Space and the quality of light

Taking photographs of people was fun for a while. The journalistic images generated much traffic for my Flickr stream, and photographs depicting the diverse lives of souls have given me much pleasure. Event photography requires a totally different skillset, and I am happy to have the experience I had in the past two years doing that... but I appear to have neglected the reason why I started to begin with, which was to study composition. As I ran out of reasons to find and attend events that I appear to have no other purpose than to find materials in front of my lenses, I went back to my roots today and decided to explore light.

It started out as a reminder on the quality of light from a Strobist blog post, that, we can manipulate light with texture and other qualities. That light does not need to be what emits solely from the source, but be added subtle texture to add another dimension onto what would otherwise be another blank canvas. And so the journey started with an off-camera strobe, a few metal cylinders lying around (one being the capucinno frother, and the other being my ashtray)... I put on the Canon 580EX on my lightstand, put up my umbrella and started shooting as it passes the circular holes of the Ikea chair to create little spot lights on the subject.

It started with a predefined goal, but ended with something much for satisfying in the end. Here's a series of image which dates back before the sudden strike of inspiration, leading through different light sources and shadow to explore space using the quality of light:

Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8 L USM: Experience Report: Part 1

Bought a new lens this weekend: the Canon 24-70mm f/2.8 L USM. This is my first L lens priced over a thousand dollars, so for sure it is a fairly big buy for me. It also filled the gap in my lens line-up between 40 and 70 (which are currently served by either 17-40 and 70-200). Based on the results taken today around Brooklyn Bridge, it looks like that it has made its cut to become my new walk-around lens.

SML Flickr Set: Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8 L USM

Highlights from today:

Kiss

When the festivals are over and the city paces down to normal, I venture the night scenes in search of delicate moments of human expression.

Did you know that kissing is not just an act of affection, but has biological function? Apparently, it is a way to allow prospective mates to smell and taste each other's pheromones for biological compatibility. (Reference: Wikipedia: kiss)







Related SML Universe
+ SML Flickr: Kiss
+ SML Flickr: Black and White

Gay Pride New York 2008

It was pouring so hard that I missed the parade this year, but I did managed to photograph the other events during pride week. Because of the weather, I shot most of these at ISO 800. Although quite grainy when viewed at 1:1, the photographs were fine at screen resolution scaled down.

As in my previous experience, for shooting events with a lot of crowd, zooming all the way into the expression of folks far outweigh the necessity to show the costume and such.

Here are some highlights:

Coney Island Mermaid Parade 2008

Ever since I went to the Coney Island Mermaid Parade in 2007 for the first time, I have been waiting for my second opportunity to photograph this event again. Here are some highlights from today's event.

Related Flickr Sets
+ Coney Island Mermaid Parade 2008
+ Coney Island Mermaid Parade 2007

Hong Kong Flower Show 2008 / SML

The end of my trip in Hong Kong coincided with the annual flower show so I decided to pay a visit, in particular to give my macro lens some use since I carried it half the planet over anyhow.













Related SML Universe
+ SML Flickr Set: Canon 10D
+ SML Flickr Set: Canon EF 100 f/2.8 Macro USM
+ SML Flickr Set: Hong Kong
+ SML Flickr Set: Nature Photography

Hong Kong: Architecture / 2008 / SML

I went to Hong Kong in March, 2008. Here are some of the city's architecture captured during the visit.

View from the peak


Hong Kong International Airport


Hong Kong Hang Seng Bank Headquarters


Four Seasons Hotel


Hong Kong Cultural Center


Related SML Universe
+ SML Flickr Set: Architecture
+ SML Flickr Set: Hong Kong