This Picture Rules!

For some reason I think this picture is one of the coolest pics I've ever taken. The retouching just worked by accident and I was like...wooahh coool! That guitar is just so cool. What's sad is as of now, the band is broken up because people are moving to different states and have other obligations etc. This was their second to last performance together. I'll post some pictures soon of the reception which includes the band.

Some Hong Kong Randomness...

I snuck and took this inside the Louis Vuitton art gallery...the secret is to take the pic, plead ignorance, and apologize.

There were a lot of dog walkers near The Peak.

One of my several self portraits - the secret is a wide angle lens.

The chaos that is HK at night.

Words to describe the city are raw and untamed (I read this somewhere else and it was the perfect description). It's just a mass of humanity, for better or worse. It's not for the faint of heart, that's for sure. Compared to Singapore, it's the stark opposite. Singapore, while urban, is clean and orderly. I wouldn't go as far as to call it sterile, but it is very organized and packaged. I'll post more random pictures soon. Both places share one thing in common though, which is that if you're a photo-lover or photographer, these places are dreams. Night photography, landscape, urban, people, colors...both places have it all. I have fulfilled one of my goals to print one of my pictures, blow it up, frame it, and put it on my wall :) Also, I'll be moving very soon to my new "crib." It's a brand new, modern apartment that is in a great location and has a very urban-modern style, which I love. Very loft-like.

Also, new wedding booked. Engagement pics next week. Also Vegas pics. Much more soon.

A Cool Pic from Dallas

I've been bad with the picture taking but I've been very busy with non-photo related stuff. I got a chance to go to Dallas earlier today so I brought along my trusty D70s. I took more pictures than this but I must say, I've been spoiled by the incredible results of the D3 so it took a little more retouching to get them up to standard. I can't believe I shot a wedding with the D70s and got some good results. It's definitely showing its age with the noise level and dynamic range. More soon when I fixed them up.

Big News!

Ok forget the picture, I just threw that in there for the heck of it. As most of my friends know, I've relocated to Fort Worth, Texas (you may have noticed on my sidebar -->) I have put down the camera (for now) to attend to some pressing matters in my new job at TCU. I even got my own office and everything. Speaking of places, I got my own sweet crib - I'll post some pictures when it gets a little more furnished. It's a bit bare right now.

Well, I do miss California...A LOT, but this place is really charming. It was a very tough decision moving to Texas since I had some options in California, but TCU won me over. My only gripe - huge gripe - is the heat. I can't say I'm used to it but I try to stay indoors with the AC. Anyway, I'll have a bigger update later but I felt like this blog has been neglected. No worries, I'll be snapping away soon. Most of all, I really miss everyone at home but the good news is, this job allows me to have 4 months off during the year - where I'll be back in SoCal. Ill need to find some new people to shoot out here. More soon.

Chairs: Photo of the Week

I can't take credit for this cool shot but I supplied the camera and lens :)

A few things to chat about:

I had an interview with a writer at Boston Magazine who's writing for Consumer Reports and the topic: retail computer service repair companies...like Geek Squad from Best Buy. Shout outs to Phil, Randy and the rest of the former techs at BB. Anyway, I told the guy it wasn't Geek Squad when I worked there but he said it was fine. Hopefully I'll spot this at the news stands when it comes out and maybe I'll get a quote in there. If you google my name you'll see that I've been interviewed before for videogames. Geeky, I know.

Also, everyone needs to go to Costco, buy a watermelon, cut it into pieces and stick it in the fridge. It is hot and the watermelon helps a lot! The way you choose them is you pick them up and smack them a few times to look for the hollow sound.

We're narrowing down a date to shoot Barb and Mike's engagement within a month.

Finally, AVOID HP COMPUTERS. They have friendly service but SLOOOOOW. It's going to take around a month for a laptop repair even with an extended warranty. I'm not messing around from now on, I'm buying Lenovo/IBM brand only. However, I didn't have a choice for a new desktop which is HP, but I do get a 24" monitor :) Oh well...long winded this post but more soon.

Wine

This pic was of a wine rack was taken in Atlanta last year. It was the front of a restaurant in the hotel. I've been tasting a buncha wine in the past year just to try to develop my palette. Check out Gary Vay-Ner-Chuk on the link to the right if you've never seen it. This was taken with the D70s and the cheapy kit lens that came with the camera (I wasn't about to bring expensive lenses to a conference for a few days), which you can produce some really nice pictures with if you know what you're doing.

I bought a new camera last week but it had 11 dead pixels in live view mode so I had to send it back for a replacement :( I've just been trying to get familiar with the controls and testing it out indoors and haven't even taken it out for a shoot yet. I'll talk more about it once I actually get it for good. It should be arriving some time next week so I can't wait! I'll have a full review once I give it a good go but so far from what I can tell the controls are very intuitive having only shot with the Nikon D70s/D50 at length. Anyway, stay tuned for that and some more photo tips too.

Some Architecture

This is one last artsy picture for now. It is so hot today - up in the 90s here and I'm not a person who enjoys hot weather. I don't know how I'm going to survive this summer...

Anyway, I'm getting ready to step up to the big leagues now that I actually need a new camera (megapixels do matter when it comes to albums). My trusty old D70s has served me well and I've learned a ton while producing some lovely pictures. Still a great camera but I need something with 12 megapixels and since I shoot Nikon, that leaves me 2 choices: The monster D3 or the D300 junior version?? The D3 (the one I drool over) has an incredible full-frame sensor that just works extremely well in low light and it shoots like a machine-gun but it'll be a while before I pay that off. I've been asking around and getting different opinions and I know it's not about the gear, it's about the person shooting but I want to have something that will last me and not buy a new camera every 2 years (like with my last one) .. decisions decisions.

Some Cool Art

This colorful photo is a close-up of a yellow sculpture near Scott's restaurant in Costa Mesa. I took it scoping out cool shooting locations but we ended up not having enough time.

Photo of the Week

This flower was taken at AC's church last weekend. I didn't use any sort of color or brightness retouching, just sized, sharpened, and framed for the blog. I don't know if the camera was off - my Nikon tends to be thrown off by intense reds, but this is just ridiculously vibrant. I noticed a ton of blooming wildflowers at UCI on Tuesday and riding my bike around the neighborhood. It looks like Spring is in full swing. This is a great time to take lots of pictures.

Colorful!

I haven't posted any pictures for a while so I thought I'd look in my archives and find something interesting to share. Here are some colors and patters from my Atlanta visit to the World of Coke. The good news is I'll have some pictures soon of little miss sassy, AKA Sienna this Thursday.

It's weird to see wedding planning ramping up because my blog has been hit with a lot of inquiries about the Huntington Beach Hyatt, which I did a post for my friend Howard's wedding. Here's my advice for selecting a photographer:

- The Ultimate Photography Litmus Test

1. Women are the most critical of pictures of themselves. Evidence: they tend to look at group photos and focus in on themselves first and determine whether they like a pic on how they look. Usually, it's ewww I hate this picture.

2. If a photographer can get a woman/girl to truly like a picture of themselves, then he/she is a good photographer. Evidence: They not only like their picture but show it off. It's cheesy but posting on a social network such as facebook is a for sure sign.

This sounds silly but it's harder than you think. Try it out and see ;)

A couple of shots from my recent adventures across country. The first one is the snow in a small town in Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh - kinda like Scranton, PA in The Office. It was beautiful and I was completely messmerized by the postcard-like Winter. The second is a beautiful Atlantic sunrise outside of my hotel window in Florida. It was weird seeing the sun rise over the Ocean but very cool...and cold. This was shot with a camera phone so the quality wasn't all that great. Too bad I didn't bring a real camera, but pretty cool nevertheless.

Updated: Even More Boats

Check out this dusk shot on top with a cool painting filter that makes it look like it's done in oil. I'm trying some new stuff to add a little variety to my pictures and this blog. I haven't tried it with any people pictures but apparently people pay big bucks at the mall for this type of stuff when it comes to portraits. Click on the picture for the full resolution image that you can take to Target or Costco and print out perfectly in 4x6".

Lynn and Donovan are getting married in a couple weeks soon so my wedding debut is coming up! I'm heading over to the reception hall tomorrow to nail down the camera settings and test out some fancy flash setups.

Update: I added another Christmas lights pic and another boats shot.

Old and Busted

Cool effect huh? It's a sepia/blue split-tone.

I've been pretty swamped lately so this blog has been a little neglected but I should be posting more pictures of actual people soon. In the meantime, check out this cool rustic wagon wheel picture I took at Craig's house from last time. I try to get some shots of cool things when I'm out taking pictures.

How to take a good picture? I really don't know but here are things that catch my eye besides good looking people:

- Good Lighting: soft natural lighting, like golden sunset time or just cool shadows and shapes.

- Vivid colors: When I see some bright vibrant color, that always gets my attention. Like buildings painting a certain color (see Jazmine's photo shoot in the archives) or flower beds etc.

- Busted up crap: Like this wagon wheel, rusty beat up stuff etc.
- Cool patterns: A row of arches or shapes and patterns are always cool to place someone in front of.

Those are just some things that catch my attention. The great thing is there are no rules. Personally I don't like to shoot too many cliche shots like sunsets. Anyway, more soon hopefully.

Cool or Boring?

Sometimes a little bit of good lighting and simplicity makes things interesting, to me at least. These are just plain white chairs but the window lighting is great. I'll leave it up to the true artists to interpret this in a metaphoric way, but me, I just think it's a cool photo. The trick of course is to get up close and fill the entire frame with the picture. This was taken with a 50mm prime lens.

Hotlanta!

I'm in Atlanta this week for a conference and I brought my camera and a light travel lens for some pictures - Rita (who's from here originally and is here at the conference) convinced me that this is a scenic place. So hopefully Friday we're heading down to the aquarium (world's largest) and around town to snap some photos. Here's a couple of pictures of the inside of the hotel (Marriott). I'm up in the 39th floor, which isn't even the top. It opens up into a center atrium area where you can look all the way up or down, kinda like the inside of the Luxor. Pretty spectacular sight...here's a picture from outside the doorway. Cool huh? More interesting stuff soon.

A Quick Update

I have been super swamped so i haven't been able to take any pictures since Jazmine's 15 so I thought I'd post a pic I took a while back at the Ritz. They're just rose petals but I really love the colors. Right now is a great time for kid photos since they'll all be in their Halloween costumes - fun! Check out THESE awesome kid photos by one of my favorite local photographers Jessica Verma.

Update: I came across this good guide for taking Halloween pics. Here's the LINK.

Halo 3 Legendary Edition

Yes, it's finally time to "finish the fight" on the xbox 360. Unfortunately I can't actually wear this helmet while I play - yes, I'm that nerdy but I will say that playing online with a bunch of friends is quite an experience. Friend me up - gamertag: Sparda05.

Anyway, I have a pre-quincinera shoot this Sunday afternoon @ Balboa Island so stay tuned.

Cool Park

Click for larger resolution.

Here's a shot from Mission Bay Park (I think that's what it's called) near Downtown, San Diego. The huge park was a happenin place with jet skis and sail boats etc. and tons of people. There was a boat race in town. We drove around it and got out for a few pictures. The weather was just awesome, not too hot with a cool breeze. This picture was taken with my new 'big daddy.' I'll explain more later.

A vibrant door

Yes, it's just a door but check out the cool colors. For backgrounds, I like to find places with vibrant colors. This same door was the background for Bryan'a shoot (see below). A little saturation boost and it really pops. Cool eh?

Cool Beach Pic

It has been scorching hot in Socal these past few days. Maybe this water pic will psychologically cool you down. I've got more pictures coming soon, when I introduce some new babies.