apple morning

I got some gala apples from the grocery yesterday. I have been craving for fresh fruits but I am flabbergasted by how expensive they are. I got a few apples and a couple of grapefruits.

I had strange dreams last night of moving into a new office that looked like a house. People had typewriters instead of computers.

It really depends on the apple... but I would love a David Tennant doctor anytime.

What am I up to today? Surprisingly, maybe because I took time to wake up slowly, and then made myself breakfast without rushing, and then I made time for taking photos (all photos taken with my digital SLR), I am actually feeling benevolent about working. I have lined up my frogs and it will be a rather long day.

But on the side I promised myself I will 1) read 2) draw or paint in my small notebook 3) write at least one scene for the novel - there is a character who has been hovering in my head trying to catch my attention.

life in square boxes

I have "launched" a photo album in my Facebook titled "Life In Square Boxes". It's a collection of daily life photography showcasing the simple and mundane details of everyday life but also hinting on the joys and little magics beneath each one.

It's a venue for my photography practice as well as my affirmation practice because in each image I make myself see the seeds of hope that I string together to lead me forward in my creative journeys. Like Ariadne's thread, this string of hope will keep me from getting lost despite seeming dead-ends and collapsed pathways, and even ambush attacks.

It is also an exercise in discovery as the ordinary takes on the perspective of the extraordinary, how little things can lead to big inspirations. It's an enjoyable way to feed the Muse.

How do you find inspiration everyday?

digital photography workshop

I took one last May 27. It was a whole-day class and I took it for the following reasons:

- I wanted to make the most of my DSLR.
- I wanted to know what kind of lens I need to make the shots I want.
- I wanted to have more confidence taking photos and composing my shots.
- I have tried reading a number of beginner's photography books but I simply could not get past the technical stuff. I was hoping an actual person explaining it in local layman's terms will be easier for me.
- I wanted to meet new people.

I am happy to say that all of the above were met and fulfilled. It was a very simple workshop and really designed for beginners. What I loved most about it though was how the technical stuff was discussed and demonstrated -- I finally get the whole shutter and aperture and ISO thing. I also appreciated the way that we were made to work with our own camera and that every feature and button was discussed and explained. It was very practical. When I got home I was able to put most of what I learned to practice.

I also now know that I want a 50mm f1.8 lens. It will cost me about Php5,000 so I need to save up for it.

Meanwhile let me share some shots from the workshop. The last couple of hours were spent shooting models who were came specifically to pose for us.

There I am, the only girl with glasses :) 

While it was fun to have subjects willing to be shot, I find that I prefer to capture them when they are in a more natural state. So I try to catch them in-between poses and before they realize that I am aiming the camera at them.

The workshop also inspired me to really get my photo editing and management system in place because with the volume of photos I would be taking, I could not afford to waste disk space and time trying to find the ones I want.

I also realized that I have not been doing as badly as I thought when it comes to photography. :)

What have you been learning about lately?

my photo editing and management system

The beach post is coming along. :) Expect it to be posted either tonight or tomorrow morning.

It took me a while because I had work (you knew that already) and also because I was having an inefficient time editing and managing my photos. So I finally sat down and worked it all out.

I'm a Mac user so I have iPhoto. I use it to download and keep all my photos from my cameras. However, while it has greatly improved through the years, it still cannot deliver on all that I need for editing. The most I can do with it is organize, duplicate, and crop photos.

For other editing like adjustments, effects, text, and borders, I have tried a lot of programs:

Lightroom (which costs money, and way too professional for me)
Photoshop (which costs money, and also too much for the simple editing I want)
Aperture (which costs money, although it integrates well with iPhoto. however it requires a separate plugin if I want to put text on my images)
Picasa (free but for some reason I find its interface, file management, and export style rather unwieldy and inefficient; I love its editing capabilities but it does not help me at all in file management)

And then I discovered PicMonkey through the Google Chrome Web Store. It's free. It has all the editing tools I want. It loads my photo locally on the browser for editing and saves in my computer so no worries about my stuff suddenly being out there in public. The user interface is easy and efficient and simple, and it allows me to resize and export my files with full control on how I want to keep them.

So I have overhauled my photo system and now this is how I go about it:

1) Use iPhoto to download, keep, organize, duplicate, and crop. It keeps all my originals intact.
2) Use PicMonkey for all other editing plus export to various sizes (for blogging and printing) directly into organized folders.

Thus I keep my files down to the essentials and they are all properly foldered, edited, labeled, and easy to access (yes I do have strains of obsessive-compulsiveness). :)

What's your photo system like?

shooting Mogget

One of the things I did to de-stress and relax after my week-long work marathon was to practice with my DSLR. Especially after the very useful workshop I attended last Sunday, I feel a bit more confident about taking photos.

And guess who's the handy model in the house?

sneaking away

I only have less than 72 hours to complete my report which is due for presentation next week. I only have the title slide and the research background slide finished. Nothing yet on the actual findings of the research except for scribbles and notes and diagram sketches.

But today I am taking 8 hours to attend a digital photography workshop that I have signed up for a few weeks ago, right about the same time I signed up for the watercolor workshop. Yes, this month is turning out to be a learn-a-new-thing month. Well, the fortune-teller in Hong Kong told me last year that this month will be my month of fortune, so maybe these new things will be the means to that fortune! Hahaha! I wish!

So this workshop should teach me more about taking better photos and I especially want to understand lighting. It's the same thing I want to understand in watercolor painting and my brain seems to be having a twisted time trying to grasp the technical aspects of it. I also want to be able to create moods without having to tinker too much with photo editing software.

I should get this camera working harder after today. Well, after my report presentation at least. I believe I will have to pull an all-nighter or two to catch up with the report analysis and writing. That's always the hardest part-- translating all the ideas into something concrete and understandable and usable. It's true for life matters not just report-writing.

I'll be signing out now. Enjoy your weekend!

a day in hipstamatic

Wednesday, 9th of November

Weather forecast says there's going to be rain for the next few days.

My mom came to visit and brought me home-cooked lunch. Thanks Mom!

Been working all day on a project due on Friday. Will most likely stay up all night.

Went for a swim in the late afternoon to refresh my brain. There are christmas flowers already!

My sis and myself after swimming

Post-swim snack : spanish bread, egg pie, and coffee
(Then it was back to more work)

Another break : reviewed some old journals for the new journal inspiration.

My sis playing with Mogget

Mogget the monorail cat, right on top of my flat TV

Cups of coffee sustain me through the long work day (and night)

and now i have a bit of a limp

It started yesterday. Well, first there was the recurring ache on the left side of my foot which I think is due to some bad habit of curling my foot when I write or work on the desk.

Then yesterday there was this lump of ache somewhere in the fleshy muscle part on my left thigh above the back of my knee, a bit to the right, where a muscle dips to join the muscle leading to the inner thigh. At first it was just a lump of familiar ache, like I bumped it on the corner of a table. Then as the day progressed the ache changed character and it then felt like a pulled muscle or a trapped vein or even a torn bit of something. I started favoring my left leg since the pain tended to sharpen when I straighten my leg suddenly or make any sudden twists or bends at the knee. So now I'm limping a bit.

My suspicion: a belated result of going up and down the stone benches at the Kowloon Park trying to get a good shot of the flamingoes. There were a couple of particularly high benches that I climbed in a single pull and I remember a quick twinge in the same area that is aching now.

I've put some soothing oil on the area and tried massaging it gently. If it persists after three days I will go to a doctor.

photo breaks

I actually have some serious project work to do and it is quite frustrating that my getting-to-know-my-camera time has to take a back seat for the meantime.

Anyway I did manage to squeeze in some photo breaks and here are some attempts (I am currently limited within my tiny studio.)

Yes I have a fondness for that blue pot!

after more than a decade of dilly-dallying

Please welcome my new companion:

Bought on a hard-to-resist installment deal with zero interest. It has been price-reduced because its next-level brother has been launched.

Last night and this morning I have been like a child discovering a whole new universe. Every successful shot (I have jumped bravely into aperture-priority setting) got me grinning from ear to ear.

I still have a lot to learn, including memorizing all the buttons and switches and every number and letter on my camera. But I am pretty excited to take this particular journey -- definitely I have come so far from trying to take a moody dramatic shot of a rooster on a late sunny afternoon while using a super old 35mm film camera that can only click and nothing else. That was me in high school or college I think. The photo did not even come out in the developing because it was either over or under exposed and the photo developer took the liberty of deciding not to print it anymore.

After that self-searching post about photography (helped a lot by a beautiful course I am taking right now), I am now better set with what I want to happen in my life. Shedding and clearing away the stuff that derail or discourage you is not an easy task but knowing the stuff that do matter to you no matter what will take you a good long way.

And I do believe that when you know where you want to go, the universe will conspire to show you the way.

:)

my love-hate with photography

My only camera right now is my iPhone 3GS.

But lately I am wanting a Canon DSLR. For many reasons. I am also wanting a Fuji Instax.

I actually like photography. Maybe I even love it a little. But it has become such a "cool" thing to do that I did not want to be associated as a wannabe enthusiast. With the advent of digital photography and the internet, almost every other person I know calls himself or herself a photographer, although very few can actually shoot decently.

When I was a child I remember being one of the last few kids whose family had a camera. And while everyone had a camera that shot 36mm film, we had the cheaper one that shot the 110 film.

When I was in my junior year in college I had the option to take a photography class and I was excited and I signed up for it. Then I received the list of requirements - including an SLR camera and other paraphernalia that I couldn't afford because I was only even in college because of a scholarship. To my disappointment I had to apply for a load revision to change my photography subject to something else. I can't remember what replaced it. I think it was another writing class.

My ex-boyfriend is a photographer and maybe that is one more thing that adds another shade of reluctance to embrace it.

I have always felt that photography didn't want me. When I tried self-studying I could not make heads nor tails of f-stops and shutter speeds and apertures.

It didn't help that I also know people who just took to photography like fish to water.

Camera shops intimidated me because shop personnel almost always assumed you knew something already and they get a look on their face and a tone in their voice when they realized I know less than something.

It often feels like everyone else knows something about photography that I somehow missed out on.

Photography is not my main passion but I would love to get to know it better. I do want it to be one of the things I can do well. I want it to be my ally. I want to not by shy or embarrassed when I carry a camera in my hand in public. I want to be able to ignore the knowing looks ("oh, another one of those") when I take my shots.

I want to surround myself with beautiful photos I have taken instead of constantly borrowing from others. I want to stop just looking. I want to capture. I want to take.

I want to tell stories instead of just taking photos for posterity.

I want to learn now. I am ready.

i really want this

It's a little polaroid camera. The camera itself is quite inexpensive but it is the film that will knock your breath out at about $1 a piece (at least based on where I can get some because there is only one supplier in the whole country).

I am saving up money so I can order it in a special pack with two sets of film. It should tide me over until before Christmas when I expect a bit more cash to drop in.