My “choice” photographers at least for this month.

Let me tell you, nothing beats original thought.  I am linking the best of the best!

Linked here a Chase Jarvis does a lot of creative work and his images are just so inspiring!

http://www.chasejarvis.com/

You know you’ve made it when art directors start telling people that they want the Dave Hill look. Check his website out…

http://www.davehillphoto.com/

Its amazing what this guy can do with OneLight. Zack Arias is just all inspiring for guys like us… In Generic Asian speak… CHEAP. He can do more with one light than many try to accomplish with a dozen of xxxx watts of strobes. (ok I exaggerate), but he is extremely creative on how he uses OneLight

http://www.zackarias.com/#/client/template.xml?aaa=home&bbb=

David Hobby aka the Strobist. According to Wikipedia, David Hobby was working as a staff photojournalist for the Baltimore Sun, and had taken a year off to focus on his most popular blog. He is the master of small flashes

 www.strobist.blogspot.com

Last but not the least, flickr. They have done so much for so many photographers that although flickr is not a single photographer, flickr is just awesome. Be sure to click on explore and get ready to be blown away! (note: I did get into explore once – that was a fluke)

http://www.flickr.com/

That’s it for now! the Generic Asian

Spoon & Fork

Being Asian, by and large, you either eat with your hands or with chopsticks.

On the other hand, some come from a part of Asia which uses the spoon. I use it as part of my regular arsenal of dining artillery.   Yes I like my spoon as much as I like my fork.  Let’s say I am an equal opportunity diner.

In photography however, the spoon has been difficult to photograph side by side its beloved partner, the fork.

The shape and curves of the spoon and the fork are different.  Those westerners may have been onto something.

This is again part of a series of images we will be trying to make on a weekly basis.

I found that it was extremely difficult to include both in one image.  My agreement with my shooting buddies is that we will shoot both spoon and fork in one image.

Very challenging from a lighting and  composition point of view.

The thing with shiny objects is that they are a beast to light.  This was particularly difficult with the fork I used, as this was our normal everyday utensils.  They were scratched and abused and therefore not very photogenic.  I also could not polish it as my wife would probably kill me if she sees me using some form of chemical to polish them.

To overcome this, you would probably want to kill all the shadows.  I did this by using a extremely large light source, which is not so difficult if your photographing small objects.

The other thing I had to watch was the reflections.  To recall, light travels in a straight line.  Placement of the subject relative to the light and lens is critical.

I shot the above image with a Canon 550 EX on TTL, with exposure bias of + 2.  The Speedlight was fitted with a softbox.  I set the aperture at f 2.8 aperture priority.

See my setup here.

I had to shoot at almost 90 degrees to the softbox to avoid glare and reflections.   I also used a white plate below which helped fill in some shadows.  I also brushed some oil to the chili so we can get the pickled fresh chili look.

I thought it was a pretty neat and simple setup.  No frills TTL lighting.

However, I was still spoonless!  SO in my lame attempt, here is a shot with the agreed spoon.  The chili was added to the scene to create tension.  I can here the fork whisper “Come on Ms. Spoon… spice me up!!!”

I also added a yellow kicker to give the spoon some points for interest.

Anyhow, that’s it for now.  I am open to suggestions and comments so please drop me a note or two.

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the Generic Asian

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

Channeling Creativity

There have been many things that I always wanted to do but never really knew how to do it.

I recieved a message from The Drunken Blog and I am writing this post because of him/her.  The Drunken Blogger is working his/her way up to buying a digital camera as soon as possible.  But in the meantime the Drunken Blogger mentions he/she will try to live photography through me and possibly others.

In many situations, I have many ideas, but had not the skill nor the creative mojo to bring these ideas to fruition.

So in line with that let’s try to channel creativity through each other.  

What I propose is that we post a few ideas and concepts and let each one of us here to try to interpret them in photography terms. Anyone can propose a theme.  (Please keep it as clean as possible… you know what I mean)

For now… to kick things off, I always liked the idea of connection hopefully someone can interpret this in photo terms.

Please spread the word that we are doing this little experiment.

So I am crowd sourcing my creativity. : )

For now, here are the “rules”

1. The photographer will continue to own the rights to the photographs and where possible mention who shared the idea and/or concept for the photograph.

2. Each photo should have a title.

3. The photo creations must be your original creations

You can link your creations from the comment page on my blog or email me directly.   You can also give me sugegstions on how / where we can upload photos for sharing purposes.

I especially like it when I recieve feedback on my blog.  So please leave a comment or two if you can.  Even just to say hello.

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the Generic Asian

p.s.

This is a big leap for me and a possible ego buster… given that i only have about 3,000 hits on my blog, so please help me spread the word!!!

Why I like the Canon G10

Canon G10

First of all, this is not a technical review of the Canon G10, but more of a user experience review with some non-technical review of the technical aspects of the camera.

One of the many challenges I have in having photography as a hobby is you would always want to be ready and you had to lug a bunch of stuff around.

In the past,  my primary gear was my Olympus OM1, the legendary Zuiko Prime Lenses (all 7 of the primes), my analog sekonic Light meter (no battries needed) and bag full of film.

Forward a little bit to the future in 2001.  I had my first endevour to the digital age with the Fuji 6900Z.  It had many issues as I began my move to digital age, but as a whole I loved this camera for what it can do.   It was small, it was light, it had all the bells and whistle and most of all it produced great images even printed well at A3 sized prints.   The main issue I had was that it was slow and it used lousy batteries.

The glorious Fuji 6900Z

I loved the Fuji for what it can do, but it still was lacking in many ways.

However, from then on, I was hooked in the digital era.  I got the Fuji S2, then the Canon 10d – 30D and now I use the 40D. 

Ok some of you probably know that in my real life work, I do travel.  A lot less these days, but when I did in the past I would lug around whatever DSLR I had at the time and then I would go about my business.  There were times that I would bring the camera around, but would never get a chance to even shoot a single frame.

It was either I was too rushed to bring the DSLR out or it was too dangerous for me to bring out a DSLR as it would just stick out too much.

I have been hearing a lot about the great new cameras such as the Canon G10 and The Panasonic Lumix L3.

Beautifully designed and highly regarded camera from Panasonic

A full review from 60 HZ productions was made comparing the Canon G10 and the Lumix LX3 was made on their website.  Please click link here for the article.

Furthermore, I follow a podcast called This Week in Photography or TWIP where one of the more interesting hosts had purchased both the LX3 and the G10 for his review and had said he had returned the G10 because the LX3 was much better.

On other, websites like Luminous Landscapes, they also had some mind boggling reviews of the Canon G10 and had great reviews on it.  Click here for the article.

Heck I was more confused than ever!

So, I did whatever sane person would do is for me to find out for myself.  I currently live in Bangkok and in Bangkok, there are very few places where you can buy cameras, let alone newly launched ones.

I headed for a mall called Panthip Plaza where everything from copy DVDs to rack servers are sold.  I had gone to the 4 or 5 shops that sell cameras. 

The best price I could get for the Canon G10 was around Baht 16,000 or around US$ 460.  Comes with the standard set with 2 gig SD card.  The Panasonic LX3 was also around US$ 460.   These products are most likely gray market products and would probably not have the usual warranties.

In terms of form factor, I liked the G10 better.  It just felt better on my hands.  The LX3 was just a bit too glossy for me.  And I also did not like the idea of having a lens cap which I can and will most probably lose in a heartbeat. 

There were many reasons and it took me about 3-4 hours of looking, playing around with the camera in various shops and to cut a long story short, I went with the Canon G10.

The main reasons are as follows:

1. It felt great on my Asian sized hands.  Not too small, not too big;

2. It was made by Canon.  And I have never had any issues with Canon and I trust them.  My consumer experience with Canon and their service is 1 billion percent positive;

3. It had a viewfinder and the LX3 did not have it.  From experience on shooting outdoors with just using an LCD screen as you main feedback I can tell you its not the easiest thing to use.  Or maybe its just me.

4. Nice video capture.

5. The layout of the dials and controls seem to be logical and felt like a photographers camera

6. My Canon flash works with it.  I have 3 Canon 550 EX.

7. Shoots raw

Great logical layout and I really like the exposure compensation dial

Big LCD screen with nice colors.

 

The main thing I disliked about the G10 was that the dial to move either the aperture or the shutter speed was too small for my taste.  I guess I am just used to the way it was layed out in the traditonal DSLR.

I chose the Canon G10 simply because I like Canon.  I like the workflow I have with the DSLR and I can use the same workflow with the  Canon G10.

I was thinking of doing a side by side comparison of the images, but really there are many of these out there who would be more competent than me.  Websites like DPReview, Ken Rockwell and many others would provide a more technical and a more comprehensive review of this camera.  I have linked them here for you to see.

Having said that I did a side by side vs. the 40D used the 28-80 F2.8 L lens. I had set up my studio strobes and did a quick setup.  Downloaded the files and did my pixel peeping….  and I really can’t tell the difference.   If at all the G10 was bit on the warm side but not much.

At the end of the day for me, the reason for my choice was simple.  It felt good on the hand and it is made by Canon.  I guess for normal consumers like me. 

My experience with the Canon brand has really won me over. 

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the Generic Asian

Khun Am folio

I was listening to a podcast by Brooks Jensen called Lenswork.  He is probably one of the most insightful photographers I have come across on.

In one of his podcasts, he did mention that he was working on what he called a folio.  A folio, as far as I can remember,  is a body of work without it necessarily having tied up to a theme.

So this week, I would like to share with you a folio I shot for a model who wanted to build her book.

I shot the sequence of photos entirely using one or two canon 550 ex off camera.

You can see the rest of the photographs I made of her here  http://www.flickr.com/photos/thegenericasian/sets/72157608168640812/

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the Generic Asian

Strobist prelims….

Hello Folks! I am a bit busy these days so I just decided to post a few lines and just to say hello.

By now you all know I am not a professional photographer, so like you boys and girls, I am surfing the net for information.

I had recently come across a fantastic you tube post http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKAD7leNOVY

The whole post is all about the basics of gear and jargons used in artificial lighting photography.

This is the sort of information I wish I had when I started… So here you go and enjoy.

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the Generic Asian

Photographers I respect

Last night, I masqueraded as a press photographer in a for trade only show.  I signed up armed with 70 – 200 mm L 2.8, a monopod, a Canon 550 EX, a couple of extra batteries, 3 extra CF cards, my trusty Canon 30D and and extra 28-70 2.8 L lens.

All of the above attached to me while wearing the customary photographers vest.. a bit cliche i know.. for whatever its worth.. I felt a bit strange.

Armed with photographic equipment that will rival a typical Swiss knife in function, I head off and registered.  I was quickly pointed to the press photographers reception where I got my very own press photographers badge complete with a cool clip on button with a cute drawing of a camera.

I had become official!  or at least it felt like that for two minutes.

Fortunately there was a fashion show scheduled.. (I really already knew that)…  and I proceeded to the venue.  Quickly jostled my place and in 3 minutes, the show started…

shot it at iso 1600 by mistake! well a good mistake...

The show was about 30 minutes.. but it felt like 5 minutes…   it was terrible.  To me, it felt like I was shooting the Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt in the 100 meter dash in the Olympics.  It was fast and furious.

The lights kept on changing, the models kept on moving, the guy beside you kept on bumping onto you…. it was just frenzy and mayhem.  It felt similar to being ambushed by 10 guys in paintball except less painful.

Before I knew it, I had taken 148, mostly crappy, photos of the event.I felt tired, my wrist was numb and I had a funny feeling in my belly.   I have never, ever shot this much in such a short time.  In fact I can do a photo walk for 4 hours and only be able to shoot 36 shots.  This was new to me.

After the show, I finally had a chance to sit down and think about the experience and the only thing ringing in my head over and over was…  thank goodness I am not doing this for a living!

Photographing events for editorial purposes is not easy.   But it was fun.. You learn to think fast, you do not have time to think about the shot… you just need to nail it… it surely helped make my heart to beat faster.

I have so much more respect for photographers who do this type of work…

It was a great experience and I will do it again…  and I do like the idea of getting another official press badge.

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the Generic Asian

Photography and intimacy

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 amatuers 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 photograph 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