My brother asked me to take some shots of his last time to lead praise and worship with Genessis. I really didn’t know how to take indoor shots and made a few allowances (thankfully) for mistakes. For instance, I had assumed that since the worship service was at 10 AM, I thought there’d be plenty of light. After all, there were a lot of big windows in the place. What I didn’ count on was that they had put posters on the windows to lessen the glare. There’s not much natural light in the worship hall, and that made it hard for me because I wasn’t supposed to use flash.
Good thing I was there early, and that I brought my tripod along. I set my camera to shoot in burst mode, set it to spot metering, and set the ISO to 800. At first I set the ISO to 1600 and then set the exposure two steps up, lotsa noise (even if the photos are usable). I found the best setting to be just that, exposure set to 0, ISO to 800, aperture to 5.2, and the camera on a tripod to avoid shaking. I shot in burst mode so that in three or four shots, at least one or two would be usable.
Now he said that he wants me to set up a website for his new (all-male) Christian band, so I will need to read up on taking group photos. I’m asking my friend for help since he has experience with this, hopefully he’ll be free on December 16 for the shoot. Otherwise, I’ll have to make do with the tips, without the hands-on training.
November 17th, 2008 in
behind the photo |
2 Comments
It has happened again. A fellow photographer’s photographs have been ripped and passed off as somebody else’s own work. How many times have I seen that happen and thought to myself, I’m going to put signatures or watermarks on my own photographs to discourage people from stealing my photos. It has happened to me before, and what I did was replace that particular photo with a sign about bandwidth and image stealing, but that really won’t discourage people from stealing my stuff over the internet, would it? I mean, even watermarks can be removed if somebody really set his/her mind to do it. It’s just a slightly effective deterrent. The thing is, I am not sure about how I feel about watermarks on my photo. I have tried many times to find a way for these things to actually work with the photo, but truth be told, I like my photos without my name on them.
If you’ll go through my photos in my photoblogs, you’ll see that some of them have watermarks, some don’t. So you’ll see how many times I’ve actually changed decisions regarding the matter. Haha. I honestly don’t know if I should leave them on or not. Maybe I should just leave off the signatures for now, I like my photos better that way, anyway. Besides, so what if they steal my work? I still have the original files, I have my name on the EXIF, I can prove ownership. I’m not sure if I would care too much if somebody stole my photos now like I used to before. I’ll just go with the flow.
November 10th, 2008 in
rant |
5 Comments
I wrote about this photo here. We were at Caleruega’s picnic area when we were approached by a group of children, weaving in and out of the barbed wires that separated the church’s property from the lot beside it. I didn’t even think, I just pointed my camera to shoot. This child was looking right at me, and after I took the photo, extended his hands to ask for food or money. There are so many hungry children around, it’s sometimes so overwhelming.
I’ve been passing by this particular family for a couple of weeks already, thinking about talking to the adult man and asking if I can take a photo of him and his small family. Two weeks. I haven’t made my move. I just couldn’t, you know? It’s just that I’ve been passing through this route for over two months already, and then suddenly he appears with these two kids. He has several bags that look like they’re filled with clothes. Initially I thought that they were just waiting for somebody because they were properly dressed. And then the next day they were still there… and the next… and the next… and they were beginning to look more like vagrants every day. Especially the little boy who is now without shorts.
It just seemed like they weren’t used to living on the streets. I also see how the man looks at the children, and his eyes are really sad. Sometimes he would snap at the little boy for wandering too far away from him, but I can see that sadness in his expression. They’re not begging, I don’t see cups with coins anywhere, I don’t know how they get their food every day. I wanted to sit down and make conversation with them, but I just couldn’t. I don’t think I’m ready for the answers.
I’m really new with street photography, and part of the fulfillment one gets from it is seeing the world through very different eyes. There’s nothing rehearsed about it, not much time to plan your shots. It’s just exactly the way it is. I’ve been relatively sheltered from this kind of life, in all my 29 years of existence in this world. I guess I need a little more time to process it.
I hope that next week I won’t see them there anymore, hopefully they’ve found a place where they can stay. If they’re still there, I hope I can already sit down and talk to them, maybe offer to buy them lunch.
One reason why I love taking street photos is that it lets me meet people whose lives are very different from what I am used to. Like Kevin here, a little boy we saw at 5:30 AM at the Mandaluyong City Hall. Sleepy, dirty, with wounds all over his arms and legs, waiting for his older brother to finish jogging. While I don’t remember ever being left alone in a public place at that age, and certainly not that early in the day, here’s a reality for a lot of underprivileged children.
I didn’t get to meet Kevin’s older brother, but back in those days when I still had time to jog every morning, I do remember seeing little boys who were like Kevin (only older) jogging around the area. They looked like they were training for boxing. A lot of underprivileged youths idolize Pacquiao and see boxing as their ticket out of poverty.
I wish I stayed longer to talk to the kid, but he seemed in a hurry to leave after we gave him some money to buy breakfast. He was really polite and shy, not as unruly as other street children. I hope thing work out for him someday. I also hope that I can do something significant for children like him. Read the rest of this entry »
