About the winning photo:
"It was taken after the first rain we had in December last year. I was so crazy about droplets then that every time it rains, I’d run outside looking for droplets to shoot! But on that particular day I did not have shots that I considered to be “flickr-material,” and I almost gave up until I noticed a small mango plant by the fence that had branches full of droplets! I could feel my heart beating so fast when I saw how the drops were formed, and my heart raced even more when I saw that the droplets were about to fall! So I hurriedly took a few shots using a macro lens. Imagine my joy when, after downloading the images to my computer, I saw that our neighbor’s window was “captured” inside the drops. I did not wait long and uploaded it right away to flickr!!"
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(To go to Nanayof2’s winning photo in flickr, click here).
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First of all, I would like to thank everyone for participating in the contest through your entries and votes. Just to be able to compete with the talented photographers here in Kabayan is already a great honor. This is very memorable and special because it’s also my birthday. Salamat Kabayans for the meaningful gift!
I just realized that interviewing myself can be a challenge, but here it goes…
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Hi, my name is Maping and I’m a flickr-holic! . I’m happily married to my bestfriend, a mother of two and a full-time student. When I’m not changing “LilBro”’s diapers, baking muffins for “BigSis” or cooking pancit molo for “Postman,” you will see me in the backyard scouting for insects, flowers or birds to photograph. On some days, I can be seen in hospital scrubs at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) doing clinical rotation.
I have always liked taking pictures, even in “the days of film and Polaroid.” My mother used to complain, though, when she would see from the film prints that my subjects’ heads were oftentimes "cut off"(out of frame) in the pictures, hehe! Mom thought it was just a waste of money. These days, when family members and friends see my photos in flickr, they had to ask me, dozens of times, if these were, indeed, from someone who “did not really know how to take good pictures years ago.”
On a related thought, I often wish I could “turn back the hands of time” to when I was still in my homeland, working in a shipping company and a travel agency. Back then, we were on assignment to different places in the country almost every week, and I could have taken pictures of numerous Philippine sceneries, instead of just candid shots of co-workers.
I did not get serious with photography until August 2007 when, during a picnic with some Pinoys I met in nursing school, one of my friends photographed my daughter using his Nikon D70. I couldn’t believe how sharp the photos came out when I saw them. Not too much later, I convinced “Postman” to buy something similar. I wanted a Nikon at first but the hubby decided to buy a Canon Rebel XT and a couple of lenses.
I did not have any kind of formal training then so I planned on enrolling in a photography class, but changed plans when I discovered flickr. Do I really have to spend $250 and sit there to be told what I’ve read, and learn, here for free? Just like “Mare DEE,” I don’t know the rules, but I now know that when photographers say “framing” they do not mean the fancy borders of pictures, hehe. I also did not know that the time of the day makes a whole lot of difference when shooting. And when "pinoyphotog" invited me to join Kabayan, I was a bit apprehensive because of the high quality of photos I saw in the pool. I sent him a flickrmail saying that I felt intimidated because of the great images I saw that day. He answered back, “wag kag magpa-intimidate, we have a lot of hobbyists in the group, and we were all newbies once” and of course his famous words, “Keep on Shooting” made me read the camera’s manual and go out more often to look for something to shoot.
This hobby really keeps me sane in my insanity days, although it would have been cheaper for me to ask my doctor for antidepressant prescriptions instead of getting a DSLR and those ridiculously overpriced lenses (I only have to spend co-payments for my doctor’s visits, therapy and medications and the rest is covered by our health insurance). LOL! But photography is more fun than medication, right? :p
If you go through my flickr photo stream it becomes pretty obvious that I love flowers, shooting macro and animals and oh, yeah, I’m crazy about bokeh!! I would also like to learn more about shooting landscapes. And how to capture birds in action just like my idol, "pinoyphotog! "
Since I don’t know how to draw (my 4 year old does it better), photography is something I want to do more, and to learn post-processing techniques as well as creating better compositions along the way. Right now the hubby has been bitten by the photography and flickr bugs, too, so we would sometimes have friendly “arguments” as to “who shot what” when uploading photos in flickr, hehe. Seriously, he needs to buy his own Canon camera so he doesn’t have to bother me when we are out shooting, hehe, but we can share lenses though. And I’m getting my daughter her first P&S on her 5th birthday so she can also join the fun!
My gears:
Canon 40D
Canon 50mm f/1.8
Canon 17-40mm f/4L
Canon 70-200mm f/4L
Tamron 90mm f/2.8 macro (my fave)
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Three pictures which make me proud:
This white ibis photo is very special because it’s my first close-up bird shot and the first ever that made it to Explore.
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This hungry caterpillar tested my patience as it was windy and middle-of-the-day hot. But I like how it moved in front of my camera. The last time I checked it’s my most interesting photo and most interesting macro for Canon 40D photos (that’s according to flickr, on the “camera finder” page). I did not know this until someone sent me a flickrmail about it.
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So far, this is the craziest that I have done for photography’s sake. I was laying down on the ground when I took this pile of dried leaves in our front yard. I was so glad no one (as far as I know) saw me in a very awkward moment, hehe.
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Written by Maria Fe “Maping” Reyes aka Nanayof2
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