F = (mv^2)/r

7 exposure HDR, processed in photomatix and lightroom

This place has many photographic opportunities unexplored. I'll make it a point to return again, before it becomes too cliche.

Inspiration needed

It’s been REALLY long since i posted the previous entry. Sad to say that’s because I haven’t got any satisfactory pictures to post. Realized that i can only shoot when given specific subjects and instructions.. goes to show how creative one can get after months of mugging.

This picture above is posted just because there’s something which i can crap about.

No, it’s not because they are celebrities… although this is the first time i get to pose them (and i have to admit feeling stressed, afraid that i might not produce photos worthy of their looks). It’s a relief i managed to squeeze out a few pics within a standard lounge full of nasty incandescent fixtures.

The saviour – my trusty “magix” envelope. Strapped to the flash was a 1/2 CTO that matched the incandescent ambient quite well, and by setting the WB to 3300K the light from the windows were rendered a very pleasant tinge of blue. The final ingredient was a full horizontal blast of flash instead of the usual top-down, which never fails to kick in some depth.

The good thing about celebs is that they obviously know how to pose, and are usually blessed with beautiful smiles. I regret not coming up with something more demanding… must have appeared a noob to be satisfied with such simple poses. Should have tried to prolong the shoot as well, coz it’s not everyday i get pretty faces smiling at me (ignore the camera in between).

Ice Age

"Erm, we'd need to take photos of your product" is equivalent to "Serve me one of those for free!"

The power of the SPH identity pass. click on for more ->

We said the above to 4 different shop owners selling 雪花冰, and they happily complied (who could resist free advertising). The problem is, it's ice. 10 bowls full of ice. All in a day's work. 8 hours to be precise. Must have broken some record.

Despite the variety flavours, all of them are cold. Empty stomachs don't like cold food. But out of politeness (and maybe greed), we (3 of us) still managed to stuff all the desserts down our throats. The last 2 bowls were especially huge, and despite being very tasty, we had a hard time finishing it. I wonder what other customers might be thinking, seeing the 3 of us dying in front of tasty (and expensive) food. Siao.

No more 雪花冰 for the next few months

It turns out that this looked better

This was made using Photomatix 3 (together with Lightroom). I was getting a little lazy to blend the exposures manually, and it turns out that the software is capable of some pretty nice results. I personally find this better than the one below (composition and colour wise), although it might be a bit overkill with so many sunset+water+boat pics these days. I should just remove the previous post.

My first Panaromic HDR

On second looks, it doesn't even look like a panaromic image. But hey... 15 images, and some serious computing power were used in its creation. One day I'll lay my hands on that CS4 64bit. My HDD must be feeling damn angry that there's 1gb of ram slacking away while it is forced to thrash about.

I waded into the water for this shot, ankle deep in soft, greyish mud. It's low tide these days, so I hope not to waste the opportunity to get more shots like these. I'll be back!

When the cold wind blows...

Today is not so sunny after all. Another day... perhaps.

Went for a walk in the park after the heavy rain, and found yet another casualty.

When time permits...

For the sake of blog revival, i'm posting this far from perfect picture. 

After a long day staring at 2 screens of codes, it's a relief to have a beautiful sunset. Sunset these days are very colourful, and I will try to go for more pictures if time permits.

Now... back to coding.