processing software as much as possible.
8. Thou shall learn how to “salvage” a photo when the seventh commandment has been broken, using any chosen image processing software. Thou shall shoot in RAW on difficult lighting situations. Thou shall also learn how to enhance a photo (crop a photo, straighten a photo, adjust the contrast and brightness, sharpen a photo) and convert a photo to B&W.
9. Thou shall learn how to build a portfolio and learn how to protect thyself with copyrights.
10. Thou shall always charge the batteries prior to a shoot and bring enough CF/SD cards during the shoot. Thou shall bring the camera, the right lenses and thyself to the shoot. Thou shall have fun while shooting :)

ma mon luk

ma mon luk v1
Originally uploaded by gezelle

sometime early this year, mavic and i made our way to hidalgo in quiapo to get a few essential photography resources. i bought an RF trigger and a lens pen and at that time, mavic went looking for a circular polarizer for one of her lenses. it was a worthwhile trip, i thought but mavic had another agenda: to eat mami at ma mon luk.

we both ordered siopao which ma mon luk is *famous* for and mami, of course. she had beef mami and i had chicken. the food was not as enjoyable as i had hoped, but i would prefer them over chowking's version of siopao and mami for sure.

i could not resist taking photos of the place because it looks something like what you would see in the old movies, when FPJ or Dolphy were still dominating the local silver screens. it was like being transported back in time! very nostalgic :)