New Photoblog

Hi! Please visit my new photoblog at http://jca-photos.blogspot.com
Thanks!

Guidance

Couple of week before I took this picture, I told myself, "I want to have a photograph that would look like a photograph taken by a pro." For that two weeks, after my classes, I was at the park every sunny afternoon with my camera trying to compose a good photograph. I took photos of different subjects like big and small rocks, dry riverbeds, waves crashing and breaking on the shore, and floating wooden docks. Although some of my compositions were pretty good, I deleted most of them. I was not satisfied with the pictures even after I tweaked them. I wanted to bring out the best out of the picture, but it seems that I can't.

A week after I deleted all the pictures I took the previous week, without any reason, I browsed through my recycle bin, and I found this picture of the lighthouse. I thought that maybe I could work a little on this photo. However, after an hour of working on this photo, I was still not satisfied with the outcome. I decided to put the picture on greyscale, and I was surprised with the black and white image on my monitor's screen. "This is what I want!" I told myself with a smile on my face. This photograph of the lighthouse brought my ideas back to me.

I have learned a lesson from this experience. The problem I had when taking those photos that I tossed was I was thinking hardly about the idea of the subject and composition of those proffesional photographers. It is like I was trying to copy their work. After doing the post-processing of this photo, I thought that why does my brain was swimming in their ideas even though I knew that I could generate my own? Also, I think I forgot something. I forgot that every subject and every photograph has something to do with the feelings of the photographer; moreover, that feeling is what makes the photograph alive and meanignful.

Shutter Speed: 1/ 1.3 sec.
Aperture: F25
Focal Length: 25mm

Later

As I was setting up my tripod and my camera, a brown-skinned guy in his early 30's approach me. He asked me if I could be his friend's wedding photographer. I looked at him and humbly reject his offer and say that I am sorry because I don't know much about that photography style. Also, I don't want to embarass myself; I don't have experience shooting portraits. This story is of course not related to the picture. I just want to share my experience while composing this image.
The reason why I took this image is because this is like a representation of myself. I always want to observe, just observe. I just want to sit alone in a corner, and watch the world move. It is not that I don't care. It is just that I like to think why they do this and that, and probably learn something from what others were doing. The platform might represent me, and the busy backgrounds are the people that I see or encounter every single day.

Golden Flare

I had a warm memory of winter in Canada. My sister and I went to our brother's place in Canada for our Christmas vacation. I thought I'm going back home without any nice picture from Alberta, but I was glad that I was wrong. I took this gorgeous sunset at around three in the afternoon. The sun was like a ball of fire that burst in the air scattering its golden rays on the scene. The snow was like shining gold glitters scattered over the icy ground. It was impressive because the sun was big and bright even though the temperature was below freezing. The black heavy clouds on that set were starting to take over the blue sky. It looks like I captured a magical moment that time.

This was shot at a shutter speed of 1/400 seconds with an aperture of f/22 and a focal length of 18mm. I took this picture handheld and I did not use any flash.

Here's the link for the picture.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jcarevalo/3159146526/

Ready! Set! Click!

I have been doing photography for half of a year now. Since I started, I am always interested in taking picture of cityscape and/ or landscape, specially at night. Most of my works are cityscape because I live far from the country. Since spring has just sprung, I am trying to do macro(photographing small stuff like flowers and insects) as well. I am shooting with my d40 and planning to upgrade to D80 or D300. I am shooting in manual mode and using RAW files instead of .jpeg. I do the post-processing in Corel's Paint Shop Pro X2 because I can't afford to get a photoshop CS version. I have an account in flickr.com where you can find all of my works. The link is on the sidebar if you want to see it. I have few pictures that have been featured in flickr and a website for tourists in the United States; those are some of my photography achievements, I think.

I build this blog to show some of my works, and "try" to explain the story behind each of the pictures I take. I will try to include the location, so if you pay Seattle a visit you know where are some of the photography spot. For the growth of my creativity and ideas, positive and negative comments are welcome.

TEST POST

This photo has been selected and featured in a website for tourists in the United States.

This HDR image is a combination of three different exposure photos at 2 stops each. I did the post processing in Corel's Paint Shop Pro X2.

-----TEST POST-----