Driving in Phuket is quite something. Especially driving around the coast. Not only have you got some amazing scenery, but you’ve got some of the most fun roads to career your car around.

Now when they tell you there’s an S-Bend coming up, they really mean it. Which is awesome. Combine that with some generally insane driving from the locals (overtaking on blind bends, crazy) and you’ve got some driving fun to be had.

Pretty simple set up for this shot. Pull up by the side of the road, frame so that the railing leads the eye towards the centre of the frame from the corner and just wait for a car to come past to give the photo a bit more context. It’s a shame I couldn’t position myself higher, but you can just about see the road taking a sharp turn to the left in the centre of the frame. Top this all off with Phuket’s trademark year-long blue skies boosted with a circular polariser and a bit of saturation boost in post, and you’re done.

I was asked to shoot my mother’s temple group when they visited, having a monk come and bless your altar table is quite an honour apparently.

In this portrait the subject is framed all the way to the edge. The composition is a bit different to the safe approach I generally take when shooting portraits, but I like the end result. The photo capturing the man’s expression of concentrated prayer. Your eyes travel from the man’s expression, to the wooden instrument, to the background; people in traditional prayer posture. I can’t decide if the vertical, brown run of colour detracts, it is in fact the altar table, so it gives a bit of extra context with that knowledge in mind. I probably should have still composed with it out of frame as it draws your attention away from the main subject somewhat. Still, it’s all about learning, right?

Pixlr

The internet is truly a wondrous thing, putting a plethora of free software and tools at your disposal. One I’ve discovered recently is Pixlr; a free, online photo editing and manipulation tool.

Not only does it offer many tools and features you find in Adobe Photoshop such as cropping, resizing, curves and levels, but it’s awfully quick as well. You forget that this is an online tool. Heck, through some sort of internet voodoo magic it has the keyboard shortcuts you may rely on if you’re familiar with Photoshop. Even menu layouts are ordered in a manner intuitive to Photoshop users. Of course you can’t expect it to be quite as robust as a full editing suite, but even when it comes to filters there’s quite a number offered; from more specific applications like vignettes to more general filters such as sharpening and noise.

So the next time you’re caught without Photoshop, or just in need of a quick bit of image manipulation, give Pixlr a try. And yes, the name does seem awfully reminiscent of a certain photo sharing website from Yahoo, but that’s Web 2.0 for you.

A bit of animal portraiture here and one of my favourites. This was again taken at a zoo, but this time at Whipsnade Safari Park which has a walk-through Lemur area where you can get up close and personal with the mischievous fellows.

This was taken with my Canon 70-200 F4/L, Canon’s comparatively reasonably priced entry into the ‘L’ family of lenses, famed for their superb picture quality combined with tank-like build quality. As with any kind of portraiture, be it of people or animals, eyes are key. Getting sharp focus on the eyes can be the difference between a great portrait shot or one to discard.

This is where the 70-200 is in its element, featuring good sharpness even when shooting wide open. Telephoto lenses are always a suitable choice for portraiture as their long focal length compresses backgrounds and maintain aesthetically pleasing proportions. Shooting wide open here has created a nice, creamy bokeh (background blur) which limits distractions away from the main subject.

I took this in the Natural History Museum quite a while ago, but I find it’s a good example about trying to find a compromise between your shadow and highlight details (without resorting to HDR). I rattled off a few frames exposing above and below my end exposure which I wasn’t completely happy with. With the end result I managed to record shadow and highlight detail without too much clipping. The stained glass windows proved particularly problematic.

In terms of composition the stained glass windows were purposefully framed in the lower, right third, allowing for the repetitive pattern of the ceiling to draw the eye in towards them as a main interest point. The left ceiling sky-light also helped with this. A bit of straightening in post made the final photograph geometrically pleasing.

Along with the Zoo, the Natural History Museum is another of my yearly pilgrimages, so I’m sure I’ll be back at some point in ’09.

I encountered this awesome flowchart and I couldn’t help but smile. The constant use of Ryu and Ken does begin to get a bit grating after a few dozen games just because so many use them badly. That includes myself, as I haven’t mained Ryu or Ken since Super Turbo so i’m a bit rusty with them in SFIV. So you know what? I DON’T REPEATEDLY USE THEM ONLINE.

The crudely drawn pokes at these two Shotos doesn’t stop there either.

The soundtrack on the other hand I’m finding incredibly catchy, though response on THE INTERNETS (where everything is Serious Business) has been rather hit and miss. I for one love the trance/techno/rock fusion they’ve got going for SFIV. The almost abhorrently cheesey main theme is just the right level of cheesey-catchiness to have you humming it all day. Right now, Cammy’s remixed theme has probably been my favourite of the character themes.

06- Theme of Cammy

I love going to London Zoo. I make a habit of going there at least once a year because well, animals are awesome. They’re always fun to shoot as well (with a camera). London Zoo has a insect house, which as you expect features ants. Now ants are definitely awesome, I mean they’re able to carry 10-50 times their own body weight (thank you Google)! Somehow though,  I feel this photo is a motivation poster in the making. Something about not getting crushed under the weight of the world or something.

As I mentioned before, the scenery around Sa Pa is breathtaking. Take here this example of hand-constructed land cultivation on a large scale. The people of Sa Pa utilising every inch of usable land for agriculture and rice growing. Check out that famous mist at the top of the frame too. I used a 50:50 composition  because I felt framing any further down or up meant losing some manner of interest, so this composition offered most literally the best balance.

An Alexander Rodchenko style avant-garde themed photo from Sa Pa. This time shooting from unconventional viewpoints; something about delayed recognition… pre-linguistic something something…

Those pesky Surrealists.

I had the fortune of spending my first Christmas abroad in Thailand and Vietnam recently. It was an amazing experience, but the change in climate from the year-long heat and humidity of Phuket to the comparatively cold of Vietnam did nothing for my constitution. Highlight of the trip (excluding the main reason for my being abroad – my sister’s wedding) was Sa Pa.

Sa Pa lies in the northern region of Vietnam, high up in the mountains, near to the border with China. Being so high above sea level the entire area is susceptible to enshrouding you in a thick blanket of fog in the winter time. Literally like nothing I’ve exeperienced. You can go from seeing nothing but grey, to having the mist pass revealing an awe inspiring mountain backdrop, only for the mist to roll over again seconds later. Truly surreal.

Alongside the scenery, of note were the people. Known as the Hmong, they don unique traditional clothing and come down the mountain to trade. They also come in different varieties, from Black Hmong, to Flower Hmong, to Red Hmong. Yet all the villages co-exist peacefully.

Now this was one of my favourite portrait captures of my travels. The people didn’t seem to mind me venturing around, camera in hand, taking candid photos of the locals. In fact, it’s the eye contact in this image which I feel is key. The flashes of colour in her clothing stand out nicely against the darkness. The photo was taken during a time when the mist was prevalent, as such it robbed a lot of contrast in the original image, which had to be rescued in post-processing. Fortunately I’ve long made a habit of shooting in RAW so it wasn’t an arduous process. I’ll return with a photo of Sa Pa’s famous scenery in my next post.