Food photography, or something like that…

How do you make the boring interesting?

Yet again, I am pushed to the limit.   My photo bud has beat me to the punch and he has again made an image ahead of me. On top of that, I have to watch a movie with my boy, which is mostly in Afghan language… in subtitles.  So if I  become incoherent… it is because of Kite Runner, so far it has been  quite good… but distracting to photography.

I had to scramble to do my assignment.  I had to make something simple.

Off to the fridge!

A lonely tomato.

I shot the tomato using a white plexiglass which I picked up in a signage workshop when I was still stationed in Thailand.  Got it for free and I still kept it and brought it with us here in Singapore as it is quite useful…

That plexiglass got me my Istock contributor status… it been really good.

I had cut the tomatoes and place them on top of the plexiglass put a Canon 550 ex underneath set at 1/4 power. The flash was triggered by a poorman’s wizard.

That’s pretty much it.

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the Generic Asian

p.s.  Here are his images and explanation

used available light (direct sun)

f7.1, 500s, iso100 (veg 016)
f7,1, 40s,  iso100 (veg 008)

these 2 are a staple in every refrigerator unit in the philippines.  its almost that a day will not pass that the simple onion and / or tomato will not be pulled out for use in the kitchen (in this case differently).  used most often as an ingredient to dishes, in the philippines, it extends its use as salsa or salad.  you see us pinoys can barely eat our food without having ewach and everyone’s side dish of salad (in our case its called “sawsawan”) which literally means to “dip”.

Old Speckled Hen – Beer Photography

I recently had beers with a friend and he is a big fan of this beer.

From where I sit. Its not the best tasting beer, but my friend loves it to bits.

Anyhow, the beer as long as it is not made from sewage water is great especially when your around people you like.

Shifting gears, as part of an ongoing project with another friend of mine, we agreed to take photos using our available portable flashes and this time photograph beer.

This time he submitted earlier than me so I had to rush.

I basically used coffee to simulate the Old Speckled Hen Beer look and used soap as my foam.

I did use one light the Sunpak 120 J bounced off the white wall.  The flash is triggered with a cheap wireless trigger bought from Ruby Photo from Singapore.

I used a Canon 40D hand held set between f11 to f 20 @ 1/250th of a sec.

Hope you like it!

all photos are photos by the Generic Asian except where indicated otherwise.

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the Generic Asian

Studio tabletop lighting on the cheap

I have been working with a friend on possibly doing something photography related.  I won’t go on specifics, but I must say its not been that easy.

Things get complicated rather quickly and because its complicated things just fizzle out.

Anyhow, this was actually the theme of my post today and its about lighting done simple and on the cheap. Actually, the general idea is we will try our best to photograph something as mundane as pencils and see how we can make it look “professional”.

So with that theme in mind, I needed to start on something simple everyday items you find everywhere and I decided with a friend that we were going to photograph pencils!

 shot with available light

With the theme of simplicity in mind, I took a bunch of old pencils sharpened them and then bound them together with a rubber band.

Again, in keeping with the theme of simple & cheap, I decided to use available light and a simple torch light which anyone can buy for a few bucks in any decent store or grocery. I decided to use an led torch from Osram.

The whole set up is simple.  I needed to mount the pencils so they stay still.  (very easy, pencils never complain, even when you tie them up).

Then, I set the camera at f11 for 25 secs. closed all the lights, put the camera on timer then push the button.  Actually the time was not much of a factor, I think, all I needed was about 8 – 10 seconds of “lighting time”.  Because it was completely dark, my eyes needed a few seconds to adjust, thus the 25 seconds shutter speed.

I “lit” the background first, then the pencils in the foreground paying attention to the highlights on the pencil.   I had to make a few trials, but overall, this was a pretty simple technique and a cheap one at that.

Ordinary everyday used pencils

Simple setup in my “home studio”

All photos were shot with a Canon 40D using a 100 f 2.8 lens

KISS “Keep It Simple Stupid” approach also works in photography lighting!

That’s it for now… see ya!

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the Generic Asian

Social networks and all that jazz

I always wondered what this whole internet social network thing is all about.   I am not sure exactly what it is all about or what it is supposed to do or what its good for.

As I write this though, I am playing poker in facebook.  I just called a 384 bet with an ace and jack and I lost!  Back to the post…

I am also in twitter, linked in and flickr.  By the way, I am still playing poker.  Pair 6s now!  Lost again…

I must say my favourite social web 2.0 blah blah blah is flickr by an ocean.

If you click on the link to flickr, you will see a photo I uploaded and it has benn my most viewed photo sets I have uploaded.  I am amazed how much response I have recieved from the photos of these series.

My original intent on having flickr was to share photos to family… keep connected.  But I think I was expecting too much from family… They were not as connected as me I soon found out.

Well look me up at flickr…  you’ll wee what it has become.  A graveyard of my photographic junk.

TTFN… LOL, OMG… just learned this recently from FB. : )

Let me know where you are in the WWW of social networking…  I am keen to learn.

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the Generic Asian

Security through obscurity

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