Mad about photography

Happy New Year all!

One of the items on my 101 list is the 26 Things photo scavenger project. There is a list of 26 words and you take a photo for each word, and that’s it. Pretty simple. =) The newest one is going on this January ‘09. And I’ve already started. Another one I’m doing at the same time is one of the lists from before, the 26 alphabets (you take a photo for each alphabet) because it seems fun. All the photos are here and I’m constantly updating it as I take more photos.

New photos:

Haruki Murakami

This is one photo for the 26 Alphabets photo challenge of which I have yet to make a page for. Taken from one of the pages of a Haruki Murakami collection of short stories.

Letter “T” for.. can you guess?

The gold house..

Since we don’t have street names yet, as this village is new, it gets interesting how people tell visitors to get to our house. Ours is usually described as (at night) “the house at the end, the gold one with all the lights.” I guess our orangey walls and warm lights make it look golden. I think warm lights are much much better than stark white lights that wash out all the colours at night.

Mom and dad were walking Igor and Tassja earlier and passed by some landscaper/gardeners. Mom talked to them to find out their rates.

Mom: Which houses here have you worked on?
Gardener: *describes the houses for which they’ve done landscaping for*
Mom: To work on our garden, what would your estimate be?
Gardener: Which house is yours?
Mom: The golden-orange coloured one.
Gardener: Oh you live there? We thought Jericho Rosales lived there! (Btw, Jericho Rosales is a local celebrity.)
If it was me the gardener was talking to: *toink* huh? Ew no.

And our place being a bird sanctuary, there’s a lot of strange bird calls and cool looking birds. Before taking Santi for a walk, I saw this one on our wall:

Decora-chan

Photo shoot for fashion phenomena class. We were told to do ‘decora.’

“Decora is all about never growing up. Decora is one of the few fashions where you don’t have to make yourself look sexy. It’s not about showing off your body, but showing off your clothes and creativity. Also unlike other fashions and lifestyles (not naming any to avoid getting shouted at) it’s not about trying to look miserable or angry. It’s all based on looking and being happy, cute, and unique.

(dekora) is a Japanese word shortened from the English word “Decoration”. And that’s what Decora is. Decoration. Wearing as many accessories (and sometimes even toys) as possible. You’ll be able to hear a Decora-chan coming a mile away – with all their necklaces and accessories banging against each other ^__^”

From Subic With Love

Here come some photos from Subic. Didn’t know there could be so much to do and see there. (By the way, I have on a new theme, yay!) Not everyone on the family got to do what they wanted as there was just too little time and too much to do.

A towel sculpture XD

On the way to the mangroves..

Bridge over peaceful waters

Nipa hut

Shanti

Munkeys by the road, waiting for freebies.

Snorkelling in the middle of somewhere

A dive site. The Orange buoy marks the place where a Japanese ship sank during the war.

The Dolphin show at Ocean Adventure

Booing!

No they’re not flying, they just jumped out of the water XD

At the sea lion show, where Nikki was asked to participate in it.. Here they’re telling her what to do. Lol.

Colby the sea lion..

Tigah, tigah burning bright. I’ve never seen such huge and healthy tigers. There are about 37 of these Bengal tigers at the Zoobic Safari.

Nemo!

A crescent bear at Zoobic Safari. Where we are encouraged to feed some of the animals.

Sundown and a little drizzle.

I had one of my most scary experiences there one night. We went to the town proper to get dinner for take out and when we started driving back, the heavens opened and it poured cats dogs and elephants. The winding road going back to the resort wasn’t lined with streetlights. And if it weren’t for the car’s headlights it’d be pitch dark. On top of the huge drops of rain pounding on the windshield, white billowy steam was rising from the road as the rain cooled it. We were driving through thick wisps of white steam. Couldn’t have seen any more than 5 meters ahead, kept expecting the road to just disappear or worse, all that curling whiteness somehow form the stuff of my nightmares from watching too many Japanese horror flicks. Got home fine though. It was even funny afterwards.

Then we found out there really are no lights on the road on purpose for the protection of the animals that live there. It must be as naturally dark as it can be, which makes sense.

So that’s it.. Subic’s a nice place to visit with the family. You’ll run out of time before you run out of things to do.

Manila Skies

The most recent ones from my thousands of sky pictures. I’ve always admired how pretty the sky can be sometimes. I hardly hesitate to bring out my cam for a quick photo. Here’s a small dose of Manila nightscapes, sunsets, sunrises, city skylines etc.

Early one day.. Smog or fog? Most likely the former, no?

The SLEX looks better from afar.. so much better.

Burning city.

Smoke from a certain fire a few months ago..

Smoky sunset

A rare clear day.

From a few nights ago.. Ember-like moon glow.

The first pretty sunrise I’ve seen. (Out of around 2 sunrises I’ve seen in my life)

Midday. Sun hiding behind the clouds. For a bright day, that sky is a scary blue.

Rain rain, go away.. to Alabang or somewhere far away.

Fiery Manila Bay sunset.

I wonder how we did on the Earth Hour a few hours ago. We turned off all the lights here at home. Had only the moody flickering light of the candles lighting the house.. and the odd glow from this laptop I couldn’t turn off. Oopsie.

Following My Yellow Brick Road

Almost everyday of the past three weeks in my new school, has been so exciting and gratifying. I am learning so much stuff I need and equally love learning. And it’s even more thrilling when I get to apply them. It’s so refreshing to have no more mind-numbing English, Maths or freaking Bible Study classes where you only have to memorize who’s related to which prophet who has a tongue-twister for a name and you pass, without understanding the relation of any of the contents to our lives. That’s one of the most worthless classes I’ve had to go to. I know it’s important, but the way it was taught in my old school was really terrible! Anyway..

I look forward so much to going to all my classes now even if I’ve to wake up at 6. It’s insane. Garment Construction 1 and 2, Sewing, Textile, Fashion Illustration, Color Theory. And so far I’ve made 3 skirts all from scratch. As in I took my measurements, did the calculations (in fractions! haha), made blocks and patterns, cut the fabric and sewed them. They’re in muslin although I can make them with nice fabric if I wanted to now. And I’ve learned to use both the high-speed sewing and edging machines. It’s just like learning how to step on the gas pedal in cars. If you can remember your first attempt, it probably sounded like you’re drowning the engine in gas, which is exactly how it was like with the sewing machine. It sounded so angry when I first stepped in the pedal, not to mention the test sheet went every which way, which was no good at all. I’m pretty much getting the hang of everything. I knew I was a quick study and now I’m putting it to good use.

I’ve been exploring my new turf, too. It took a few weeks for me to realise there’s Pancake House and other restaurants right on Salcedo st. where school is because my friend and I would usually walk to Kitaro at de la Rosa or Greenbelt-even to Glorietta.. all of which are in the opposite direction. Anyway, by now I know the nearest Starbucks and the quickest way to Greenbelt. We also found this park. It has this pond with *egads* DUCKS in it! Haha. I was also surprised to see these trailer-like stalls very much like the rolling stalls in Holland in the streets of Makati. They have very cheap food but I’m not sure about how good it is, it just looks shockingly neat.. not like corner carinderias at all.

I can now say that LaSalle College International is a really good school. I have a lot of universities to compare it to, I’ve become quite a connoisseur of colleges because for better or for worse, I’ve attended many already. Lol. ‘LaSalle College International in Manila is one of the 23 branches in eleven countries of Groupe College LaSalle of Montreal, the largest private bilingual technical college in Canada.’ They offer International Diploma and Certificate courses. Just visit their website for more info. There are no minor *cough*useless*cough* subjects. The courses are pretty straightforward. There is a nice student-teacher ratio, my biggest class having only 9 people in it, the least having only 3 students. A refreshing change from my old school where one of their specialties is to cram as many students into one classroom. I learn important skills here with very little fuss. You can’t help but learn. The teachers are not only established professionals in their field, they teach well, too. Oh.. and there are also short courses held during Saturdays, like Fashion Photography and Artistic Makeup.

Crichi.com exceeded the bandwidth limit again. It’s been down for a couple days, I think. That’s really surprising since I just had it upgraded not too long ago. Where is the constant, increased traffic coming from? Lol. I’m getting sleepy, I’ll leave this with a page of my doodles.. a lot of which are pretty Tim Burton-esque. Odd but I seem to be inspired by Sweeny Todd. Lol.

What a Pretty Mess

Old uniforms, old shirts, old gowns and costumes.. A catalogue of childhood fashion faux pas. What to do with them?

I like to just keep them. It’s fun to open suitcases full of old clothes.. they all remind me a bit of something in the past. One of my dreams was to show my future children their mommy’s baby clothes. “Oh look.. I used to be smaller than you are now, see my pullover it doesn’t even fit you any more.”

I keep the littlest things in memory boxes, why not clothes. I’m not someone who’d voluntarily give them away. My mom usually does that for me.. sometimes without me knowing. =( I guess I should have expected as much from someone who dumped all her furry winter coats by a dumpster in Holland including one she just recently bought for the reason that ‘the homeless might need them.’ As I recall, the ‘homeless’ always had enough layers of clothing on to last years. I imagine they peel a layer every time it gets a bit warmer, keep them somewhere, then put them back on again, layer by layer as it gets colder. I bet you can tell how much clothes they have on by the smell.

Anyway, my sister needed to redesign some plain white shirts last week and I helped her. What a pretty mess. It’s when I took this photo. We got out all the old clothes to find some nice fabric. I was difficult deciding which clothes to cut up. We even got out a roll of this untouched gold fabric from who knows where so we won’t have to snip up any of the clothes. In the end, we decided on dad’s old Marks & Spencer shirt. With his permission, of course.

From Inside a Moving Car

Capturing random but meaningful photos from inside a moving car must be an art.

First, it takes some getting used to to realise there’s something worth taking a picture of. I once saw a funny sign while driving down a road I most likely will not pass through any time soon. I took pains in pointing it out to the other people in the car so they can see it and laugh with me. If I had just taken a picture, it’d have been lots easier to show what’s so funny. Other than that, it’s pretty useful to have proof when something wrong has happened, like car crashes or other accidents. A good photo or two of the scene as-is (untouched) is all you need and you won’t have to look for pen and paper or cellphone to take note of license plates. No one can lie and get away with it. I mean, there’s a reason there’s hardly a single episode of CSI that goes by without someone taking photos of the crime scene, right?

Then there’s the camera draw. Sort of like how cowboys draw their guns. You have to do it fast. Look-for-bag, open-bag, look-for-camera-pouch, take-camera-pouch-out, unzip-pouch, pull-camera-out. All at lightning speed- or as close as you can get. Picture-worthy moments spotted while in a moving car won’t run up beside your window for you to take a photo of. Competent equipment helps a lot. You only have a few moments and if your camera takes a few seconds to start up, you’ll end up trying to console yourself with the ‘arty’ photo of the dust trail/skid mark that the cool Lamborghini left behind. And mind the settings. Automatic setting for digital cams are your always best bet. I mean, try to take moving pictures with your camera set to night-shot. Yup, very bad.

Now you’ll have to deal with the photo taking itself. You are moving and chances are, the shot will come out blurred in the wrong way. But blur isn’t always evil. You can try moving with the car while you take your shot. If you do it right, the foreground subjects (e.g. grass) will come out blurred with the main subject (e.g. a sunset) well focused. You also need to remember that you’re taking the photo from out of a window. It’s a pain trying to avoid including those wipers or other parts of the car in the picture.

Of course if all else fails, you can always have the car stop. But you have to admit any good photos taken that way won’t be as “amazing” as if it was taken in a moving car. And one last important thing: NO flash. Unless your window is rolled down. What do you get when you take a flash photo of a scene on the other side of your window? At best, a good abstract photo of mostly white.

So much for that, here are some photos.

Sundown

An overcast, rainy day.

A wee hill.

Nature

Raindrops

They’re called law enforcers for a reason. They ideally should enforce the law, not step on it like what this guy with no license plates is doing.

(Along SLEX) I thought the Koreans came to the Philippines to study English. The way I see it, either they learned nothing or someone should sue whoever made this poster.

(On the Skyway, Monday the 30th) We saw this jumble of cars clogging the speedway. Everyone turned around and drove the wrong way. It took us a few days to realise what’s going on here.

Try to guess why they’re doing what they’re doing. Answer in the next photo.

=s

On to other stories (and photos).

I always thought my name’s uncomplicated. I’m always proven wrong.

All photos above (except the last one just before this, duh) taken by this lil guy here. Not Paddington. The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-N2 10.1 megamixel camera. What a mouthful. I won it in the Candy Magazine Blog Awards. It’s very good. Takes clear photos with little fuss and is easy to use.

Speaking of the Candy Blog Awards, here’s the video of the dinner when the winners were given their prizes: Click Me!

R. I. P. Lolo

Foodie Shots

(If you haven’t had a meal yet, I apologise for this..)

What happens when I get a new set of cooking utensils? Why, this, of course. Plus some happy family members. =)

The culprits who started it all.

 

My attempt at French Crullers.

I couldn’t resist.. Lol.

With the icing. These tasted like doughnuts.

Sugarfalls.

It deserves another photo. Lol.

Breakfast tea.

Very hot, sip it sloowly.

I stopped the time.

A not-so-good lunch at Super Bowl. Everything was bland.

My version of shepherd’s pie.

Yummy with a glass of red wine.

Leafy greens with mango vinaigrette dressing.

Little pies of sauteed ground pork, melted gouda cheese and mashed potato “crust”.

In all their soft and gloopy goodness.

Baked Italian style spaghetti, mini pie and a scoop of rice(?!). Lol.

Sushi rice, roasted nori sheet, wooden mat.

It actually tastes better than it looks.

My brother’s evil chocolate shake.

You know you want it.