Inspirational Links

It was only recently that I got interested in photography. No, I don't want to be a pro. But I do want to shoot like one, at least. I'll be happy If I no longer depend on my camera's auto mode. So lately I've been reading on some photography 101 sites... aperture, shutter speeds, ISO and other stuff.

I was inspired first by ate marianne's work. I ask a lot of questions and she seems to be happy to answer them all. And then a friend of mine showed me Jake Verzosa's work and whoa!!! A pro at a young age (my age..lol)... and I found out that he did the shoot for 2 of my favorite links from igma.tv site, Darna and Ecantadia. He's the man!

I found other inspiring works of pinoy photographers in photos.ph site. I like Kai Huang's'People' gallery. Mr. Daniel Tan's 'Travel' gallery is breathtaking! He claims that he's "A Photographer Not a Photoshop Artist. 100% No Corrections." I'm not a photographer nor a photoshop artist but I love editing my pix in photoshop. Photoshop enhances pictures. People don't really know what the images actually look but you can make them look better than life. Anyways, his works are still superb, edited or not. Hands down to Hubert Pacheco's 'Baguio or Bust' gallery. He used rolls of film... and not memory cards... Hehehehe!

In photography, there's also a need to present your works in a nice way. Nowadays, an online portfolio is a must specially for those who are doing it for living. When ate marianne asked me to help her with her website, I was forced to learn flash. I'm not a designer and I don't think I'll ever have an eye for it so I leave the designing to her. She gave me links where I could copy get inspiration from... and these are really great sites.

Karen French - most published wedding photographer... love the splash intro.
Audrey Woulard - Her babies and kids pictures are so cute.
Fergus Greer - Nice black and white pictures. See Imelda Marcos on Pictures By Style - Style 05 link.
Tony Garcia - Lifestyle.
Iralippke - Fashion. This one is so cool!!!
Nicolas Ruel - It takes long to load but it's worth it. His travel pictures are amazing.

Some of my other favorite links are:

www.karinabednorz.de
www.philippemcclelland.com
www.peterreadmiller.com
www.markleibowitz.com

Haaaaaaaay. So many inspirations but no time to practice. I want a digital slr for Christmas. So for my friends out there who wants me to be happy, this beginner camera would do. ;) If you have extra money, perhaps you can get me idol jake's camera.

Photography practice

It's been almost 2 weeks since I received my baby Olympus but I only got to used it twice( lik 5-10 shots only). This afternoon, I decided to go to Stater's Bros to buy some stuff and brought my cam with me. I realized it was hard taking pictures outside. The stares and glances from people or cars passing by made me so conscious. There was even a car who honked at me when I was trying to take pix of a grass. When I look up, the driver was laughing. Overall, it was fun... specially when some of the pictures turned out nice (by my standards). Here are some of my practice shots:

Mamang Sorbetero, Cali version. I thought it's only in Pinas...

Pretty in pink...this is a color that you seldom see in a house

Some grass...this caused me the honk

Yellow ribbon on an old Oak tree... I wonder if the owner(wife) has a husband in parole.

Checkout the other pix at http://restyfuruc.fil.ph. Sorry for the bad presentation... lol! It needs a lot of work. I'll make a decent album when I have the time.

Baby Olympus

Meet my new (not...2nd hand) baby. Olympus C-740. I bought it on ebay from a photographer at a bargain price. She may be an old model and has only 3.2 megapixels but she has a cool 10x optical zoom (plus 3x digital zoom for a total of 30x ultra zoom) which is good for landscape photography. I'm still researching about how I can make use of all the features it has but if everthing else fails, like what my photographer friend advised, I can always put it on auto mode. Lol!

Here's a sample shot. The house is about 500 ft (I'm just guessing but it's far) away from our place. Behind it is a golf course and further behind is the 215 freeway.

Remembering the Force

I forgot to list in my previous post that I watched Episode III (Revenge of the Sith) at the Vista Theatre. It's an independent cinema w/ a cool egyptian furnishing and design. I watched Episode II (Attack of the clones) at the Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. I remember people wearing their customes and camped out overnight. I am a Star Wars fan but I will not go that far.

Last night we watched Episode IV (A New Hope) and Episode V (Empire Strikes Back) in dvd. We didn't watch the Episode VI (Return of the Jedi) for it's already late. I watched these movies when I was kid so I've forgotten the story already.

When I saw the Tie Fighter, it reminded me of an old commercial in the Philippines, R.A. Home Vision in channel 13. It's a video rental (?) company. In the ad, the tie fighter was shown and there's this eery hand that was selecting a tape.

Anyways, I'm really excited to watch the Episode VI tonight. May the force be with all of us.