Mga Kabayan, Here's Jesslee Cuizon (again!), One of TWO Winners of the 19th "Photographer of the Week!" Contest - 'DOF and BOKEH"

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About The Winning Photo:

I've been doing street photography for two years now, and I do it during the day most of the time. But I've seen a lot of great street photography work here in Flickr and what amazes me most are the night shots. I'm impressed at how other photographers play with light, bokeh, and other technical aspects. Looking at these photos, I get inspired to try and do the same thing.

This is the reason why I decided to buy a fast prime lens. Just this month I got the Nikkor 85mm/f1.8. One day, I went out late in the afternoon to one busy district in Tokyo (Machida), and tried street night photography. And this (the winning photo) is one of the results. So far, I'm enjoying having this lens, and I know I still have to learn a lot.

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-- from recep-bg - (?)

Two-Time Winner Jesslee Cuizon aka Kalandrakas!

I am Jesslee Cuizon or "Kalandrakas," a word borrowed from Spanish which now means “messed up miscellany”. I'm a Cebuano currently working in Japan as an IT engineer. My friends describe me as a funny (most of the time, corny), outgoing and adventurous person. I'm a loyal UCnian having finished high school and college at the University of Cebu (BS in Information Technology).

Before, I was just a mere witness to a lot of things in the streets, all uncaptured. When I was still in Cebu, I used to go to office by jeepney and see a lot of children selling fruits in the streets, asking money in the middle of the highway; and I felt like I needed to do something...to tell these things to other people. This started the desire to have my own camera.

My first digital camera was a tiny Aiptek Slim 3200. Then, I got my Sony DSC-R1 last February 2006 and started getting a little serious about photography. Now, I'm using Nikon D80 with Nikkor 70-300mm VR and Nikkor 18-135mm lens.

Like most of you, I didn’t attend any photography workshops. What I do is read, read and read. There are a lot of amazing photographers, and they are just a "google" away. Flickr, of course, helps a lot.

If you can check my photostream, most of my photos are of people, and mostly candid. I love going out and taking photos of people. Danz in Tokyo inspires me more to do street photography. He has amazing street photos.

I really love street photography. I want to capture daily moments in the streets. For me, it is like telling stories. I do like to work in media and do what I love: photojournalism. I am more interested in social and environmental issues.

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I am proud of these photos:

"why homeless people exist in japan"


This photo shows that the homeless are everywhere in the world,
even in a well-developed country like Japan.

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"gyaru"


Gyaru fashion is one of the most unique in the world.

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"awa odori"


Awa Odori is one of the most popular festivals in Japan.

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"I really believe there are things nobody would see if I didn't photograph them" --Diane Arbus

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Interview article by © *DEE~
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Mga Kabayan, Meet Filan Thaddeus S. Ventic , our 18th "Photographer of the Week!"

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"Dragon eyes"



About The Winning Photo:

After a very frustrating attempt at using a combination of extension tubes and a 50mm at a very close range, Filan decided to change to an 85mm, with same extension tubes...and got a detailed shot of the dragonfly which didn't seem to mind being photographed.

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-- from © *DEE~ - (?)

Filan Thaddeus S. Ventic

Communications Engineer
based in Dammam, Saudi Arabia.


Self-schooled photographer, versatile in style with a natural eye for color, tone and composition. His work reflects an inimitable ability to get inside a subject and explore the inner workings and intricate aspects and deliver an accurate interpretation of mood, environment and emotive balance though his images. Filan concentrates his energies on finding and delicately balancing most effective angles and lighting effects to give a depth and perspective."

Filan got his start in photography as a snapshooter in underwater photography back in 2005 and decided to try a DSLR in 2006.

His gear consists of the Nikon D70s and a few lenses, Canon & Sony PnS cams for underwater photography.


Filan's main influences in photography are:

Ka Pepe - www.pbase.com/josedeluna

badungsky - www.flickr.com/photos/budslife

Ka Orly - www.pbase.com/riddler214

Currently, Filan is intrigued by macro and landscape photography, but is also interested in expanding to wedding and portrait photography in the near future.


Five years from now, he sees himself still "capturing the moments" because he finds photography to be a very rewarding hobby.


The three photographs that best define Filan are:

#1 - "When nature strikes"




www.flickr.com/photos/filan/1220120059/in/set-72157601624...


Taken during one stormy evening in the Khurais Desert, he had wished for this shot and it just came in perfect timing, his very first lightning shot.


#2 - "I found you"




farm4.static.flickr.com/3050/2550638878_f6ab1e68c3.jpg'


Filan had been wanting to capture good shot of a Clown fish, and this photo is the best that he could get, in his opinion. It was taken in his hometown of Pagadian City, Zamboanga del Sur Philippines, of which he is very proud!


#3 - "Lilies in Lakewood"




www.flickr.com/photos/filan/2500647173/


Filan felt privileged to shoot for a tourism office, and this photo is his favourite shot.

He submerged himself into the lilies in the water to obtain this angle.


www.flickr.com/photos/filan/sets/72157605327015499/

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Interview written by © *DEE~
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Mga Kabayan, Meet Paolo Arroyo, aka marbleplaty, our 17th "Photographer of the Week!"

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"bubbles"



About The Winning Photo

His daughter was blowing bubbles in a straw over water in a blue glass when he saw how striking the imagery was. So he took his camera and, with his daughter helping him, he was able to frame the winning shot.

Sony DSC-H7, 0.025 sec (1/40), f/4, 5.2 mm, -13/10 EV, Flash fired

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Paolo Arroyo

This week's winning photographer is Paolo Arroyo, also known as marbleplaty. He is a Computer Science graduate presently working as a graphics artist in Bicol. Born, raised and educated in Legazpi City, he is married for 10 years and has 3 kids.


Paolo got into digital photography about nine years ago when he received a Kodak DC-3200 1.3-megapixel camera as a birthday present. Four years later, he bought an Olympus C-5000z, a 5-megapixel camera with manual controls. Then two years ago, his sister gifted him, on his birthday, a Sony H7.

Admitting no singular photographic influence, Paolo considers flickr as his main source of inspiration. Here he gets to see "the masterpieces of some of the best photographers in the planet." It is in flickr where he also learns new techniques and styles. Similarly, he has no particular photographic subject interest. He shoots whatever he finds interesting, living or inanimate. Right now, he is venturing into portraiture.

Five years ahead, he still would be into photography, hopefully with the proper gears. He is already saving up to buy an entry level DSLR.

These are his three choiced photographs:

1



This is one of his first attempts at macro photography.
To date, it is his most viewed, commented and faved photo.


2


He considers this special since this is his first entry in a photo contest which won First Place.
The shot was taken during the Magayon Festival last April in Legazpi City.


3


This is a shot of his 1 1/2 year-old son who, like any kid, is always moving.
Despite the difficulty in shooting, he was glad that he captured the moment.

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Interview written by Farl.
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Mga KABAYAN, meet Andrew Lacaya aka PanDiSal, our 16th "Photographer of the Week!"

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"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:



Andrew Lacaya, aka PanDiSal

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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.

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

1. "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).

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2. "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.

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3. "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. :)

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

“Aliwan Fiesta 2008”

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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.

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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.

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Pictures which make Jon proud:



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




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




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

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

"Phantom Hikers"

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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!

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-- 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?

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The three photos that make me proud, and why:



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.




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.





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

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.

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-- 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, Sebastião 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.


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.


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.


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.
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