Saturday, May 31, 2008

Mga KABAYAN, meet Andrew Lacaya aka PanDiSal, our 16th "Photographer of the Week!"

.

"Wall of Fire"

Wall of Fire


About The Winning Photo:

It was taken during the California International Air Show in Salinas, California. It was a simulation of a bomb dropped by an A-10 Tank Killer plane (not seen on the picture).


My Self:

Me

Andrew Lacaya, aka PanDiSal

================================================

I was born in Cebu City and grew up in Dipolog City, the Philippines. I first worked a few years in Cebu with a Japanese company and had a chance to go to Japan several times and come to love everything about high tech gadgets.

I'm currently an IT Engineer here in Northern California since 2000, working for one of the network companies. Photography is just one of my hobbies that I really love.

I started with digital photography when I got my very first digital camera, the Casio QV11 (with only 320x240 pixels) in 1998. My cousins in Cebu then got me into buying a Nikon DSLR in late 2006.

I now use a Nikon D80 with my trusted 18-200 VR lens. I also collected some lenses, both new and used, that I got from eBay.

Nobody really influence my photography style, as I'm just a self taught photographer. Its just a hobby, for now. Five years from now, I see myself still doing photography as a hobby.

I really like to take candid shots of people and love to capture their unposed expressions. And even though I love to take pictures of everything, event photography interests me more now.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

The three pictures that I like, or best describe me, are:

1. "Moments Like This"

Moments Like This

It was taken during our Kabayan NorCal meet and I happened to see this father and daughter at the beach. I really like this shot of a candid moment (which won at the PK Challenge #182 a few days ago).

----------------------------------------------------------------------

2. "Golden Gate Bridge"

Golden Gate Bridge

The most photographed landmark in San Francisco. And though I have
a lot of shots of the bridge, so far this is the one that I'm really proud of.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

3. "Blue Angels"

 US Navy Blue Angels

This one was taken on the same day I took my winning photo. This was the first time I used my newly-arrived lens 80-200 f/2.8 that I got, used, from eBay. I'm really proud of getting this shot and getting the timing almost perfect as well. It proved that my eBay purchase was a good deal, after all. :)

* * *

Sunday, May 25, 2008

Jon Bucks Carlos - Our 15th "Photographer of the Week!"

aliwan 5

“Aliwan Fiesta 2008”

----------------------------------------

About the Winning Photo:

This was taken during the Aliwan Fiesta, held at Quirino grandstand near Luneta Park. I used 40th of a sec for the shutter, f/7.1 aperture and handheld with my 70-300mm lens.

-----------------------------------------

Jon Bucks Carlos - Kabayan's Weekly Winner
Jon Bucks Carlos aka JonCarlos

Jon Bucks Carlos, our photographer of the week, is a 34 year old native of Las Pinas City, Philippines.

Jon started photography in 2007. Together with his wife, they both took basic and advance photography workshops at FPPF. Isn’t it sweet and cool? It’s always fascinating to know couples who share and enjoy the same interesting hobby like photography.

He uses a Canon EOS 5D and couple of Canon lenses. He proudly stated that his most favorite lens is the nifty fifty. Yes, 50mm rocks!!!

When asked who influences his photography style, he stated, “Ador Pamintuan, Vic Sison and Ed Santiago are my mentors.”

Presently, Jon is interested in street photography. He also would like to learn and try fashion photography. Five years from now, he sees himself photographing weddings and events.

---------------------------------------------

Pictures which make Jon proud:

emong

This was a shot of my nephew who I caught making faces. I used the available light and post-processed in Photoshop.


Face Down

This one made it to the top 50 of the Photo World Cup photo contest. Taken in Castillejos, Zambales, Philippines during the Holy Week.


Jeepney repair

My most favorite of all the images that I have taken, simply because it symbolizes the Philippines. It was also a finalist of the Photo World Cup's “Jeepney” theme for the month of April.

Edited by *DEE~ & Nanayof2

Monday, May 19, 2008

Remedy Medina - Our 14th "Photographer of the Week!"

phantom hikers

"Phantom Hikers"

----------------------------------------------

About The Winning Photo:

This was taken while we were riding the sky chair of Snow Summit in
Big Bear, California.

In winter time, this is the lift they use to carry the skiers and
snowboarders to the top of the snow summit. In summer, it takes
hikers, mountain bikers and sightseers to the top of the mountain.

On our way down, I saw these four hikers and noticed right away that
they were casting long shadows because it was already late afternoon.

I took several shots of them, and this one is when they were almost
directly underneath our chair.

When i uploaded this, I noticed that one of the hikers' shirt was
light brownish-grayish in color and it was something similar to the
color of the ground , some part of him blended with the color of the
ground and they seemed invisble. I desaturated the photo,overexposed
it a little bit and applied that tint using the channel mixer in
photoshop!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-- from *DEE~ - (?)
Remedy Medina aka usclabdog

My name is Remedy Medina, I'm a forty-one year-old lover of one and
father of two adorable kids.

I was born in Navotas, a fishing town north of Metro Manila. I'm a
Medical Technologist by profession .

People always ask me about my name, which was my father's brilliant
idea. His full name is Renato Medina, and he combined the first
syllable of his first name and two syllables of the last name,saying
it's way better than naming me Renato Medina Jr. and be called the
generic name "junior'' or "jr" as most first or only male Filipino
children in the family are called.

My parents married kinda late and it took them almost three years
before I finally came out, so they also thought of me as the "cure"
for all those years of sadness and loneliness of not having a child.
Or so they thought .

My father really wanted me to become a doctor, he thought it would be
really cool for me to be called "Dr. Remedy." lol.

Anyway my love for photography started because of the desire to
photograph my kids.

My first camera was a Canon Powershot G2, which was one of the first
advanced point and shoot at that time. It took nice pictures, but the
lag time between shots was really long, and it was quite slow to
focus sometimes so I decided to buy a Canon 20D which is still the
camera I'm using now.

I have several lenses, the UWA (ultra-wide angle) 10-22 mm, the 100mm
macro, the kit lens 17-85mm and 70-300 mm. I've been waiting for the
5D upgrade for a while, and I'm also thinking of buying the 40D
instead, as I want to convert my 20D with an IR sensor.

I don't know if I have a unique style. I take a lot of landscape
photos because I'm fortunate enough to be here in California where
there are a many magnificent parks and reserves. I do admire the
works of other Filipino photographers here. We may be the land of
ghost employees and ghost voters, but when it comes to photography,
there are so many excellent Kabayan photographers out there.

Right now I would like to learn more about landscape and outdoor
photography. The area that I need to learn more about is proper
exposure with this kind of photography.

I'd also like to learn more about how to use Photoshop for digital
darkroom processing.

Five years from now, I'm gonna have an exhibit!

Like this is exhibit A, and that is exhibit B! (I watch a lot of CSI *
lol*)

I've asked myself, what do I want to do with photography aside from
taking landscapes and family photos? And the dream for me would be to
do a photo documentary or photo essay. I really want to show how the
other half of us lives.

We always focus on the great ones, but I would like to honor the
little people.

Growing up, I was very impressed by the images that I saw on Life and
Time magazine. A lot of those pictures defined a period in history,
but a lot of them also became the instrument of advocacy: a patient
dying of HIV, a vulture waiting for a child to die in famine-stricken
Africa.

Those images made a difference. Five years is a long time, plenty
of time to chase a dream. My wife is now a nurse, my kids are going
to be teenagers by that time and this is America, yeah, so why not?

------------------------

The three photos that make me proud, and why:

doppelganger

This was taken at the San Francisco Bay. It was my first time to
use a circular polarizer, and there's too much vignetting on the
upper right side but nevertheless I like this photo a lot because of
the way the cloud mimics the line of the pier.


dedicated to the people of burma

I took this photo of my son, soon after I saw in the news the
aftermath of the monks' protest rally in Burma. I have a lot of
Burmese friends at work, a lot of them were professors and doctors in
Burma but now are working as lab assistants. Having had a
similar experience during the time of Marcos' dictatorship in the
Philippines, I really feel empathy for the people of Burma.



yosemite valley

I didn't know how important a GND (graduated neutral density) filter
is, until I saw other photographers at Glacier Point using theirs. I
was still shooting JPEG at the time, and I could have done a better
job in post-
processing this if I got it in RAW. Still, it's precious to me
because it will always remind me how spectacular it was during that
sundown at Yosemite.

Article edited by *DEE~
.

Monday, May 5, 2008

"Rustic Beauty" - Our 12th !Weekly Contest Winner

Rustic Beauty

About The Winning Photo:

"Rustic Beauty" was taken at the Distillery District in Toronto with my Contax S2 film camera and one of my favourite lenses, the Carl Zeiss Planar T* 50/1.4. I have taken a few other photos of this old truck before with my dSLR. I actually had my dSLR with me at the time I shot this but chose to use my film camera since I wanted to see how it would look using the Kodak Portra VC film.

Compositionally, I immediately knew I wanted to include the green door and the red truck in the image. It just took me some time to decide how much of each I wanted to include. I tried different perspectives, looked through the viewfinder, zoomed out and in (with my feet since I was using a prime lens). Eventually I decided to make the red truck the dominant element because of its shape and partly because the film I was using is pretty good with reds.

In hindsight, I could have made that process easier by taking test shots with my dSLR. However my thought process was in "film camera mode" and I actually forgot about the dSLR once I started the process.

==========================================

-- from Roxy Millado-Duguay - (?)

As my flickr username says, my name is Jonathan Ponce. No mystery there. Born in Manila. Moved to Cebu at 5 (I think) and split time between Cebu (school) & Paranaque (summer vacation) every year until we moved to Toronto in '87. Yes, I can speak Tagalog & Cebuano.

Although I started taking photography seriously only last May 2007 when I bought my (first) camera, I have long been interested in it when I took a photography class in school with the intention of collecting a library of images as inspiration for design ideas. I was hoping to be an industrial designer.

Unfortunately, the aspiration did not pan out (only 20 out of 600 applicants were accepted). When I lost access to free photography supplies in school, photography went by the wayside. Subsequently, I ended up in a non-creative field.

I took up photography as a creative outlet to rediscover my creativity which I felt has been neglected as my day job requires analytical skills and objectivity, as exercised in a fairly rigid process. Photography offers me an enjoyable creative process that allows for a spontaneous emotional or intellectual response; never mind if the scene and resulting image show a lack of technical competence.

The tools I rely on are mainly my imagination, subjective judgment for aesthetic beauty and of course some cameras (digital and film) and lenses. You can view my profile page for more details.

Needless to say my creative development in this medium is in its infancy, so there is no one photographer who influences my photographic style. I admire a variety of subject photographic subjects.

So far, the works of the following photographers have caught my eye: Edward Burtynsky, James Nachtwey, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Andreas Gursky, SebastiĆ£o Salgado, Steve McCurry, Miles Aldridge, Duane Michals and a local commercial photog Shin Sugino.

But, I'm sure this list will change just like anything else that is influenced by our constantly changing moods, emotions and state of mind. Five years from now, I hope to have a more identifiable vision.

I am not really that impressed with my current pool of images. It merely reflects my progress in technical competence and not much of my creative expression. I guess we are own worst critic. It's a reflection of my philosophy of self-validation first before looking for validation from others.

That said, I am extremely grateful for all the favorable comments, critiques and faves I have received. An image either has an impact or not, whether good or bad, so I am glad when mine would do it for some people. I hope my images inspire them just as much as their images inspire me.

The following three of my images have made me proud so far.

Massey Hall
This photo took me some time to frame as I was still just getting familiar to using a TLR. For those who've used a TLR, you know what I'm talking about. I was concentrating on the composition that I did not notice the man walk across the frame until after I took the shot (probably because he was wearing a red jacket). It wasn't until after I got the film developed that I got the pleasant surprise of the accident.

Adrienne
This is from my first ever attempt in doing a fashion/creative-type photoshoot. It was for my make-up artist friend. It was just shot in a condo, using just the natural ambient light coming in through the window and a reflector. It is my favourite of all the shots of models so far since it's candid. I wanted to capture her while she was transitioning from one pose to the next.

Alex
That is my friend and fellow photog Alex Felipe. I like this since it has the three elements which I noticed are very common in my images: low-light, symmetry and bokeh.
.