Chinese Acrobats' performance at Capsquare

Chinese New Year is upon us again. I must have been really busy or very lazy and inefficient. Why? Only now, that I am reviewing the photographs that I took last year.

I saw a similar performance yesterday at the centre, Capsquare, and my reflex-action was to take out my Lumix LX3 to take some photographs. Then I 're-holstered' it. Reasons are many, as the following photographs will illustrate.

Actually, the main grouse is the background. It is just too distracting. With a DSLR, I could probably 'blur' that through good use of depth-of-field. Lumix LX-3 has a manual function too, but what the heck, it is supposed to be a point and shoot!

Otherwise, this is a gem of a shot. Your thoughts?

Some fun shots - cat vs goose

Snapped these pix a last year, I think. The cat is very much like a lot of us. In the safety behind a barrier, be it psychological or physical, we may find occassions where we taunt our stronger foes.

I wonder what injuries the cat may suffer if the barrier were to come down and the goose has the freedom to chase ...

Macro Photography

I tuned in to a morning talk show hosted by NTV7, a Malaysia TV channel sometime last week. Stayed tuned for a short while as the topic was Macro Photography, and specifically photographs of spiders.

When asked why spiders, the photographer meander through his answer that after some 3minutes, we still don't know what or why he said or do. The other chap, presumably his assistant, gave a short answer. Spiders are relatively easy to shoot since they do not move very fast normally (you can imagine the look he got from the 'speak but no answer guy').

Waited, and waited, and waited and finally their photographs were displayed on the TV. What can I say. For those who had seen the program, they would know what I am trying to say. For those who had not seen, did not miss much. Will now show you some spider photos taken by my buddy, Paul Chan.

thought I might as well sneak in this early-valentine couple

A unique birthday cake

Dharm made this cake for his dad's 75th birthday. I just love the idea and thought that went into it. Can anyone do better?

The creator, and....

The birthday cake.

And the taste is just gorgeous. Looking forward to a 'cake - tasting' session, if there is such a thing. Maybe Dharm can start one, soon.

Now, the photography part. Rather difficult to take a good photo with an on-board flash. You can see that the front portion is rather well exposed while the back of the cake is under. This is where a second flash would have helped. Next time, if there is a next time, I will just do that. Should not be too difficult for an ad hoc assistant to hold onto the 2nd flash.

More French delicacies

Too much good food is just great. As promised, a couple more images that I took. I suppose you will have to see the better pictures at a later date, possibly in a book to be published.

Most of the photographers I know say they have no problem with taking good food photographs. I know it is an art as well as a science. To me, taking a very good picture of food needs quite a lot of thought as to the angle, lighting, shadow (do I want it or do I not!), background, arrangement, etc, etc. Well, I am still improving. Lots to learn, lots.

Tuna Bruchetta

Tuna ... oops forgot the name!

Apple ... opps forgot the name too.

Food Photography - sneak peak

Still shooting, but thought I will share this with you. What a beautiful creation. As always, easy to take beautiful stuff. This has yet to be edited.

Use of flashlight

Never liked using it. However, it is time I get to like it, especially after listening to Louis Pang's, 'there is no such thing as bad lighting'. Indeed, it is up to us to get used to what is available, and what gadgetry that is available.

Here is a sequence of photographs on the mixing of a Cuban drink, Mojitos. Looks fun, and rather expertly done. Shame that photographs were not so well taken.

- ugly shadows. used bounced flash. ceiling too high. 60 degree angle, still ugly.
- he did not have too much space to move. otherwise, shadows could be reduced if he could have stepped away from the wall.
- another solution would be to use a very fast lens and a very high iso. not with my nikon d300. maybe canon or d700 or d3x

and glasses upon glasses of drinks for us

Same subjects, different angles

Will be a little mischievious today. Will post a couple of photographs, and let you compare the effect with two photographs taken at the same time. Kiddies, great subjects, but rather challenging.

I found these two to be very effective (maybe because I took the photo's?!!!)

as compared to picture 3 and picture 6 of this webpage (you will have to scroll down the long page). Then again, it is only my opinion, with regards to the fact that the longer angle shots are better.

Nikon Centre - Kuala Lumpur

This centre, I thought, is only catering to the needs of Nikon camera users.

How wrong can I be.

I received an email from a fellow photographer whose words are, "It looks like both of us (maybe less important persons) who are Nikon users were not invited or sent any emails on this event. Canon users were more important I guess. Check the names of the mails ..... sent to".

This friend was forwarded an email by a Canon user of an invitation sent by Nikon to Canon users (well, almost all those in the list are Canon users). A couple of hours later, we received our invitation.

Anyway, been to the centre. Looks good, feel good, but how can Nikon users benefit from it other than KL folks saving time making their way to Nikon service centre in PJ? Let's wait and see.

David, marketing manager of Nikon giving his speech

Louis giving some demonstration with a live subject.

(quality of photographs not that good 'cos not using Nikon!!!)

Oh sure, I welcome and learned a lot from Louis Pang's talk, "Let there be light". I especially want to share this with photographers - "there are no bad light, or good light". Yes, just how we use the lights that are available, sunlight, tungsten, flash, studio, etc. At the end of the talk, Louis suggested that we take a look at http://www.webshooter.tv/.
Why not, great lessons there. I will therefore not bore you with what I learned at the session...

Back to the invite. You can find all the info here, I hope.

Food, Food, Food

I was invited by Jaen, an ex-colleague, for dinner at her house on Boxing Day. Lots of good food, but just could not remember the names of these starters, main courses, and desserts.

Anyway, having these pictures on this blog just to touch on the subject of food photography.

As these unedited images taken by a point-and-shoot Panasonic Lumix LX3 shows, they still looks pretty good. So, why bother with professional work taken with professional DSLR's?

Too bad I did not bring the big camera to take shots for comparison. But I will somehow highlight where it would be better to have 2nd and 3rd sources of light so as to paint a better picture of the great dishes.

This looks plain 2 dimensional. Better to have some light at the side and the distracting over-exposed part removed with controlled lighting.

With the other camera, I will probably open up the lens so that those rolls at the rear are 'blurred' more.

If I had taken care to remove the dish in the backgroud, then this would be alright.

Again, could be improved with better lighting

better lighting?

Oops, just off target. My fault.

Portraiture (portfolio's)

I did a photoshoot in a studio for a very lively and beautiful young girl. She is, fortunately, photogenic as well.

Hope Suraya does not mind my sharing only two images with you. If she does, I will have to remove these images from this blog