Project 365: Week 4

Shooting at the 13th Hour

During week 3 of my Project 365 my work schedule was moved from 10PM-7AM to 2PM-11PM. Before, when I come home from work(evening shift), I shoot in the morning.  Now, that my shift for work has been moved, I opted to shoot in the evening, around 12AM-1AM.  Thus coining the term 'shooting at the 13th hour'.

The last image from week 3 has been shot in the darkest time of our 24 hours.  Some of the shots for this week has a dark mood. So expect the rest of my photos to have flash

Also this is the week were we borrowed a compact mirrorless camera(Canon EOS-M).  So you'll be seeing shots of, and shots from the sleek little thing. 

So from here on out,is a complete mixture of tests and concepts that I just randomly want to try out or thought of in the middle or my trip back home.

February 14, 2013 - Masquerade is officially over

This mask was used, by my Ica, for their company Christmas party.  I was thinking of something to photograph while I was going up our room.  As soon as I came into our bedroom, you'll see the mask propped up on top of books found on the left of the door(upon entering).  So in short it caught my attention.  

As you can see here the flash was used, and I had the light go through a red strainer(plastic) from the kitchen.  It has ridges for light to pass thru and most of the light has to go thru the red plastic, thus giving the mask a red hue(on the far right). Not sure if the flash output was set to 1/8 or 1/16, and I can't remember how far away the flash was positioned from the mask.  Again I would like to apologize for not listing it down.

Used here, is Canon 500d, Canon 50mm f/1.8, wireless trigger(forgot the brand), Canon 430 EX II.  As stated by David Hobby(strobist), start with 1/200 shutter speed to work f/12 and probably with flash output of 1/8.  It's pretty much subjective and mostly trial and error for me.

The end result, looks like a Shopaholic version of 50 shades of gray.  It didn't occur to me until my wife called it '50 shades of pink'.  I'm familiar with the book cover since people has been posting the book all over the web, but I was shocked that what I did here looked close to the cover.  Oh well...

Februar 15, 2013 - Greens(Kamias)

As I went home, still thinking of what to shoot next for the Feb 15 photo a day project.  My mind was all blank as I came into the door.  Getting to the dinning table I saw these sour green fruit(kamias, aka Averrhoa bilimbi). Childhood memories came to me as I stared at the fruit.  We eat these when we were still kids, back in the day when we still lived in Caloocan. 

Framed the fruits in the frame to fill in the whole rectangle. Shooting this without the flash would be senseless so, I had the 430 EX II to my left and a little bit higher, than he subject, angled the flash toward the fruits as well. This setup would give me a little light to dark effect, and giving a medium to high contrast effect.

Shot with 500d, 50mm lens, wireless trigger, and flash mounted on a tripod positioned at the left side. 

February 16 - Force Recovery

On this shot, I was lucky to try out a Canon EOS-M.  It's Canon's version of compact mirrorless DSLR.  Yes, it had controls to some extent that you can do on your DSLR, but I never discovered where I could disable autofocus on the lens.  I got used to focusing through the focus ring of the lens, with the EOS-M, you just tap on the LCD(on the part where you want your camera to focus) and it fires automatically.  It gave me the sense that I was using a Smart phone. 

Above image is a sight of the streets of Ortigas Center Pasig.  I can't recall from the top of my head which street is it.  As a fan of the sunset, I tried to capture it as it fades into darkness.  Of course this was shot around 5-6 PM Manila time, so this one is not shot at the 13th hour.

February 17, 2013 - High Keying the kid

On the shot above, I was trying to get a nice high key shot of my nephew.  This was shot outdoor with the Canon 500d, and 50mm lens.  Pretty straight forward shot with the camera out of focus.  On post processing, done in Lightroom.  This one was shot around after lunch,it was my rest day so I had the luxury of shooting this one with the sun.

This one I shot with my 500d, and 50mm.  Pretty straight forward nothing fancy. In post processing I raised the exposure highlights and whites a little bit to get that high key light look.  I over exposed and sharpened the pupils to get that look in the kid's eye.

I found it a little tough since the shooting space that I have was pretty small and it was hard to get the prime to focus at minimum focusing distance but I got it either way.  

February 18, 2013 - Homage to 'Fromage'

This was the last day of EOS-M in my hands, I had this idea that I had to shoot my camera as homage to the service it rendered for 2 years. Fromage was just another word that I used to rhyme with homage, again thinking that I could add smart quirky titles for my photos.

I setup the flash around a foot higher than my camera position, and at my left.  One of the pros that I found for the EOS M was it had a hot shoe mount for Flash guns or wireless trigger, and I mounted the little trigger on it.  

As mentioned shot with PJ's EOS-M, wireless trigger mounted, to trigger the Canon 430 EX II that's mounted on a cheap tripod(but very useful!). Right around this time, I'm getting used to setting things up.

February 19, 2013 - Colors and Shadows

I'm having a hard time remembering this shot, I'll try my best to give you a little back story of this one.  I was thinking of reshooting my Caran d'ache water color pencils.  I find these very useful when I was in the mood for doodling.  These were the only art materials that stuck with me, as I recall I had lots of stuff(they're probably with my eldest sister who's in to arts and craft, check here blogspot).

As most of my shots for this project, I had a hard time hunting for shots since I'm still not used to the 50mm.  At the same time I was trying to get the best position for the flash.

Shot with my 500d, 50mm, flash positioned on the right side propped up probably a foot or more away from the pencils.  

February 20, 2013 - Fusion of What I've learned so far...

Last week I shot something called 'Bokeh Blast' and probably a long time ago I shot this Rei figurine.  Late Feb 19, 2013 I finally figured out how to work the flash while having ambient light exposed in the same image.  I was ecstatic that I got it down after weeks and weeks of trial and error. So this one, is the first set of shot using the concept of strobe + ambient light.  

I setup of the christmas lights in the background(on the head board of the bed), put the figurine on a small desk, adjacent to the lights. Positioned my flash 2 feet away from Rei. Then I started shooting.

Shot with the 500d, and 50mm.  Post processing in Lightroom was very little since I done this shot the way I want it.

Another set of 7 photos has passed, at this point I could see a little bit of hard work coming to fruition and I see some improvement of sorts.  Looking forward to the next set of photos coming really soon.