Class of 2008...Almost

Kindergarten Commencements
Yes, I chose the rainbow belt and clip-on polka dot tie.


UCI 2000

As most of you know, in a couple weeks I'll be finally graduating. I've been busy trying to wrap things up so I haven't taken too many pictures. These are two olden shots of me during graduation. The first one is when I graduated from kindergarten. The second is when I graduated as an undergrad.

The funny thing is I spent around half an hour searching for the picture files thinking I lost my undergrad pictures until I realized...they were in FILM! So I poked around the photo albums and found them. Sheesh I feel old. I tried to spruce them up a little with photoshop but they're just old pictures. What I've noticed with pictures is that the ones you once thought were good aren't really that great when you go back and re-visit them. Sometimes your memory ties them with the good times in your life and you remember them as better than they actually were. So, going by that, never go back and eat the candy you ate when you were a kid. A few years ago,I bought a fun dip and tried to eat it. It was like eating pure sugar - gross. But I loved them as a kid.

Anyway, for my 2008 commencement, I'm going to try to get some awesome pictures. I've already got a few volunteer friends playing paparazzi that day with some nice cameras so hopefully they'll turn out nice. Guys - bring your 200mm lenses and make sure to crank up the ISO since it's going to be indoors :) I'll be gone the later half of the week for a quick out-of-state trip but more pictures and exciting news soon !

Notice Something Different?

I know I said no more Sienna pics for a while but this young lady was scouted by a TriStar rep and has a meeting in a few weeks!! So she needs some more current headshots so I was happy to oblige. Plus it game me a chance to give my new camera a test run. What do you think? The best way I describe the images from the new camera is creamy goodness The colors are just incredible, sharp and the blur is crazy good. Unfortunately, I was trying to save some memory and shoot at jpg normal when I should've shot at fine mode. Regardless, it's safe to say it blows away my old camera.

I'm blogging this on my ooooold PC - all I gotta say is processing a 12 megapixel image in photoshop CS2 on a Pentium III 500Mhz machine is like watching videos using a 56k modem. I'll have a big camera review post coming soon - that's why I don't want to say which camera I got yet.

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.

Transitioning Out of the Nikon D70s

My wedding setup - the D70s, 70-200 2.8 (rented), 50 1.4, and 17-35 2.8.

When I frist considered buying a dSLR camera, the decision was between the Nikon D70s and the Canon D30. Both were good cameras, with the Canon being generally a better camera (bigger LCD, faster) but more expensive. So I went with Nikon knowing that the Nikon system was just as good if I ever want to do something more serious. At the time I was just wanted to take some nice pics in lower light - something a point and shoot little camera can't quite do. I've been pretty content with it until I started taking better pictures and ran into the limitations of the camera:

- Viewfinder is too small (the part where you look into)
- Too few focus points (only 5) which is annoying when I started wanting to focus on things not in the center.
- A little grainy in low light with difficulty focusing.
- Not enough dynamic range (shooting in the bright washes out the details easily)
- And lately, not enough megapixels for a big album (I found this out recently).

However, it was a great camera to learn from. It wasn't watered down in terms of manual controls and with a 50mm 1.8 lens, you can learn everything you need to know about taking pictures. Even though this is classified as an "amateur" camera, as you can see from all the photos from this blog, it can definitely hold it own in terms of cranking out "professional" looking pictures. In fact, I'll take any picture I've shot from this blog with the camera and take the Pepsi challenge. But...with the album requirements and low-light requirements for weddings, I've "maxed" out the utility of this little guy. More soon on transitioning into a new camera.

A Quick Update

When I go too long without updating this blog I'm always afraid it'll fade into Internet oblivion so I try to dig up some old pictures that I find interesting and worth sharing and just to ramble on about something. This terribly underexposed picture taken months ago. They're just stacks of paper that took months to complete for the purpose of __________ .... to be explained at a later date.

On the picture front, lots of news and I'm only giving some crumbs but I'm planning on doing an updated shoot of this guy:

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.

Sumu and Brian's Wedding Reception Part 2

Brian having fun.


Nothing too fancy, just a cute little cake.


Sumu workin the camera.


It was also Sumu's dad's birthday so everyone sang 'Happy birthday' really out of tune.

The lovely young ladies.

Here are a few more pictures from the wedding reception. Karen was also there with Anand but didn't bring Mateus.

Also, I signed up for twitter so I'm a little more Web 2.0 up in here. Basically it posts whatever you're doing at the moment and can even be updated using SMS text messaging. There was this American reporter the other day who got out of Egyptian prison the other day because he let his friends know he got arrested through a twitter update. It posted a little link on the blogger sidebar on what I'm up to.

Sumu and Brian's Wedding Reception Part 1

Yesterday I shot Sumu and Brian's wedding reception at Scott's Seafood Restaurant in Costa Mesa, CA - across the street from South Coast Plaza (I didn't get to shoot the actual wedding, which was last Thursday). It was a very small and intimate reception for family and close friends. There wasn't a lot of hoopla but it was very romantic. When I saw Brian come up in a tux I thought it was going to be very formal and no-nonsense, but I was absolutely wrong. They were completely into each other and absolutely adore each other. Brian was full of fun photo ideas like laying on Sumu's lap, dipping, and plenty of smooching. Here are some images we took before the guests arrived. Plenty more in the next few days.

Since we're talking about weddings, I went to check out Laguna Ablums and was very impressed. So now, I'm in the process of selecting pictures to put together a couple of sample albums and will be able to offer some awesome and affordable wedding packages.

Before | After

I was talking to Shari today about photos and retouching so I gave her a quick demo. The first pic is straight out of the camera and the second shot is retouched. As you can see, it makes a big difference. My philisophy on this is just to do enough to enhance the picture a little bit - don't go nuts. The trick is a good shot to begin with. Some people can perform miracles with Photoshop but I can't. I love the lighting in this shot, giving her the famous "glow."

What I've done is enhance the color saturation and contrast and boosted the light a little. Some people might not like the color or that you can't see the beach but I like the warm tones on this one - the effect I was going for, it's all a matter of taste. Also notice she's not facing the sun. But you do it I bet either the flash goes off or the person is too dark. How did I do this?

1. You need a DSLR (you can get one for pretty cheap these days, don't anything fancy)
2. Spot meter on the face (make sure your camera has this)
3. Adjust your camera settings to it and make some adjustments. (I use manual mode)

How did I learn this? Reading photography sites with tips like this one and practicing ;) I'm just passing along the info.

Feel free to leave questions in the comments or share your photo tips.

Last Couple of Wedding Pictures

Not my best cake shot, I admit.


I had to throw this one in.

The next upcoming event is a mini wedding reception in a couple weeks but hopefully I'll shoot something before that. Stay tuned.

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.

A Few More Photos

She was definitely working the camera.

Let me talk about why weddings are difficult to shoot. When conditions are less than perfect, like indoors in a dark church, it can be very tricky. Aperture mode and auto white balance on the camera get easily fooled because of the white dress and dark tux. Most of the time you can't use flash, which means you have to have really good lenses and you have to really know your camera. You generally have to shoot in manual mode and you have to be fast adjusting your settings.

In this case, what really drove the camera nuts was the mix of natural, incandescent, and florescent lighting. You'll get half the person really cool (blue) and the other half warm (yellow). One sign a wedding photographer isn't good is if a majority (or all) of his or her indoor and night shots are in black and white.

Randy & Victoria's Wedding

I love the veil blowing in the wind.






This is a cool shot for some reason.

I assisted AC today at a wedding. Technically Randy and Victoria renewed their vows after 17 years of marriage and 2 kids. Pretty incredible this day and age if you ask me. Here are some of my favorite pictures from today. The ceremony was simple yet beautiful. Then we went to Cascades Park in Monterey Park to shoot some photos before the reception, typical wedding place that everyone goes to. Hopefully it didn't turn out cheesy - I don't think it did. I didn't do my usual several thousand shots today since the pressure was on AC. I just snapped away casually but I think I got some nice shots. A few more pictures when I get the chance to fix them up then send the whole thing over to AC to edit the rest however he likes.

The 70-200 2.8 is an absolute must for any wedding. AC borrowed the Canon 70-200 2.8 IS lens. That thing is a solid piece of metal that's shorter and thicker than the Nikon equivalent I used for Lynn and Donovan's wedding - but equally as expensive. It was a pretty spectacular lens. I didn't have it and missed a lot of important shots. I stuck to my 50 1.4 most of the day and used my 17-35 2.8 for the wider shots. I didn't use too much flash much so I can't really review the flash diffuser I bought. Instead, I cranked up the ISO to 1600 and things looked fine. People complain too much about graininess but it's really not a big deal. Things used to be even more grainy with film so I think they're just looking for excuses for poor shot selection.

Shari @ Santa Monica

Earlier this week Shari and I met up in Santa Monica for some food and hanging out. I had my camera with me so we snapped a few photos. She spotted a great location on the pier and the lighting was perfect.

So what's the best way to light a person with sunlight? There are a couple of ways to go about this. A lot of people face the sun, but all you get are squints and it looks harsh. Some people will have the sun to the back but it'll come out dark or you'll have to use a flash, which isn't flattering. My favorite is to have the sun at an angle - notice the nice glow :) This can only be done during specific times.

So what's the best time to shoot? Ideally, I like to shoot during dusk, about 30 minutes before the sun sets. The worst time is probably high noon, when the sun is bright which casts harsh shadows. It can be easily fixed by just going in the shade - but if you do make sure you have a good fast lens.

That's my way of shooting, there is really no right or wrong way but this way produces the more flattering pictures in my opinion and it's just my style of lighting. Some people love it and some might hate it.

Saturday I'll get a chance to shoot with AC so hopefully I'll have some nice pictures to show.

A Birthday with Crawdads

I had a tasty cholesterol-filled treat this past weekend at Anisa's birthday crawdad extravaganza. This is the second year I've done this so I'm a pro at this now - the trick is not to eat the meat and suck the head but you gotta peal the head back to scrape the head fat (the best part). Yes, it sounds gross but true crawdad fans know what I'm talkin about. The next birthday coming up in my good friend "Prince" Howard's this weekend (see the post where I was a groomsman at his wedding).

Anyway, here are a couple of my portraits shot with awesome sunset lighting and my favorite 1.4 lens. I'm going to post another golden sunset lighting picture soon that I shot at Santa Monica.

Also, looks like I'm going to be assisting AC this weekend to shoot a wedding so that should be fun. A lot more pictures soon.

Sienna The Slideshow

Ok this is the last Sienna post for a long while, as I am only documenting the first year of her life. It's a good thing Kris has a nice camera so he can take over from here. It's amazing to see someone grow up so fast. She's developing quite the personality as you can tell by the pictures. She's got a split personality, so goes back and forth between all-business like dad and silly/funny like mom with her own goofy style added in. My regular blog readers have shared this experience with me. If you like the pics you can see most of them in the archives. Enjoy :)

Sienna's Birthday Part 2

Polo shoes?!


How to entertain a kid without exerting much energy? Ans: Bubbles.

Here's part 2 of Sienna's first birthday. She's having a party this Saturday so I'm still debating on whether or not to go to that. I also have a video that I'll be posting soon based on pictures of her first year.

On the photo front...I did receive a tax refund so what new toy should I buy? The 70-200 lens??? *scratches chin*

Someone Just Turned 1 !!!

Guess who can walk now!?! It's not Sienna because she doesn't walk, she struts. Check out the bounce and her snappin those fingers - which can only be described as FIERCE!! (Project Runway fans know what I'm talkin about). Some more pictures when I get to them.

Howard + Sandy + Nikon F4

Nikon F4 with the fat 17-35mm 2.8.

Howard and Sandy came up to visit today for some lunch (See history for their wedding). Sandy brought her Nikon F4 film camera, which was the top-of-the-line Nikon back in the day. Actually, Howard's dad owns the camera and it's been sitting in storage in mint condition for ages. She's taking a photography class. Attached to it is the 85 1.8 lens ...yummy (did I tell you how much I think prime lenses rule???). Unfortunately for me, I have an old Canon EOS Rebel S film camera that isn't compatible with my Nikon lenses. Two gear posts...what's going on here??!!

The good news is that there are some birthdays coming up in March, which means some pictures of people coming soon.

Update: New Poll (Which camera brand do you use) on the right as well as a link to Sandy's blog -->>