sinceday1's Xanga

Saturday, November 29, 2008

Sat, 29 Nov 2008 18:21:57 GMT

Water Village - Tai O

D70, Tokina AT-X 124 AF PRO DX, C-PL, ND-Grad
12mm, 1/20sec, f/5.6, ISO 320

D70, Tokina AT-X 124 AF PRO DX, C-PL, ND-Grad
12mm, 1/20sec, f/5.6, ISO 320

Monday, September 15, 2008

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 06:17:25 GMT

Mid-Autumn

D70, Tokina AT-X 124 AF PRO DX
12mm, 1/100sec, f/4, ISO 1000

D70, AF-S 24-85 f/3.5-4.5
85mm, 1/30sec, f/4.5, ISO 1600

To be reminded not to take anything for granted. Hope everyone enjoyed mid-autumn festival.
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Featured photographer: Joey Lawrence

Monday, November 12, 2007

Mon, 12 Nov 2007 09:37:42 GMT

Bluffer's Park

D70, Tokina AT-X 124 AF PRO DX, C-PL
Merged bracketed exposures
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Featured photographer: Hiroshi Sugimoto

Thursday, June 01, 2006

Thu, 01 Jun 2006 06:22:36 GMT

Pigeon's view.

F80, AF-S 24-85 f/3.5-4.5, Fujichrome Velvia 100 rated at EI200
Selective Colour, Channel Mixer
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Urban pillow fight at the heart of downtown Toronto. Perspective encapsulates a pluralistic blend of individualities against a backdrop of soaring skyline, leaving room for viewer's imagination.

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Featured series: Forests Forever

Monday, February 13, 2006

Mon, 13 Feb 2006 09:19:59 GMT

Lightscape.

S602z. Curves, Channel Mixer
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Reviewed some past photos while doing a routine system check prior to backing up my hard drive; a hunt for those lurky malware that bypassed multiple firewalls, anti-spyware and anti-virus running simultaneously, which are themselves resource hogging but only being the lesser of the evils; renewing my suspicion of an anti-virus conspiracy. So anyway, here's a photo that I dug up, an aerial taken over the Alaska Range on my flight to here a year and a half ago. Long journeys are easily filled up with random thoughts to kill boredom, and while this shot was taken just minutes after the first light, I questioned whether in actuality it was a sunrise or a sunset. Our concept of time is filled with ambiguity in our effort to measure time linearly to help us make sense of the day. So I left Hong Kong for Toronto in the evening, and after about ten hours of starring at the navigation info screen whist flying over the Pacific in pitch darkness, a hint of light started to trickle into the cabin when we reached above the Alaskan skies; so for us on the plane, it was morning. This scenario did not produce uncertainty as we were traveling eastwards with the earth's rotation so the sun was indeed also rising in Alaska; though it's now obvious to point out that westbound flights such as those from Hong Kong to London flying over the Middle East will create such ambiguity in determining dawn and dusk.

The mountain ranges and Alaskan glaciers were magnificent and could be clearly seen at some 30,000 ft above sea level. I quickly got out of my seat with my camera. Most passengers were still resting at the time so the only accessible window was at the rear of the cabin where there was a line to glimpse the outside. Without further boring you with my mediocre photograph, I recommend you to thoroughly explore Galen Rowell's Mountain Light for some real stuff.

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Featured photographer: Galen Rowell

Monday, November 07, 2005

Mon, 07 Nov 2005 12:03:38 GMT

My Getaway.

S602z, 1/5s, f/2.8, ISO200
Sidewall bounce w/ desk lamp
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Thoughts began to trickle through as autumn leaves shedded onto me like teardrops. My attention shifted rapidly from the inside to outside - the external - everything that hasn't already been constituted within oneself from the past up til the present; thoughts we've yet to conceive, knowledge we've yet to attain, space we've yet to travel, people we've yet to cross path with, the inch of air beyond our reach, and everything that does not directly associate with oneself. Think of it for a moment, it is a vast space of infinity, an eternal force that keeps on running with the tides with or without our mere existence, or we can simply think of this as Nature.

As we constantly and continuously progress into the future, a minute part of this externality is transformed into the knowns or our internalities. It happens as we breathe, as this pure form of energy which never fragments and that we are all a part of known as nature evolves entropically. We're all familiar with the things that are internal to us: our thoughts, our emotions, our knowledge and our experience, while being forced to neglect the external. It is by definition of the word, a fact that noone can escape, since we're all finite beings whose boundaries continue to expand minutely into this infinite externality. Nature is a neccessity, the source of everything we need and the maker of who we are, the most powerful evident of God we'll ever come to.

Science, on the other hand, is a merge of internalities, a systematic accumulation and communiation of knowledge based upon individual experiences within this system that has become so seemingly boundless. Though we may be aware of its illusion and acknowledge our own limited perspectives, it is hard to completely elude from it. Our collective knowledge, just as the individual's, will always be limited and confined within its finite boundaries, despite continually expanding, will always remain minute relative to the whole. Therefore the denial of something which science fails to prove is unscientific in and of itself.

However you may wish to interpret this, we are all inescapably a part of this larger whole. So whenever we feel confined by difficulties within our very own lives - rest our minds and feel whole with Nature, to understand that all things belong to it, all things come from it and that all things will go with it in the end. We will know better tomorrow than we do today, yet this newfound knowledge, position and/or perspective will prompt new questions, new contradictions and a new set of challenges - so just take them one at a time. This is my getaway aside from photography.

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Ah yes, the votes! The result: Ineteresting how Little bird has won by a comfortable margin mostly voted by girls, whereas the 'big bird' Blue heron, a personal favourite along with Last to fall, was mainly voted by guys, coincidence? Here is a breakdown, votes with multiple selections were used for tie-breaking:

1.Little bird (b,14) 2.Knox (f,11) 3.I saved you a seat (g,10) 4.Blue Heron (h,10) 4.With you (a,8)
6.Last to fall (d,5) 7.Luminous nightfall (e,5) 8.Bailemos 2 (i,4) 9.Bailemos (j,2) 10.Voiceout(c,0)

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Featured photographer: Sacha Dean Biyan

Sunday, September 25, 2005

Sun, 25 Sep 2005 01:22:03 GMT

Day 1842.

S602z, 1s, f/4, ISO160
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You may or may not already know that I'm a critical thinker, one that isn't exceptional with his words. My effort to omit speech has made me a strong believer in that silence is gold, hence perhaps a bit of mystery to some. A loner by choice or just a loner? Well it's hard to say, but I've always been blessed with a few good friends around listening to every last itching word I have to voice, which are often just analytical views of my past; organization and reflection upon my own history and adjustments to my self-perception. It had been a long 1842 days, you're not aware of my well concealed scars.

On a more positive note, thank you to those 300 readers who are currently subscribed. For some who have been reading since the start I feel as though we've known each other for awhile, always good to hear from.

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Vote for your favourite photograph from since day one (1 vote per user)

a.                          b.                         c.                         d.                          e.

f.                          g.                         h.                         i.                          j.

Thursday, September 01, 2005

Thu, 01 Sep 2005 08:59:54 GMT

Last to fall.

F80, AF-S 24-85 f/3.5-4.5, Kodak Tri-X pushed to EI1250
Imagekind B&W Photography Contest 1st Place
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Cornered by strips of freeways and barren construction lands the confined site would soon be lost to the redundancies of urban planning, doing little to reflect its Genius Loci; its title 'The Last to Fall' stresses on the inevitability and irreversibility of suburbanization.

An element of time comes into play through the alternate meanings of 'last' and 'fall'; expressing a desire to outlive the summer in a bleak tone, as its disappearance was as sure to happen as the change of seasons - a metaphoric notion to be explored by the viewer, delivering a personal experience beyond the image's documentary value.

Lastly, to all those of you who were keen eyed on my previous entry, I would like to sincerely thank you.

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Today's featured photographer: Ofer Halevi
Ofer Halevi has an eye for recording the juxtaposition of people and their inanimate environment. In this portfolio you can experience Ofer's passion for detail, interaction, and patterns.

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Monday, August 22, 2005

Mon, 22 Aug 2005 07:18:55 GMT

Toronto's famous.

F80, AF-S 24-85 f/3.5-4.5, Kodak Tri-X pushed to EI1250
1/180s, f/5.6 w/ 25A & C-PL filters, no flash
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It has been another year with little excitement, still no signs of breaking through this vicious cycle of underachievement despite being presented by yet another opportunity to start afresh in this new environment. Situations arise in various formats, times and locations but aren't all that fundamentally different. I really haven't got much to say at this moment, so I'll sign off by leaving you with one of my favourite quotes. So long, twenty-three.

"No stream rises higher than its source. What ever man might build could never express or reflect more than he was. He could record neither more nor less than he had learned of life when the buildings were built." - Frank Lloyd Wright

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Today's featured photographer: Markus Hartel
An urban photographer whose works portray his impressions on public places with attentions drawn to details of everyday life.

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Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Wed, 17 Aug 2005 20:10:47 GMT

Rhythmicru.

F80, AF-S 24-85 f/3.5-4.5, Kodak Tri-X pushed to EI1250
1/20s, f/4 w/ K2 filter, rear-sync flash
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Live performance by a Toronto based hip hop group at 102.1 The Edge radio station. Entry was free so I put my roll of Tri-X to work at EI1250. The music was fairly decent though I hadn't given much attention to the lyrics as I squeezed around for a tight spot to take this shot.

Perfection lies within the imperfection, or just how is perfection defined? These were words I used to describe a bittersweet relationship some years ago and was reminded today, only in a completely different genre.

As someone brought up if noise was an issue with those shots in my last entry; Well, the short answer is no, there is no noise, but an increased grain size from pushing a film. Unlike digital's amplified background signals, it's the result from overdeveloping an underexposed film.

The coarser grains make edges less crisp, accompanied with a lost in ability to retain shadow and highlight details, all the contrary to a technically perfect image. Esthetics, however, cannot be taught or thought of with the same criteria, we each have our own preference and purpose of shooting, which is reflected in our work. A contrasty coarser image may in many cases be preferred to a flatten finely detailed one, the appropriateness to the intended type of work should be considered and there're no rules to perfection.

Now, don't confuse noise signals w/ film grains as they're wholly different concepts, noise aren't embedded into an image like grains and have no purpose of being in it. I am not steering this in the direction of film vs. digital because that would be another story.

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Today's featured photographer: Rodney Williams
Nature and macros are his specialty with occasional portraits that make us smile from our hearts. Here is one of my many favourites. Be sure to browse thoroughly if you don't want to miss out on some brilliant images.

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