Mariel and Geobz Tie The Knot

Just a little over a month had gone by and we were back in Tagaytay for another wedding, this time not as the main photographers (no less than Dino Lara with 'assistant' Jason Magbanua were covering), but as guests with a special favor to do for the bride and groom. Cary and I were going to shoot portraits of the principal sponsors and have them printed and framed on-the-spot, as special souvenirs.

For the background, we staked out a nice spot at the entrance to the venue, where the event stylists had hung the couple's prenup photos on a trellis. For lighting, we brought a couple of SB-600 Speedlights and mounted them on tripods. For light modifiers, we used a Lightsphere to soften the main light, and a Lumiquest Mini-Softbox on the secondary light, held up above our group, to even out the shadows on the other side. The speedlights were controlled wirelessly through Nikon's handy Creative Lighting System. As a bonus, the sun was already setting directly behind the trellis, so we had on hand a strong backlight for the group. I planned to shoot the setup, but I was a little busy playing light man, holding up the secondary light on the tripod to get more height. Even with the mini-softbox on, the second light was still putting out too strong a side light and creating harsh shadows.

Thankfully, Cary's Nikon D70, in PictBridge printing mode, played nice with the portable Selphy printer made by that other camera company that has all the white lenses. We shot all of the portraits in Direct Print mode, and the 4x6" prints turned out surprisingly well straight out of the camera. The only hitch that came up had little to do with the equipment: Gourmet's Cafe suffered a couple of blackouts while the reception was in progress. The Selphy, while portable, could not be powered off batteries. It was a tense few minutes while we sat in the dark waiting for the power to come back so we could finally finish with our prints. In the end, we were told that the sponsors enjoyed the photos. So, all's well that ends well!

I have a few snapshots here in a set "just for friends" on that handy-dandy photo sharing site, Flickr.

Sticky Note: Getting Hitched

[ "Sticky Notes" are my way of pointing to posts on the same subject. I will continually update every Sticky Note with whatever I post that has any relation. Why? I am just that obsessed. ]

Since joining the PEP Team, I have gained huge respect for the job wedding photographers do. I learned very quickly on my first wedding shoot that wedding photography is not just about events coverage, or photojournalistic shooting, or portraits, or candids, but all of these things, plus a lot of heavy lifting!

These pages are about the weddings of the couples for whom I have had the privilege to shoot:

• Mariel and Geobz Tie The Knot - Added May 7, 2006
• Joy and Jonas Sanchez Get Married - Added March 28, 2006
• A Boracay Wedding - Added March 28, 2006
• Pre-Nuptials - Added February 6, 2006
  
• Wanda and Jukey Celino Get Hitched - Added January 28, 2006

Congratulations and best wishes, and a huge thanks to all these couples, all happily wed, and, I hope, with a lot of picture-perfect memories of their singularly special day.

Beach Bummed in Bora

These are from March, but it took me forever to post these photos from Boracay (a combination of procrastination and slow upload speeds). Summer is still in full swing here, so I suppose it's still relevant to post about the Philippines' most popular summer getaway.

It was my first trip there, and it was a bit of a surprise to find staples of Manila's urban jungle, like Andok's Lechon Manok, a Mongkok franchise, the Bite Club burger grill, and an Ice Monster, all in and around a mall on the island. My favorite photos have none of these places in the frame, if only to give a sense of Boracay before its apparently inevitable commercialization.

Sticky Note: Travelling (Without Moving)

[ "Sticky Notes" are my way of pointing to posts on the same subject. I will continually update every Sticky Note with whatever I post that has any relation. Why? I am just that obsessed. ]

I began carrying a camera around as a tourist, no doubt like many others. I would come to a place I have never been, and coming back from that place, people would like to know what it was like. I was compelled to shoot what I saw that words cannot describe.

I have found, though, that making photographs out of scenes is a lot like turning words into stories. Without deliberate intent aided by technical familiarity and effective composition, I could not deliver my "message" in the way that I wanted.

In this way, travel photography gave me my start and pushed me to learn how to shoot seriously.

On these pages are places I've seen through a lens:

• Beach Bummed In Bora - Boracay, Aklan, Philippines - Added April 22, 2006
  
• Barely Breathing in Bangalore - Bangalore and Mysore, Karnataka, India - Added April 18, 2006
• My Hidalgo Pilgrimage - Hidalgo Street, Quiapo, Philippines - Added December 13, 2005
  

Click a link and take a trip!

Barely Breathing In Bangalore (2004)

Over the Holy Week, I had the chance to slow down and reflect (read: I had nothing to do and nowhere to go). I took the opportunity to dig up an old photo set that I used to have on my Fotopic galleries from my three weeks in India in 2004. It was a popular photo set, though I suspect the popularity had more to do with the captions that I wrote or the humor to be found in the photos, rather than the quality of the photos themselves.

It was a refreshing exercise to revisit old photos. It made me cringe to look at the poor, cluttered composition, the uncorrected cyan color cast, the tourist-y feel of the perspectives, and so many other things that I was blissfully unaware of back then. But it has shown me how far I have gotten from days when I shot with a truly point-and-shoot Sony P7 and barely a concept of proper exposure. Out of a set of about 150 photos, I postprocessed and cropped the life out of a handful of photos below. Not bad, coming from a point and shoot, I suppose.

Photos from left to right, top to bottom:

1. The Cathedral of Saint Philomena in Mysore.
2. A red house and a mini (micro?) van on Chamundi Hill.
3. The Sri Chamundeshwari temple at Chamundi Hill.
4. An old man tending to his sores nearby.
5. Two old women by the temple.
6. Nanda the Bull near Chamundi Hill.
7. Gateway to a temple in Mysore.
8. The temple up close; guess who's from out of town.
9. Mysore Palace.
10. Inter-school trivia competitions are big in India; covered on ESPN!
11. You can get a side order of curry with your KFC in Bangalore.
12. Mango vendors on a sidewalk in Bangalore.
13. Cafe Coffee Day is the only drink around in the two-terminal Bangalore International Airport.

Sticky Note: Photo Gear Envy

[ "Sticky Notes" are my way of pointing to posts on the same subject. I will continually update every Sticky Note with whatever I post that has any relation. Why? I am just that obsessed. ]

People sometimes make the mistake of thinking that I review gear for a living and am qualified to tell them how to burn their cash. Now that I've gotten into photography, I get asked about my opinion on camera gear.

Now the next time I'm asked to give a rundown on the latest greatest photo gear, I can say, with an air of authority, "Check out my user reports at Gear Envy: Hack Your Toys."

• Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4.5 DC Macro AF Lens User Report - Added June 28, 2006
• Nikon 105mm f/2.8 VR AF-S ED-IF AF Lens User Report - Added May 31, 2006
• CompactDrive PD70X User Report - Added May 21, 2006
  
• Nikon D50 DSLR - Added April 18, 2006
  
• Nikon 50mm f/1.4 D AF Lens - Added April 13, 2006
  
• Sigma 18-50mm f/2.8 EX DC AF Zoom Lens - Added April 12, 2006
  

I can only review what I have, so if you have anything you would like reviewed, contributions in cash or kind are welcome.

Oh, and yes, that's a photo of me demonstrating how NOT to sight properly on a DSLR, with one eye closed. While we're on the topic, this photo of my transgression against good photography was taken by my brother with his Canon Powershot S410. Ironic is not the word for it ....

A Boracay Wedding

When I found out that my cousin planned to get married in scenic Boracay in March, the shutterbug in me was compelled to jump at the invitation. I just had to shoot a beach sunset wedding! As a bonus I had the chance to see Ariel Javelosa and his crew at work covering the event. The art direction was all his, I was just shooting from the sidelines, trying to keep out of the way.

I processed some of my favorite photos from the set below, all shot with my Sigma 18-50mm f/2.8 and a couple with an SB-600 and a Lumiquest Mini Softbox attached.

Joy and Jonas Sanchez Get Married

Presenting Mr. and Mrs. Sanchez

[ Nikon D50 and Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 EX DG APO HSM ]
[ f/4 1/320s ISO400 70mm ]

I was stumbling around with some new gear on this wedding shoot. If you want a workout, try carrying around a 70-200 f/2.8 plus Speedlight on a flash bracket all day. Now for the challenge, try shooting handheld with the entire rig, with a faulty bracket swing arm and a pocket bouncer that won't stay on the flash head! Still, the exercise was worth it. The Sigma telezoom let me shoot from the sidelines so as not to get in the way of the event and get closeups easily. It is often said that it is the photographer and not the gear who make good photographs, but good, working equipment does help.

I'm less convinced about the benefits of the pocket bouncer, at the tele end at least. While shooting one sequence the thing fell off and I had to keep shooting without it. I could not distinguish between the ones shot with and without the bouncer.



Cary had the benefit of an assistant, "guest photographer" Christian, holding up his Speedlight on a borrowed monopod. Off camera flash gave us great results, and the flexibility with moving the light source let us play around and get the best results. So the lesson here is to get a willing assistant and hand him a monopod!

Joy and Jonas were great subjects, good sports throughout the entire shoot as we fumbled with the gear and asked them to pose for the cameras. I still like candids best, but there is a great sense of accomplishment in getting a posed photo to look natural.

More photos at the PEP Blog. 

Pre-Nuptials

Here's a shocker: shooting weddings is easy. I've learned that it is the posed "pre-nuptials", the pre-wedding shoots, that are tough. I asked our mentor how to shoot, and the principles are simply the same general rules for portraiture:

• Use a long focal length, the perspective is more flattering.
• Watch how the light falls on the subjects, compensate for unflattering light with speedlights or reflectors.
• Watch your depth of field, it needs to be deep enough to have both the bride-to-be and groom-to-be to be in focus yet allow good bokeh (roughly go with f/5.6 to f/8). Or not, if that's your style.

But the technicalities are things you can pick up from a book.

In a wedding, there is a "script". Though inevitably the script has its interesting, sometimes funny twists, the point is things unfold in front of you. If you are in the right spot, you "merely" need to press the shutter at the decisive moment.



Couple At Fort Santiago

[ Nikon D50 and Sigma 18-50mm f/2.8 ]
[ 1/1250s f/4.5 ISO200 18mm ]

At a pre-nup shoot, it feels like the "script" is your own and the actors are your subjects. You ask them to stand in the ideal spot, suggest they lean closer, and smile. And then you shoot.



Motorheads

[ Nikon D50 and Sigma 18-50mm f/2.8 with Vivitar V2000 ]
[ 1/60s f/5.6 ISO200 50mm ]

But shoot again, because it is the moment after your first shot that is often the decisive moment, where your actors relax, or laugh at themselves, or do something you did not expect.



Starting Orders

[ Nikon D50 and Sigma 18-50mm f/2.8 ]
[ 1/250s f/5.6 ISO200 50mm ]

Sometimes you think you are writing the script, but the truth is, you just place your actors in their spots, and they improvise for you.