Vailima

Vailima is a really good beer made in Samoa. The Big bottles are also a lot stronger and will sneak up on you if not careful. It is almost like drinking two beers for every one. In this photo, a young lady is enjoying a big bottle at the beach. It was shot with a zoom lens, which compresses the image. That is why the kayaker in the background appears close. I used a wide aperture so that the background would be blurred out as much as possible. Would like to have shot at f2.8 to get the background totally blurred, but my 100-400 lens can't open up that much. I would love to get my hands on the Canon 400 f2.8. Anyone have $6 grand to donate to a poor photographer? Now, I am going to pop open a cold beer (one of many) and enjoy being one of the last people on earth to ring in the New Year. With no fireworks allowed in American Samoa and wanting to spend the evening with the kids, it will surely be a quiet one.

Another Church

Another day, another church. This church has a bit of a story. It is the only time when I got grief from people for taking photos. As always, I had parked the car and asked some people nearby if it was okay to take some photos of their beautiful church. They said yes so I set up my camera and tripod. By the time I was set up, they were already gone. As I started taking photos, two guys came up. I could smell beer on their breath and they wanted money for me taking photos of "their" church. Now, I was going to say something like "doesn't the church belong to God", but I bit my tongue and let them know I had asked permission. Undaunted, they said I was going to make a lot of money selling photos of the church. So, I did what every self respecting photographer would do. I told them I wasn't going to pay them money (I don't lie and say I don't have any) but would delete the photos. I pressed a couple of buttons on the back of my camera and showed them a blank screen saying the photos were deleted. Got back in my car and drove away, with the photos still intact. Just goes to show it ain't hard to fool a drunk. So, today I post the church photo that was the 1st time someone tried to extort money from me.

P.S. 99.9999% of the people here are the friendliest people I have ever met. Most are very happy that you want to photograph their beautiful souroundings. Treat people with respect and almost always you get the respect back. But as in any place in the world, there are assholes out there. Don't let that discourage you.

overclock

I can't believe that 2008 is almost over. Next month I make 5 years in American Samoa. Time has gone by so quickly. It helps that I live in a beautiful place. But, after not being off Island for nearly a year, I need a break. I want to walk into a supermarket and get a fresh salad and stare at all the fresh fruits and vegetables. Things I used to take for granted.

This photo was shot at night using a very high ISO. I used a program called NeatImage to clean up the noise.

Christmas in American Samoa

Being in American Samoa means we are one of the last Countries to celebrate Christmas. I feel sorry for some of the people fighting the cold weather. Today was bright and sunny and lots of people enjoyed swimming at the beach. For us, it was open the presents then go for our traditional breakfast at McDonalds. Then the kids played and I made a turkey. We just got finished eating so I have a few minutes. All my Christmas photos were made by bouncing my flash off of the white ceiling in the house. It makes for much better photos than just hitting the kids with direct flash. You lose a lot of the harsh shadows this way. And, when the kids are ripping through the presents, not much time to goof around so just shot on ETTL and let the camera work its magic.

Merry Christmas

Well, it's Christmas eve here and the kids are just going to sleep. I made spaghetti tonight which they love, including our dog tramp who does not think she is a dog. This is her on the sofa after eating a big bowl of spaghetti and settling down to have sweet dreams of Santa. Now, I have a ton of presents to wrap and put under the tree for Christmas. To everyone that checks out this blog, Merry Christmas.

Nudes

When I mention that I have shot nudes as part of my journey in photography, I get very mixed comments. Most think shooting nudes is about having a naked person in front of you to ogle over. That could not be further from the truth. Shooting nudes is about lighting and the human form, which is the furthest thing from sex. If shooting the female nude, you should always have a female assistant with you. This will immediately set the tone of the shoot and show that you are professional. In this photo, I used three speedlights strategically placed to highlight her body and hair, while keeping the background dark. I really enjoy shooting low key nudes as opposed to more glamour style. Besides, I think there is a finer line to draw when shooting glamour style nudes between ("nude") and ("pornography"). Of course, the meaning is different for everyone due to different moral values. I'm sure some will think this image is not appropriate. Heck, I remember during the arts festival where some people were up in arms over some of the performers being topless, which is their custom. I do not feel we have the right to judge, but should be tolerant.

This photo was part of a class I took. Hope you enjoy it.

High Noon

As I started to learn photography, I soon learned that shooting in the bright afternoon light was not the best time. Early morning and later in the afternoon was much better. Cloudy days were perfect for shooting outside photos of people. In this photo, I was out scouting some sites to come back later in the early evening to take photos. I took this photo at about 12:00 in bright sunny weather. After goofing around with it in photoshop, I ended up liking the high contrast of the photo in black and white. This is a photo of pago pago harbour for those interested.

I hate Windows Vista

You can now add me to the list of people that hate windows vista. I bought a new laptop recently and it of course came with windows vista. One of the reasons I bought it was so that I can bring it on photo shoots and tether my camera to it. This allows you to view your photos on the monitor instead of your tiny screen on the back of your camera and make adjustments to lighting (if you are shooting flash), exposure etc. to make sure you have a good photo before moving on. It is the greatest thing since sliced bread. EXCEPT, with windows Vista, I can't tether my canon 20d. There are no drivers for vista and canon ain't going to make one either. So I have now decided to run virtual PC on my computer which I will load with window XP (which of course I had to buy) so I can run some programs that don't work with Vista. That really sucks. I only hope after getting this loaded (the software arrives Friday) it will work. I'm going on a trip in January and really need this.

The photo to the left is from some performers from Guam. I go to Guam a couple times a year and it is a nice place. A little bit too touristy but that's ok.

simple lighting

I wanted to post this photo for two reasons. First, I think you can achieve some nice light with just speedlights. This was shot using two 550ex. The first fired into an umbrella and the second is a bounce off of a white ceiling for fill. What I don't like is a dilemma that comes up time and again. What to do with the hands. I think this photo would have been better with some hand placement. I now remember the karate chop theory. That is, show the side of the hands to the camera, instead of flat on. But, having a beautiful model can help regardless and this photo has had a lot of nice comments on pbase.

American Samoa Marina

Someone was talking to me today about improvements that can be made in American Samoa. Lots of things come to mind. Certainly, taking steps to diversify our economy is paramount to the long term viability of American Samoa. Being in the Pacific for more than 15-years, I have to say that given our natural harbour here, the lack of some sort of marina just is amazing. It is basically non-existent which means if you can't trailer a boat, you are going to be hard pressed to moor a boat at the docks here. They really need to do something. That in turn could help spawn some sort of sport fishing development and maybe some diving. There is a lot potential in this area. The attached photo was taken from a helicopter. The helicopter has since been taken back to Hawaii due to lack of demand. I shot this with my 100-400 lens. The trick is to use a fast enough shutter speed. I was shotting at a minimum of 1/500th of a second.

New Zealand

Well, its been raining all weekend non-stop, which really sucks. It's times like this when living in a small pacific island gets to you. Not like you can hop in the car and drive to the mall. And the theatre didn't change out the movie, so couldn't do that. We did manage to get a Christmas tree (yep, got a real one this year) and set that up, but that's about it. Sitting in the house and watching the rain fall. You would think with all the time on my hands I would write a long blog post, but don't even feel like that. At least my vacation is finally planned so I can start a month long count-down. After not being off the island for so long, I'm starting to get rock fever.

This photo is a New Zealand performer. Thought I would post and maybe he will scare the rain away.

My Dog

I was going through my photos from Christmas last year, looking for something to post to start off December. I came across this photo of my dog. We called her Lady. She was actually a stray that started to hang around our house. She was malnourished and the kids started to feed her. Soon, she was living under the porch of the house. I told the kids to give her a bath and flea dip if the dog would let them and she did. Then, one day the kids let her in the house while I was at work. Ironically, when the dog had to go to the bathroom, she went to the door and barked. The only thing we can figure out is that she belonged to some family and was an inside dog, but maybe they moved away and just threw their dog out the door. That is how it is here, with so many stray dogs and a lot of people that mistreat dogs. Granted, with so many dogs roaming, people get bit. But ironically a survey done showed that most of the "stray" dogs have owners. They just let their dogs roam around. People carry sticks when they walk and any dog that gets too close will get a whack. Now with our dog Lady, one day a neighbor dog came around and the kids opened the door and lady ran after the other dog. My kids chased her and she ran across the street until the kids yelled for her to come back. She stopped and headed back to the kids when a car came down the road and swerved to deliberately hit the dog. They killed her right in front of my kids and then just kept driving down the road like nothing happened. People across the street saw what happened and got a license number, but it would have been useless to report it. I was only glad Lady died instantly as there are no good vets here and at least she didn't suffer. I tell the kids at least she had a good life with us and that she would have died a long time ago if we had not taken her in. Funny thing is, she was the most gentlest dog and would never hurt anyone and to this day I hope the person that ran her over has bad karma because of it. So, this will be a Christmas without lady. But we got another dog and named her tramp (she came from the humane society). With all the dogs out there, if you are planning on getting a pet, consider getting one from a shelter. And remember, pets are a lot of responsibility. Don't just get a dog and throw it outside to fend for itself.

carabau

I like high contrast photos in black and white. Take this photo, which was shot on a sunny day in the afternoon. The color just didn't do it for me, so I converted to black and white. The Carabau in the Philippines remains an important part of everyday life in the Philippines, especially in the provinces. This man was walking his carabau down a stream when I captured this photos. The background huts add to the photo in my mind. If you are in the Philippines, get out of manila and go to the Province where you will experience true Filipino culture.

Seven Deadly Sins

Working on a personal project called the seven daily sins. Can you guess which sin this represents?

This photo was shot using a wide angle lens and a flash held off camera, attached to a synch cord to keep ETTL. For post processing, I used a photoshop action called Urban Acid. I had this action for awhile and kind of liked the look it gave this photo. I'm always on the lookout for new photoshop actions to try out and have a bunch. Sometimes just goofing around gives you a look you like. I get a lot of my actions from just googling. I also like to go to www.atncentral for some cool actions. A lot of free stuff is around if you just take some time.

Moon Shot

You don't need a telescope to take photos of the moon, although a long lens helps. This photo was taken with my camera and my 100-400mm canon lens at 400mm. When shooting the moon, I always remember "moonie 11". What this means is a good starting point is 1/Iso at f11. So, If I am shooting at ISO 100 at f11, my shutter speed would be 1/125th at f11 (remember your camera won't have 1/100th so you need to go 1/135th). That will give you a good target. Check you histogram for blown out highlights. Remember, a lot of the viewfinder will be black, so expect your histogram to be bunched up to the left side. What you want is to make sure you don't have any of the histogram touching the right side. If you don't have a histogram, then start at 1/125th and then bracket to make sure. This is one of my favorite shots of a full moon in American Samoa. I am impressed with the detail you can get with just a camera and a long lens. No telescope here.