Resolutions: 2010-2011

The last few days in December usually infect people with an intense desire to set elaborate goals for the forthcoming year. For most people, these goals are usually forgotten, discarded or simply still unachieved 365 days later. The last week of 2010  however, inspired me to set a goal for the remainder of the year, rather than the duration of 2011. The goal? I challenged myself to be as creative as possible.

What does this mean to me?

Well, it meant, that i should, by the end of the week, have shot at least one amazing picture, a video, and if possible, record something to do with music.

Monday, Dec 27th, i set off with Devan, and Justin towards Grand Riviere. After a short two and a half hours, a few  brushes with death and one stop at the beach, we finally ended up at  a haunted old house. What more to do than shoot? And shoot we did.

Devan popped off some amazing pictures as well as a behind the scenes look of me setting up to shoot Justin, our eternal model.
Behind the Scenes before i shot:

The Photo I got:

A few days later (the 29th) I, along with Brandon, headed to the Caroni Bird Sanctuary with Faye and Samantha, our models for the day. Now, Faye and Sam ( or El Tigre` as she is affectionately called) are two very different people. One is Jamaican, to say the least, while the other is slightly less Jamaican. I digress.

The Bird Sanctuary was the perfect place. It was safe. undisturbed and completely open to public activities. The end result was to my liking.

Pictures? Check.

Audio? Not so check

Video? Hey, i can still probably get this done!

On the last day of 2010, we started shooting around 3:30 p.m. The concept for the video was to tell the story behind the meaning of the song that was provided . With some directional input from everyone who showed up, we shot several scenes. Though we didn’t manage to complete the intended storyboard at the end of the stipulated time, I still worked with what we had and managed to finish editing and posting the video with time to get ready for the Old Year’s service at my church.

All in all, it was a great last week. The responses to the pictures and video have been amazing, and  I look forward to doing even more creative work in 2011!

Special thanks goes to The Boston Tea Party, in particular, Steffan, Khaeer, Samantha, Justin, Devan and Faye. I couldn’t have completed this week without you guys!

Also, special thanks to Skid for being totally cool with us using their song for our vid. Rock on fellaz.

And on a side note, special SPECIAL thanks goes to Sam, the new manager of my blog! Here’s hoping to most posts in 2011!

-Roger

Link to Devan’s pictures from Monday

Justin in the water

Justin in the water, originally uploaded by RiChE.

A Proper picture of Justin in the pool, with artistic shots to follow.
There were water droplets on the lens cover, thats why some areas of the images looks so wonky. Shot through an aquapac casing. 1 LP160 on 1/4 power camera left, zoomed out. I can’t remember the camera settings right now.

Tamron 70-200mm f2.8

The Tamron 70-200 f2.8 lens has good sharpness and nice bohek. The autofocus is not amazingly fast but is adequate for most everyday situations. Below are some sample shots produced with this lens and the Nikon D90.  Exif data can be found by clicking on the images for it to open in flickr. From there you can you can select Actions and then View Exif.

This shot was taken straight down. Ambient light.  The subjects are made from sugar. This was very close to a big open window. I used some white cloth draped on the window to further diffuse the light.

 

 

 

 

 

Over here i used a mixture of ambient red light that was coming from a flare on the ground as well as a LP160 flash way back on 1/64th power to just outline the body. It was taken outside on diwali night so lights from houses and fireworks also helped to illuminate. This was at ISO3200.

 

 

For the fireworks shot the lens was simply focused to infinity and triggered with a remote. F32 at ISO200. 10 sec exposure.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paint Brush

Paint Brush, originally uploaded by RiChE.

What else to do once Justin’s over? Photoshoot! This time we were trying to get a Brandon Boyd type thing going on.

Small Crabs

Small Crabs, originally uploaded by RiChE.

These tiny buggers are so hard to focus on, i had to get up to f11 before i started getting sharp results! 1 sb600 on 1/4 power was my main light source.

Dragonfly 1

Dragonfly 1, originally uploaded by RiChE.

Even in the piles of old iron and burnt rubbish, great pictures are waiting to be found.

More Berry

More Berry, originally uploaded by RiChE.

I recently started to dabble in some water/fruit photography. The hardest part was finding a workable water tank. The one i got to use was severely scratched up, and shooting at F32 did not help my cause.
Technical details:
2 LP160′s (left and right) aimed into water tank on 1/8th power.
1 LP160 above aimed between tank and background on 1/4 power
70mm f32
ISO40

Flickr

Toco-15, originally uploaded by RiChE.

I’ve just setup flickr to be able to blog photos right from inside it! Good stuff.

Foto Fridays: Toco

After shooting the last few weeks in the west, we headed east this time, to Toco! Steffan did not come, as documented by the good weather, so we weren’t bothered by rain at all. What was distressing was that we realized that we didn’t have enough gas to get out of Toco and the gas station was closed! Luckily, there were a few guntas that informed us that the chinee man who owns the place lived next door. He was kind enough to open the station and get gas for us. I had some nice footage of us pushing the car and then begging for gas but it suddenly disappeared! I guess it would have been documented properly for “ridin’ with d boys” if Steffan was there, but whatev’s. I tired to do what he does, but its too much work.
Anyhow, the wind was so strong at Toco that my tripod fell, with my D90. Good thing it’s a Nikon! Built like a Tank! Ok, maybe built like a jimney is better. We got some cool pics. The usual crew was there; me, Devan and Ho koon.
Some of my shots;



The entire set can be seen here and Devan’s can be seen by clicking his name.

Oh, and one more thing

Sony PspGo

Sony sucks so much that it’s not even funny. I got the pspgo last November as a thanksgiving gift and hasn’t used it much since. It was lying in my drawer for the last few months. I finally decided to add some points to it and download a game or two. The only playstation game that i’ve liked is Patapon. So very fun. It’s a small download, but because of the slow Wifi (802.11b) on the pspgo that a small 360MB file is taking almost an hour!

Like C’mon man!
I remember bringing home my psp(and my sister’s) last year and having to spend a few hours working on my huge(some say it’s bigger than Greendott’s) wireless network to figure out why it wasn’t connecting. Sony you suck. Couldn’t you have at least put wireless G?

The last thing i had running B was an old palm pilot from back in 2006. Luckily i have 1 remaining old access point that is dedicated to wireless B so old devices connect to that.

Here’s mine, take a few days after i brought it home;

I usually tell people never to buy Sony. They are overpriced, all of their memory cards and most connectors are proprietary and they seem to not make things for the customer. Yes, there are many fan boys out there but in the end i’m gonna stick with SONY, YOU SUCK!

Since we on gaming stuff, here’s a shot of my Xbox360, taken last year.