Project 365: Week 14

As the end of April approaches, I kept faith and tried my best to hold true to Project 365.  By this time, I've been shooting constantly ever since January 24, 2013. So without further ado here are the photos from April 26 - May 2, 2013.  

April 26, 2013 - Mission accomplished

It was a Friday(my rest day), and the car was with me and had free time, so I went ahead and washed the car.  I tried my best to be thorough but there are still some parts that I couldn't clean.  But if you ask me, I think i did an OK job. Not bad for cleaning the car for the first time.

Shot with an iPhone 4S, post processed in Snapseed.  I thought of posting this image in color  but I find it too distracting. So I de-saturated and sharpened the image to give it a smooth finish.

On the following day, me and my wife went to an event to cover the Album Launch of Fall Out Boy.  We were fortunate to get invited by Odyssey(a local music/video store in the Philippines as we were fortunate a few local acts that we may cross paths with in the future. 

April 27, 2013 - F#/B

Above is a photo of Ina Martinez of Red Paradox, during the Album Buy out in Odyssey.  This image was shot with Canon 500d, and a 50mm F/1.8.  It may seem blurry but I got the focus on left hand to the head stock of the guitar which was what I wanted to emphasize here.  

April 28, 2013 - From the mountains to the city

This day, I went out for a walk to shoot a sunset from the highest peak near our house.  Remembering this one, It has a strong orange cast that day and a huge cloud was over the horizon and looked ominous, but I like the way the buildings were showing like silhouettes.  It may seem grainy but I like this shot all the same.  Shot with a Canon 500d, and 50mm f/1.8.

As for the following two days, I went out to watch a gig and blogged about this one. I went out to cover an even from Pinasikat.com featuring bands that played Foo Fighter songs.

Project 365: Week 13

When we keep hammering ourselves to improve and do what we love we would do it no matter what. So far, I have posted 84 photos, and many more to come.  I still have a long way to go till I reach 365, but so far things seem to go smoothly as taking a few shots per day became a daily routine.

Week 13 of Project 365 starts with me off from work.  Like most of my days off, me  and my wife go out to cover events and blog them.  April 19, 2013 was Earth day jam is one of those events that we went out to  cover and take some photos.  

I had a hard time getting my shot down for this day because there's just so much going on, and most of the light is directed on the stage.  I took some photos of performers on the stage, but I just cannot deem it as my shot of the day since, almost everyone has a photograph or even video of the performers.  

April 19, 2013 - Light and shadows

I went around the area which was in Bonifacio Global City, to hunt for my shot.  I remember viewing the spectators from afar and was lucky to capture the people from a raised ground watching the stage from a far. This is one of my favorite shots so far. 

April 20, 2013 - The pantry

The shot above was captured in our 17th floor office.  As captioned, it is the pantry of the said floor.  I was fond of how the light cast a nice shadow of the tables and chairs.  I had this shot with an iPhone 4S, and post processed in Snapseed. 

I had to try and tap on the phone a few times to get the desired exposure.  I just wish that I tried a different angle here, as it seems ordinary, and not thought of.

April 21, 2013 - As time passes

Going back to where, with each of us worried with what we'll be doing after our account has pulled its business out.  You can see and feel a gloom in our work area.  Here I caught, Joseph minding his own bees wax, but somehow the silence that loomed during the day prompted me to take this shot.  

Shot with an iPhone 4S, post processed with Snapseed.  I remember that I shot this a few times to get the focus and exposure right since the device tends to hunt for focus on it's own. 

April 22, 2013 - Wine rack

Coming off a weekend, my family planned to have a nice buffet lunch at Vikings in SM Marikina.  I had shot a lot of photos during our stay there in the restaurant, but I picked this one as my shot for the day.  There were lots of interesting stuff, mostly food but I went at the front of the restaurant and shot the long wine rack from it's right and composed it as so.  

Shot with Canon 500d, mounted with Canon 50mm f/1.8, no flash was used here.  Although it was overcast outside, SM Marikina still has lights to accommodate photo enthusiast like me. Except don't get yourself caught by the security guards.  Malls in the metro don't like people with DSLRs shooting around their malls.

Project 365: Week 12

As the year continues, the days goes by faster than we realize it.  I'm now on my 12th week of Project 365.  I'm very surprised that I can still keep shooting every single day.  I often find myself without my prefered camera(Canon 500d) but as the weeks go by, I've gotten used to shooting with my iPhone 4S.  It may not have the 15 megapixel image quality of full control as my other camera, but its the camera that I always have in my pocket.

Most of the images that you'll see on this post(probably in future posts as well) will be coming from my mobile device.  So hope you guys bear with it, as you'll see more noise, and more blur.

The photo below was taken in Republiq in Resorts World Manila.  Voltz, had a friend from Cebu that came to visit and I was available.  And I became the designated driver for our guest, Pogs, Ariel and Voltz.

Aprill 12, 2013 - Seeing is believing

We went around the metro and found ourselves in Republiq.  Here we saw Barney(yes the purple dinosaur), clubbing.  That's why I called this shot 'Seeing is believing' because I couldn't believe what I saw that night.

The following day, still shaken from partying with my friend the previous night.  Me and my wife went to the album launch of her favorite band.  If you've been following the blog, you know who her favorite band is(for the people who don't know, its' Paramore).  

One of the local music stores in the Philippines, Odyssey released Paramore's 4th album and had a few local bands play a few cover songs from Paramore. We had fun as we're familiar with some of the people(fellow Paramore fans-Paramore Philippines) who came along to buy the album.  In case you want to check out the previous blog post for the Album buy out, click here.

April 13, 2013 - Paramore fans on the album launch.

I was really lucky this time since I was able to borrow Milo's fish eye lens. Here's a shot that I did of the said lens in Week 3 of project 365.  I think it's one of the clearest wide angle lens that I've tried out so far.  On the technical aspect of this shot, I believe that I had the 500d and a 430 EXII Speedlight for this image.  

 

April 14, 2013 - From the outside

When you see photos of Ortigas Center, you'd know that I went to work that day.  For example the image on the left, this was shot during one of my breaks.  If you have been reading the past #projec365 blog posts, I often go out of the building and take some time out to hunt some shots for the said project.

I often find it mundane since I've been repeating the same shots over and over again and I feel like I'm not veering out of my way, to photograph or shoot to improve.  

Here I used an iPhone 4S, and it seems that the shot seemed rushed.  If you look closely, you'll see camera shake.  For post-processing this was done in Snapseed. I haven't encountered another app to match Snapseed's versatility and ease.

April 15, 2013 - Rumors...

April 15, 2013, we caught word of a rumor going around that the account that I've been working with will be pulled out by our clients from off shore. These were just rumors, but the thought of losing our jobs was something that made us rethink and ask ourselves what we want to do with ourselves now? 

Although it doesn't show how it affects us in the photo above, to me this image is the moment where Jay-ar told(guy on the foreground) us about the rumor.  Shot with an iPhone 4S, and processed with Snapseed.

April 16, 2013 - Troubled mind

Project 365: Week 10

As the month of March comes to an end, I'm still searching for something to work on so that I can somehow deviate from what I shot earlier.

I'm writing this, May 20, 2013 so you can say that I have lots of drafts to work on since I'm on day 117, and what we have here on this post are day 65 -  71 so I have a lot to work on.  I'll try my best to remember my mind set when I shot these 7 images. 

March 29, 2013 - The skateboard

I'm not sure, if I mentioned that I used to skate(ride the skateboard).  I was very fortunate to spend some time with my friend that I skated with back then(around 2000- 2005).  I like this shot since it shows how the board, trucks and wheels were beaten and aged.  Had fun riding with the guys again and shot some photos as well.  Shot with, Canon 500d, Canon 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6. Post process was done in Lightroom 3.2,  set the clarity of the board a little higher to show the roughness of the wood.

March 30, 2013 - Fast food comfort

I had fries this day, and was thinking of yellow stuff with textures.  Nothing happened this day, so you can say that it's pretty much uneventful.

Shot with an iPhone 4S, post processed in Snapseed.  

This was shot in McDonalds, Strata 1000, Emerald Avenue.  I guess the fried potatoes was the highlight of the day, since I often bring food from home, and rarely eat out(fastfood or cheap eateries).  

March 31, 2013 - By the rail

During the day shift, I still have the privilege of eating my last meal of the day during diner time.  I believe I was walking back to the office from the Lasapin food place, since Adrian(office mate) buys his food there.  

When we were walking to the food place, I thought in advance that I'd be shooting it.  The way the rail leads your eyes beyond may be the reason why I thought of shooting it. 

I had a hard time trying to remember what I used here.  Checking out my FB profile, this was shot with my iPhone 4S, the image was imported to the computer, was post processed in Ligthroom as it is my preferred software.   

Project 365: Week 9

Project 365 continues and it becomes challenging and more tedious.  I already mentioned in an earlier post that the photos just keep coming but the blog post keeps getting back logged.  I'm writing this post April 23, 2013 but this post covers March 21-27, that makes a month's worth of back logged blog posts but here I am still continuing - I really don't want this to be a 'ngingas kogon' thing. So here goes! 

March 21, 2013 - Tiny visitor by the sink

Photo above is a macro photo of an unexpected visitor.Trying to remember this one, I think I came home from work and saw the little frog by the sink.  So I pulled up the camera, shot some with a 50 mm, and I did't get what I wanted so I mounted 70-300 mm, and went macro on the little frog to make it appear bigger.

March 22, 2013 - Ica's stash

The other day, my wife went out to meet up with one of her high school friends.  She got a stash of beauty products that weren't used.

What I did here was put all of the stuff inside the light box, to get them all to receive an even light from the flash that I positioned top right.  Shot this on an angle looking down on the beauty stuff, so that I could fit them all in the frame.  Same camera was used with a 18-55mm at 18mm, I believe.   

I'm not as pleased with the results here as you can see there's strong light that spilled into the box and made things uneven.  I just can't remember why I picked this one out of the shots I did on the said date.  It may not be the best but it seemed like that there's something about it that made me choose it, I just can't remember.  Hope that's making sense to you guys.

March 23, 2013 - In times of joy

On the 23rd of March we were invited to attend a kiddie birthday party.  One of my wife's former managers in Transcom celebrated her child's birthday and we were there to enjoy the joyous event.  

I loved shooting kids, as they tend to ignore the camera when they're having so much fun, which is not the same for adults since they tend to be conscious when you are taking their photos.  This photo was one of the guests in the party and you can see that she's having a blast watching the games.

I tried different combination of camera and lens and flash, but I think that a shot of this kid with a 50mm was one of my best shots of the said date.  Post processed it a little in Lightroom 4, to enhance her iris and bring out the colors a little.

Project 365: Week 2

As posted earlier this year(around last week of January), I started with Project 365.  This post contains photos that were taken from January 31,2013 - February 6, 2013.  As the little project went on, I start to think what shot should I take, what should I do?  So My mental state was thinking of doing things differently.  So without much further ado here are photos 8-14.

January 31, 2013 - #8 Ridges

As of this day, I was puzzled why shooting macro in with a reversed kit lens, doesn't give me proper exposure. In my week one blogpost, on day 5; I was perplexed as I had to bump up the ISO way up to 6400(so that's the reason why its all grainy).  I read somewhere that shooting with a reverse ring you'll have to manually adjust the aperture of the lens(which can be done with an older lens), and of course contact points from the lens to the camera body isn't communicating which results to setting the ISO really high. 

I worked my way around it by trial and error.  I used, a wireless trigger(not sure of the brand) and a Canon 430 EXII.  Placing the flash near the subject, and setting it in M(manual) to set the power output manually.  I had to shoot a few test shots, for framing, and light positioning since macro and using strobes are not my strength(do I have any?). It's tough tiring and tedious, but once you got the desired shot, you'll be happy.

Project 365: Week 1

One night, while I was in the office, I was looking for a camera app for my phone and I encountered Project365.  Then my head started asking questions, Can I really shoot 1 photo a day? Can I really take on this daily without forgetting?  Can I have add this to my daily routine?

During the start of the year, I had free time since I didn't have any scheduled shoots.  I felt that my photographic skills are deteriorating and I needed to keep on shooting no matter what the circumstances are.  

So I went ahead and downloaded the app 'Project 365', which forces me to shoot a photo a day for the whole year.  This app is tied to my mobile device(iPhone 4S) but I think it would be best to shoot with my camera(Canon 500d) in case I have it with me.  So my primary would be my DSLR, and secondary as my mobile device. 

January 24, 2013 #1 And It Begins

I started late for this side project (January 24, 2013).

#1 was shot with my iPhone.  The image on the right was shot on the night of 1/24/2013, same as the screenshot of the Project 365 app, bottom right is a self portrait shot 1/15/2013.  I put all of them together using Picsart app.  Images on the right were edited with Snapseed.

I like starting of with a collage as it puts together multiple shots. 

January 25, 2013 - #2 Safety and Security

At work, there are lockers that always mocked me to shoot them.  I finally had the chance to shoot it, since no one was around, and the security guard wasn't looking(oh yes, mobile phones and cameras are not allowed in the office). Shot with iPhone edited with Snapseed.