The Sketch Book

Monday, 14 January 2008

  • White Rainbow

    I had an adventure in the forest this time around. Well, more like I created the forest in which my adventure beat it's path. There are so many things that I did differently or done new that I am not so sure where it'd take me, and I am still not sure where I am now that it's done. Sort of like going shopping for dinner at a new supermarket when everything is written in a totally different language. I did discover a couple of things though!



    Major Discovery  #1: Music! My prof said I lived in a cave once and he was right. I am now convinced, through practical application, that playing music during a shoot made people happy, and therefore lenghtening the road to boredom. Which is totally awesome. Besides music, the laptop doubled as an image reviewing tool as well.



    Discovery  #2: Everything is more fun when it is free! Gown fromfriend1, violin from friend2, model from friend3, makeup from friend4,lense from friend5. It almost made my day, but the LAYS Classic potato chips cost me $2.50, damn...






    Discovery#3: By its own measure the highlight warning feature available on the LCD at back of the camera is great because it lets me know when I've clipped my highlights. But what it doesn't do, for no good reason since it is easy... is tell me where I've clipped the dark areas (Blacks) of the photo as well. Which is why the hair is pure black in all the photos :(

    Click here & then click some more to access big versions
    Massive thanks to Linda, Rainbow, Melanie as well as Hugo for their support & ideas
    *EDIT: And without Angela there would have been any music. So thanks!

    I also have a new idea too that I am cooking, themed on the G word, Globalization.
    But that won't happen until I finish shooting some serious stuff.

    Thank you for dropping by!

Saturday, 29 December 2007

  • Rain Man

    I call this one the rain man. The funny thing is if you can't tell, the steel sculpture is of a man taking a shower :)



    Doing these made me realize that being a photo buff means being a problem solver too.
    To protect my camera from splashes, I put a towel under neath to soften the impact of water on the counter.
    On top of the towel I put a white Styrofoam lunch box on which the sculpture sits.
    Poking holes in the box caught the excess water and held it :) A clean studio is a happy studio!




    From earlier this month I shot Dyana which was such a pleasure. It's the 1st time
    the hair turned out so nice in my Photos. Big thanks to E Fulcher for providing the model.

    It was tough getting her to relax, but I think at the end of the day, time can relax anyone.
    This one is my favorite, but Click here for the full set with smiles

    Happy new Years everyone!

Sunday, 18 November 2007

  • Too much time on my hands

    This is probably one of those photos I'll need to revisit and redo when a better execution comes to my mind. For now here's my musing for the week titled: Too much time on my hands



    On another note. I bit the bullet got a reflector! And here's a shot of Angela's housemate using the reflector as fill light.

    She's absolutely beautiful & so enduring! We pulled her out of her room and said, "Score! You just came back from a date, all prettied up and ready for the unofficial papparazi". Anyways, I tried both the white side & golden side of the reflector & found the golden side very flattering.

Sunday, 28 October 2007

Monday, 22 October 2007

  • World Press Photo 2007



    Apologies for the long paragraph, if anything, visit this link
    Up till yesterday this picture spoke so much about "them", thankfully after yesterday's visit to the World Press Photo 2007 Exhibition in Toronto, it now spoke with extraordinary strenght even more about "us". There was a guide at the exhibition and we listened in as he demonstrates why this photo won the 07 award.  One might observe the contrast in the picture, affluent folks in the foreground and bombed out Iraq in the background. One visitor commented that they looked like tourist with one women holding up a cell phone camera and snapping away. The car is obviously a luxury vechile, a BMW Mini. But that is not why the photo won says the guide.

    It took me only a moment to draw negative judgement on the subject in the photos.  And around the world very much so was my opinion reflected. BUT if the photo is supposed to convey the truth or reality then this one did a pretty crappy job. Following an investigation into the photo, it has been determined that the fancy looking people you see at the foreground actually lived in one of the buildings that got blown up in the background.  The fancy car they were driving only last week contained medical supplies and was used as transport.  The fashionable clothing they were wearing was not Unique to affluent class, in fact poor or rich, the youth culture of Lebanon emphasised fashion (read Ghetto Fabulous). None of the people in the car owned the car. Technically, they were homeless refugees.

    So apparnetly, the controversy surrounding this photo and how it got interpreted was the definitive reason that it won.

    The world tour ends on Oct 23rd for the Toronto leg and I encourage everyone to hit it up at the BCE place (closes 7pm). It contains a lot of truly mind blowing images blown up so that we can see details previously impossible to reproduce.

Sunday, 14 October 2007

Monday, 12 March 2007

  • What I do during Half Time

    1. There are alot of ways to kill time between the hockey game periods.  Some like to hit the snack bar to consume poped corn for more then what I paid for the hockey tickets, some like to catch the players racing out their locker rooms, and then there are these guys who'd rather..... 

    Click for bigger picture
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    then watch the start of the 3rd period.

    Why do we have less patience today then ever before?

    2. Down Time

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    Click images for bigger photo

Sunday, 25 February 2007

  • Las Vegas

    This one was taken recently just a few days shy of Chinese new years.  Here is my take on the whole thing ;) 

    It might not be obvious in the picture, but the circular light in the middle that looks like a roulette wheel actually blinks and grows outward. There's actually four of these boxes arranged on the wall and for a couple of days this elaborate apparatus would glow continuously with light and burns with incents.  I gotta admit , the view from down the hallway when the ceiling lights are off is pretty daunting if not outright scary. Oh and the funny part is her parents would actually tell her to turn off her laptop to conserve electricity.

Sunday, 18 February 2007

  • I AM BACK!!! 1st up, new job at new company Xerox. I get to commute so expect lots of neat pictures from the streets of Toronto. And happy chinese new years to everyone!  I shall open this New year with this picture.

    Left: Teens demonstrating a MahJong game table that reshuffles and resets the pieces by itself.
    Right: Cathy Chen of World Vision ready to explain the Sponsor a Child charitable initiative. 
    Pacific Mall, Toronto

    Click on the image to see what happens 5 minutes later

Sunday, 05 November 2006