In Love with Cameran

Friday, 18 January 2008Wednesday, 24 September 2008 / LivE / 9 Comments

For those who are wondering who Cameran is, that would be my camera (camera + Nikon = Cameran 😆 )

I am totally loving the manual mode now (though I think I’ll shift back to the aperture priority mode for regular daily shots. Just nice to know that I can tweak the way my camera works according to the effect I want to get). Am totally loving the tripod that hubby so generously bequeathed to me, too! (Am I blessed having him or am I blessed having him? 😀 )

So I played around with Part 2 of Week 2’s lesson of the 2peas Photography course. If you’ve been reading the past posts, the 1st week had to do with aperture (lens opening) priority, and this week had to do with shutter speed. Part 2 (you get to advance if you’re a diligent student, 😆 ) is setting the camera to Manual mode (why is this such a dreaded setting, I wonder?) and applying what you know about ISO, aperture, and shutter speed to tweak your shooting according to what you want to come up with.

We were actually supposed to choose one priority to tweak in the manual mode: either aperture or shutter speed (because once you set your ISO and one of the two other items, then the camera will adjust the 3rd item for you. Nice, right? 😉 )

I decided I wanted to try both! So I played.

Here are my shots in manual mode with the following settings: f/4.5 ~ focal length: 52mm ~ ISO: 800

{Click on images for larger views}

Manual Mode with Aperture set at f/4.5, focused on book in front:

Manual Mode with Aperture set at f/4.5, focused on books at the back:

Note: I’ve recently begun my goodreads (didn’t really get much up, unless you count my setting up an account and one book review, hahaha!) so I wanted a shot that I could use for my profile photo over there. I took 2 shots: in the first, I focused on the front part; in the second I focused on the back part. (In the second photo you can catch a sneak preview of the books that will appear on my to-read list. Come to think of it, these same ones will be featured in my to-cover-with-plastic-first list. 😆 )

Here is my one and only shot taken in manual mode, prioritizing shutter speed.

Shutter Speed at 6 seconds.

I set the shutter speed at 6 seconds with the same ISO of 800 and a 32mm focal length. I used a tripod because of the ultra-low speed I wanted. (Had I held it in my hands, simply breathing out of my nose would have blurred everything in my photo. hahaha!) I placed it at a very slow speed because I wanted to blur the lights coming from Buzz Lightyear.

Considering that it took soooo long to set up and just a few seconds to take the shot, I was pretty pleased with the results (if I may say so ever so humbly). It was so funny because I had to tie Buzz Lightyear’s legs together with rubber band to keep the on-button activated. Then I had to figure out how to make Buzz stand on his legs at an angle (had to tie him with gold cords, which you’ll see in the background behind him) so that I could get the full effect of the lights. Of course all the other Buzzes and Woody and Zorb had to lean or sit at varying angles just so Buzz the LIGHTyear guy could really light up the place.

This is soooo fun! Play along with me, why don’t you? Then link me up to your photos so I can ooh and aah at them too! 😉

LOAD Day 17

Okay, I missed upload cutoff time by 2 seconds again. I’ve got to stop playing long enough to upload way before the last minute, don’t you think? 😆

So here’s my 17th layout for January and my 12th Daily December layout. Woohoo!!! In 14 days I’ll have a theme album completed, all thanks to LOAD’s kick in my butt! Thank you, Laine!!!

Gingerbread Gone

Journaling reads:

five minutes tops. and then they were gone. those gingerbread boys never stood a chance with you, my dear hungry boys.

CREDITS:

Jessica’s fab Daily December template, Katie Pertiet’s grid frame, Michelle Coleman’s topper, Emily Merritt’s and Heidi Larsen’s papers, Karel’s gingerbread bowl, Anna Aspnes’ ribbon (recolored), and Bren Taylor-Boone’s alpha.

Reality TV, anyone?

Did any one of you catch American Idol yesterday?

We had a ball of a time watching Reynaldo Lapuz. What a guy! He happens to be Filipino. Actually, from the very first moment when dh, my kids and I caught the teaser of the show on TV, we KNEW that this guy happened to be Filipino. We were rolling on the floor with laughter. What a great guy. How can anyone help not liking him, simple as he is?

Paula, too, cracked us up with her interpretative hand signals and her bopping along. Amazing.

Dh checked Youtube minutes after the show ended and, true enough, there he was! on Youtube. Within minutes! So funny.

Here, in case you missed it. (And if you didn’t, watch it again. It gets better each time).

What were your favorite parts? These were mine:

“Simon, you are a great person. (sniffle, sniffle, voice breaking, tears threatening to fall) You give chance to everyone to sing to the whole world. I’m thank you.”

“You are heaven’s chosen to give chance to any talent for free of charge!”

“Even they throw you negative words but there are many people who really like you, who really admire you. One of them is meeeeh. You are a great person, Sssssaaaahmon.”

“You’re my glory, Ssssssssaaaahmon.”

Seriously, though, laughter aside, you know what I really, really like about this guy? (Aside from the fact that he’s sooo Pinoy!) He is just so guileless, so good-natured, so happy. So Filipino, actually.

You know that part where Simon tells him no? He just goes and hugs Simon. I mean, how gooooood can a person’s heart be? Whereas 90-95% would walk out and say bad words and curse, here’s this guy, just so thankful and so appreciative of the chance to sing. Amazing.

On a deeper level, I guess it teaches us how to be grateful. In a world where we often forget that it’s the simplest things that matter.

Like I said, what a guy, huh?

(And mark my words, this guy is going to be a greater hit than William Hung ever was. 😆 )

Here’s another Pinay (slang for Filipina… for men the equivalent is Pinoy) who made it big on Ellen Degeneres’ show. What’s funny about it is that it shocks people that she has a good voice. Wasn’t shocked that she could sing well, actually, because there are tons of people in my homeland who can sing well (and there are tons who can’t either. But Filipinos in general love entertainment and performing). People on the street sing well. The man in the bus can break out in song and he’ll be in tune. Let a band play on the streets, and passersby will bob their heads and move their bodies in perfect rhythm. I guess what shocked me more was that she was actually discovered on youtube, and Ellen was able to give to her an opportunity that Charice Pempengco probably never even dared to dream of.

Me? I am in awe of her, simply because she can do what I can’t. 🙂

You absolutely hafta, gotta take this GREAT TEST!!!

for photographers, Photoshoppers, and generally anyone addicted to digital stuff (that would be you, and me, and you, and you too, and you … 😆 )

The objective of the test, called Fake or Foto, is for you to determine which of the photos in a set of 10 is computer generated and which is an actual photograph. Try it. You’ll be amazed.

And what’s great about the test is you can be very visual about it if you’re feeling tired and just need some entertainment. Or, if you’re intense, you may want to summon everything you know about photography, lighting, shadows, effects, and Photoshop to help you get a higher score. Either way, it’s fun.

Find the Fake or Foto test here.

Click on the link, take the test, then come back and post in the comments what your score was. I’d love to know!!!

Alrighty. Need to have dinner and then I’ll be back in a bit to post the link for Set 3 of Pasteleria.

Catch you later, alligator! 😉

London Calling…

Thursday, 17 January 2008Wednesday, 24 September 2008 / LivE / 6 Comments

Interrupting freebie work and LOAD scrapping to post a few photos for my friend, Verona, who has a collection of Diana the Princess stuff. And for my friend Veevs, who continues to deny that she’s undercover British royalty (from the Peruvian branch of it). 😆

Dh and I happened to be in London around the time that the accident happened… give or take a few days, can’t remember now. We didn’t time it that way; we just happened to be there. I may not remember the exact number of days but I do remember the cab we were riding in from the airport stopped when we passed by the Buckingham Palace (as a sign of respect and sympathy). I also remember the tons and tons and tons of flowers left by everyone who happened to pass by.

I guess I must admit (geez, and I thought I could keep this hidden from my 7 random facts tag) that when I was in grade school, two of my friends and I were very much up-to-date with the goings-on in the British royal family’s lives. We knew who was related to whom, and where they had castle residences. Funny, because the interest had its roots in a simple fooling around with the British accent. “Oh, what a quaint idea, deahhh” we would say to tease each other. Silly stuff like that.

Anyway. I know nothing much about the royal family anymore. Can’t remember much either. So don’t go asking me any trivia questions because I will most certainly fail your test. 😆

Verona and Veevs, these are for you! (Will remove these photos once you’ve seen them so that I don’t make you suffer by plastering my face all over my blog. 😆 )

London, September 97

Diana and Me… hehehe

Alright then. Enough fooling around. Freebs and LOAD will have to wait till tomorrow as it’s 4AM.

Bed, not London, is calling.

😆

Photography Phun!

Wednesday, 16 January 2008Wednesday, 24 September 2008 / LivE / 6 Comments

Yeah, that’s what Laine’s 12-Week Photography course at 2peas has been! Totally fun!

We’re into our 2nd week, and the lesson for this week is even more fun than it was last week! I guess I have to admit that while I am far from being a great photographer, I’m not a newbie at it either… but I’ve never participated in any photography course, ever, so this kind of learning-road is pretty new to me (adventure, yeah! the word for the month), and I’m having a load of fun with it! I love that there’s always a challenge with an exercise to do (must be echoes of the school-age kid in me 😀 ).

This week is all about shutter priority (and then getting to love the manual mode on your camera).

The challenge for this week was to take a photo of water from your kitchen sink flowing at a slow shutter speed and then at a high shutter speed. The idea is to see how a higher shutter speed freezes movement–sort of like we used to do when we were kids and we played “statue-dancing” (you know, where you dance like crazy and then freeze when the music stops. All those who move get taken out of the running. Bless the poor child who just has to sneeze at that point! 😆 ).

So to create that splashing of water, we had to have some object of our choice that would get in the way of the flowing water, enough for the water to splash about. I used an overturned carafe and, for some excitement and color (because my kitchen happens to be almost all black granite and stainless steel… very nice but very boring for photos 🙂 ), I added some glass pebbles. And I used my tripod (because if you take at a slow shutter speed and you move slightly, you’re going to get a lot of blurring… so even if my lens is VR-equipped, I didn’t want to take any chances. haha).

I got soooo excited with the challenge that I… uhm… didn’t read the instructions too well. 😳 We were supposed to set our ISO between 1000 and 1600, and I foolishly just shot away at the ISO my camera was set at when I last took a photo (400. Waaaay below the required minimum. Geez.)

One more proof that I make a bad student: we were supposed to take 1 photo at a slow shutter speed and then 1 photo at a high shutter speed, right. 1 + 1 = 2. I took three photos at different shutter speeds. Hmmmm. Maybe my school-age kids shouldn’t ever see my blog lest they get any ideas about not following Teacher to the letter. 😆

So here’s what I came up with:

{ Click on the images to get a clearer, amazing view of the differences! 😉 )

Journaling below:

Water drops change: from an indistinguishable blur to “comet-like” drops with tails to distinct droplets floating in air. Wow!

Here’s another view that will show you the differences, even more amazing than the first one above. This shows you the difference in the water coming from the faucet:

And here are the individual photos:

With a shutter speed of 1/20 (this is the slowest shutter speed I used):

Shutter Speed 1/20

Shutter speed of 1/80 (this was the slowest speed that Laine had required at an ISO of 1000-1600):

Shutter Speed 1/80

Shutter speed of 1/200:

Shutter Speed of 1/200

Cool, huh? Try it and have fun!!!

My LOAD for Day 15

Yeah! Halfway through! Fifteen days into the new year with fifteen layouts to show for it!!! Woohoo!!! 8)

Santa’s Elves

Journaling reads:

you have got to be the most adorable santa’s elves i’ve ever seen in my entire life! how did i get to be so lucky?

CREDITS: Jessica’s fab DD template, Michelle Coleman’s topper, Katie Pertiet’s grid brush, Emily Merritt’s papers, Lisa Warren’s cardinal

Alright then! On to working on the next set of Pasteleria. I’ll be back in a few! 😉

Missed the train…

Sunday, 13 January 2008Wednesday, 24 September 2008 / LivE / 3 Comments

by about 3 seconds. THREE. seconds.

So my LOAD layout didn’t quite make it to Day 12. 😳

But that’s okay. Today is a Sunday in my part of the world. And Sundays have always been family days. I normally work on my LOAD submissions in the last 6 hours before submission deadline (hehe… procrastination habits die hard), but this morning I couldn’t, because there was Mass to attend and then we had lunch out, and then a couple of other must-do stuff that we postponed (like getting photos taken for our passports and visas… ya hear me, GFs??? This is for you-know-what happening on you-know-where in June!!! 😛 )

Bottom-line is… Sundays are family days. And so I had to make a choice between uploading my LO for the contest or putting family first. That was a no-brainer. (Not that I didn’t wince and kick myself for not working on the LOAD Day 12 sooner, but there were no second-thoughts as to which I would give up today).

So anyway, here’s my LOAD for Day 12. And another one should be coming up soon for Day 13. ha. Two LOADS in one day. That should be a good way to repair my not meeting the Day 12 deadline.

Christmas in our Home

Journaling reads:

(Subheading in white): our home is decked with boughs of holly, falalalala lalala la

(Text): i love the extra warmth and coziness our home exudes at christmastime

CREDITS:

Jessica Sprague’s Daily December template, Katie Pertiet’s Grid Brush, Michelle Coleman’s Topper plus Miriam Lima’s papers, Lisa Warren’s cardinal (recolored and applied atomic cupcake actions on this one), Leora Sanford’s star border, Emily Merritt’s buttons (some recolored), Atomic Cupcake actions

More Playing Around with Photos

Okay, I was tickled pink by the feeling of doing “assignments”for the 2Peas 12-Week Photography Effect (throwback to my grade school days when I loved homework… didn’t I say I was an alien? 😆 ), so I did another take on the Aperture challenge.

Some things I did differently this time:

1. I didn’t attach my SB800 external flash (if you’re playing around with aperture settings and you want to create the bokeh effect, the flash really minimizes the effect a lot. Which just means that you’ll see a lot less difference when playing around with your aperture settings in a flash-lit setup). Ergo, best to shoot in a setup that uses available light.

2. I also greatly decreased the distance between my lens and the subject I was taking (in this case a small vase of flowers): again, the bokeh effect is greatly enhanced by this simple act of moving closer. You also end up with a much wider range of f/stop values (but of course, you’re limited to the end-limits that your particular lens allows).

3. Knowing that I would not print out these photos, I changed my ISO setting to 800 (normally I set mine at 200 or, in darker conditions where I want to use available light, at 400). What this simply means is that there is much less blurring that can occur with a higher ISO setting because it allows you to get the same exposure setting with a much faster shutter speed. (Shooting at low aperture values slows down shutter speed; that is why there is a greater chance for blurring to occur… unless you prop your camera on a tripod, which I –of course– failed to use this time. 😛 ) Higher ISO’s, though, also mean more chance of your photos showing up as grainy if you’re printing them out. For viewing on the web, thankfully, the graininess is practically nil.

Things I kept the same:

Simple: My Nikon D40x and my Nikkor 18-200mm AF-S lens.

Here are the shots I took today (if you look at the wooden slats and the trees, you’ll see a more pronounced difference, compared to my shots of the bikers yesterday):

1. At f/4.6

Flowers in a Vase f/4.6

2. At f/8

Flowers in a Vase f/8

3. At f/32

Flowers in a Vase f/32

Cool, right? Aperture setting is a wonderful thing! (It’s the setting that I keep my camera on all the time, actually. That’s how much I love it!)

Okay, that’s enough playing around on my blog for today! I really need to get to work on my freebs for you, or I’ll be breaking one of my New Year’s resolutions too early in the game. 🙂

Freebs coming soon! (Give me 24 hours). Hang tight! 😀

Loading up on fun…

Saturday, 12 January 2008Wednesday, 24 September 2008 / LivE / 5 Comments

Got my LOAD for Day 11 done, so that I can work uninterruptedly on a freeb for you, my sweeties!

But first, while I get my creative muse all warmed up, let’s sit and chat a while, why don’t we?

LOAD Day 11 & Daily December Day 7

Little Boys in the Big School

Journaling reads:

you were so excited to visit your big brother’s school. you proudly declared to everyone you met: “we’re the little brothers of A!”

CREDITS:

Jessica’s fab Daily December template, Michelle Coleman’s Topper, Katie Pertiet’s Grid Brush PLUS Mindy Terasawa’s Groovy Boy Paper, Ribbon (recolored), Tab (recolored); Amber Clegg’s Postmarked Stamp (Explore); Sara Carling’s Aero Leather Tag & Pog

I now have 7 pages in my Daily December album (and to me, that’s an accomplishment, because note that it is now January… if not for the push that joining LOAD gave me, I would probably have completed my Daily December… uhhh… perhaps this coming December 2008. 😆 ) I’m hoping by the end of January I would’ve completed my Daily December album too! (Hey, dreaming is free! 😀 )

Playing Around with Photos

Remember a few posts ago (See Adventure: Word for the Month), I was talking about going for dinner at a restaurant with my hubby and our good friends Jun and Abby?

This was actually a delayed get-together for New Year’s, and a celebration of the completion of the article I wrote for a feature on Jun and Abby for a glossy magazine which features the who’s who in Asian society. It was the first time that Jun agreed to be featured at length in a magazine, and he had a whole set of conditions, one of which was that I do his write-up! Now how cool was that! 😉

On the other hand, it was extremely pressuring too–I mean, when someone believes in you that much, it’s scarier to slip on the tightrope, right? Even if you happened to slip because your foot was itchy, know what I mean? So anyway, the other thing that made it really difficult for me to complete the article (aside from my frustrating habit of self-editing) was the fact that the story of Jun and Abby is soooo rich, so wonderful to tell, so I had a really hard time trying to meet the 5000 character limit (and that was already increased from the original 4000).

But I was happy when I clicked SEND (roughly 24 hours after I had my eye surgery) and my article made its way to the mag editor’s inbox. I furnished a copy to Jun too. The very next morning, I received a basket of the most delicious rice cakes with coconut cream sauce, and a gold box filled with homemade polvoron (the best way I can describe this is milk-sugar powdery “cookies”)… and this note:

I have known Jun since I was 13 years old, and this is the first time I actually got a handwritten note from him. 😆

I must also qualify that I could never have written the article on my own: it was actually the product of a lot of prayer and divine grace. 🙂

So where does the subheading of this post “Playing Around with Photos” come in?

Well… I mentioned that hubby and I were a bit early for the dinner we were having with Jun & Abby, so we walked around, checking out the new mall… I wanted to take photos, but I had to settle for using my cellphone camera because I (kick self, kick self) foolishly resisted the urge to take Cameran along.

When I downloaded the photos, I was pretty shocked. Wait a minute, these aren’t too bad, considering I took them with a cellphone and with pure available light (which was actually not that available, as the skies were dark! 😆 )

Chateau 1771

This is the restaurant where we had dinner. The man on the right was using his cellphone for the right intention, while I was using mine to take photos. Crazy.

Chateau Take 2

We just opened this restaurant last December in the new mall (5th phase of a larger mall). One of the reasons Chateau is totally dear to our hearts is because when my hubby and I got married, we held our reception in the same restaurant (although it was in a different location then).

Since I already embarrassed my husband enough by taking photos >teeheehee< I decided to go all the way! I totally could not resist the play of lines and lights in the entire place! Here’s more proof:

Don’t these lines remind you of the outline of a house?

I am totally tickled that this shot has been taken by a cellphone camera. C.E.L.L.P.H.O.N.E. camera. Amazing. I had no idea it would come out looking like this (so obvious that I haven’t been using the camera function on my cellphone, huh? 😆 )

The walkway that leads from the driveway and into the rest of the amazing complex (restaurant is on the left side of the photo) reminded me of the Getty Museum walkway with fountains. The long blocks in the middle are the beginnings of fountains (did I mention that the mall is new? So there’s still a lot that’s being done but it’s already looking awesome, even at this early stage).

The Walkway

More Photo Play

Over at 2peasinabucket, there’s a great photography course (free! couldn’t get better than that! 😀 ) given by Joanna Bolick, which promises 12 weeks to better photos. I thought it might be fun to try out their challenges. The one for this week involves using your camera in the Aperture priority mode (I loooove aperture priority mode: that’s the mode that I shoot in about 98% of the time. I only change when I need to do macros… so far). 🙂

The exercise involved shooting something, anything, using the lowest aperture setting that your lens has, then somewhere midway, then at the highest setting. Comparing the photos would reveal the change in the bokeh (that blurry look behind the subject that you’ve focused on).

I know that it would’ve been better if I used a lens more adapted to portrait photography (and therefore with a higher range of f/stop values–or aperture size, or quite simply, how wide the lens opens), but I was too lazy to change lenses. I use a Nikkor 18-200mm AF-S lens and love the range it affords me, so actually, I’ve never taken it off to change to another lens since I put it on. 😆

The downside of my laziness to change lenses is this: the lowest aperture setting I could get was a 4.5, and the highest was a 16. I should maybe try with a different lens to get a more dramatic look, but for now, I’m okay with what I got (Geez. Lazy!)

Here’s what I took (the change is most obvious if you look at the sofa and the pillows behind the bikers in each photo)

At f/ 4.5 :

Bikers f/4.5

At f/8 :

Bikers f/8

At f/16:

Bikers at f/16

I would have preferred to shoot outside in daylight, but it’s been raining (strange, for this time of the year), so the skies have been dark and cloudy (not nicely overcast, which would have been more preferable, really). Oh well.

Alrighty then, can you believe playing around has cost me almost all the daylight today? Gotta get working on those freebies for you!

Catch you later! (((((hugs))))))

It’s Been a While…

Wednesday, 2 January 2008Wednesday, 24 September 2008 / LivE / 16 Comments

a pretty loooong while! I looked at the date of my last post here… December 20th… that was LAST YEAR, for crying out loud! 😆 Geez, I didn’t realize it’s actually been that long!

Guess holidays really can make things so hectic that everything else not related to food and partying and food … and did I say food?… seems to fall behind. 😛

But! I’ve missed you, my dear friends! And I’m back with a vengeance so strong, you’ll probably be hoping that I stayed away longer when you see the multiple posts a day come up! hahaha.

First, the good news:

I have heard from wonderful, wonderful Adam J. Lambert-Gorwyn aka stoneraven, whose photo I used to make the shutters plopper… and he has given me permission to go ahead and release the freebie I’ve created!!! WOOHOO!!!

I have not heard from jason gaylor, though, whose japanese foliage brushes I used also on the plopper, so I may have to re-do the plopper with other brushes before I can upload it as a freebie. It will be on for a limited number of downloads, though, so be sure to check back soon! 😉

My first layout for the year!

Something funny happened today. I visited my friend Noel’s blog and I saw her layout for Lain’s L.O.A.D. class at bigpicturescrapbooking.com, which begins January 1st. It’s January 2nd in my part of the world, and I was out of town and up in the mountains for the better part of post-Christmas till New Year (so you will, I hope, find it in your hearts to forgive me for slacking off on my blog these past 10 days or so)… so I had completely forgotten about this! The funny thing is, I had mentioned to Noel that I had signed up for the LOAD class in one of our fun, fun chats between Christmas and New Year… but I had completely forgotten about it till I saw her blog! So with just a couple of hours left till the PST clock matched my time in this part of the world, I was able to complete a layout! YEAH!

Thanks, Noel, my friend, for posting your layout on your blog and mentioning the LOAD class. I would have completely forgotten about it if not for you.

And here is my very first layout for the new year!

Boys in the Hoods

Journaling below reads:

so funny that my boys have inherited my love for hoodies, but when they’re this cool, who’s complainin’?

CREDITS:

FONTS: Stoned Wash 6; SubPear / Mindy Terasawa – Groovy Boy Papers (Recolored), WordSticker & Staple / Katie Pertiet – On the Edge Flourish, WordSeal / Kim Christensen – DirtyShirt Brad & Eyelet – recolored; Spelling101- Black Inked Overlay / Jen Caputo – PaperTear Template / Brushes: smoke brush by ca-pris; Dot-Round brushes by GoGetADesign

And now… for a few mountain photos!

Love trees… I may not love the lack of dsl speed connections in the mountains, but I certainly loooove the scent of pine trees, the cool blast of wind in the face, and the trees all around!

Here’s a macro shot of the pine trees… such wonderful texture (and such fun playing with my camera!)

Speaking of macro, here’s a bug on the glass door of our villa. Looks kinda like an alien to me… my kids had a blast looking through the camera viewfinder and seeing it UP CLOSE in a big way! (Grossed them out too! Ha! Beats actual holding and handling of the bug for me! 😉 )

Loved taking texture photos, like this wooden bench here.

The wind was blowing so hard, you could actually watch the clouds move across the sky faster than an airplane would.

Here is one of the cabins… to give you a feel of the place 😛

Here’s the spa and lodge, where we check in and check out.

And for my golfing friend Joan, here’s one for you! The view of the golf course–or, more accurately, part of it. (It was really foggy and windy that day, so this is the best I could do with the photos!) 😀

I took the view of the golf course with my lens fully extended to its 200mm length… amazing! I was on top of the mountain by the spa when I took this! Gotta love my beloved lens!!! (AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm DX… the VR is great for those windy days too!)

And that’s the end of today’s film show! 😆

PS. I used Jay Arraich’s matted frames for the photos. You can get them free at his site!

I’m off to do some work on the shutters freebie… and if I don’t run out of energy, I’ll do more freebs for you! Yep, I’ve suffered from my mountain-imposed freebie-creation-diet and can’t wait to get back into feasting on design… all because I want to share more stuff with you, my sweeties!

Have a happy day, and I’ll be back soon! 😉

Happy New Year, and humongous hugs to you, my sweeties!

For the Love of…

Friday, 30 November 2007 / LivE / 2 Comments

crafts?

So my son J loves scissors. He loves paste. He loves pens and papers.

I love that he loves these things, because when his older brothers were his age, they weren’t as deft and adept with scissors. (Just an aside: isn’t it funny how those two words–deft and adept– mean nearly the same thing, and how the F can easily sound like a P with a slip of the tongue? 😆 I know, I know, I think of the weirdest things).

So my 5 year old son J can busy himself with drawing anything that his imagination can conjure. And then he cuts up these drawings. And then he pastes them on a new piece of paper. Or he takes the box packaging of whatever toy he has, cuts up the little pieces and little photos (you know, the ones that the smart toy manufacturers show at the back of the boxes so that the kids can go to their parents and say “Next time, Mom, can we get this? And this? And this too?”) . And then he sticks those cut-outs onto a piece of paper and then calls out “Anyone who wants a surprise, raise your hand and say Yea! Anyone who doesn’t want, say Nay!”

Naturally, without missing a beat (and often with just a brief glance up from our monitors) his pop and I will raise our hands and say Yea! What can we say? We’re trainable.

😆

So yes, I know my son is good with scissors.

But nothing prepared me for this:

Here, have a closer look:

Okay, so they’re roughly cut and they’ve got these little charming crayola scribbles instead of a solid paint of color. But! But! But! He’s making his own toys! He’s making his own furniture for them! He’s making stuff!!! (And that means it’s possible, just possible, that if I give him some clay, he may make things, with the side benefit of us taking less trips to the toy store! Woohoo!)

Of course, the reason I am so amused and amazed that he’s into creating is because… ahem… his mom loves creating too. And there’s nothing store-bought that can ever come close to the value of a little hand-created homemade gift… scraggly cuts, scribbles and all. 😉

Mmmmmm! 🙂 🙂 🙂

The Big Project, Launched

Thursday, 29 November 2007Wednesday, 24 September 2008 / LivE / 8 Comments

Last night we partied. And now that we have reached the end, we can finally say Amen. 😀

Our Father in the Making

After 19 years of dreaming of this photobook (not mine, but my dear friend’s), after childhood dreams of publishing a book (now that’s mine 😛 ); after about half a year’s worth of 2-hour sleeptimes and 4AM bedtimes, countless emails and cellphone text messages, flights across the country and in and out of the country (sometimes within the same day), trudging through the streets of Hong Kong trying to locate a nondescript building where our book was to come alive on paper…

After bonding over kazillions of cups of strong coffee and even stronger bonds of friendship (some old ones further strengthened and some new ones built); after innumerable edits, edits, re-edits, more edits; after learning to use Adobe InDesign in two hours so that we could beat the impending dawn deadline…

After meeting with 62 wonderful men and their families; after gaining serendipitous wisdom from what these men had to say about their experience of fatherhood; after hearing the warm, endearing stories of their children and gaining a glimpse of the private man that only each family sees and knows; after tons of laughter; after perusing countless photos spread on the studio floor as we decided on paging and layout…

We have the book. Our Father. 62 Fathers. 62 Lives. One Journey.

Here are the photos of that night. (There was an official photographer, so these are the only ones I was able to take):

Welcome to the launch!

The Launch

We had an exclusive song given to us by Martin Nievera (he wrote and sang it; we provided it on CDs attached to the book), who was one of the fathers we featured in the book. Gooselamps lit the black frame mounts from which hung the 62 jumbo portraits (3ft x 3ft) of the fathers. As the song of Martin began to play, the gooselamps turned on one by one, shining dimly first then brightening, one after the other until the entire room shone by the soft light of the 62 gooselamps. Then the doors were opened, more lights were turned on, and everyone came in to ooh and ahh at the portraits of the fathers. It was a dramatic experience (certainly more dramatic than I describe it here).

Inside

People milled about both inside and outside, freely moving from the airconditioned area of the Blue Leaf Pavilion to the beautiful garden outside where cocktails were served: lovely yummy food (one guest asked “Are these cocktails? This is real food!!!” as he surveyed the roast beef, the 3 choices of salad served in classy champagne glasses, the pasta, the multiple finger foods which included the most delectable crunchy potato skins (my personal favorite, so it gets special mention here 😛 ), and the merengue and chocolate mousse for dessert. 25 bottles of choice cabernet sauvignon were consumed, aside from ice cold water and iced tea for the non-alcoholic guzzlers.

This is where we hung out to get a breath of fresh air (and some relief for our tired feet 😛 ) There were 2 of these wonderful Ifugao-inspired huts.

Hangout

And here is the evidence that I do NOT wear dresses, nope. Seriously. 😆

No dresses here

And that’s all, folks! 😀

Will upload the next set of the Christmas Lullaby kit within the next couple of hours so see you in a bit! 😉

What do you do when you only have one hour…

Thursday, 29 November 2007 / LivE / 3 Comments

to create an apple tree hat?

You get one of your kid’s caps, you pull out your storage box of odds and ends from projects past, and you do the best you can. 🙂

My son J has a book chat today, which involves a story about trees. He’s supposed to come in an apple tree hat, holding in his hands apples and apple juice. The apples were easy: we always have apples in our ref because the kids snack on them all the time. Apple juice was easy too: they take apple juice in tetra pack boxes to school for their snacktime. But an apple tree hat? With one hour to prepare?

Admission of guilt: Yes, I had last night to work on this; Queen Procrastinator didn’t really have to push it to one hour before departure time for the ride to school. 😛 But we had the book launch last night, which was extremely successful by the way 😉 and after that, our core group went to Larry’s Bar to eat our hearts out (there was extremely delicious food at the launch, but we of course could not eat as we were doing the rounds with the guests). In short, we got home pretty late, and I had a terrible headache after (too much eating after? 😆 ) so I went straight to bed with plans to make the hat this morning.

Now, I should say I have never seen an apple tree in real life. Mango trees, coconut trees, santol trees, starfruit trees, almost all tropical trees–yes. I’ve even climbed many of them in my childhood days. Apple trees, however, are not native to my part of the world. But… a tree is a tree is a tree. Especially when you have limited time and need to work with whatever resources you have on hand.

Thank goodness that last year my sister and I had a business project of providing gift basket packaging to the largest ex-pat grocery store in Malaysia. Because of that business (which involved loads of fun as we designed and handcrafted the packaging for the store’s gift baskets), I had leftover odds and ends–think leaves, branches, a little of this and a little of that.

Here’s what about half an hour of working resulted in (the other half hour spent rummaging for materials, haha!):

Having finished that, and with a very happy little tree-hat-wearing little boy, I find out… classes are suspended today because of some disorder in the streets (politically speaking). But that’s a completely different story… and one that is still unfolding on my TV set as I watch the news now.

At least, as it turns out, we have the hat ready now, way ahead of time. 😀