TEST - ADVENTSCAPE

Nicole A good friend of mine, and an amazing portraits photographer, Darwin Morales gave invites to do a bikini shoot at North Curl Curl beach.  That was November 08, 2014.  I don’t have anything to do that day so I decided to participate.  It’s only a few minutes drive as well so I don’t have any lazy reasons not to go. Kidding aside, I miss shooting glamour.  I miss directing a pose.  I miss shooting the pose!  It's a good opportunity to shoot again under a very good weather. The Gear The sun is up already.  It was cloudless.  It’s a beautiful day with clear blue skies.  But harsh light is not really recommended.  Thus, we brought lights to control how light falls to her.  We still used the sun’s light as backlight.  I went prepared.  I brought several lights but I only used the following the entire shoot: Nikon D800E body Nikon 70-200mm F/2.8 G VR Godox Witstro AD360 (Cheetah) FT-16 remote PB960 Lithium battery Generic ...

Erik Deveza & Marianne Kaw Prenup Long Distance Relationships (LDR) is a hard situation to be in.  Constant trust and communication is needed to fill the gap of ‘Presence’.  Though challenging, it exercises your honesty towards yourself and your partner.  A friend of mine is at this situation and they have a strong relationship.  Just recently, I have the opportunity to meet them, talk to them and see them interact with each in person. Erik Deveza is a good friend here at Sydney.  He has a girlfriend, Marianne Kaw.  I ‘met’ her over the internet when Erik is Skye-ing Marianne over his iPhone.  When the opportunity rose, Marianne went to Sydney to spend some precious time with Erik.  This is a good indication of the level of dedication these two people have.  With only 2 weeks to spend, the couple is busy meeting everyone, going to distict places and spending the time with each other.  It’s a very busy two week holiday! Erik and Maria...

Dangerous Journey This is the first time I went to Victoria.  Though Melbourne is interesting, I became more interested at Bay of Islands Coastal Park.  I wanted to go here during the golden hours, but since I'm with friends not into landscape photography, I had to adjust.   We came from Apollo Bay (Big 4) and decided to have an early lunch at Port Campbell.  We bought food that we cooked earlier.  This gives us more time along the road as we don't need to decide where to eat.  We also bought snacks to get us through the day. We arrived at Bay of Islands just after lunchtime.  It's a bit of drive from Apollo Bay but an amazing view when the road curves at the coastline!  This is a must see if you're driving down the Great Ocean Road. Map Location Below is the map location of Bay of Islands.  It's going near Warrnambool.  The area is open space so it's warm when driving at the highway.   It's pretty straightforward. The Bay of Islan...

Heaven's Burnout It's been ages since my last seascape shoot.  I don't know why this is.  It's probably the weather (winter just past), lack of inspiration / interest, no new places to explore, no new gear or just plain lazy.  Thus, I'm thankful to a friend (Ryan) who invited me to shoot at Turimetta one sunrise. I've been shooting at Turimetta so many times that I know where to position.  I don't 'spray' my camera anymore hoping I get the perfect shot.  I just look at the scene, evaluate it and decide if I'll take the photo or not.  If it's really bad, I don't shoot.  If it's medicore, I might not take it as well.  If it's already amazing, then I shoot it.  No, I'm not being conservative on using my camera or shutter count.  I just want to train my eye to see beautiful composition. The photo was taken at Turimetta Beach at Narrabeen.  I arrived pretty late, again.  But I still arrived before the actual 'red sunrise' (...

Surge of Silence Digital photos have been created, modified, transformed, copied and archived in so many file formats.  Each file format has a definite advantage compared to others and it's hard to choose which ones to use.  This is neither the RAW vs DNG and RAW vs JPG debate.  This is just a simple guidance on the file formats and it's brief advantage over the other. I will outline what file formats I use so this can give you some ideas.   In my workflow, I use 4 file formats, namely: DNG  JPG TIFF PSD All four (4) formats are completely different from each other.  Each serves me a purpose.  I could not favour one to let go of the others.   Golden Decree DNG (Digital Negative) My files are initially NEF, a proprietary image format from Nikon.  But if I import all these to Lightroom, I convert them to DNG.  Thus, DNG plays a big part of my workflow as it's where I view, manipulate, render, export my photos.   Back in the ...