fujixa3 – GUREZU

Alone at The Bar (Photoshoot)

Published on September 15, 2018September 15, 2018 by Gurezu4 Comments

It’s been almost a month since my last blog post. So let me complain a bit, the passing of time is ridiculous! I mean ..what the hell?

I was so busy lately but I never run out of the things to write. I have done a load of photoshoot and traveled Palawan. But checking my pile of backlog albums became overwhelming. Just sorting my Palawan pics is tiresome already. There’s too many things to write about but I don’t know where to start so I ended up slacking off. But it makes me sad. It feels like I am lacking as a person when I don’t blog or write for a long time. Do you feel the same thing blogger people?

So today, I promised myself to blog no matter what. Even it looks so-so. Just break this blocker mindset that has been keeping my flow. I decided to blog about my self-portrait shoot.

I have done this shoot on the night of August 27, 2018. This is our last night in El Nido, Palawan. We were staying at St. John Island View Pensionne House. They have this cute small bar but tourist seems not giving it attention. I guess people were mostly tired from the tour so they are likely just retreat in their rooms rather than spend some time at the mini-bar.

My friends and I would like to have pictures there but we ended up mostly straight to the bed once we had dinner. On our last night though, even I am so tired myself, I pushed myself to snap photos. Even just for a while. So I went there alone. Armed with a camera mounted on my small tripod, I had my self-portrait session. It’s not every day you have the whole bar for yourself. But when it happened, I don’t drink. I’ll have a photoshoot. Haha!

So here it is. I set my camera in timer with interval mode. Every batch, I have 10 photo snaps in 5 seconds interval. It looks like a papparazi shots, just slower. My camera as always is Fuji-XA3. I didn’t use presets this time is there’s too much color already which I love.

There are empty bottles on display. I get one of those as props. Looks like its okay since no one from the reception bothered me.

DSCF2537 — When will I be truly,sincerely happy?

DSCF2534 — I drowned my problems with beer. But problems are damn good swimmers

Props to me. I do looks like I’m sort of drunk. I’m actually just feeling really sleepy.

Getting another drink because I can’t get enough.

“Let’s make ipit para it looks like malaki, haha!”

There’s a ton of pictures actually but most are blurred since I’m transitioning from one position to next. I must have looked like a fool. But thankfully, there was no people around. The receptionist were just silently supporting from a far. When I was done, that’s the only time they turn the lights-off. They must have been waiting for me for a long time. I think I shoot for an hour. Haha!

And that’s a wrap! I’m now in full smile because I managed to write a blog. Even if it’s so-so. Small step to get my writing energy back.

How about you? Did you experience this “I want to write, but I can’t just write” sort of thing? How did you overcome it? Any tips?

Day 3 of My Portrait Challenge and Pointers of a Good Portrait Photography

Published on May 25, 2018May 25, 2018 by Gurezu4 Comments

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.)

Day 1 of My Portrait Challenge

Published on May 23, 2018May 23, 2018 by Gurezu17 Comments

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!

Food of The Day: Bari Kara Ramen, Newest Flavor From Ramen Kuroda

Published on March 25, 2018July 15, 2019 by Gurezu2 Comments

Food of the Day: “BARI KARA RAMEN” , the newest flavor of Ramen Kuroda,
Price: P230.00

“A very spicy taste of extraordinary pork based soup with perfect combination of spices that touches the soul of a Real Ramen taste!” – Ramen Kuroda

I’ve been a fan of Ramen Kuroda. It’s been my number one Ramen Resto until “Mendokoro Ramenba” entered the picture. That’s why when I heard about their new spicy ramen offering last February, I’ve been wanting to taste it. I only got the opportunity last March 23 at their Eastwood Branch. And it did not disappoint. Rich and thick in taste indeed. Of course, the pork meat is soft just like before. (Banayad sa dila as I use to describe it). The spicyness is tolerable and won’t hurt even the non-spicy fans foodies. But comparing to my favorite Aka Ramen, I would still choose Aka. It’s the ramen that made me fall in love with Ramen Kuroda and still think its more delicious than Bari-Kara.

Final Verdict: 4.5/5 stars. Spicy Ramen Lovers should check this out!

And sharing with the photos of my friends who immediately agreed when I suggest Ramen Kuroda for our dinner for tonight.

And some food photography. I didn’t take much photos this time because I was so famish I am starting to have dizzy spells.

Some Photography Notes:

Camera: Fuji-XA3

Lens: 35mm 1.4 Fujinon Lens

Post Process: Lightroom using “BeArt-Presets”

Our Mini-Photoshoot in the Office with the Theme “Black”

Published on January 27, 2018January 2, 2020 by Gurezu25 Comments

I am officially blogging about my photography journey. Let me vent out some feelings a little bit. I’m actually feeling frustrated and anxious right now. Apart from the feeling that I feel like I’m starting again in blogging world, I haven’t reach a level of confidence that I wanted when it comes to photography. I overthink and at the end, I don’t start and finish anything. I argue myself these past few days. What matters is I love to write and take pictures right? After a lot of self-negotiation, I’m finally throwing any emotional baggage at the moment and decided to blog about our first photoshoot of the year . #WriteAndShoot2018, here we go.

Last year I transferred to another company and eventually joined their photography club. Almost every week, we organize a photoshoot to hone our skills. We do our shoots inside the office since our models are also from the company and we are just borrowing their time. For this year, we are starting our photoshoot series with the theme “BLACK” inspired by the Korean series with the same name. Actually our model proposed this concept herself. And that’s good because I won’t have to overthink on the concept.

Before photoshoot, we prepare what we call a “mood board”. Actually it’s just a collection of pictures from the internet which fits the mood of our theme. It serves as

1. inspiration for the photographers

2 idea for the models to know what kind of expression they would exude for the photoshoots.

Imitation is an effective learning style. So at first we look at these photos to learn how those effects were made. Apart from that, we play a sort of playlist in a background for added atmosphere related to our theme. It also helps our models feel homey and at ease. For this photoshoot, we just played the theme song of the korean series BLACK. To tell you the truth, we got this photoshoot workflow from the free seminars we attended in Camerahaus. Actual photoshoots were really like this. Let’s copy from the experts haha!

(Photo credits: Dan Olarte)

We were five in this session. Or beautiful model, Hasz. Our mentor which is also my manager, Sir Ge. EJ, Dan and yours truly as photography proteges, char!

(Photo credits: Dan Olarte)

Behind the Scenes Photos featuring my behind hehe. (Photo credits: Dan Olarte)

For some reason, this photo looks funny to me. I just can’t look at it without silently laughing bwahahahahahahahaha! (Photo credits: Dan Olarte)

So here are my output for this session. A mix of edited and unedited pics. And some technical notes I could remember.

Would You Trust my Eyes?

Just a short note. My godox flash was set in manual master mode channel 8. It served as a trigger for the honeycomb flash located beside the model.

WARM MEMORIES

Achieving Warm Tone. Just a short note, I set my camera in high Kelvin values for this but for some reason it didn’t work. My mentor Sig Ge set the RGB adding red levels.

“Goodbye Darkness”

There were sorrow and regrets beside you.
But there’s also rest
And a lot of time to reflect
Only with you I can see the light
And I’m seeing it bright now
Before I say my farewell
You must know there’s a joy within you too
Goodbye darkness

And guess what, EJ which is actually a videographer suprised us with a BTS video of our shoot. I was really amazed with his editing skills.

BTS | Hasmine | All about BLACK from straightforwardvideo on Vimeo.

That wraps our first photoshoot session for this year. This also marks day 1 of my 30 days blogging challenge. Yes, I’ll be posting everyday for 30 days! I was inspired by another wordpress blogger boredsensei whom I also met in recent blogger meet-up. She is an English teacher in Japan. As of now, she’s already in her Day 12 already. I love how she chronicles her daily life in Japan because it is very informative. It has been my dream to go to Japan because I was into anime’ before. I even studied basic Japanese. Reading her blog makes me feel I’m getting myself ready for my own visit soon. LAW OF ATTRACTION PLEASE!!!!

Ending my blog with my photos of the session taken by my co-photographers.