= Stefan's Weekly Singapore City/Landscapes =

[macaroni]

Always been a fan of TS's shots. Never fail to marvel at how he did it.

 

[vincentckh87]

Just wanted to let you know that your shots are inspiring. Reminds me that there is no need to travel far and wide to hunt for the best landscape shots. Thank you.

 

[tiancai007]

Excellent photos with have. Just curious, how old are you? 19? 20? (Serving NS?) If so, you have a bright future ahead. And lastly, have you considered sending your photos to magazines or competition? You are considered a Pro...

 

[SomeFormOFhuman]

not a fan of the flare. But nice colours... brilliantly exposed as always! May I know wat GND you're using? tianya filers are killing me & i can't afford Lee! ;p

Hey thanks alot man. I thought twice and hard about the flare, (not alot though, and doesn't really affect the entire image) and I re-uploaded another one that I manually removed flare from the image using the Healing Brush tool in Photoshop. I'm using a cheapo Cokin GND 0.9 Soft Z121S Resin filter. Couldn't get a Lee or Hitech anywhere else.

It's ok now! guess it's the iphone...brilliant btw. Love the colours. What time was it when you took this?

I took it around 7am + it's around the time when the sun rises from the hills at the left.

Always been a fan of TS's shots. Never fail to marvel at how he did it.

Hey, thanks for your words, I appreciate it. But it's simple really. In all of my landscape shots, you just have to go there, look around you... And if you like what you're seeing and where you're standing, just setup your tripod and just shoot it.

Just wanted to let you know that your shots are inspiring. Reminds me that there is no need to travel far and wide to hunt for the best landscape shots. Thank you.

Well and here I am actually planning for a vacation to go elsewhere.... :bsmilie: Why I recently took up landscape photography because it seems most people have this idea that Singapore is 'nothing but a concrete jungle, and all you can photograph are just buildings' or things like, 'has little or no natural grounds of pure landscape photography', but I shall disagree. It's not really "pure" but that's as close as one can get, or just be creative... mix and match foregrounds and backgrounds and you have a "new" style of shooting altogether! =) Thanks Vincent!

Excellent photos with have. Just curious, how old are you? 19? 20? (Serving NS?) If so, you have a bright future ahead. And lastly, have you considered sending your photos to magazines or competition? You are considered a Pro...

Yes I am serving NS currently, that's why I can only shoot on the weekends. =) Well I haven't considered selling them in magazines or prints but in my humble opinion, I don't think these shots are magazine ready as I believe they can be alot better and my shots are, completely, 101%, no way, compared to any of those landscape photos I've seen in International standards... Goodness, theirs is totally Godlike! Haha, thank you!

 

[SomeFormOFhuman]

2 very simple shots from East Coast Beach... My cousins were having BBQ when I was there and finally spotted the infamous abandoned pipe that leads to the sea!! :bigeyes: I didn't have my 24-70 or 100-400 with me, as I only had my 10-22 at the time. So this is what I could do best.

3 Image HDR/DRI using ND 8 soft graduated filter. East Coast Park Beach, Singapore.
To be honest, I didn't really liked this shot as this isn't my style of photography, and thus I personally find it "snapshot-like", stale, uninspiring and boring. And to the extent, common.

ND8 graduated soft filter + 77mm ND4 filter. East Coast Park, Singapore. Saturation toned down in camera settings.
There stands a lonely fisherman at the end of the pipe.

 

[SomeFormOFhuman]

One more from Tampines Quarry:

Boorring!!

ND 8 graduated filter + Tiffen ND1.2 77mm filter.

Nothing but just a simple testing of my new toy, a 77mm Tiffen HT ND 1.2 screw-on filter! It costed me a USD$125 bomb for this filter!

Next image please...

 

[SomeFormOFhuman]

2 more very simple shots from Sembawang this morning:

Raylight Sand

3 Image HDR/DRI with ND 8 soft graduated handheld shot. Cropped and edited in Adobe Lightroom. Sembawang Beach, Singapore.

Imprint

3 Image HDR/DRI using ND 8 soft graduated filter. Sembawang Beach, Singapore.

I'm still into landscape photography, but it's the time of the year again that I go back to the basics...

 

[SomeFormOFhuman]

2 new shots from Changi Beach CP 6 this morning. Not a good day for a sunrise shoot though. The tide was low but it later rised to shore too fast today. This was my first time going to that place as suggested by one of my friends for a morning shoot. I was amazed to find the sand of the sea floor fascinating, full of patterns and abstract and alot of possibly WW2 artefacts like pots lying around when the tide was low. Will definitely go there again!

Pot of Life, Not Quite

3 Image HDR/DRI using ND 8 soft graduated + ND 1.2 filter to blur out cloud movement and yellow tint acrylic sheet to neutralize whites. Changi Beach Park, CP6, Singapore.

Wanted to a 11 Image HDR to attain maximum dynamic range, but the tides were coming in fast so I had to do this quick or be submerged. The sun unfortunately was obscured by the clouds.

Rising Sand

5 Image HDR/DRI using ND 8 soft graduated filter. Changi Beach Park, CP6, Singapore.

 

[SomeFormOFhuman]

I hope it doesn't hurt to have more from East Coast I took this evening today.

Swift Force

ND 8 soft graduated filter + Tiffen ND1.2 filter. East Coast Park, Singapore. Saturation toned down in camera settings.
Lately, my style of photography has changed somewhat - for the worst.

Sea Track

ND 8 soft graduated filter + Tiffen ND1.2 filter. East Coast Park, Singapore.

 

[Scintillation]

Hey, just wanna tell you that your shots are really beautifully processed! Lovely work with the filters!

 

[edutilos-]

Lately, my style of photography has changed somewhat - for the worst.

I can't help but agree, actually. I liked quite a few of the starting thumbnails you posted in the first post, but somehow there has been no revival of that standard. It's a mix of wild light, wild color, and just wild compositions (or lack of them, at least ). I can tolerate the first two to a certain extent, but it has to be overcome by the last, and it's just not there. For example, the last 2 ECP shots - the first's a bunch of ghostly figures floating on top of haphazard diagonals, while the second's a bunch of repeating horizontals, with the first just splitting the frame mercilessly. Maybe it's just a phase? Hope you get over it soon though, you can really do better. Cheers.

 

[SomeFormOFhuman]

Hey, just wanna tell you that your shots are really beautifully processed! Lovely work with the filters!

Hey thanks for dropping by man...

I can't help but agree, actually. I liked quite a few of the starting thumbnails you posted in the first post, but somehow there has been no revival of that standard. It's a mix of wild light, wild color, and just wild compositions (or lack of them, at least ). I can tolerate the first two to a certain extent, but it has to be overcome by the last, and it's just not there. For example, the last 2 ECP shots - the first's a bunch of ghostly figures floating on top of haphazard diagonals, while the second's a bunch of repeating horizontals, with the first just splitting the frame mercilessly. Maybe it's just a phase? Hope you get over it soon though, you can really do better. Cheers.

Hey thanks for your input man. Well actually I've been experimenting different styles lately. I guess in the earlier shots I think I've been shooting the same thing over and over again, until I got "tired" of it. I soon disliked subtleness, and decided to go find something else to do. As for the shots compared to the last time and now, I find it's the opposite. For me I think I prefer the latter though (Not for the latest ECP and Sembawang ones though, those are to me at least, craptastic). It's not until recently I like to change and do something experimental or crazy. But overall, it doesn't really matter how it turns out to be, I enjoyed going there and shoot it. And that's what matters.

Partly it speaks about my lifestyle that I'm going through lately; hectic and rushing, family issues, NS, friends, loneliness, hysteria, guts, black stuff in my heart, recklessness, hoping to find hope and peace, restlessness, ***** me, ***** you, and all that crap. I guess the wilderness and the lack of direction led me to it.

Anyway, one more FTW.

*Sigh...

7 Image HDR/DRI using ND 8 soft graduated filter + Tiffen ND 1.2. East Coast Park, Singapore.

 

[elavan]

i've been itching to comment too but bro, slow down, back to basics, and ban yourself from 11-17 image DRI/HDR :bsmilie:

 

[SomeFormOFhuman]

i've been itching to comment too but bro, slow down, back to basics, and ban yourself from 11-17 image DRI/HDR :bsmilie:

Haha, thanks. But I will still do HDR.

Oh hey and I saw your recent photo of West Coast. I haven't been there in a long while bro, the place seems to look what it is! I'm just waiting for a low tide evening.

EDIT: There's a fallen tree in MacRitchie? http://www.flickr.com/photos/bensonang86/5904347483/in/photostream This I gotta go there!!

 

[elavan]

West coast is a mess, from one end to the other :bsmilie: If it were low tide I wouldn't even have that shot you saw up, but that's just me.

I don't know if the tree is still there. The boardwalk at Mc ritchie just went through a maintenance, that tree could have been dead standing and was cut down. Do not go on a weekend cos I reckon there will be enough joggers on the boardwalk to introduce camera shake but I guess you can plant your pod in the water, maybe just lose a bit of the trunk

 

[SomeFormOFhuman]

West coast is a mess, from one end to the other :bsmilie: If it were low tide I wouldn't even have that shot you saw up, but that's just me.

I don't know if the tree is still there. The boardwalk at Mc ritchie just went through a maintenance, that tree could have been dead standing and was cut down. Do not go on a weekend cos I reckon there will be enough joggers on the boardwalk to introduce camera shake but I guess you can plant your pod in the water, maybe just lose a bit of the trunk

Hey thanks, that's cool man! Hmm... You shot that on the 5th of July? I guess that's exactly a month from now. Which part of MacRitchie is that fallen tree located? I somehow have this environmental fascination of fallen trees and rural, and weird looking landscapes! (Well that led me to why I started landscape photography.... I'm an environmentalist freak! haha)

 

[elavan]

Hey thanks, that's cool man! Hmm... You shot that on the 5th of July? I guess that's exactly a month from now. Which part of MacRitchie is that fallen tree located? I somehow have this environmental fascination of fallen trees and rural, and weird looking landscapes! (Well that led me to why I started landscape photography.... I'm an environmentalist freak! haha)

When you walk in, enter the McRitchie boardwalk on the left side which is beyond the pavilion on the water (now under renovation). It'll be >15min walk to that tree along the narrow boardwalk. One way only so you won't miss it . Personally I think it's an awesome subject, felt quite sad for it :bsmilie:

 

[SomeFormOFhuman]

Something from today:

Nature Stucked A Tire Revisited

7 Image HDR/DRI using combined ND 8 soft graduated and my old Cokin P series 0.6 hard grad filter (handheld) + Tiffen HT ND 1.2 for moving sky effects. Pasir Ris Park, Singapore.

Couldn't resist going there to see that mysterious half stucked tire!! Triple combined filters caused a little bit of colour casting in the sky, however. (Observe carefully that purplish tint in the clouds) Still looks okay though.

 

[SomeFormOFhuman]

Pasir Ris yet again:

Pasir Ris' First Light

5 Image HDR/DRI using ND 8 Soft graduated + Tiffen ND 1.2 filter, Pasir Ris Park, Singapore.

Slight flare however, but I like all that stuff that is lying around! And frame em' in such a way, juxtaposing and atypical!

 

[SomeFormOFhuman]

Something from Upper Seletar Reservoir today.

Surrealist's Seletar Dream

11 Image HDR/DRI using ND 8 hard grad + Tiffen ND 1.2 filter. Upper Seletar Reservoir, Singapore.

Good effects on the water due to the amazing sunset though. And these rocks are pretty small by the way...

Hard grad filter lowered intentionally to highlight the rocks at the further end.