Everything Under The Tropical Sun

I am a POSER. I’ll say that now so that everything’s clear and you won’t hold me liable for any misguided information you may or may not pick up from this blog post. I’m simply telling a story about one part of my life: photography. Don’t worry, I won’t take offense if you do call me a POSER… I believe the great ones had to start out as one before they became… well, great.

So here I am, finally comfortable with the tweaking of my camera (which by the way… I LOOOVE so much! I can’t say that enough) and I know there’s still so much to play around with but I’ve finally made up my mind to buy some inexpensive stuff to experiment with. Not to mention, Teach CONNED me into buying some other equipment. I’ll tell you all about that later.

So the next images I’ll be posting would either be lit by using a softbox or the equipment I was conned into getting. If the photo is of still images, most likely that was taken with a softbox. If it’s of my husband (my model via emotional blackmail), then it was taken with the tainted equipment from Teach.

You’ll see below two images of my lighting experiment. One is with the regular white cloth and the other with a white acrylic bottom… but both were placed over our bed (for my own comfort). I bought a regular desktop lamp for the overhead lighting and used my husband’s flash as a slave.

I hope you learn something, but again, I’m a POSER… so don’t hold me liable for any misinformation in this entry.

I’m so proud of my Teach. He’s one of my best friends and we talk practically every day. Sharing mundane everyday things happening in our lives and a week without chatting with him seems incomplete. To think he lives thousands and thousands of miles away and yet it’s so comforting to know that in spite of the fact that it years went by before we started chatting again (which is what we did when we first met: in a chat IRC chat room – embarassing to admit that now but it’s true), we just picked up where we left off.

He’s always tried to teach me things I wouldn’t normally try to learn on my own. He encourages me to do the things he knows I love and but just afraid to try. Though he is a very intellegent person, he’s a paradox on his own. He knows he’s smart but thinks he’s not smart enough. He knows he’s got skills but wonders if it’s just in his imagination. Among my best friends, he’s the most paradoxial (is that a word?) among them.

One thing I admire about him is when he focuses on something, he usually excels. He’s recently taken up photography (just shy of a year ago) and the heights he has reached is just simply amazing. His level of learning is so awesome that I believe he’s the fastest learner in the world! He encouraged me to take up photography as well because he knew that it was something I was into when we first met (but let it go to pursue my give-in-to-peer-pressure teenage life). Isn’t he just the best? He’s so supportive.

He would sound off how bad he feels because he thinks his photography hasn’t improved. I think that was maybe about 3 months ago… but now, he’s so proficient in the language of photography that half of the things he’s trying to teach me gets deposited in my subconscious bank. Something to be accessed when the need arises. He’s getting paid gigs and he’s not even started with his portfolio! Imagine that. He’s getting all these sophisticated equipment which is more than fine but the great thing is, he knows how to use them effectively! There are so many photographers out here who keeps buying expensive studio equipment, lenses, the best DSLR and they take horrible pictures!

I haven’t seen the complete new collection of photos but Teach showed me ONE shot he took and it was awesome! I’m so proud of him. But I’m not surprised that he’s doing so well. It’s always in him to excel and he has excellent focus. He’s reached a whole new level and I’m so happy for him.