TEST - ADVENTSCAPE

Initial Signs of Salvation Waking up very early is a pain.  I’m a landscape photographer and that is really hard.  Of course, it depends on your preparation the night before the shoot.  If you prepared early, planned early and slept early, you will have an easy way of waking up very early in the morning.  Of course, it also depends on how far you are from the photoshoot.  Oversleeping This happened to me last Saturday (10 January 2015).  I woke up on time.  But since my eyes are failing me, I slept a bit.  But when I woke up, it’s already too late.  I woke up close to first light.  Even though my gears are all packed and rushed out quickly, it’s already too late. It’s so bad, I saw the RED sunrise as I was driving towards the location. Everything was over when I arrived.  So instead of picking up my camera bag, I picked up my drone bag.  I have a DJI Phantom 2 (with Gimbal) attached is a GoPro Hero 4.  I got teased with al...

Waterfall Simulation As the year 2014 ends and 2015 is coming, it’s best to setup goals for this New Year.  Many people are going for ‘New Year Resolution’ but I think, setting up goals is better.  It may take you longer to set up goals, but it’s much more fruitful.  It took me a few days to make my own goals, only because I want to make it SMART.  If you want to see my goals and what it looks like, read on. What are SMART Goals Don’t create goals just for the sake of creating them.  Don't create goals that is unclear, unattainable and ridiculous.  I learned about 'SMART' when I was being evaluated at work.  It does make sense, gives direction and makes things quantifiable.  Not only did I learned this process, I live it .  SMART is an acronym for the following criteria: S – Specific M – Measurable A – Attainable R – Relevant T – Time Bound Wikipedia has a more detailed explanation on SMART .  It's full of information.  To better un...

Continue The Struggle to 2015 This is the last day of 2014 and I decided to have my last seascape photoshoot.  A friend of mine, Garrie, invited me to shoot and I'm very keen to come.  At first, I didn't woke up on time.  I made an alarm but somehow it didn't trigger.  When I woke up, I immediately pick up my things and rushed to the car.  Good thing I prepared all my equipment last night.  I made it on time, just 15 minutes before the actual sunrise. Garrie wanted to shoot at Narrabeen Rock Pool, thus I drove there as fast as possible.  Although I made it 15 minutes before time, I noticed it was cloudy.  From where I'm positioned, I can say that the sky is covered 95% of the time.  If there are breaks at the clouds, it's only minimal.  It's all grey than blue. I didn't see the actual sunrise. Although it's cloudy and the sun is already on top of the horizon,  I still went to my favorite spot and prepared to shoot.  The sky did...

Dawson Falls Tourist Information Centre If you go to unfamiliar places, doesn't have time to plan your trip or just plainly lost, tourist information is your best friend.  Even if you did a detailed research on the places you want to go, tourist information centres always have vital information not found on the website.  The 'local knowledge' is what I'm after which could make or break a trip - or even save time.  In fact, I would not found Cornwallis Long Jetty without Arataki Visitor Centre.   One of the best tourist visitor centre at the West Coast of North Island, New Zealand would be Dawson Falls Tourist Lodge.  This is also known as Dawson Falls Mountain Lodge. Map Location I added the location of Dawson Falls Tourist Lodge in my map below.  Please zoom in near Mount Taranaki and you'll find the 'i' symbol for Information Centre.   In the map above, I also included other places I've visited i n my 2014 North Island Trip to New Zealand.  You...

Jourdan Revelle James When I do portraits, glamour, family portraits and weddings, I ensure that my client is comfortable for me to post their photos publicly.  If not, I just ask for the best 1-2 photos that I can use for my portfolio.  This usually gains positive response from them.  It's the same reason why I don't normally post portraiture in my websites - more on my landscapes and travel. If I gain a go signal, I ensure that these photos are still protected.  The website I post into upholds and respects copyright of the photographer.  In this website, I explicitly say that my photos are copyrighted - that any kind of usage should be first have my permission.  Nicole I watermark my images if I post them online.  This is a small layer of protection for the client.  At least, anyone with a good heart will not take your photo - as it's copyrighted (especially companies).  If my photos show up in searches (e.g. Google Images) at least my wate...

Seacliff Barricade So, you've now decided to put watermark in your images, but what information should you include?  Where do you put your watermark in your image?  Are there any colour schemes?  How big should my watermark be?   As watermarks are personal and dependent on the photographer, there are no definite answers to these questions.  But there are effective watermarks.  They are effective  because they give information about copyright and they can send a viewer back to the photo's rightful owner. Simple Copyright Generally, the person who shoots the photo owns the photo, owns the copyright.  If you're going to post online, it's good to add your watermark so that you can stamp your name to it.  To have a simple watermark, add the following: Copyright symbol Year Your name or company's name Below is a sample: © 2014 Philip Avellana (c) 2015 adventscape Both '©' and '(c)' are accepted.  For Windows, the copyright symbol '©' can be do...

Fire and Ice are One When I first started photography with a dSLR, I used JPG.  My digital camera before produced JPG.  I had no issues with JPG, so why would I go RAW?  I saw RAW to be a big file that is unfriendly to most photo readers.  I continued to shoot JPG and edit JPG for a couple of months. After reading forums and suggesting to shoot RAW, I tried it. If I produced 3.5mb of JPG files, RAW produced 10mb.  My computer slowed down in performance, particularly Photoshop, as it tries to handle the larger files.  But what I notice is how big the tolerance became.  If you're retouching your photos, either basic editing in Lightroom or drastic changes in Photoshop, RAW files will give you the wider range.  With JPG, the colours saturate quickly, the shadows produces more muddy noise and the highlights doesn't recover details.  With RAW, I recover more highlights, less noisy in the shadows and the colours can be adjusted without posterizatio...