Its about 12:39pm here in Thailand and I just read a PM that I got from a certain someone who's been watching my thread (you know who u are!) *thank u thank u!!* he asked a question about how i take the photos and how i get the ideas to take these pix... thought i'd just share it with everyone, whether you're interested to read this or not, i'm still gonna have it up here for all to see.
How do I get into situations where I am able to get these pictures? It seemed mind-boggling at first to me, when I saw pictures from other people who seemed to be at the place at the right time just to take that particular picture. I've learnt that these 'unique' situations pop up anywhere, everywhere and best of all, ALL THE TIME! It doesn't really matter if you 'miss a golden opportunity' once, cuz another one's gonna come, and you'll have your camera there, ready to capture the moment!
Most of the pictures I have here are spontaneous! Yeah, seriously... I don't really plan them, unless it's a planned shoot *doh*. The best part of spontaneity is that you don't really know what to expect and your finger is on the 'trigger' for the right moment. I usually use a wide-angle zoom or a standard lens as it helps me to get close to my subject. When I am able to get close to my subject and get my subject comfortable in front of my lens, it's just a matter of letting your fingers fly when the right moments come! A photograph taken is not always about the technicalities of photo-taking or camera-handling, it's actually got a lot to do with personal relationships and how you express yourself and get others to feel comfortable around you. If you can't get people comfortable around you when you've got a camera, chances are that you're not going to get a lot of good shots at all around people. (this applies to street shooting n studio shooting as well)
For lighting - i use my flash almost all the time and (no im not trying to sell it... but it is that good imo) have my flip-it! attached to my flash (all the time). it helps me to model the light and get different lighting effects that emulates an off-camera flash - yeah!! from an on-camera flashgun! amazingggggg haha~
When it comes to Post Processing... i use photoshop cs and usually use the unsharp mask tool to sharpen the image after i've resized it, to get the clarity back (u loose sharpness when you resize an image). A little curves to bring the image out (brighter and contrasty) and sometimes i bump up the saturation to make the colors more vibrant. Thats not much of a secret but that's how i do it. In-camera colors aren't always super. At times they are, but when they don't give you the colors you want, PS is a good idea.
Thats it from me! cheeeeeeeeers
thnx~
