Haven't broken the full circle . . .

I had impressed my Philosophy/Theology professor with a paper I had done and when it was time to submit yet another report I kind of disappointed him. He asked me to stay behind and gave me a talk that lasted 2-3 minutes . . . I think what he said best describes me (and it's not good LOL).

"Ms. Yao, there are days when you're work is excellent.
But there are times when it's just not all there."
. . . welcome to my life. *sigh* and my photography *ugh*

Last June/July 2007 my daughter and I took a class with Mr. Jo Avila; he was also a professor of mine for a short period of time back in college. He gave a good class, however our attendance was cut short due to moms hospitalization. Anyway, our first assignment was to take photos of coke bottles. Here's the catch, NOT as coke bottles but some other creative way.

We met every saturdays, so I had a whole week to rack my brain for something cool to do. Initially I was going to submit the photo below. My yaya was so patient holding the swaddled Coke bottle :-)

Baby Mamam
F/14, 1/100, ISO 400


Then I had an A-HA moment !
Bugs!
Lots of them!



With a handful of pipe cleaners, some double adhesive, a willing model (my trusty 6-year old) and a grocery bag full of Coke and this is what I submitted in class.

AraCOKEphobia
F/3.5, 1/6, ISO 120
This was one of those good moments, except for the low ISO (Sir Jo suggested I notch up the ISO to 1600) when I finally had it together even for a short time.

I think photography is much like another love of mine, golf. Once you have that one good swing you're hooked. In photography, capturing one good shot just keeps you coming back for more even IF most of my shots were crap LOL

It's a Canon life for meeeee . . .

As far as I can remember, I've always had a Sony point and shoot camera. That is, until a couple of friends of mine introduced me to the IXUS. Don't get me wrong, Sony is a fine piece of work but I found their point and shoot to be too slow for my taste.

I'm not an expert so I can't really relay to you the aspects why I prefer a Canon over a Sony P&S . . . either way, I wanted one of the darn things.

Until over our summer vacation, my dear sweet and generous Tita surprised each of us with a Canon IXY 25 IS!!! Thanks Tita!!!

I am totally loving this little guy! Here are a couple of shots I got during a trip to Japan (with a bit of cropping and a tad post-editing :-)

We've been to so many Japanese restaurants over a span of 10 days I couldn't keep track of the names! After being stuffed up to my neck, I was ready to crash from carb overload so I amused myself by taking some photos of our yummy dinner.

The lighting in the restaurant was quite poor, although I did try and increase my ISO. I still think the shots are over exposed, I had wanted to capture more detail of the bowl of rice.


During our stay in Tokyo, as we were taking a tour around Ginza we happened upon a rally. There were children, yuppies, senior citizens, so much people! And what were they rallying for? According to Yuzo-San, our tour guide, it was in support of Article 9, the Peace Constitution.


I got teary eyed when Yuzo-san gave a short recount of the Article and we were in the thick of it. With Korea and China armed with weapons up to the yinyang, there were supposedly those who wanted to abolish Article 9 to protect their homeland.

You see, Article 9 prohibits the use of military force as a means to settle disputes, international disputes in particular. I had the impulse to run down the bus and join them.

These people were not rallying for some mundane thing, this was PEACE! I failed to capture the lolo's and lola's who were in the protest as well, I was too busy waving at them :-)

I do not want the peace that passeth understanding.
I want the understanding which bringeth peace.
- Helen Keller

Photo Wannabe

So Au has coaxed me to open my blog.

And so it's here, no bells or whistles like all the other blogs I've attempted to create.

Simple and clean.

For once I just want to take away the complicated.
In the words of McSteamy . . . "I've done complicated."

I am a wannabe.
A photo wannabe, who has bought every book that caught my eye, gone through the net in search of tips and tricks and whatnots . . . and i still can't get my shots right.

Argh.

I get too excited when I see a good composition. I see it, but i hardly get to capture it to my dismay. Sometimes I forget to adjust my ISO and in the end, get grainy shots because it was too high. Or there are times, I though the composition, the lighting, everything made sense. An hour later, I realize it's just total crap.

I don't own a flash. I have seen Au and the magic it can do. And damn it! Now I want one :-( In the words of Jo Avila during one of his classes, maximize your camera before you start going off and buying stuff left and right. That way I would know what I need. So for now, I think i'll try and see how far I can go with every light source available. Is it evident that i'm just trying to convince myself?

So, on days when you're blog hopping or have nothing better to do, or there's a long line at the john drop me a comment or two.

I'm here to learn and hopefully some kind soul out there can give me his or her two cents. . . . And hopefully I can finally get my act together and stop being a wannabe :-)

WormBook,
Summer 2007
I was cleaning out my son's books and he was just playing in the middle of it all. He was so content with what he was doing, he didn't mind the endless camera clicks.

I'm a little bit wary of my focal point here. Often times after I've taken my shots, I look at it and ask myself what story does the it tell? If I can't answer that, which i often can't . . . it would have been another waste of megabytes. What do you think?

Canon EOS 400D , F/3.5 , 1/20 , ISO 800

























Seriously
December 9, 2007
Just another weekend hanging in the basketball court.

I couldn't get my lighting right, the late noon light was fading fast and I had wanted harsher source of light hitting his face. Not to mention the darn grains! I had wanted to capture as much light as I could I notched the ISO up to 1600.

Canon EOS 400D, F/4.0, 1/160, ISO 1600























Ako Naman
December 9, 2007
It's unusual for my kid to just sit and wait until the grown ups got tired of hogging the court.
Again, I would have loved to get a clearer shot of the background with the guys playing. I've been contemplating perhaps I should have composed this differently. And *sigh* the high ISO. Obviously I have not mastered the ISO settings *double sigh*.

Canon EOS 400D, F/7.1, 1/60, ISO 1600