U-B-C.

so, it's just been the first week of school. i just did my first (online) assignment of uni. i feel fucking clueless. i read the readings, i listen in class, i do some notes, and when the question pops up i have no bloody clue what the fuck is what?!?!?. or in the case of math, that occurs before i've even left the classroom. trololol. i think i'm probably not as bad off as i make it sound there, but still. and part of this is insecurity. in high school, without sounding like a bragging douche, i was one of the guys on top - i was in the top smarterish bunch, and i knew it. but here, in UBC sciences...well, the welcome speech said it all. the admission average for my faculty was 89.5. my average was 89.25. i bring down the average of my faculty; i'm on the low end of the spectrum now. ffs.

on the other hand.

i'm fucking proud of getting in, hard as it is here. and i'll fight for that.

photography as a record

I think that was one of the first intentions for photography. Well, in the end, there're really only two intentions for it - art, or record-keeping. Everything else is just some mix of either in various proportions... Journalism, art photography, whatever, all that.

Lately, I haven't been really feeling it. My super-compact k-5 has been feeling like a tank to bring around, and excuses are abundant as to why I should just stay home instead of go out for a photowalk. The routine's grown stale, really. go out, shoot, go home, edit. Upload, bask in comments, get a bit of an ego fix on that, rinse repeat.

I think I'm slowly growing out of that though. I think I'm slowly making photography more for me. I'm barely just uploading the photos I take, and pretty much not posting them to forums or anything at all anymore. who cares what other people take, cause so much of what I take at this point is just a record of my life. The places I've been, the people I've come to know and love, the things I do, the times I've had. The thing is, a dSLR isn't really that great a camera for that. A cell phone, much better. And that's another thing that I'm starting to change up - image quality. I'm caring less and less about the pixel level of the photo, and just seeing the photo itself. It's blurred, it's out of focus, but it's a goddamn funny moment and I am uploading right now. Or, y'know, stuff like that.

Maybe it's just gear lusting, but the olympus e-p3 sounds really appealing. Especially with a 12mm f2 - I really do crave a fast wide angle. And the m4/3 system doesn't have a ton of lenses, but it's got the 3 I need - fast wide, fast normal (Leica 25mm f1.4), and fast portrait (Oly 45mm f1.8). And its art filters are supposed to be quite great too. Now, coming from a RAW-only shooter, art filters wtf ?! But. I dunno. I just feel burnt out on editing, burnt out on deciding whether I wanna go all-out or just a "natural" look, burnt out on having a backlog of photos waiting to be edited. On the other hand, just having some quick presets that I can tweak around a bit sounds pretty appealing. Straight-to-fb.

But, that's the kind of camera I'd love to have. Bring it everywhere, just a bit better quality than a phone, but not so amazing that I'll worry the second it's not perfectly sharp. And the autofocus is quick and accurate, again, taking worry off of the mind of someone whose equipment has to function absolutely perfect. I can take  everyday photos, record-of-my-life types with it. I can bring it on the road with me, I can take it for photowalks for "serious" shoots too. God, I'm getting myself all worked up for this camera and I haven't even decided if I'm actually going to go for it yet. If my future shop gets it in stock I'll have to try it out a bit first, we'll see. Also, just saw this, and not gonna lie, that's pretty hot.


I'm hungry.

hedonistic materialism

so i got a new phone.

i upgraded from my old shitbrick:

the sony ericsson t715. it was a pretty decent phone, one that i was excited to get at the time. but now, at the end of 2 and 3/4 years with it, it was pretty much approaching the end of its life cycle. i guess all you truly need phones for are calling and texting, but calls on this thing were difficult to make out at times. texting was dead slow, tons of delays all around, even after deleting all my messages (and i do love my message logging).

also, i was starting to want something more out of my phone - a center for me to do anything i wanted/need, ever. jot down notes/ideas i have or list shit i have to do, or get directions, or simple stuff like copying down my work schedule.

so i got a new phone.

it has been dubbed the red river rhino. 

it is this:

the HTC Evo 3D.

my first choice was the samsung galaxy s ii, but this is damn good all the same. the 3D works better than i thought, and is pretty cool. about 85% of people i've shown it to are impressed right off the bat, though about 1 in 3 or 4 of them do get dizzy from it. still, i think it's pretty cool. it's a little thicker and heavier than many modern smartphones, but i don't really mind the weight - coming from a photographer using pentax's Limiteds, tiny but all-metal-and-glass lenses, i quite like the feel of something relatively small but hefty. it gives it a dense feeling of solidarity and quality. i like, i like.

and jesusshitballs it's fast. sometimes i feel like it's faster than my laptop/pc. and while part of it is because my old phone is so slow, i'm not alone. continuing with my potentially bullshitty statistics, about 1 in 5 people i've shown it to have commented on how fast it is. two of them were iphone 4 users ;D

and useability. just now, while being distracted from writing this, i read a review on an android game, used google goggles to read the QR code (the square blocks of whatthefuckery), which took me to android market and let me download it. under 30 seconds.

goddamn i love this thing. i think half of it is being in love with having an up-to-date smartphone on android, as opposed to being the htc evo 3d itself, but still. 

also, the camera. i'm surprised to see that the 3D output of this thing is actually quite great. it's every bit as 3D-ish as the sample photos, which is rare. and, the interesting bit. i have it with me everywhere. while my k-5 is more of a conscious decision to bring along, my phone is a no-brainer to come along. this means the everyday moments, my phone'll capture and my k-5 won't. and since i'm in a bit of a photographic lull, this is a double-edged sword. on the one hand, it lets me focus on just composition and light and moments and timing and forget about what's, in the end, unimportant - like sharpness or bokeh quality. on the other hand, it makes me wish my k-5 was smaller, even though it's the smallest-in-class dslr, as are the lenses (by a significant margin, too). or it makes me feel bad that i don't bring around everytime i go out. though, if i'm watching the movies, i guess i do have something of an excuse there.

<3redriverrhino.

TL;DR - i had nuggets for breakfast.

inspiration

need a little bit.

between a stifling work/life schedule (which always take up the golden hour) and great blue skies (which mean almost unworkably harsh light), i've had a pretty dry photographic start to the month. my lack of inspiration, i think, really shows in post - i just don't feel moved by a lot of my shots, and most of them get smashed with the delete hammer before i ever tweak anything with them. next day off i get, i really need to just spend a day and photowalk. if only there were somewhere to go photowalk though, cause i feel like i've exhausted vancouver. which isn't really possible considering how vast it is, but still. no ideas. anyways, these are the only few recent ones that i don't hate, all with the FA 77:

Roadtrip.

the last week was a bit.. emotionally, physically, mentally tiring. the usual go-to people were unavailable for whatever reasons, and i was going crazy cooped up at home. so, cancel all plans, make sure i'm not working, and tuesday morning i headed right out of vancouver; it was time for a roadtrip. i didn't know where i was going (well, eastwards outside of vancouver), and my GPS nearly killed me, but otherwise, damn it was good to get out for a day. away from people and stress and things, away from the city and noise, away from it all. just me, my camera, my car. in a word, it was damn cathartic, and i hope to do it again sometime soon. thing about living on the coast is i only have 3 directions to go, and north is basically just one highway, and south is limited due to the border, so basically i only have 1 direction to go.

also, i listened to the radio a lot and downloaded like 10 songs cause i hadn't listened to it for a sustained thing for a while, and i found that i actually liked a few non-metal songs. so that was cool. also, it was quite the thrill stopping on the highway, running down a few feet, snapping a shot, and back into the car before i slowed down traffic. though actually i don't think i ever stopped on a highway, just more isolated roads. anyways...out of 100 shots, narrowed it down to about 10, and of those, 5 i really love. i consider that a great success.

my main lens was the s-m-c tak 28/3.5. i think it's all in the focal length. the 15 was a great one to have around as well, but the 77 and 50/1.4 that i brought too didn't really come out much at all. but the 28...it's slow, it's got some distortion ( i think i've talked about this before), and it's not the sharpest at times, but i just always seem to get great shots with it. all in the focal length, i guess. plus its 5 aperture blades is fine for landscapes, since landscapes aren't too bokehlicious most of the time, or at least tuesday's weren't. anyways, here're the shots!

this was rather unsafely shot through my windshield.

"where eagles fly"

this shot is basically a dozen meters down from the one above it. i got out of the car for that one, but for this, i was just driving, when fucking a million (four) eagles (!!!) flew out into the clearing. i shat myself and snapped a few right away, only half-pulling over. this is the best one out of the series i snapped, and i love it.

the sole non-15 or 28 shot that made it past my delete button from tuesday, done with the 77. i really need to remember to cap  the viewfinder for long exposures....

one of my favorites, fo sho. i love the atmosphere in this shot, if that's not tooting my own horn too much.

"duality"

one thing i've found during post for these was, i've found that i'm now less attracted to the super-processed look i was giving my shots before. for some shots, like the barn, i still like how that looks, or for monochrome shots. but for regular ones, i'm starting to doing it a bit more subdued as far as editing goes. like in these last two shots, they aren't too horribly off from, yknow, reality, but still convey the mood i wanted. i guess the benefit of reigning it in a bit is that hopefully, i'll put some more effort to finding epic light when i do landscape, than just do w/e. though then again i've always found that a bad landscape shot is  nearly irreparable in post. not quite so with, say, portraits.

man, i love roadtrips. and photography. i would never have given two shits about driving out, or exploring the world, if it weren't for photography. well aren't i getting mushy now.

GIG: Zawiyah Foundation

So, Sunday afternoon, Mattang and I shot as the hired photographers for the Zawiyah foundation at an interfaith event. Being more or less an atheist, but coming from a Christian background, it was a pretty interesting event to observe from an outsider point of view, but from any perspective, it's definitely cool to see so many people of different religious backgrounds speak openly about their beliefs peacefully and with unity.

Good shit.

The majority of the event was speakers talking, lecture style, to the audience, so from a photographer's point of view, there weren't a million things to cover, and only a limited number of angles to use. Though it can be said that the limitations forced my creativity even more.

Anyways, editing for those photos are well under way, I'll update this post when they're done.


Afterwards, we went over to co-worker Tracy's birthday party, where I got the privilege of molesting Angus' 5Dmk II and 135/2 L. That was...quite exciting. ;D

back to roots.

went for a bit of a walk at Iona Beach today. the lighting was harsh and boring, the scenery was uninspiring but still... it was good to get back into a bit of landscape/nature, what i started out photography in. i only ended up with three shots that i liked, and one very soggy shoe, but it was pretty fun nevertheless...

PHOTOSHOOT: Rosalina Claudia

That's not one person, but actually, yknow, 3. Rosa, Lina, Claudia, of Stainless Kiss fame, lol. Anyways, they'd been doing their fashooon thing for a while, and I'd been getting better and better at photography. Finally, when I  uploaded the photos from the shoot with kathy and kelsey, they called me up for a photo shoot with them, and it was good times.

many a katy perry lyric was sung during this shoot ;D.

while it was a pretty good shoot and i'm happy with most of my results in the end, during the shoot i wasn't feeling particularly inspired at times...the very first few, at the holt renfrew bridge thing, I quite liked the setting and got really into it, and so ended up very happy with the shots I ended up with. Other times, the setting just didn't quite click with me - maybe it was the time of day or number of people there, but iunno. I think the first few and last few, with just a few in the middle, are my favorites. Some of the downtown ones I'm not so crazy about...

And, sometimes, when I was starting to get into the location, they would want to move on. In the case of the urine-smelling alley, I can't blame them, but otherwise it was a bit off-putting. Otherwise, I quite liked it, and it was defs tons of fun. Can't wait till next time! : D

Anyways, here're the shots:





photographer's notes:
-lina's dress was an enigma and like a different colour in so many shots LOL
-very very very happy with my processing and the looks achieved in the holt renfrew shots, and the laying down park ones (:
-7021 is my favorite image by far (Y) flattery is not a strong suit of mine, I guess
-6906 was one of a few recent tentative forays into off-camera flash. I think it worked really well in this case, quite happy with it
-BOKEH. about 95% of my shots were wide open

so i saw the milky way

it was more of a pale band to my eyes than an actual strip of incredibly star-y glory. but our cameras picked it up quite alright : D unfortunately, there was a cop around enforcing the "the park is now closed" rule so basically we were restricted to just the one strip of beach. which, since there were two of us, kinda limited how unique and individual we could be with our shots. but oh well, they all turned out pretty epic and i'm quite happy with them. star watching is something nobody can die without having done before.

what's interesting is that just a few hours earlier, i was doing a photoshoot with RosaLinaClaudia, and i took about 2 or 300 shots, ending up with about 50 in the end that i quite liked, about 15 which were very solid imo. on the other hand, with astrophotography, i had basically a 100% hit rate, any deletes were only due to repetitiveness which, in our situation, nothing much could've been done about. though i guess the fact that if any star trails are going to be done, that severely limits the number of shots possible... but anyways, yeah. it was a good time. here be the shots:





thanks&shoutout to mattang for showing me the magic of html slideshow-showing.

photographer's notes:
-most of my stationary star shots were at iso 800, f4, 25-30 seconds
-the last one, the star trail, was at iso 80, f10, and about 53 minutes
-the fat looking shot was a 4-shot, landscape-oriented vertical pano. i'm starting to really despise cropping for composition, cause i'm at that point where anything i take that's not in the 3:2 aspect ratio just looks terribad and alien to me. panoramas and cropping to get stuff level are the only exceptions, pretty much....

hope you enjoyed! (:

come raise your lanterns to the sky

and we illuminate this night. we'll dance like heathens, around a flame. and while the world sleeps, we are awaaaaakeeee.

Rise Against - Lanterns.


anyways, did some star photography last night (this morning). my god it was amazingly  gorgeous. and it helped that there was someone with me to share it with [ (: ] <--- wow, putting a smiley in brackets really just doesn't work out, does it. but yeah. sitting there underneath the stars, the heavens, it's hard not to feel something special about...everything, about life in general. it's an amazing experience, very cathartic and relaxing and moving and humbling and a million other things. there's nothing quite like it - if you haven't done it yet, doesn't matter whether you have a camera or not. just get out one night and sit under the stars, away from the city.

it will totally get you laid.


even now, almost 24 hours after the fact....i still feel, i dunno. invigorated. the fact that i was able to capture just an inkling of that feeling on my camera makes it that much better...here're the shots i came home with:

some experimenting with light painting: without, and

with:

i had other shots where the tree was more brightly lit, but either way i didn't like it too much. it was just too windy so the tree looked totally blurry. i guess that's a bit of a NTS for the future.

the only star trail i did, and by then it was too bright for a particularly long exposure. this was just about 18 minutes...next time i'll have to get out earlier so i have more darkness to work with.

i can't wait to do this again. a truly amazing experience.

eff ay seventee seven.

7am waking up in the morning
gotta have my lens gotta go pick it up

blhablablhablhalbahlbahblahbalbhal

FA 77 IN MY HANDS! : D

basically since i got this lens, it's only been off my camera so as to be more conducive for molestation. focus is smooth, aperture ring snappy, hood is sexy. just like you'd expect from an FA limited. aowdijaoidjaklsdajs it's so hawt! i haven't really taken shots that i didn't like from this thing yet. and yeah, compared to the macro i sold off for thing, images are definitely more dimensional....less flat. loving it! :D and autofocus didn't really need any calibration, which is icing on the cake.

anyways, as it turns out, yesterday was canada day. so we went downtown to get some shots of the parade, and fireworks...what a day to spend as my first day with this lens!

like 99% of my shots were taken with the fa77.

gas station from when i just picked up my lens:

then i got home and kept shooting:

then the parade:

and finally, fireworks! :D

boom.

at this point i felt bad for not letting any of my any lenses have some fun. so, the rest are from the fa43:

i see many "happy endings" with this lens in the future.

<3fa77.

i'm such a goddamn photo nerd.

coming and going

wednesday: photoshoot with kathy and kelsey and leslie! :D it was pretty fun shit. they brought multiple outfits, we went tooooooo....the railway tracks near marine dr canada line stop, and then to steveston. it was fun, and good for experience as a portrait photographer i guess. though i didn't really do much directing...a bit, i guess. photographically speaking, well...i was planning on going all out with it - i had my DIY beauty dish, my flash at the ready. put on an ND filter, tried a shot with the flash, didn't see appreciable effect, said fuck it from then on ^___^ and just went with the plentiful available light.

direct, middle-of-the-day summer sun = pretty harsh, but overall i think i did pretty damn well with regards to that.

anyways, here are my favorites:

loving them. i'm pretty excited to do more of this type of shoot, cause i was really quite pleased with my results here.

now to the exciting news...

the first lens i ever bought, my d-fa 100mm f2.8 wr macro, has been sold.

and on the way to me now, is.......an FA 77mm f1.8 Limited. shitbrix am i excited for that to arrive. if it's anything like the 43, and lots of people think it's superior, then it'll be a damn good lens to have. just on paper,  i get a more versatile length than with the 100, in a more compact package, and also over a full stop faster - 2.8 vs 1.8 is pretty hefty. if i had that at the gala i wouldn't have ever had to hit iso 10k, probably.

speaking of which, damn is it hard to find gigs to shoot at in vancouver! i've emailed nearly a dozen craigslist ads and maybe two have replied, both of them turning me down. pretty tough shit. but they can't keep me out forever eh? ;D

anyways, yeah. bit of an uninspired post, this. i should really stop procrastinating these (which i've claimed to do each post in the past few weeks), i feel so much more spirited about each topic when it's just happened. meh.

NEW LENS!!!! :DD