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| Taiwan has come and gone and everyone I've seen lately knows about my adventures. However, I wanted blog a few pictures that have stories behind them. I admit they're probably more interesting for someone like me who's a photographer than to someone who's just looking at them. It does give a little insight into my thought process though.
Most common thing I heard during the trip: "Jon, your camera is so heavy!" My D3 and 24-70 comes out to be nearly 5 lbs. I'm so used to it that I don't even feel the weight on my shoulder anymore. (Well, occasionally I still do.)
 Most of my pictures ended up being of the 'scenic/landscape' variety. I don't know how to take those kinds of pictures but it doesn't mean I won't try. The above picture is an attempt (out of many) that I liked.  Collection of Tablets (Taichung, Taiwan) There were these rows of tablets. Each tablet had a different style of Chinese calligraphy. However, the rows were far apart. However if I took it wide, I would be able to get the different styles, but I wouldn't get any details. I literally stared at these rows for like 10 minutes. I finally went up to a tablet, set my camera at +2/3 EV (maybe it was +1 EV) since the tablets were black, manually focused on the reflection of the tablets and took the shot. I ended up taking a few of these because I don't use manual focus too often. Good thing my parents were still taking pictures while I was doing this. It took a longer than expected, but I liked the end result.  Mitsukoshi Building (Taichung, Taiwan) Early on the week, I got this idea that I wanted a picture of moving cars. Taiwan has lots of busy intersections, especially during rush hours. They're more interesting because it's a mix of people, cars, motorcycles and vespas. However, I couldn't get one that I liked. One day I was waiting for my mom and I saw this building. Thinking it might make a good picture, I ran up to the intersection and took a few test shots. I waited for it to get darker, went up to the intersection again and waited. I adjusted my aperture a little more so I was getting a slower shutter speed. (I think it was 1/20 for this picture.) The lights turned green and I fired off a few frames.
I checked for sharpness afterwards and I had managed to handhold the shot! (1/20 is way out of my comfort zone for handholding.) The shot was gone a few minutes later because all the colors on the building had changed to green.
Angel Angel is a relative of mine that I've known since she was a child. Anyway, when it's been a while since I've last seen her and one of the first things I asked was if she still remembered me. She did! Between the last time I saw her and now, her family had gotten 3 poodles. One day after school, she was playing with them. I grabbed my camera and took a few shots.
I went to the local photo lab the next day. (They had my favorite kind of photo paper. Pearl! I was excited.) I printed this picture and few others of her dogs that I had taken earlier that afternoon. I figured she might appreciate them when she's older. I surprised her later that evening with the prints.
The only thing I wish I was able to do was correct the white balance/temperture of this picture before I got printed. People don't look very flattering under CFL lighting. Every house in Taiwan seems use them now. This picture here is after I made the corrections. The corrections brought the skin tone color back because it was originally very cold looking.
It's a good thing she doesn't know the difference. :) It's a minor detail anyway.
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| I was chatting with Cynthia on a car ride to church one Sunday morning a few months ago and she mentioned she was auditioning for a role for Beauty And The Beast at her high school. I think she auditioned to be Belle, but didn't get it. She did end up getting a dual role though. One being one of Gaston's lovers and the other being one the ensemble in the castle. Anyway, she said that I should come and check it out.
Fast forward a couple months and I told her I'd be interested in watching it. Cynthia got me get a ticket and I attended a showing this past Saturday. It was truly impressive for a high school production. I had nothing like that when I was in high school. I could tell they spent a lot time on it. It followed Disney's movie, so the entire production ran for close to 3 hours (including intermission). One new thing for me was the "Human Again" song. That song didn't exist when I originally watched the movie.. oh.. a long time ago. :P I know it was put in future releases though.
Cynthia did a wonderful job at her two roles. I was also impressed by the actress who played Belle. She certainly had a lot of lines to memorize and pulled it off. All in all, I'm glad I went. It was really good and done well. The only thing I was a little disappointed was at the actor who played Beast. I was just expecting a little more.
The best part was yet to come though. The next day I was at church chatting with Kara (she was in the orchestra for the play) about the play. Daniel, who goes to my former high school, had heard that I went. He came up to me and accused me of having no school loyalty. Why? Because I went to my rival high school to watch the play.
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| Earlier this week, I decided to try something I kept reading about in Joe McNally's blog. One thing he seems to love to do is put a flash outside somewhere and have it fire through a window. This is to emulate sunlight or even a early morning/late afternoon light.
I waited until it was completely dark. I grabbed a light stand, flash, and a PocketWizard. I gelled it with a full CTO (basically a orange-colored plastic that I put over the flash) and stuck it outside in the backyard outside the dining room. It took a few tries to get the look right.
Then with my mom's blessing, I rearranged the dining room a litlte bit. I moved furniture around and took all the table cloths off. This took longer then the photos I ended up taking. To demonstrate how much heavy lifting the flash was doing, here's a frame where the flash didn't fire:
It was completely dark in the room. This particular frame when I was trying to take a self-portrait of myself. I was to show one of the dining room, but it's literally all black! Here's what it looked like when the flash went off.
I did this at the very end of what I originally was doing. Unfortunately, those other photos didn't really turn out the way I thought they would.
I had fun asking a few friends what time of day they thought the photo was. The conversation generally went like this:
Me: "What time of day do you think photo was taken in?"
Them: "Afternoon" or "Late afternoon"
Me: "What if I told you if it wasn't real sunlight?"
Them: "That'd be weird."
Me: "Because it's not."
Them: "WHA??"
By the way, putting a lightstand in the middle of my mom's rose garden at night is not my idea of fun.
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|  It's been an interesting week to say the least. It didn't start so well, got better and didn't end well. It all started with being frustrated at my boss at work on Monday. I went on a rollercoaster after that. I got my biggest surprise today when I had to deal with some things at church this morning that didn't end so well. I learned later it wasn't entirely my fault, which was reassuring. However, all these things compounded together over the week has me hoping for a better week.
During all this, I needed an outlet. I decided to take pictures. Five days of this past week I found something to take pictures of. And then I shared a lot of them on Facebook. Some pictures I'd normally never share. I found it remedial. It was something I needed to do.
I found the perfect picture for this entry when I was taking pictures of the baptism today. The picture above is of Stephanie and Gloria. Stephanie was getting baptized. Gloria was helping out. Stephanie was saying how relaxed she was. However, when she found out she was going first she started to get nervous. By the time she was at the top of the stairs, she was really, really nervous. I could tell she needed some reassurance.
I told Gloria to give her a hug. She really needed one. Gloria hugged her until it was time to go down into the pool.
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During this week, I went back to basics with my photography. Instead of doing fancy things with umbrellas, multiple flashes and whatnot, I decided to learn how to use a single flash better. In this case, I was learning how to bounce better. I have this habit of bouncing straight up. I've come to realize if I can bounce off another wall, it can look more natural. Light doesn't always come up from top.
At the end of the baptism, Gloria and I were waiting for Stephanie to finish up and were just sitting around. I took an impromptu portrait of Gloria. I had Arias and Leibowitz in my mind when I took this photo. Arias for the "single light" philosphy. Leibowitz for the inspiration (and the photoshop that I ended up doing).
I don't normally don't do a lot of Photoshopping (well, in my case Lightroom). I bounced the flash to the wall on my left. I applied some fill light in Lightroom to the right side of Gloria's face because it was completely dark.
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| I probably see my doctors (whether it's my primary care physician, or ENT) often for one thing: ear infections. I get them as a result of being sick sometimes. For example, I had bronchitis not too long ago. Besides having a 100+ fever, I also found out after seeing the doctor I had an ear infection. But more often than not, my ears get infected at random times of the year. I've had this problem since I was in elementary school. I never know which ear. I'll wake up one morning and feel something on my ear. It's green, liquidy and smells really bad.
My doctor always ask me if my ear hurts. These days, other then the first day of infection, I don't feel anything. It leaves me kind of scared. It sounds like my ears should be hurting. I know when it hurts. It's pretty painful. I'm pretty sure my response leaves my doctor perplexed. Personally, I think its because I'm so used to getting these that I've built a resistance to the pain.
My ear got infected again this past week. Lucky for me, I had some sample drops of Ciprodex that my ENT gave me for ear infections laying around that hadn't expired yet. He gave them to me for whenever my ears got really itchy, but also for times like these. Ciprodex is the medication I use to treat outer and inner ear infections. It comes in drops. It's also not covered by my insurance, so I'm thankful he usually gives me those when I make a visit! I used to these other kind by Bausch and Lomb. I stopped using those because everytime I used them my ears would hurt.
However, whenever I go to the doctor, I get prescribed the same mediciatons. This hasn't changed since I was in elementary school. It's augmentin or amoxicillin (a pencillin variant). Its usually amoxicillin though. It's the pink liquid medication I used to take using a spoon when I young. As I got older, it turned into tablets.
My ENT told me that these kind of infections have no long lasting effects or any permanent damage to the ear. I had a hearing testing a couple years back and I pretty much consider it a miracle that I can hear perfectly with all the ear infections I've had. Any doctor who's looked at my right ear always comments how scarred it is. My primary care physician told me a while back that it's too scarred for him to diagnose anymore and told me to go to the ENT instead. It makes sense though. I should be seeing my ENT anyway.
This morning I went to see my doctor to get some vaccinations and had him check on my left ear since it was infected. I figured it was soonest I could get it checked out. My ENT usually has a 1 or 2 week wait. He told me it didn't look normal and asked me if it hurt. I told him I didn't feel anything. (It does feel a little strange, but it doesn't hurt.)
He prescribed me some tablets. I'm guessing it'll be amoxcillin again.
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