Day 5 out of 7 days of Portrait Photography Challenge.
Featuring handcraft artists I met during CameraHaus neighbor event “Bosch Fan Fair” last Saturday where toymakers, wood and metal artists showcased their art. I talked with some artists and they enthusiastically posed with their sample works. I added description and their contact numbers just in case you are interested.
I also want to thank Sir Golden Maranan of Bosch, organizer of the event who introduced to me to other artists and liked my page as well. Thank you Sir!
Title: Filipino Handcrafters
Gear:Fuji-XA3, 35mm f1.4 fujinon
PP: Lightroom presets Sunnysidev2 and Rufosque
Event: Fan Fair sponsored by Bosch, May 26, 2018, BGC, Taguig City
Arvin Angeles. A creator of collectible scratchbuild Voltes V toys. He debuted his public display in ToyCon Manila 2017. He continues to join in different toy conventions and workshop in the country. You can see more of his amazing works in his fb page: ArvinAngeles2000
2. Kenneth Si of Hashikko. He does customized furnitures, decors and sculptural trophies. For orders: Contact 09166088909.
3. Donald Lee of House of Wooden Letters. Established in 2013, House of Wooden letters has provided a great alternative to commercial gifts, home, and office decors, business and office signs and souvenirs.
Posing with Sir Golden Maranan of Bosch Philippines.
Here’s just random photos from the Fan Fair.
Because of this event, I also come to know about Bosch User Group Philippines. First of all Bosch is a well known brand for providing tools, cordless or corded power tools which artists like them use to create wonderful crafts. These fb group is not only a user group but a hub to share their favorite tools and guidance to those who have questions about them.
I truly appreciate Filipinos that brings the honor of our country though any form of art. I wish to meet more of them personally in the future. How about you? Do you also have this kind of hobby? Please share their social media accounts. I always love to discover new artists.
We are on Day 4 and my model today is a celebrity! Angelina Jolie! She looks super fresh that day she made it look like the break-up with Brad Pitt was million years ago.
Of course I am kidding. But she truly looks like Angelina Jolie perhaps in her younger years. But sometime’s she looks like Scarlet Johansson too. What a lucky lady.
By the way I met her in Camerahaus Photo Festival yesterday. The highlight of he event for me is I got to attend the “Fashion OOTD Photography” seminar by Charisma Lico. And as part of the practice session, they invited Angelina Johansson (I named the model this way for the mean time” to be the student’s subject. To tell you the truth, it was not comfortable to shoot with many photographers. It was like a battle to get up close shots with the model. The shoot looks like this.
I’m not the only girl in the pack but majority are boys. I think in photography world, girls are really outnumbered. By the way I could say I am lucky to be in front as much as I’m persistent too!
She looked like Scarlet Johansson in this one.
Gear: Fuji-XA3, Fujinon 35mm F.1.4 lens
Location: BGC
Model: Angelina Johansson (Joke only. Really don’t know the name)
PP: No preset. Just slight adjustment for exposure, contrast
Since this is a fashion shoot, let’s have a write-up on her style for on that day. Angelina Johansson sported a sleeveless pink cropped-top paired with glimmery green pants.
Her sky-high stilettos might cost a fortune I supposed.
I adore her circular necklace and earrings. I can imagine this whole ensemble is well-suited for a night-out or for hosting an event or party.
Special thanks to Ms. Charisma Lico for sharing her experiences and knowledge about Fashion Photography. I have checked out her instagram and I realized that she was the photographer of almost all magazine covers that I liked recently. I am really inspired. By the way here she is! She’s pretty too!
SOME NOTES FROM HER LECTURE
1. What are the factors to help you conceptualize a Fashion Photography shoot?
She summarized the answer in an acronym DO IT.
D-Desire! You have to answer the following questions first.
a. What do you want?
b. Who is the subject?
c. What is the genre or the desired details of the shoot?
O- Overall Impact! This refers to the mood, treatment, feel or tone of the photo you want to achieve. Do you want it be magical, gothic, vintage?
I-Influences. You can also get concepts from the photographers you admire. It does not necessarily mean you copy them because you’ll never be able to. but you can always get ideas on how they approach a shoot, on what are their workflows, thought processes and so on. And from there, you will be able to create your own.
T-time. You invest time and effort. You keep on shooting, reading and learning. Eventually, concepts and ideas would automatically flow.
2. Fashion Photography comes with a set of team; you as a photographer, art-director,make-up artist, stylist and the model. It is a collaboration of artistic minds
3. In a fashion shoot, the first thing to be considered is the THEME. Eventually, the poses, location, set-design and treatment will follow.
4. Some DIY fashion tip idea. Use a projector. Very portable and it’s a set design by itself. These are the sample from her instagram. I’m pretty sure these are the photos she showed in the lecture as well.
After the shoot with the model, she showed her own output as well.
She uses Sony A7 RII. Settings says she used an ISO 500 because it was quite cloudy at that time, aperture of F 1.4 and Shutter speed of 1/800. She shoots is Raw + JPEG mode. I forgot what lens she used. I’m going to ask her in instagram. I hope she replies haha!
By the way, I won something in this seminar because I asked a question. It’s a cute notebook!
Yes! For the Day 3, my models are cute children! I captured these photos during our company’s Trick or Treat last year. There are loads of pictures but these are my favorites.
Title: Cute Kids in Costumes
Model: Officemate’s kids
Camera:Fuji-XA3 with Fujinon 56mm F1.2 lens
Edit: Some SOOC, some with minor Lightroom adjustments to correct skin tone.
Special thanks to G2photography Photobooth, Photoman and Photo Coverage for lending me the 56mm F1.2 prime lens. It was easy to isolate the subject from the background using this lens. Truly good for events and portraits. I could not afford this kind of lens so it was a great experience to feel how it feels like to use this.
Cute Hermione
Moana (I think?)
An Angel
I’m not sure …
Princess Sophia?
Baby Shark
Thor
Little Red Riding Hood. I applied a preset on this one. I want to make it slightly dramatic. Like she’s looking for someone, a fox maybe.
And my most favorite kid that day, Chuckie! I picked him because he’s much into his character. He was running around , hiding and taunting passerby for reals. I almost had a heart attack when he surprised me. Just look at his eyes. He’s enjoying being photographed.
So while I’m this challenge, I had some readings more like a review with regards on what it makes a good portraiture photography. I’ll make this notes super super short.
Portrait Photography is capturing an image of a person base on the personality he wanted to convey
These are the signs of a good portraiture photography.
Subject’s confidence in front of the camera. To connect to the subject is the first job of a photographer and is very important. When the subject is at ease in front of the camera and the photography process, he could effectively exude the aura and do all the poses required. This all boils down with photographer’s communication skills. A good photographer could make the most camera shy person to feel confident in front of the camera.
Clarity of the eyes. As the old saying says, it’s the window of the soul. If the eyes is not clear in the portraits, the whole image suffers.
Correct skin tone or in technical terms, the right “White Balance”. Most portrait photography should show skin color as close to the subject’s actual skin color . It could be an exception if there is an unusual theme in mind. If there’s an occasion that skin color can’t be matched, the technique is to make it black and white.
Of course there are other rules but these three are the most usual key points I see in any article. In my experience, number 3 is the hardest one. First, you can’t control the lighting condition in most cases specially if its outdoor or an event. And I also have the weakness to over edit pictures. For some reason, warm skin tones looks pleasing to my eyes. A habit that I am still learning to supress! haha! Anyway I have learned something in lightroom to correct the skin tone. To help you visualize, here’s one of the pic above that I edited.
Unedited. Warm skin color. Kinda yellowish because of the lighting
Edited. Slightly corrected the skin by Lightroom.
Did the picture improved from the previous one? What do you think my dear readers?
If you think so, I’ll say how I corrected this thru Lightroom. ( Actually there’s a bunch of it in youtube.)
By the way I’m thinking of Cafe’ portrait series. (A portrait photoshoot inside a cute cafe’)
Do you want to be a model of your favorite cafe in a minimum price (Lol. Maybe just treat me in that cafe’)? Just comment or contact me in my social media!
I will be posting portraits for 7 days. I’ve been thinking about seriously building up my port-folio. I’m also going back to the basic photo composition to re-motivate myself. There are LOT of decision-making and thinking lately that it exhaust me so I want to refresh. I hope this week-long activity would re-energize my drained spirit. I am seriously low in battery (spiritual,emotional,physical)
Will be posting potraits for 7 days. This is Day 1. My model is none other than my mother! She’s not that hard to convince to do this. She’s so game for this.
Some infos.
Title: Hopeful Mother
Camera:Fuji-XA3 * Fujinon 25mm
Edit: Lightroom preset “Peach Perfect”
Location: Venice Grand Mall
SET 2:Photos edited by Lightroom Rufosque preset
But of course, I won’t let a photoshoot pass by without my own photo. My mom is such a good human tripod. I set the settings then told her where I will position myself so she could focus on that. And that’s it!
That’s all folks!
By the way I’m thinking of Cafe’ portrait series. (A portrait photoshoot inside a cute cafe’)
Do you want to be a model of your favorite cafe in a minimum price (Lol. Maybe just treat me in that cafe’)? Just comment or contact me in my social media!
You know the popular woes of adult friendships; you rarely see each other. And if you all do discuss it, your schedules are all conflict with each other. For months, my college tropa has been planning to travel again. It’s been years since our last getaway. And we’ve been going on cycles, suggesting, turning down, screwing up the whole plan. It was truly difficult to reach the concensus. But amazingly (finally!) , we all agreed on May 5, 2018 (except for one with totally reasonable reason) Since we could not travel far because of other commitments, we just chose to have staycation just few hours away from Manila. So I browsed Airbnb and found these amazing condo unit with panoramic view of Taal.
With the free wi-fi and parking, we’re solved! It accepts a maximum of 6 persons. Of course there are other units in Wind Residences with this great view. But this is the one I have found in Airbnb and we settled because of the freebies and reasonable price.
So this is the glimpse of the Taal just right at the window. It is absolutely panoramic!
Doing some night long exposure shots. I tried my best.
The condo unit itself truly delivers. It has appliances for light cooking. There was TV with HDMI cable for gaming, chandeliers and bed. The host was quick to respond to all our inquiries. The only thing I could complain is it only has two towels and two blankets. They mentioned it beforehand but it is easy to slip in our minds. Anyway if you plan to book this yourself, just don’t forget to bring extra towels and blankets if you are more than two people. But generally, this condo unit ROCKS! I totally recommend it for those who are planning to have a chill and relaxing weekend.
As for the evidence on how the condo unit looks and how much we enjoyed our stay, please refer to the following section.
MY CRAZY COLLEGE FRIENDS and THE FUN THINGS WE DID
Being with them is ALWAYS guaranteed fun-filled and full of laughter ride. I mean just look at this. They are all meme-worthy.
(NSFW guys. Just for fun only)
GROCERY TIME
Upon arrival, we checked it and head-off to the nearest supermarket just walking distance from the condo unit. Apart from necessities, we bought bottles of Soju, Renato (leftmost side guy) had a sudden penchant for Soju eversince I treated them in Oppa Chicken for my last birthday. It amazes me that he really became into it.
And some portrait photoshoot on the side
Photoshoot with Taal Volcano. Of course I didn’t let this moment slip without capturing the majestic view. I imagine how it feels like to wake up in the morning with this kind of sightings. But then again, I realized that if you are used to something, even how beautiful it is, you would get tired eventually. People are just like that.
Boardgaming Night
This is becoming the banner activity of our friendship everytime we meet. It’s fun and you put down your phones because you got to really interact with each other. We played two games that night. First was the dead of winter wherein you as players are going to do your best to survive a zombie apocalypse together. It’s not a simple game. But I want to commend our game master Aldrich (below) for patiently explaining everything for almost one hour!
He’s been our ever reliable game master. No one could replace him and no one would be willing. (Gahd ang hirap kaya mag-aral ng game. Daming pag-aaralang instruction. I can’t for a life of me!)
The second game was Avalon. It is our most favorite so far. It’s a game of Bad guys a.k.a “Minions of Mordred” and Good guys a.k.a “Loyal Servant of Arthur”. In this game you should have an ability to deceive or investigate the behavior of your co-players. It is truly a fun game and its not hard to learn.
It’s been a long time plan to document and edit a reality-game show type coverage of us playing this game. But it’s not easy to edit. And I’m still struggling. But for now, here’s the glimpse of us playing as the bad guys caught in camera standing on a tripod.
Foodtrip.
Just one ride away from Wind Residences is a restaurant called “Green ATS”. You can choose in a “kubo” where there is a great skyscraper view of Tagaytay City. You just have to pay 1500 but that is totally consumable to food. And whenever we go to Tagaytay, our table won’t be complete without Bulalo. The food is great but nothing compared with the Bulalo in Mahogany also here in Tagaytay.
Birthday Surprise!
Even I was surprised with this birthday surprise. I was not part of the plan. We were playing “Just dance” when Renato suddenly said that he forgot something and he had to go back to the car. He disappeared for almost half an hour. When he went back, he already has the cake. Even I was stunned. I really didn’t know. I guess they know I’m not a good actress and it would be hard for me to keep the plan hhahaha. I won’t blame them. I’m a girl with unrestrained secrets haha!
Nice surprise!
Finally soju time. Renato has been waiting for this
Just Dance!
Apparently, Drich and Leonard has this amazing gaming console called Switch. It looks like this.
When you connect to a T.V with HDMI, you can instantly play any games offline or online. I am really not much into gaming that’s why I don’t things like this. But if I have to choose a game, that has to be a dancing game! I love to dance. It’s a hobby that I love that doesn’t love me back. In a very rare occasion, all of us get up and join the game. So here it is, sharing with you our shameful dancing in the tune of 24K Magic by Bruno Mars.
And the best dancer goes to… The birthday boy, Leonard!
But allow me to display this meme-able gif again.
BREAKFAST
Allow me to introduce you the party mother of our group, Chard. He cooked, cleaned and washed the dishes all by himself. He woke up early just to prepare the breakfast. When we got-up, everything was on the table already; hard-boiled eggs, tuna, pancit-canton, sausage and juice. See? It’s truly a blessing to have a friend like Chard.
Swimming at the Wind Residences Clubhouse
This is exclusive in the accommodation. It only costs P150.00 each in the accounting center.
Because we were afraid of the sun, we opted to swim in the indoor pool.
DRONE PHOTOSHOOT
Renato has small drone that he was afraid to fly unto the hole of Taal Volcano. So we just tried around the Wind Residences clubhouse.
Exactly 12 PM we checked-out of the condo unit. We had our lunch at the place called Mahogany. There is a string of carinderia style restaurants here. Among of all these is the one featured in Kris TV because of its heaven-sent Bulalo. And not only Bulalo, but also “Crispy Tawilis”. I’ll be writing a separate blog about this soon. Just writing this triggers drooling for me and I’m writing this here in the office with Tagaytay like temperature. OMG! Help!
That’s it!
Now that I’m finished documenting our mini escapade, I realized that I have new names for my friends; Renato is the “Soju Boy”, Aldrich is “The Game Master” , Leonard as “the Dancer” and Richard as “the Party Mother”. I was thinking what is my role in this group. But since I documented everything, I guess I’ll be and always be, yours truly, ‘The Blogger Friend”. Haha!
Credits:
Special thanks to Renato for the additional photos and GIF.
GUREZU 