Something To Celebrate

In one of the last few days of Dec 2014, I was able to do one last product shot that I can say is one of my best creative product shots. Shown on the left is a teaser photo that I posted sometime January 2015 that can also be seen in this link.

When my wife bought and surprised me with this beer, I was very happy and I remember having this smile in my face I can't wipe off. This is because I have something to photograph and I have something to drink after -- Cheers!

Every time there's something new around is always a good opportunity to get some product shots. First, they're somewhat at their "best" look and if it's beer and liquor it's best while it has still contents.

Going back to the image, it took me several days to think about how to photograph this beer bottle. Since it was the holidays and the spirit of celebration was in the air, I was aiming to have something to get that feeling in the photo at the end.

The teaser image on it's own is good in my opinion and can be used as is. It's simple but I wasn't getting the celebratory feeling in this image so I had to slowly build on it.

Great or Lucky?

After a couple of weeks without taking photos, I decided to take some tonight. I jumped out of bed and grabbed my usual gear. I setup my subject and gear and took some test shots. Eight clicks then it's a wrap! Batteries went empty. Both my batteries drained out of their power.

I reviewed the few test shots that I got. I was able to select two shots out of the eight as usable. One of them is shown below. You know which one is the other from the series of thumbnails above I guess.

Great or Lucky Shot?

I did great. I got lucky. What do you think?

Cheers!

P.S.
Get back to the basics -- check your gear! :)

Flowers Delight!

Over the weekend, my wife together with my two daughters and I, went to church early and ate out for breakfast as I wanted to go to the Orchids Festival that was just recently concluded last March 7, 2011. These were taken at the Quezon City Memorial Circle where the festival was held.

I wanted to be early so I can still have soft natural light and didn't want to use flash in this occasion. Indeed the day was blessed with magnificent light. I really like taking photos of flowers under ambient light. Flower photography is my first love in photography and I can't wait to get myself a true dedicated macro lens for this (but it has to wait for awhile).

So let me share some of my favorites which I am very happy to share with you along with some description of the photo.

Here's an orchid where my intention is to focus on only one or two blossoms and let the others in the cluster blur in the background. Though the other blooms are blurred, it retained it's general form, shape, and color suggesting that the only focused bloom is part of a group and not a solo.

f/3.2, 1/200sec, ISO 200

Here's another bloom where I intentionally took a shot of the top part only of the cluster and show the color and the remains of the previous night's rain on them.

f/3.2, 1/640sec, ISO 200

A close-up shot (not a macro) of a bloom from a cluster of orchid blooms where I intentionally shot only one to reveal the patterns and color of this particular bloom. Actually, if you can look closely, there seems to be an alien's face (similar to movies -- big eyes, small mouth, and probably a third eye on the forehead) there in the pattern.

f/3.2, 1/320sec, ISO 200

This particular bloom is quite interesting for me as this variety is very seldom seen. The common color of this bloom is pink. I am actually trying to grow the common variety of this in our garden.

f/4.0, 1/125sec , ISO 200

I remember that this is my second shot from the series of photos that I have taken from this trip. My wife actually spotted this particular bloom for it's peachy color. The shallow DOF was intentional as I wanted to introduce dimension to the flower. I hope I achieved this. :)


f/2.8, 1/125sec, ISO 100

Ain't that delightful? Thank you for viewing. I hope you were enjoyed the photos as I enjoyed taking photos of them.

Share your delight and mine by sharing this blog entry to your friends.

Cheers!

Corny Day

Just sharing my corny day.

Actually, took this photo at night though it seems to appear that the light is coming from an open window on the right in broad daylight.

I was once read that to appealing food photography, light should come from the side and not from the top and just thought to try it and compared with one of my photos lighted from above.

So what seems to be better? I guess it depends on how the photo will be used.

More Flowers

It was a great day, I'm glad that we made this trip. I give credit to my wife for the nagging to take this trip. It's sort of a stone hitting two birds at the same time. Actually, it can be considered to be three birds -- my wife's aunt's tour, our kids' out of town trip, and my time with these gorgeous flowers. All photos taken hand-held, no tripod or whatsoever. Just my stance. You may click on the picture for a bigger and better view.

Below is a budding bougainvillea - trying to get only the center in focus while the foreground and background blurred. Needing a lot more practice or a tripod could have helped. You may click on the picture for a bigger and better view.

A couple of yellow flowers. You may click on the picture for a bigger and better view.

Here's a bed of orange flowers. Just keeping the foreground focused and the rest blurred towards to the end. You may click on the picture for a bigger and better view.

I took this photo towards the end of our stay in this beautiful garden. This was the best I can get. Somewhat in a hurry and just fired away. Got lucky I still have this. You may click on the picture for a bigger and better view.

Actually, there's a lot more of this set and can be seen in my Flickr and Picasa Web pages.