Watching the World Go By

Sun Flower. Far from tainted light skylines of the city, I remember marveling at the sheer multitude of stars in the sky on a moonless night. Photography had not found me yet then, but I do have a vivid memory of that breathtaking sight. That experience has inspired me to look up to the heavens ever since. Where we wait for boredom to blink in our daily lives, we often miss the marvels that occur overhead.

Three Steps to Curing Picture Vomit (Step 2)

Step 2. Rinse and Do Not Repeat

Okay, so now your pictures are off the card and in your computer. You've weeded out the rejects from the pictures you just shot (as detailed in the previous step). Now, it's time to go over them again and pick out the images that you will proceed to put in a passed-the-audition pile. I would suggest working on copies of your pictures (if you're not using photo management software that preserves the originals) in the event that you might unintentionally delete an image.

The objective of this step is to look at images that essentially depict the same scene, person or object; and choose one to two from that series to go into your pick pile. You don't really need to have four pictures of a waterfall from more or less the same angle, right? 

So, how will an image qualify as a pick? 

Well, allow me to share two examples showing how I go about this process using pictures that I shot myself.

Example 1. The Virtual Slide show

Last year, I shot a short horror flick with a talented group of people from our very own department. There was a downpour on one of the nights that we were shooting, and it was in the middle of all that inclement weather that I chanced upon this tree in the rain. I was in charge of shooting production stills, so I had my camera with me. I took a few moments, while we were walking to one of the indoor locations, to quickly change my settings and shoot a few frames of the scene in front of me. The following pictures are three very similar images of what I saw that night.

So, did I really need all three pictures taking up space on my hard drive?

You can read the answer to this question and the second example after the jump.

Jade - Maternity Portraits

Jade, the lovely woman in the pictures that follow, is a very good friend of my wife, Susan. We conceptualized and planned a maternity portrait session as a gift to her last March, as she was expecting her first child then. She has since given birth to a healthy and beautiful baby boy. However, please allow me to share a few hand-picked pictures that I especially liked from that session here.

The pictures in the collage above can be viewed individually (and larger) after the jump.

Pose: A Question

I posted the collage below on my Google+ stream, and asked those in my circles the following questions with regards to the set of images shown:

Which of the following headshots (of Denden*) below appeals to you the most?

What part/s of the picture makes it appealing to you?

I was glad to have received a fair amount of replies to the questions posed, and I was able to acquire new and helpful insights in the process.

The Verdict

• 75% of those who responded picked out the first picture (from the left). No one picked the second image, so the remaining 25% of the vote went to the third picture.
• Those who chose the first picture cited a number of reasons that could be summed up by the following sentence: Denden looks relaxed and natural.
• Those who chose the third picture pointed out that the angle of the pose flattered the shape of the subject's face.

Allow me to share my answers and thoughts on the matter after the jump.

*I wrote about the portrait session I did with this notable young lady here.

9

Once conceived

Twice revealed

Three months of expectant bliss.

The quarter moon waxes   

As five-pointed stars dance —

Six times sixty twinkling kisses.

A little past the hour of seven

On the eighth day of May,

Nine months of wait has come to this day.

Three Steps to Curing Picture Vomit

Social networking has permanently changed the way that most of today's society interact. Where I still marvel at how two people on opposite sides of the planet can meaningfully share their thoughts with each other in as little time as it takes to type up the content of the emails being exchanged, today's youngsters youth is gifted (or cursed) with what is essentially a real-time bombardment update of the current emotion, position, meal or beverage, companion, and unfinished sentence from nearly everyone in their contact list (which roughly averages in the hundreds per individual).

Most of a social networking site's resources and their subscribers' time is spent on hosting and viewing pictures respectively. Nothing quite proves that you're about to watch The Avengers in 3D than actual pictures of you (with your 3D glasses on) inside the theater. And with most people heavily favoring sight and sound over their other senses, one can see why this is so. I appreciate how family and friends can share their treasured moments with each other at the click of a button. What I despise find alarming is the prevalence of picture vomit, which is what happens when a full memory card 'explodes' all of its contents onto your album page, and results in something that resembles the image below.

Fortunately, this ailment can easily be remedied. If you are a chronic sufferer, don't worry, as a cure is just three steps away.

BPI Science Awardee Shoot: Shedding Light on Excellence

I have known Denniell Ann (simply Denden to people in the department) since she fortuitously found her way into the B.S. Chemistry program about four years ago. Ever shy and self-effacing, I asked to shoot her for an article that I wrote for the USC Department of Chemistry's blog (which you can read here). I did this, not only to celebrate her many notable achievements, but I hoped to infuse her with a you're-only-limited-by-your-imagination kind of confidence before she headed out into the matrix real world.

As I have come to learn, it is always good to get your standard 'crowd-pleasing' keepers done before you experiment with something... less conventional. So, I went for an evenly lit, high-key-type look for the pictures below.

 

Even Steven

Three lights were used to create the look. Due to mixed light sources in the room, I decided to kill off ambient contribution completely. I used a flash set at about 1/16 power, above and behind me as on-axis fill. This allows me to build upon how the shadows in my image will look like before I bring in additional lights. A second flash in a Westcott Apollo soft box at about 1/4 power was placed above (pointing down) and to the right of the subject at an angle of about 45°. A third flash was shot through a LumiQuest SoftBox III and placed on a short stand behind the subject pointed up at the white projection screen. A few test shots, tweaks and adjustments in her pose gave me the pictures below.

The first was shot with a 70-200 mm lens.

A wider angle lens (17-50 mm) was used to make the picture below.

The white background with her white bolero (Yes, I know what that is!) made the wording on her plaque readable in the second image, so that in itself was a bonus.

Time to loosen the straightjacket.

A Song for Susan

Straight into the sky I soared

Under a blanket of uncertain stars,

Straight into the dark I bored

Amidst the glaring lights of wayfaring cars;

Nauseated by serpentine fumes,

Caught in the embrace of its coils;

Leveling my gaze at the road that looms

Ahead, I push on and toil.

I look for your light in a sea of lights,

Reinvigorated only by your glow, knowing

Each time I cross the midnight blue

Just brings me back to the dawn of you.

Happy birthday to my lovely (and not to forget, loving) wife, Susan. The music (and a lot of possible edits to the lyric) will come later. But God willing, I know we have the rest of our lives to make it.

Watching the World Go By

Personal Rain Cloud. We've all had a bad, even the occasional dreadful, day. During those days, it's not too much of a stretch to assume that the universe is conspiring to pull the rug from under your feet, just so that it can kick you in the ribs when you fall down. It also becomes easier to fall back on that sort of excuse every time life becomes 'unreasonably' difficult. Personally, I've always believed that the universe is ultimately fair by being indiscriminately unfair and that I never remembered anyone telling me that life is supposed to be easy. Not that I'm a pessimist (a 'reformed' cynic maybe), but without the contrast provided by one's struggles, life's triumphs would be mere ghosts of themselves. And so, the next time you find yourself in your favorite pair of shoes in an unexpected downpour, dance (or frolic, if you're rhythmically-challenged like me) in the rain because truth is — shoes can be replaced, but the moment you decided to write off the whole day as bad can't.

Light Arithmetic

I would like to believe that a significant part of photography is learning and speaking the language of light. And like learning any new language, there is a period of confusion and frustration. I have read a number of books on the physics and chemistry behind photography, but I admittedly still feel lost when math decides to be a party pooper comes into play. I can and will suffer through as much of it is necessary, but in deciding on how to light a particular shoot; I rely on something much simpler (though clearly less precise) — my gut.

It may not get me to within inches of where my flash needs to be relative to the subject nor does it reveal clear-cut power settings for each strobe, but it does a pretty darn good job of keeping my head from imploding. Although there is an element of insanity randomness to my method, it is the result of a few hundred hours of real-world testing. It's an odd, yet satisfying, feeling to be able to position and set a flash to within about under a stop of where I want to be exposure-wise. Some of you might argue that I could have just bought a light meter and saved myself the trouble, but with that money I would've bought one more flash without even blinking.