Saturday, April 22, 2006

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.








Friday, April 21, 2006

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:


Click a link and take a trip!

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

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.

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

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."

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 .... Posted by Picasa