LightChasers Photography » portraits

Photographs & Broken Picture Frames

Luis — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 05:29:47 +0000

I took some portraits recently of three (or was it four?) different generations of a family and ended up with the image you see on the left. What is it?

It’s a piece of a picture frame that ended up smashed into little pieces. I placed it near the edge of a table while trying to stage an image I had in my head – it landed on the floor less than two minutes later. Needless to say, I didn’t move any other breakables around that day.

Fortunately, I ended up with more than a shattered picture frame. Check out some of my favorite images (and maybe a short story about each) after the jump.

It seems like the men in the family didn’t really smile a whole lot, but when they did, you knew you would end up with a fantastic portrait. Take, for example, this jolly man above. To me it seemed like everytime he laughed or smiled, he looked a whole decade younger. I still have to smile when I see shots of him smiling like this.

On the other hand, this little boy didn’t want to smile for me. I took the image above and showed it to him hoping for some reaction – I got a poker face. Oh well – at least the rest of the family seems to love that shot.

As a photographer, catching a couple in “a moment” is, for lack of a better way of putting it, a cheap thrill. In the images above, I caught Lolo and Lola (Filipino for Grandpa and Grandma) in one such moment. I know she’s not fixing his tie (he’s not wearing one), so I guess he’s fixing his collar, or maybe brushing something off his cheek. I don’t really know what she’s doing, but all I know is I almost missed this moment.

Of course, a little post-processing helps. You see, I practically shot this from the hip – I ended up with a skewed (around 10 degrees, I think) and off-center image. Thanks to the wonder of post-processing (and yes, you can do this in a darkroom), I got better symmetry, and best of all, you don’t have to tilt your head. Also, you can check out the image in its original colors over on Flickr.

These are a few of my favorites from that day. I hope you enjoyed them too.

Pygmalion

Luis — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 11:26:02 +0000

More images from my long weekend last week: Pygmalion cast pictures.

These are some of the low-key images from the shoot – I haven’t gotten around to uploading the high-key shots. Heck, I’m not sure they’ll end up online. If they do, it’ll probably come from the production team or from one of the cast.

That, of course, doesn’t stop me from sharing some of my favorite shots here. See more after the jump.

One last note before we get to the images: if you’re going to be in the Ortigas area from the 22nd of February to the 8th of March, do check out the show. You can get more details over at the Kultura Blog.

If you’re wondering about the amount of processing that went into these images, I’ll fill you in. I imported the raw shots into Lightroom, applied a medium contrast curve adjustment, then exported them into .JPG files. The background in some of the images isn’t quite so black, I think they still look fine.

Sarge

Luis — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 04:38:43 +0000

Nope, I still haven’t recovered from my very long weekend, and I still haven’t gone through all my photos, but I’d like to share one with you.

Meet Sgt. Magleo, one of several military men at the 12th Philippine International Hot Air Balloon Fiesta. He was sitting in one of four APCs sent over by the Philippine Army, and he was kind enough to pose for a photo.

You can see the image on Flickr by clicking on the thumbnail above, or you can see the large (600px by 900px) version and some more info on the image by following the jump.

Processing involved cropping & rotating, non-destructive dodging & burning, curves, color-correction, spot desaturation, some sharpening, and a subtle version of Parc Cruz’s Contact Lens Workflow.

Lighting involved two lights: a 430EX triggered by my Cactus PT-04 RF Trigger inside the vehicle, and the hot, burning sun outside. I had to burn the door a little in post since my synch speed was very limited (1/160s tops, 1/125s to be safe), but otherwise I think I balanced the lights nicely. By nicely, I mean the door didn’t end up blown out.

What do you think?

Weary Weekend

Luis — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 11:48:20 +0000

I have a feeling I’ll be sleeping in on Monday.

I’ve been pretty busy this weekend – and it’s barely even Saturday night right now.

If you think I’m resting this Sunday, you’re wrong. I’ll be out shooting all day tomorrow too.

What’s up with my sudden attachment to my camera? I’ll tell you after the jump.

Friday saw me clicking away at my nephew’s birthday party. He just turned 4 yesterday and my sister asked me to get some nice photos to mark the occasion. Since I enjoy shooting kids, and since she is family after all, I dove right in.

Today, I had a pictorial with the cast and crew of my alma mater‘s latest play. I’m not sure why there isn’t an announcement on the production team’s blog yet, but I guess they might be waiting on me. They’ve got to wait a while though, I’m not about to put my camera away just yet.

Tomorrow, I’m heading of to Angeles City for the 12th Philippine International Hot Air Balloon Fiesta. I’ll be on the road way before sunrise, so you can bet I’ll be in bed early tonight.

I still haven’t quite taken the time to go through today’s shoot, but based on the thumbnails, I’ve picked out a couple to share. I’ve also got an image from my nephew’s birthday up. I’ll post more images after my upcoming hibernation. In the meantime, enjoy these three:

Do you think the cast photos look a bit tall? I might use a square crop the next time I process them, but again, that’ll have to wait until after I sleep.

66 Faces of Photography

Luis — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 03:04:51 +0000

You’ve seen my self-portrait already – now it’s time for you to see 65 other people’s self-portraits. The self-portrait project started by Brian Auer and Martin Gommel is now done, and as you may have already guessed, 66 people participated in it.

You can see all the entries below – now you can see, as Brian put it, “a lot of new faces in this faceless world of the Web.” I wish I could get the entries to show up randomly like they do on Epic Edits, but the code doesn’t seem to work on my site. In any case, everybody’s accounted for here, so you’re not really missing anything – that is, except for the discussion on the main project page.

Anyway, enough rambling – on to the the self-portraits.

BLOGGER FACES

PHOTO-SHARING FACES

Portrait Shoot: Mateo

Luis — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 04:57:14 +0000

Nope, that’s not me in the photo – you probably just remember my last post with the self-portrait. Nope, I’m not that cute – and obviously, I’m not that young either. That little baby (and a cute little baby at that) is a friend’s nephew and godson, Mateo.

The image you see is one of several images that might end up in relatives’ wallets, coffee tables, living rooms, and anywhere you can show off your favorite photos. If you keep reading, you can see links to a few other images from this series, plus a little information on how I shot him.

For Strobists out there, I used a 430EX triggered by my Cactus PT-04 RF Trigger. I alternated between shooting it through an umbrella and bouncing it on a wall or ceiling. Basically, I tried to get very soft light.

Processing on the images was minimal – nothing I couldn’t do in Adobe Lightroom. The real trick for this shoot, in my opinion, involved framing and composition. I won’t bore you with my tips though. Instead, I’ll point you to a few posts from the Digital Photography School:

I know it might be a bit late for the holidays, but cute shots of your children, nephews and nieces, grandkids, and whatnot can make pretty cool gifts for any time of the year.

Photo Project: Shoot Yourself

Luis — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 16:21:48 +0000

Yes, that’s me in the photo. It’s a self-portrait I shot as part of a self-portrait project on Epic Edits Weblog. Nope, it’s not a particularly glamorous photo – what do you expect for a shot that took only a couple of minutes to prepare? It’s just a simple mirror shot with a blown-out background.

For Strobists out there, I pointed a 430EX on full power straight at me from behind. All that gorgeous fill comes from the white wall in front of me. The reason I nuked the strobe – I wanted to get that high key look without using a real background. I almost got a completely white background, but I had to complete the effect with curves, adjustment layers, and layer masks in Photoshop.

Anyway, If you want to join the self-portrait project, the basic rules (if I got them right) are these:

post a self-portrait
include your camera in the photo
make sure your image is larger than 120 x 120 pixels
submit your post before the 8th of January 2008

edit 2007.12.14 – The first 8 project entries have been posted. You can see them below, and yes, I’m one of them. Enjoy!

Portrait Shoot: Rachel

Luis — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 02:37:57 +0000

I had a portrait shoot a few weeks ago with a debutante. She asked for some portraits in her sixties-inspired outfits – that was, after all, her them for the party.

Because of the weather, we had to stay indoors for the whole shoot. It’s a good thing though that the interiors of her aunt’s place had some interesting backdrops.

The images below (plus the one up top) are some of my picks from the shoot.

So, watchathink?