Looking Back with Imagine Nation Photography and Wang Videography

Three Years Later: December 10 2011, Shot by Alex Ruelo for Imagine Nation Photography- Cheng-Hontiveros Nuptials
October 11, 2014, Shot by Betty Uy for Imagine Nation Photography, Blogapalooza

When Paul and I were preparing for our wedding back in 2011, I remember reading something (among the hundreds of wedding articles that I've read) that in budgeting for your wedding, you would have to prioritize and to think about what aspects of the wedding are more important for you. This is so you can plan your budget and set it aside for the things that really matter to you and for Paul and I, the photos and the videography are a must. 

Among the many Wedding Photographers and Videographers (and trust me there are a lot) we decided to go with Imagine Nation Photography and Wang Videography who were able to cater to our needs and helped make our Wedding extra special and memorable.

Now- almost three years later, we continue following their work, not only of our Wedding Photographers Arlene Briones and Alex Ruelo but we've also run into Imagine Nation photographer Betty Uy while covering an event. Not only that but we've also met the man behind both Imagine Nation and Wang Videography- none other than John Mateos Ong himself (his talented daughter Jazz) sings in bands and we have had the honor of covering a couple of her gigs.

December 10, 2011- Shot by Arlene Briones for Imagine Nation Photography 

It's funny how we've kept running I to each other but I was definitely more than glad to see that Imagine Nation and Wang Videography had a booth at Blogapalooza. It was nice chatting up with Alex and Betty and even sying hello to Alex's cutie pie baby ^_^ 

Looking back at that piece of advice I read so long ago in a forgotten Wedding magazine, I can say that we really made the right decision with booking Imagine Nation Photography and Wang Videography for our wedding-the blog is named PCheng Photography and I think we know a thing or two when it comes to photos. ^___^

You can check out our Wedding SDE from Wang Videography here :) 

October 11. 2014 - Shot by Betty Uy for Imagine Nation, Blogapalooza

Weekend Photographer: HDR in Eastwood City

Weekend Photographer is my blog post for my instant projects during my rest days.  My rest days varies sometimes in the weekend, other times in the middle of the week.  My wife doesn't tag along in these self projects, so I'll try my very best to write down what I've experienced during these weekend projects.  Just another addition to the many blog posts here, hope you guys like and enjoy.  Comments would be appreciated as always!

As I was digging through our blog posts, to check on what we have, I found this post.  For some weird reason, this post was left as a draft, just pictures no words.  Remembering this now after a year would be difficult (I'm very forgetful!).  

Trying my best to look back, I drove Ica to work during this evening.  In advance I brought the tripod, camera and kit lens.  Parked the car and proceeded to positions that I thought would be a good spot to shoot in.  

When this was shot, the building below was still brand new. I took the opportunity to shoot in long exposures since it's the way to go in shooting buildings at night.  If you look closely, you'll see hint of lights coming from cars that passed by.  On another note, all of the shots are HDR, meaning a combination of 3 (or more) different exposures to get a wider dynamic range the image. I think I tried, 0, +1 and -1 on the camera's meter.  So think of  each image (HDR) shot as long exposure(3 times or more), so getting a single HDR image takes probably 15-20 minutes of shooting( a rough approximation).

The new Robinson Supermarket

As this has post has been stuck in draft for more than a year, I had to resize the images due to web upload. The original files, are still stuck in a desktop computer that has not been repaired yet for more than a year. Recalling why I left Eastwood early, I believe that a security guard told me that no photographing allowed.  I usually yield when told by anyone to stop shooting, it is still privately owned establishment. So their grounds, their rules, 'nuff said.




Hoping that I could shoot again in the evening, and try out a few things that I've learned a year after doing this.  

On C5 Road 

Here's to shooting more photos!

Weekend Photographer: Alay lakad 2013, Antipolo City

Weekend Photographer is my blog post for my instant projects during my rest days.  My rest days varies sometimes in the weekend, other times in the middle of the week.  My wife doesn't tag along in these solo-projects, so I'll try my very best to write down what I've experienced during these weekend projects.  Just another addition to the many blog posts here, hope you guys like and enjoy.  Comments would be appreciated as always!

Lightroom 4 Geotag of the photos taken during my solo photo walk.

Right in the middle of summer, Antipolo my home town hosts an annual pilgrimage from Quiapo Church to Antipolo Cathedral held during the evening of Maundy Thursday (Roman Catholic Calendar). Church goers start to walk from Quiapo then straight to Antipolo (according to Google Maps the route covers an approximated distance of 27.3 km). 

I on the other hand was free and was on my rest day so I opted to walk along with the crowd and snap some photos, to practice photography in general.  

During this project, I honestly hesitated to pull out my camera in public since there might be  some thieves lingering about and with this in mind I still went on ahead and pulled out my camera but with my senses up a notch(if that makes any sense).

A puto vendor waiting for the people. 

So I brought along my camera(Canon 500d), camera bag which has 3 lenses( 50mm f/1.8, Canon 18-55mm(kit lens), Sigma70-300mm macro, flash, back up SD cards), a tripod, and a bottle of water.  You can say that I may be  dragging along a lot of stuff, and well see how this goes later.  

To me once you see this view, when travelling along Ortigas Extension Ave., you are in Antipolo.  A few meters later, you'll see the Capitol of Rizal(the dome structure behind the the trees) and Ynares Center.

Familiar sight, the Capitol of Rizal beyond the horizon.

When I travel to the main proper of Antipolo, I always thought of capturing this.  I'm not completely pleased with what I have right now but I may have to revisit this shot and do it all over again and recompose.

I didn't catch anything interesting on the way to the cathedral.  When I got to the church, this is where I used the tripod, since I planned to shoot panoramic and HDR images. Below is the result of what I did.

The photo below, is a merge of 3 or 5 images on different exposures, and merged them all together in Photoshop CS4.  I like the way it shows the people in motion, it gives more character to the image.

Antipolo Cathedral - HDR

A hint of rainbow

In the photo above, I set the camera low to make the church look bigger.  It's just unfortunate that I'm standing near a shade of a building or tree(not sure), and it is pretty obvious since the people on the foreground are all silhouette.  Although this gave my image a more interesting look as it leads the viewer back to the church as it is the main subject here. 

I went on to hang to hunt for some shots, I equipped the 50mm for low lit situations such as the image below.  It seems tight but I got the effect that I wanted.  Using candles as the main light source to get some people exposed in the least to show expression and a little detail.