Re-creating A Style

REMEMBER my perfume ad post? Well, I revisited the photo and tried out a different technique this time rather than simple photoshop editing. I have been sitting in front of the monitor the past one hour trying to re-create someone else's style. The result wasn't too bad but didn't satisfy my hunger. I would need to sit down with photoshop a bit longer but I thought I'd share the first result with you guys anyway.

It started out like this. I was doing my daily reading on Google and had a look at Jim747's latest post on his blog where he was trying out Dave Hill's photo technique. I got interested, went to Dave hill's site and checked out his gallery. The images looked great.

After going through all the photos one by one, studying the unique shiny looks and his play on shadows, I knew I needed an extremely hi-res photo with good lighting. Jason's photo of my indoor photoshoot came to mind and I thought I'd try to re-create Dave Hill's photo using that favourite photo of mine.

But, by looking at Dave Hill's photos, I knew I needed a background, one taken using a different lens, wide angle preferably. And since this has something to do with my wife and myself, I wanted one of London (since that's where we first met). Search after search after search, nothing satisfied my hunger and I had to settle with one of the Thames and London Eye in the background, taken from my favourite stock photo website, Stock Exchange.

Trying different kinds of filters and blending options and making back up copies after back up copies, layers after layers, photoshop ate my memory due to the multiple hi-res images I was working on. In the end, my computer slowed down and I got a bit annoyed. The result on the other hand wasn't too bad. Voila!

Why am I not that impressed with the result? At the beginning, I knew I was looking for a shiny look so I needed to increase the shiny areas of the original photo before I started. But that posed to be a problem because throughout the process, the contrast increased making it look a bit too bright. So I will re-work on it again once I have the time. For now, click on the image for a better view and let me know what you think.

Pengantin DiRaja

HERE'S THE LAST BATCH OF PHOTOS. I kept these last on purpose 'cause I love these. Hope you like them too. Let me know what you think.

Thanks! Hope you enjoyed the ride. Until next time!

See all photos at Royal Wedding Procession Album.

Black And Red

OKAY, SO THE AMOUNT OF PHOTOS I've posted here has been slowing this page down a bit - but it's not my fault that you're still on the lowest possible broadband connection. That or you've got too many spyware installed on your PC. When was the last time you scanned?

Here are another batch of photos. I think after this, there will be one more post on photos from the Royal Wedding procession, then I'm done. I've still got Niah and Langkawi photos to process - really fantastic looking places. But check these out for now!

I recommend clicking on the photos for a larger view.

See all photos: Royal Wedding Procession Album

Awang-Awang & Dayang-Dayang

HERE ARE MY FIRST BATCH OF PROCESSED RAW photos. I'll start with my Awang-awang and Dayang-dayang photos who for the most part were looking directly at my camera. I tell you, most of them are posers - that or they were told to look at the camera if they see one.

Anyway, I've got a few more to upload but I think I'm gonna take my time. I've got a headache now after spending hours after hours of processing photos. Time to take a walk.

See also: Royal Wedding Procession Album

Asking For A Shot

AS PER REQUEST BY STUDENTS DURING THE WEDDING PROCESSING, I stopped and took some of these. I think these should be my last JPEG batch. View all photos from that day here.

Where My Dreams Lie

I WANNA GO INTO STUDIO PHOTOGRAPHY. All these photojournalism stuff is boring the hell out of me. Years of taking pictures of events and landscape is starting to wear down on me, I prefer created settings. Events are repetitive these days. It's always the same shots, always the same background, always the same colours - heck, everything is starting to look the same.

You go out and you start thinking, been there done that. You take a shot at something and you realise how similar it is from one of your past photos. You hold up your camera and you predict the next move of your subject even before looking through the viewfinder. Right then, inspirations are not fed. Creativity gets limited. Words are lost. The challenges are gone. You end up with something that doesn't satisfy your thirst. In other words, nothing.

On the other hand, there is one area I've never got myself into. Studio. Portraits are captivating. Capturing human beings is entertaining. Having tools to play around with is fascinating. I want to be in control of my environment. I want to limit myself yet producing unlimited outcomes. I want to be able to re-create settings on different subjects. Re-create subjects in different settings. I want to be able to experiment, construct, compose, organise, establish, invent my work space and in so doing I am able to generate, discover, build, develop upon something that already exists while telling a story with hidden meaning that can touch strangers, not just the people who are connected to the image, but those who first encounter the photo, resulting in a masterpiece in the form of art photography. It's like photoshop, but analog.

How long? And when? I have yet to learn more. A lot more. But how without the time and tools? This dream is far from near right now. Sadly.

I have a dream, but to dream is all I can.

Photo: 'Fallen & Trapped'. Taken at Tasek Lama.

Because of them

THERE WERE A LOT OF ENTERTAINMENT along the streets during the royal wedding procession. From singing to dancing to music, they all helped create a better and merrier atmostphere. Heck, even saw some friends on stage. So, I thought I'd dedicate this post to him (I know you're reading - so leave me some comments!).

For more photos, click here to go to the album.

Little Big Difference

I'M STILL WORKING ON MY JPEGS. Haven't touched my RAW files yet. Jpegs are easy to work with but very limited. Then again, the only reason why I take shots in jpegs is for relaxing photos - as in, you just take whatever you want without thinking too much.

Here are some more of my jpeg shots.

If you would like to see my Royal Wedding Procession album click here but check back again the next few days as I'll be updating the album with more photos.

Losing The Colours

AS BEAUTIFUL AS COLOURS ARE, sometimes they just take the focus away from the main subject in a photo. So, the solution? Black and white.

I'm not that good at black and white photography - some people say it's easy but it's not always. To turn coloured photos to black and white, sure. But to create that dramatic black and white feeling isn't that easy to achieve.

I took some shots with too many colours during the wedding procession last week. I turned them black and white but I'm not that happy with the results. It's a bit better than the coloured originals though. Anyway, thought I'd share them here.

Celebrating A Union

I HAVE PHOTOS FROM YESTERDAY's procession - but, as usual, I haven't had the time to process the RAW files. Here are some Jpegs I took of yesterday though. Just a few of them.

I call the above photo 'Celebrating A Union' and thought I'd start with that - especially since this page is about what the banner and arch are trying to portray.

Anyway, click on the images for better viewing pleasures. Until my next update. See ya!

Cooperation: Saw the girl guides holding hands, working together for... something. I could care less about that. Most important part is the lovely shot above.

What Stands Out: Saw the yellow flags flying high above the roofs of Kampong Ayer. They look great. They stand out. And this photo is about them.

Ready for students: These boats were floating on the river, waiting to pick up students and send them off for the Royal Wedding Procession.

Waterbuses: Okay, so I have no idea what they are called but hey, they're the water version of the buses on roads!

Sea Dragons

TOOK THESE PHOTOS in Langkawi at the Underwater World. No flash photography it says - so high ISO was inevitable. A lot of my shots from that place were full of noise but they didn't turn out too bad.

The photo above is of a red sea dragon and the photo below shows the leafy sea dragon.

Perfume Ad

AS PROMISED, something I wanted to share from my studio photoshoot with Jason. He took this shot and I edited it slightly to make it look like that "perfume ad". That's my wife and myself btw.

Heaven and Earth

I'M ACTUALLY BACK FROM MY HONEYMOON. Yesterday to be exact. But I feel a bit lazy to blog. I've got a lot of photos, but the processing will take awhile. There are the JPEG files but those won't do any good.

Besides the honeymoon photos, I've also got some of our wedding photos from Jason. Went to meet him today to get the photos - he's got some really great shots. I'll share one or two of my favourites here. He'll also have a page up for our photos online at his website. Once he's set that up, I'll link it here.

Jason, if you're reading this, thanks man!

Photo: Taken in Langkawi, I call it 'Heaven and Earth' as it shows the clear beauty of the sky that represents Heaven and the dark gloomy Earth, which represents the Earth of course, already showing its age.