Just a Memo

Love Jump JTG, originally uploaded by stechico.

I had the pleasure of taking Kim and Ricky’s Engagement photos this past Sunday. We were initially going to roll to 2 spots: the first was the Japanese Tea Garden; and the second was Strawberry Hill. We actually didn’t get to go to Strawberry Hill as there were just tons of people visiting the Park. And there was nice weather to top it off.

Back to our story. We made our way to the Japanese Tea Garden just right next to the De Young Museum. It’s usually free on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays if I recall correctly; and only $5 per person the other days. Not too shabby.

Upon entering the gates, it completely reminded me of the great time I had when I visited Japan a couple years back. I miss that place—great food, people and culture. Not necessarily in that order, but I’d have to rank the food way up there =)

Meanwhile, it was a “party cloudy” day as the forecast said but being in the City, it can change pretty quickly. Luckily, it stayed like that most of the day and it wasn’t too cold. As you can see… Kim was just chillin’.

Most of the spots that we took photos inside were great. Either they had great lighting or was simply balanced enough as I didn’t need to use my flash. As you can tell, I kind of like natural light better at the moment^[1].

Knowing this, I just had my ISO set to 100-200 most of the times and was usually on f2.8-5.6 depending on the situation. I think I shot on Manual and Av modes frequently as well. One of the things I noticed I struggled on a bit were when Kim and Ricky had some backlighting from the Sun. I was trying to get a good balance to expose their faces but also get a good exposure on the background. Luckily, there were only a couple of these shots.

Another thing I learned from my previous photo outings is that you should take a hand towel or two just in case you’d like to sit your couples on a bench or step. When we went to the Garden, I think some benches still had some wet spots due to dew and/or the sprinklers. Having the towel(s) should come in handy especially when the bride is wearing something that can get dirty easily. That, or you can use the towel(s) as padding if you are going to shoot from a low-angle and need to have some cushion for your knees and/or elbows.

All in all it was a nice shoot. I can honestly say that the Japanese Tea Garden almost had the atmosphere that I have experienced in Japan^[2]. I definitely would recommend going there whether you’d like to just spend a day strolling, taking photos, and/or learning some culture.

1. Maybe because I’m still reading up on Strobist. [↩]
2. Damn, I miss that place. I want to go back. 2010 maybe haha. [↩]

I was just browsing for some news before heading to bed, and found some more Obama celebration photos from across the World. Here are some that I found very meaningful personally—specially the first one below:

In the western village of Kogelo, where the president-elect’s late father was born, Obama’s step-grandmother and other relatives poured out of their rural homestead to celebrate a man seen by many Kenyans as a ’son of the soil’.

With hula dancers, ecstatic chanting and some rock ‘n’ roll, a Japanese town named Obama rejoiced as its accidental namesake was elected president of the United States.

At Obama’s former school in Jakarta, Indonesia, children celebrated the election result.

You may check out more photos (and the story behind them) by going to Telegraph’s collection of People Around the World Celebrate Barack Obama’s Election Win”.

Source via Telegraph.

Went Hunting for Halloween, originally uploaded by stechico.

A quick getup put together by rolling to the neighborhood Goodwill store.

Safari/explorer/hunter-looking type of hat… $2.
Khaki safari/explorer/hunter-looking type of jacket… $8.
Halloween on a Friday night… Priceless.

I didn’t have enough time to find a wig, or fill in the sideburns. Would’ve added more to it if any. Anyways, I hope everyone had a blast and got home safe. Good times!

PS. Here’s what I hunted.

For the contest “Transformation: Vivre-Réagir”^[1], Julien Lassort and Matthieu Burlot explored the human face, the most exposed and personal part of the human body. Their dynamic portrayal of “1000 et une faces”^[2] is a mosaic of portraits and emotions that plays off of the power of faces seen close up. Julien Fargo composed the melody that encapsulates the film.

1. In english, “Transformation: Live-React” [↩]
2. In english, “1000 and one faces” [↩]

Sweet. Two of my photos got selected to be shown at Photomonth 2008 in London.

photomonth 08 the east london photography festival is the largest photography festival in the UK with over 100 exhibitions and events taking place in more than 60 galleries and spaces and featuring up to 500 photographers. This year there is a photofair in Spitalfields Traders Market and the photo-open and the photomonth seminar are at the Dray Walk Gallery, Old Truman Brewery. Tom Hunter gives the photomonth lecture and the portfolio reviews take place at the Whitechapel. The photomonth workshops will be found at London Metropolitan University and shoot experience conduct a photographic treasure hunt around Spitalfields. photomonth 08 is also linking with Chobi Mela V in Dhaka Bangladesh.

This year, Photomonth has invited the Flickr community under the theme “freedom”. The end result was an open call to the Flickr community to enter their photos to the Freedom 2008 group.

Anyways, here are the ones that were selected:

Photos from the group will be on display at the Dray Walk Gallery (part of The Old Truman Brewery on Brick Lane in London) between October 29th and November 9th^[1]. Please do let me know if you happen to see them. Maybe even try to take a photo with it? haha. Awesome.

1. More info about the showing at this Flickr Blog post. [↩]