Chatter Of The Squirrel

Taking Photography Seriously

Sometimes I feel that Malaysia just doesn’t take its photography as seriously as other people.

But we’re getting there. Events here have reached a comparable level of disrobement. But the dancing still has a long way to go.

Photography: Thunderbirds (teaser)

Took 770 pictures at the airshow.

Couldn’t trust the AF. Can’t afford to miss split second moments, so I set to manual focus, Tv at 1000, decent aperture, ISO running all over the place.

Many shots were not perfectly focused, or zoomed in to the max, but it’s better than missing the shots entirely.

Photography: Export from Lightroom 2 straight into Picasa

Amazing LR2 plug-in found here.

A small plugin to be installed in Adobe Lightroom 2. And I can export a pic straight into my Picasaweb album. I dare say that the interface is superior to Picasa itself.

Photography: KLPF 2009

Went for the KL Photography Festival at MidValley. There was supposed to be a Pentaxian gathering also, but I didn’t manage to find the group cos instead of meeting where they initially stated on the forums, they disappeared a few floors away. >_<

But it was still a very fruitful day.

Saw a couple of girls with melons prancing around in their underwear.

Also attended some great talks in the too-small conference room. There was a kid who used very creative home-made setups to take very interesting pictures of a plastic imp. It’s the quality of a good illustrated children’s book. Very interesting techniques.

Then there’s an old salt (late 30s) who recounted his good old days when he built elaborate sets in this studio to create soulful pictures like they were taken from a small Shanghai hotel reception area in the 40’s. Complete with antique props he either faked, or hunted down in old Malacca. It demonstrated an intense dedication to creating art on film. It’s very inspiring, and shows a successful alternative to the more common Buy and Shoot photography.

All the good stuff was happening in the tiny conference room.

While the stage is hogged by the sponsors. As in one case, by a large, loud, ’successful’ photographer, lauding the spectacularity of Nikon iTTL wireless flash-sync. You know the type of China-man speakers, who start his public speaking with a loud, pandering voice, “PHOTOGRAPHY is made up of TWO WORDS!! PHOTO, and GRAPHY!! PHOTO is Latin for LIGHT! And GRAPHY is to DRAW!!! I have a very SMALL DICK!! And I’m hiding my insecurity with my LOUD, PANDERING VOICE!!”

He was really giving his talk in CAPS and generous exclamation points. And he was on the stage Twice! Damn, I hate N21-inspired public speakers.

Fujifilm also sponsored a catwalk on the stage. I decided to join in too, to experience what it’s like. Learn a few things of what I can or cannot do with available light or with my flash. And it was very instructive.

Lesson 1: Get in front. Early. Or be prepared to face,

• dumb guy’s camera smacking your lens aside
• dumb guy in front with ginormicus flash/bounce/diffuser-mutant blocking out most of the model
• dumb guy wearing a straw fishing hat. What kind of a fashion statement is THAT?
• dumb girl with wide ass standing on chair

There could easily have been a total of a half million worth of photographic equipment trained on those models, and I wonder what anyone really gained from the exercise. A couple of dozen pictures of chun-chicks? There’s no art/beauty in any of my photos, other than varying angles of a few pretty girls. Quite pointless, except for seeing how my flash worked in that situation.

A lot of vendors also used girls to draw people to their booths, it’s kinda crazy. The dry-box vendor had 2 girls literally in their underwear. Why do you need them to sell a camera cabinet?

Anyways, I paid for a pair of dry-boxes, to collect at their shop at a later date. Good price. A 30L box for RM299. A small investment to look after the thousands worth of precious glass.

Also picked up an 0-Flash adapter for my flash. Haven’t quite figured it out yet. But am hoping to use it to enhance my macrophotography.

Photography: Class at Foguanshan

So I went to check out the photography class that Por was bugging me to attend. It’s held at a lecture hall at a Buddhist society building in SS3. Wasn’t as easy to find as I had thought, but managed to get there before the class started.

It’s a small group of 10+ young adults, and the teacher shoots with Canon. I had joined them for a shoot at Orchid Park last week, and today we’re reviewing our results.

I had one good picture of a purple dragonfly, and was hard put to find 4 other pictures to share. Spent the bulk of my time trying to shoot some bees that morning but that was such a waste of effort, other than being a lesson in the futility of such an exercise.

Saw some really nice pictures taken by the rest of the class. Not too pleased to see myself used as the subject for one of the pics. But learnt a fair bit about composition from the REST of the class.

My pics were more well received than I expected. My purple dragonfly was a keeper, certainly. Ideally the head shouldn’t be covered by its wing. But some of my other pics could be improved with some cropping. When I find a subject, I probably should spend more effort inspecting the various elements of the picture and try to complete the picture I want before moving on. But then, concentrating too much effort in one place, I might miss out on other exciting things, like that dragonfly.

I think such critique and sharing is essential to the creative process. Some things can’t be learnt in isolation. Especially when you’re trying to create something pleasing to other people, you gotta learn what other people like / dislike.