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.