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Basic Digital Photography Class

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Friday night at work: I was having a very productive evening, and I felt light and positive all day.  I realized it was two things that had me at such high spirits: my agents were not around, and I was looking forward to my basic digital photography class the next afternoon.

By morning though, things took a turn for the worse.  From very productive, I plunged to zero productivity.  I had only three agents around but all of a sudden I had to attend to them.  So though my shift was really just supposed to be until 8am, but I gave myself until 1pm to finish everything and that was the time I was supposed to leave for my class – I ended up finishing what needed to be done at 2pm.  To make matters worse – it was raining. Really hard.

Raining on Saturday afternoon meant that we probably won’t be able to shoot photos.  Still, the idea that I’d be learning about my camera excited me.  Sir Nicolay moved our start time from 2 to 230 because of the rain. That worked for me so I wasn’t late! Yay! Plus, I hadn’t eaten since dinner the previous evening, so waiting for the instructor gave me time to grab a bite (the baked potato was delish!).

Oh, and you know what else made this class exciting? My best friend was in it too:

my pretty bff

my pretty bff

My photography doesn’t do justice to her beauty, hehe. Wait till I hone my skills even more 😉

The first part of the class was the lecture part on what makes a beautiful photo, and how to take them. I love Sir Nicolay’s presentation.  It really looked as if he invested time and a lot of effort in preparing the course.   It’s really a beginner’s class – if you don’t know shit about photography, you’ll leave the class with a wealth of information.

At the beginning of the lecture though, there was one thought running through my mind – why define beauty?  I realized in the end that it is important to talk about universal concepts of beautiful photography because it has mass appeal.  When you follow those concepts – many will come to like your work.  Then you can break all the rules, break them all you want and find your own beauty. Haha. 🙂

The trickiest part about photography, to me, is finding that perfect mix of ISO, aperture and shutter speed.  It’s just so easy to use Auto, but if I always use auto mode then I probably should have just stuck it out with my Kodak point and shoot.  After the discussion, and before we actually went out to shoot (the rain stopped the sun came out while we were discussing!), Sir Nicolay gave us a subject and we were supposed to think of the right settings to capture it without looking through the cameras yet.  My answer ended up to be underexposed – but that’s how I actually like it because here’s the result:

lamp

I love it because the imperfections are hidden. Compare it with this one, which was taken with just the right settings:

lamp2

Aside from Jo and myself, there was one other girl with us, Mitch who works at ABS-CBN (where my office is located!); there was Carlo too, and uhm, sorry but I forgot where he’s from. We were a fun bunch, or maybe I was just immediately comfortable because I knew someone in the group already?  Three of us had D60s (Jo bought hers the week after I got Maxine), while Mitch was the odd one out with her Canon 450d and all of its 9 AF points.  For the photoshoot part, we were joined by another girl who was at that morning’s session.

So the sun decided to come out and let us have our fun.  It’s not easy to take beautiful photos after all, though I think it was the pressure of knowing that the instructor and everyone else would critique my shots by the end of the day.  I ended up deleting a third (or more) of the shots I took.

This was one of the first shots I took, I didn’t have to think about it so much and I liked the turnout.  This is the wall of the shed (was it a generator shed?) at the back of the UP Theater:

uptheaterback

For this next one, I just know I could have done better, but I can’t pinpoint in what manner. Do you have any suggestions on how this could have been captured even more  beautifully? Perhaps if I didn’t have two bags on my shoulder and I wasn’t sleepy already, I’d have kneeled lower and taken this from a better angle…

hydrant

I cropped this image already, because the original had too much of the road itself, I should have waited until the jeepney was near enough.  

jeep2

I took two shots of the same thing, the second one was brighter, but this was the one I liked better:

mango

I like shooting at angles like this one. I love green!

166

These next ones were taken with different settings. I wanted it to be bright, but I loved the ones where the clouds’ natural colors could be seen:

quezonhall

quezonhall2

quezonhall3

quezonhall4

 

This last one, is my favorite photo for the day.  I’ll probably use it as my wallpaper:

snail

I am so excited to get into photography even more! I will scrimp for awhile though, even as I already feel the need for another lens, I’ll wait.  Maybe I’d go for an extra battery first (versus a battery grip), or an additional compact flash memory or SD card. We’ll see. I kind of promised I’d work on my skills first before I buy accessories. 🙂

I will register to vote!

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After the Pacquiao fight, there’s been a lot of talk about a new advocacy that was launched on the same day (right?) – Ako Mismo.  The TVC had appeal, there were some known personalities along with unknowns, but more important than the endorsers – the message was timely and very relevant.

I checked out the website right away but was disappointed (as were many others, I later learned) to see that you had to register before you can read about the campaign.  Why not allow people to see who was behind the campaign, and what they aim to achieve?  I closed the page and went about with my usual Net activities. 

A few days later, I saw Chorva’s post about the same campaign and she posted an excerpt from the site.  Looks legit, not bad at all. I decided to check it out again and sign up too.  I was disappointed yet again because the wall of committments had spam already! Anyway, there’s still buzz about the campaign and I’ve seen a couple of blogs about it, it’s been on the papers too I think. I sincerely hope this isn’t some movement that is actually supporting a specific candidate.

This country needs advocacies like this one. It needs campaigns that actually get people to move their big butts and do what they can to get the society they want for themselves, and their children.  Next year, we’re set to elect a new president.  We need voter education campaigns, I don’t know if Ako Mismo will have that too. So guess what I pledged when I registered on the site? Ako Mismo magrerehistro para makaboto (I myself will register to vote).  Okay, I forgot the exact verbiage but that’s what it was. 

Yes, now I’m admitting a shameful fact in my blog: I am 27 years old but I’ve never cast a vote because I’ve never registered to vote.  And this isn’t out of protest, it’s not even a political statement.  When I turned eighteen, I didn’t know the deadline for registration that year.  Then I just didn’t make any effort. But this year, I will register.  It’s in my list of things to do in my upcoming vacation (that I am so looking forward to).

Yummy chicken sandwich

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This is crazy! Last night, I had to delay leaving for work because it rained non-stop and the creek overflowed leaving the street out front flooded.  I wasn’t happy about having to trod through two-inch thick (and yucky smelling) mud at two in the morning when the water subsided just so I could go to work.  We cancelled what would have been our impromptu team building activity (supposedly at a private pool) because we thought it’d still be raining today.  But guess what? The sun was up, and it’s been super HOT all day! Crazy!

Don’t get me wrong, I am happy that the storm has left Philippine territory because it has done too much damage and took one life too many. But the weather’s been too unpredictable you don’t know whether to accept that summer’s gone by and we have had no vacation to speak of, or if there’s still enough summer left to make quick plans.  Ugh.

Oh and one more. Because it was hot and the sun was up this morning, the mud from last night has dried and is even more foul smelling than when it was wet.  Waaah! Where are the local officials when you really need them? Hello, clean up brigade please?

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While I was at work today, I was surprised to see the mother from the reality show Jon and Kate Plus Eight on the headlines at the MSN homepage.  Apparently, a tabloid released a story about Jon cheating on Kate.  Jon denies it, and the girl that he was rumored to have been playing hooky with also denies the allegations made by her brother. It’s sad that they’re in the middle of such a controversy.  I enjoy watching the show because I love kids – but I can never imagine myself having that many kids, all at the same time!

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I shared lunch with Ingrid today at The Loop (hi Ingrid! :)) It was the busiest I’d seen The Loop so far – we had to settle for the bar-like areas because there were no more tables left.  I also noticed for the first time that what used to be Figaro was already boarded up.  I hadn’t been buying from Country Style for awhile, but I used to buy salad for lunch there a lot when I was still in the midshift (just this time last year – a loooooong time ago).  I finally was able to have their Traditional Chicken Sandwich!

may-3765

may-3771

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Tomorrow I’m attending a basic digital photography class, and Jo will be joining that too! Yay! We get to explore our D60s together! (I’m excited, can you tell? 🙂 )

Knocked Up

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We went to the Megamall on Sunday with one purpose in mind – to buy pants for the boyfriend.  Soon as we got there though, we saw racks of CDs and DVDs on sale.  We seized the chance to buy original at reasonable prices 🙂 Among the titles we picked up was Knocked Up. I forgot that I’ve already actually seen it!  But it wasn’t a complete waste because I really liked it and didn’t mind seeing it again. After watching Be Kind Rewind on cable on Monday afternoon, we popped this Katherine Heigl starrer in the DVD player.

ku_wall_800x600_13

Soon I realized that I had already seen the movie! Does that mean it was forgettable? Hmm, I have to admit it’s not something you’d really remember, as if it was profound or because of cheesy lines, or quotable lines.  But it was fun to watch. 

Allison and Ben really were an odd couple.  But it also just goes to show that when both parties are devoted to making a relationship work, then it might actually work. 

It’s like twits, only longer

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All of my Project Wonderful ads have been deleted. As in. In violation of their TOS.  I can’t argue against that, but I really wasn’t aware of the restriction agains sponsored posts. The thing is, sponsored posts have paid me twenty times more than I ever earned from PW so I don’t think I’m dropping that.  And I take pride in posting some blogs that are sponsored without my readers actually noticing it. There’s a lof of fun in writing those.  Haha 🙂

It takes awhile to earn from those anyway, but I still feel a little sad that that income stream is gone.  Oh well.

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I subscribe to a newsletter from a business opportunities weblog and today, I read about how huddles or five-minute meetings are good in the workplace.  I totally agree.  I also don’t like meetings because some of them are just a waste of time, but preshift/start of shift huddles are good for making everyone aware of where we’re at and to drive stats or better productivity for the day.  Conducting these pre shift huddles was something we were all doing at work upto maybe a month ago.  Now, we have hour-long performance meetings for team managers, and though I appreciate the accountability it has developed in all of us, it’s not something any of us really look forward to.  I think that we should go back to just having pre-shift huddles, and I’m all for the Tuesday shift knowledge sharing hour.

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While surfing through the Entrecard and Adgitize networks, I came acrosse this article about human foods that are deadly for dogs.  It lists Macadamia nuts too. Are regular nuts okay though? My dog eats peanuts sometimes and I hope those are okay.  The others on the list I’m pretty sure are out of reach for him and no one would ever give him chocolate.  I’ve told my nieces and nephews about that too because they are always around here and sometimes with chocolate. I find that whenever Esban is unsure if something’s okay to give to Zune, he’ll stop and ask me first. Good.

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For digiscrapaholics, the site DigiscrapAddicts is hosting another round of their So You Think You Can Design contest and there are so many amazing freebie kits available to download in their members only gallery.  I don’t know how many entrants there are, but Flergs and Redju Scrap, whose newsletters I receive in my Inbox are part of the competition. 🙂  I’m trying to find an announcement to post here but can’t find any so far… but here’s a link to the Week 1 gallery, but you’ve got to be registered and signed in to view them (I think): http://digiscrapaddicts.com/products/showgallery.php?cat=556

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I have another idea for a blog and I really, really want to do it. BUT I haven’t had much success in my photo blog (I mean, when was the last time I updated?) so I’m not very confident I’d actually do it well if I set this new one up. I’ll keep it under wraps for now.  My blog development priorities should be in this order – redesign this blog, re-evaluate if I want a real gallery versus my photoblog, setup a new one. 🙂
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While at the mall on Sunday, I realized that I am not familiar with the Department Store inside the MegaMall at all.  I mean, I can navigate SM Cubao and SM North pretty well, but the department store at Megamall? Not so much.  I guess that whenever we go there (which isn’t a lot as it seems) we skip the SM part of the mall, if you know what I mean.  So there was a three-day (or was it four?) sale over the long weekend and we just had to checkout the racks for men’s pants.  It wasn’t as crowded as I expected, and the cashiers/counters are better structured than the regular ones at the other branches. Haha.

Anyway, there’s always got to be a Health and Beauty section at SM right?  And now that they have Watson’s there, I always feel the need to pass through one when in the mall.  I figured that then was as good a time as any to look for facial wash – I couldn’t find their Pond’s section! What the heck?  I tried the Pond’s Age Miracle microdermabrasion kit and liked it. I wanted to get just a regular Age Miracle cleanser or something but since I couldn’t find any, I ended up making another Body Shop purchase.  I ended up with a Tea Tree Oil with peppermint facial wash. It is so refreshing! I used this line before, because I wanted to get rid of bleshimes.  I liked it. As soon as I used it though, I remembered why I wasn’t so keen on using it again – the tea tree oil smell can be overwhelming. Haha. But it is a wonderful product, so I don’t really mind.

My mom buys Garnier and I like the citrusy smell, and the facial scrub is also refreshing.  Alfred likes it too. There was a Garnier booth at the mall and we approached it thinking we’d pick up a tube for him.  As it turns out, they weren’t offering the facial wash tubes, they were eyebag roll-ons! Seriously! You know how we always think we have dark circles under our eyes and no amount of sleeping can get rid of? Well, Garnier has a new product that pledges to take care of that and instead of applying it on like regular eye cream, you roll it on. Hmm.

Anyway, I did not mean to sound like a promo girl for beauty products, but you should hear us at our room during the Youth Camp last month!  I think it was Ate Chu and Ate Verns (both from PETA theater company) who commented about Joy’s Body Shop products, and then I chimed in because I had my rich pomegranate body butter with me there too.  We sounded like we were trying to convert them to go for Body Shop! We talked about the membership card (which I have), and I even mentioned the company’s ties with NGOs and fair trade organizations. Haha.

Okay, I’ll stop now.

Whew, so much for a quick post. And I thought I had nothing to write about?

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