Photography and intimacy

{ August 18, 2008 @ 2:08 pm } · { photography }
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I recently shot with 5 guys…  and when I mean shot I mean photographed the model above.  I have never done a shoot with 5 men before.  On top of that, we basically needed to finish the shoot in 4 hours.

Now, we are a bunch of armatures and we do this just for fun.  But boy was it physically and mentally demanding as I was the only one who had a sense of how to photogragh using flashes or strobes… in this case we used a couple of Canon 550EXs.   Multiply that by the heat in the gym…  let’s just say I was a bit pressured.

I did not realise that shooting with four other photographers was not an easy thing to do… you had to shoot, fire and nail the money shot everytime…

Let’s do the math.. we had 4 hours divide by 5 = 48 minutes per photograher… we wanted to do at least 3 layouts = 15 minutes per then subtract the costume changes and the breaks and the time to set up the lights.. we basically had close to nothing left worth of time.

In short, taking photos with 4 other guys is not exactly a lot of time…  it is very much like making love, but you only have 2 minutes to get it done and over with…   There simply is no time to be intimate.

You basically become a plumber… you get there, open your tool box, crawl under the sink, shut up and do your job.

Don’t get me wrong I loved it… it had a heck of a time shooting with this guys… it was great fun.

I think despite the fact that we did not have much time… I guess you can tell from the photos that it was fun… or so I hope.

Here is pretty much how we lit the scenes…

The photo on top of the article was shot with two lights on a white foam core as background.  I placed a bare flash to it the background 2 stops over the main light which was on a shoot through umbrella.

On this next photo, we basically shot the model with a basic umbrella as the main light and a snoot for the hair light.  I had placed a white reflector opposite the main light and white foam core board to reflect light under the chin and that was it.  So far, it looks good to me.

There are a couple of more shots that day…. it was great, it was challenging and most of all it was fun.

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the Generic Asian

I want to shoot for stock photography!!!

{ August 12, 2008 @ 4:29 am } · { photography }
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Recently I have been spending some time figuring out why some photos are better than other photos and why and how can I know if the photo I take is good enough or not.

Offhand, my photography, I think, I repeat, I think is technically sound.  Its the aesthetics which I think I am challenged.

So like the true student of the arts, I tried to surround myself with inspiration.  So I did an exhaustive search of the net for photos of the masters.  When I mean exhaustive, I mean until I was xhausted.

Edward Weston, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Ansel Adams…. the list goes on and on.

In a nut shell, and because I am a nut, I can’t seem to get the point in some of the photos.

I also “planned” to get feedback on my work by posting on blogs and joining associations for maybe a thought that I can show my work and get some honest feedback on the photography I make.

So far… very little progress.  So, I have decided to go a different route… I will apply on the great world wide web’s heaven of all photographs… the stock photography heaven.

There are many photos stock photography websites.  Istock, the imagebank, corbis, getty images, etc.

So now my plan is to try to get into one of these sites and try to get my photos approved for sale.

First of all, I have a day job… My job pays the bills, puts food on the table, clothes on our back, roof on our head and most of all it lets me spend some time with my photography.  I do not need the money.

Now I do believe that stock photography and fine art photography are two different worlds.  But like many things in life, when one is out there thinking they have to buy something, they tend to think about it carefully first.

I do not plan to sell millions on these sites, but it may be the affirmation I was looking for.

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the Generic Asian

Water in Bulb

{ August 4, 2008 @ 2:10 pm } · { photography }
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Just sharing how I shot this…

Basically dismantled two bulbs.. on by mistake really… so I had to do it again.

I had injected th bulb with some water, recapped it with the second bulb.

Then i set it on a blue background aimed the snoot behind the bulb… gelled it with blue and yellow cokin filters then fired away.

The effect varies as you change the position of the filters.  I like it… and I hope you like it too.

Shot it it with one lightsource using an “old” Canon 550EX on a lightstand, I attached a home made snoot.  No Photoshop was done all in camera.  : )



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the Generic Asian

Generic Asian DIY Beauty Dish / Ring light flash

{ July 27, 2008 @ 2:31 pm } · { photography }
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First things first… this will never, ever replace or outperform the professional made equipment, nor will I expect professionals to use cheap stuff like this…  But for poor bastards like me who just shoot for FUN!!!  This should be fineI was inspired by latest development in strobist lighting attachments…

I had heard of the Ray Flash ring light adapter and was seriously looking at it as a nice addition to my gadgets.

This was until I saw the price tag.  Hey, I am not a professional photographer and I do not plan to be one nor can I shoot like one, and most important of all… if I bring home a Ray Flash Ringlight adapter, I would be killed by the wife.

Here is the link on the Rayflash ring light adapter from the review of Strobist… http://strobist.blogspot.com/2008/03/full-review-ray-flash-ring-flash.html


I was in the mood for experimenting again and here is my attempt to make my homebrew ring light flash.

Basically, I used baking aluminium foils.

Mounted it on my 550 EX flash.. and tried on my usual model…  Basically, I got a beauty dish / ring light effect.. Nice accident…

The canon 550 ex was mounted on the camera… The effect was a nice even light with a nice simple round catchlight.

I still need to work on how I mount this on the flash… but overall I am very happy with the effect it makes and the simplicity of the design.

Looking forward to hearing from you and your ideas.

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the Generic Asian

DIY Snoot or maybe we can call it Monster Honey Comb

{ July 24, 2008 @ 1:56 pm } · { photography }
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NOt sure how to call it or what it is… I’ll let you guys decide.

I recently finished my DIY shooting table using PVC pipes and had some left over scrap pipes which I set aside.

So far so good…

The PVC is cut to about 3 inches long and tied together by using some of those plastic tie things….

I can only muster and gang a up 5 pipes from the left overs, but it proved to be enough.

I then wrap it on the tried and true tested Ikea kitchen cabinet liners…  These plastic liners are also my strip lights on some of my shoots.

Here are the initial results…..

Now back to making more experiments on this babies..  See you later!!!

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the Generic Asian

Waiting yet again… but in total nerdgasm

{ July 18, 2008 @ 4:02 am } · { photography }
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I had recently come across a new set of barn doors.  http://www.nicephotomag.com/the-latest/the-10-no-mod-barn-door-for-your-flash

Immediately after following on the link to B&H and ADORAMA, I quickly realised that I may have been the last man on the planet to know about this as it is completely out of stock.

I am in Bangkok, the Land of Smiling faces, and for all its charm and beauty, it lacks many essentials (read - photo related equipments).

So I find myself improvising a heck of a whole lot here… from snoot to gobos to bardoors.  I also found myself improvising on how I approach photography.

And that is a good thing.  See my photo of the wine glass… it is basically shot using available lights.

But once in a while when I see nice stuff like these relatively ineqpensive barndoors, I go gaga and turn into geek heaven.  Geek or Gik in Thai street slang means mistress by the way.

So here I am, yet again waiting, but waiting in pure nerdgasm state.

And by the way, I am going on another business trip… gotta make sure I am packed properly and I pay attention to my flight details.

Until next time…

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the Generic Asian

Stuck in Changi Airport

{ July 12, 2008 @ 4:03 pm } · { Travels }
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This is a first for me…  I have been travelling business for quite a while now now, if memory serves me well, my first business trip was in May of 1992.  I remember that clearly because I almost missed my flight. Being a novice business traveller, I underestimated the length of time I would need.

Fast forward to today.  I estimate, and I must say it is a very feel based estimate rather than one based on fact, I must have traveled at least 1 day a month of every month for the last 4 years. Just to get a feel of how much this is, my peak traveling clocked at around 150,000 Krisflyer airmiles for a 12 month period of traveling.  This may not be a lot for the more seasoned traveler, but it is not a push over either.

Since I moved to Bangkok, I do not travel much anymore. In the beginning I actually missed flying.  Gradually as time moved on (about nine months), I gradually did not miss it. In fact I liked it quite a lot. Being more at home that is.

I thought about this and said hey, I can have more time for my photography.  And then there is the other group of people I live with.. (wife and kid)

I also thought and said to myself, at some point though I will need to travel and travel I did.  Being in an airport always gives me a funny-nice feeling.

The concept of flying was not new to me. I can’t explain it, but during this trip it felt a bit awkward.  But I guess its like riding a bike.  You never lose the “skill”.

So, there I was in Changi airport.  It felt good, it felt right.  I was on my way home after a good meeting with a customer.  I was tired, lacked sleep, a bit hung over, but hey I was going home and so I thought.

I checked in, did the usual stuff and then I went through the usual look-see of the duty free items and BLAM… I totally lost track of time and the plane had left without me.

I began to melt like ice in this global warming stricken world.

It was a sense of panic, then calm then acceptance and then I felt really really really stupid.  Then I thought to myself, how the hell did I miss this flight.

Was it because I did not have my regular travel “workout”.   Maybe I was just too hung over…

Whatever it was it made me again try to think of this experience and relate it to photography.  Afterall, this blog is about me and my photography.

This also happens a lot in my world of photography, it maybe plausible that I can apply the same train of thought.  Is it possible that I can lose my head in photography with inactivity.  My sense tells me yes.

I cannot control the amount of business or leisure travelling that I will do, but I can sure find a way to ensure it does not happen to me in my photography.

So I am here after 12 hours still in Changi and its 6:00 in the morning, still in the lounge of Transfer F, waiting for confirmation that I can get booked on the next flight.  Stuck in Changi Aiport…

See you home soon..

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the Generic Asian

Security through obscurity

{ June 29, 2008 @ 1:38 pm } · { photography }
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This is the very ketchup shot that caused the controversy

Hello world!

This is my 1st ever post on wordpress…  some of you may have seen my posts in    but hey, I’ve moved on…. I think

Today was an interesting day for me.  Dropped off my visiting brother to the airport gone to the grocery with the wife and kid.  And when we were in the grocery, we decided to get a cup of coffee in the grocery coffeeshop.

Nice you say?  Well, actually it was perfectly normal till I got bored and started taking pictures of my son… in the coffee shop.  I also took a photo of the ketchup bottle and the glass of water on our table.

Litle did I know that I was being observed…  I was politely asked by the manager to stop taking photos.  I asked why and she said because I was taking photos.

Ok, I normally do not do do fashion shoots in grocery cafes, but hey I was bored and I was taking my sons photos… and the glass of wate and the ketchup bottle.

What was so wrong with that?  I proceeded to show him my photos and I asked what is wrong with that?  And she just replied that I cannot take photos in the store.

I quickly pointed out that 3 tables near us was taking photos too, albeit, using their handphone camera and they did not stop them.

Despite the fact that I think I was right.  I put the lenscap back on and then quitely finished my coffee.  But the idea kept bugging me so I went to look for the store manager.  Smiling I started the conversation by showing the pictures I took of my son and asked here if the photos looked nice.  She said yes and then I asked why I was asked to stop taking these photos in the coffeeshop.

Her face changed, she said…OH you can’t take photos here.  I said I knew that and asked why is it so bad to take photos of my kid in the coffee shop.

All she said was… in my company you cannot take pictures here.  I politely said thank you and walked away.

I think the big question is why oh why is it illegal to take photos in a grocery?  Is it about security?  Are they afraid I will steal the soul of the salt and pepper shaker in the restaurant.

I write this with a lot of passion.  I am by no means a professional photographer, but if people like myself do not write about things like this.  Who will.

Can anyone in the universe tell me why it is so bad to take photos?

Taking pictures is NOT A CRIME!

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the Generic Asian

http://thegenericasian.blogspot.com/

{ June 25, 2008 @ 1:56 pm } · { Other blogs }
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I will move my blog here someday until I figure out how to use wordpress…

For now please visit my other blog at http://thegenericasian.blogspot.com/

I also have a flickr page here http://www.flickr.com/groups/749393@N25/

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the Generic Asian