January

Happy New Year!

And to continue on from the last post, here's some of my favorites from January so far...EPA peace march

Protest against Israeli attacks in Gaza

Car crash on the 280 -all minor injuries
The girl on the right was the driver and is being comforted by her mom.

Photographer whose work focuses on oak trees in danger of succumbing to sudden oak death

Ice Skating at the Winter Lodge

1st day of new student registration

New mural at Addison Elementary

Stanford students rehearse a dance piece called "Crash"

Rehearsal of Chinese Nutcracker

It's Been Awhile

I know, I know, it's been awhile since I posted on here. Maybe it's because this column I read back in October on Sports Shooter made me a little discouraged (just look for reason #2) : http://www.sportsshooter.com/news/2082
Or maybe I just got lazy after picking up work full time at the Weekly and didn't feel like posting anything after work or on the weekends. Or maybe I was just being my usual procrastination-prone self and kept putting off posting photos until wait, it's January already? Anyways, here's some of my more favorite photos from Nov-Dec -and I don't care if no one is really interested about my blog, I'm doing it for me!

This is a follow-up to an amazing story that was first published in the Weekly in February 2008. The boy on the left is Shawn, a ten year old who had been waiting over 2 years for a heart transplant and finally received one in July. In December, after a rollercoaster recovery, he was finally able to return home to Alaska. Former Chief Photographer Norbert Von Der Groeben did an amazing photo story and slideshow about Shawn when he was waiting for his heart. You should check out the link here: http://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/show_story.php?id=8870#slide_show
this is from a feature about a local bus driver who is a hero and got her children to safety when a drive-by happened while she was driving the kids home.

this photo really reminds me of my middle school, MBI, and how we used to have to run the morning tv program. Zero period sucked.Thanksgiving feature...poor turkey made quite the feast I bet.

At Deer Hollow Farm

Fall features

Banjo from WWI

Detail of a mandolin from a story about the Museum of American Heritage's musical instruments exhibit

Sophie and the Enchanted Toy Chest (or something like that) performed for patients at Stanford Hospital in Dec.

Food Porn

When I first started interning at the Weekly back in Fall 2006, I received food and drink assignments a few times a month. Back then I really didn't enjoy shooting still life images at all (I was craving moments and spontaneous spot news). I would show up to restaurants not really knowing what the heck I was doing; hoping the chef just made something colorful and well presented that would be easy to photograph- something that would require little creativity on my part. But my how things have changed. The more and more I delve into studying studio lighting and trying to replicate it, the more and more I relish the occasional food photo assignment as an opportunity to explore my photographic identity. It's starting to become a passion for me: the composition, the lighting (now I have 2 light stands, whoo hoo!), the choice to include background details-or not, and the best angles to make food look at its best. It's a nice change from being the recorder of a scene to its creator; a newfound ability to imagine and produce.

High school filmmaker

A few weeks ago I was assigned to get a portrait of David Harris, a 16-year-old filmmaker who recently just directed a short film which has won all these awards at various youth film festivals. His film is about a kid who works at a funeral home, so I really wanted the portrait to reflect the dark and moody subject matter David took on in his film. When I told him my idea, he supplied all the props. I shot all these images at his school, the location I chose was down a hallway leading to the boy's bathroom. I was really attracted to the window at the end of the hall, and also that there were no lights. Believe it or not, this was taken right after school in the middle of the day. I used two lights most of the time, at the beginning I had them both shining on David from opposite sides (which you can see in the second photo below). Although I loved how his shadow was coming out on both walls and how illuminated he was, the lighting just wasn't as dramatic as I wanted. So in the end, I settled for one light (held up by his dad) with a gobo attached shining from the far right, then I placed the second light behind to add in the hair light and give him that rim light. If I had to do it again, I would have definetely had a third light for fill on the left side, and really bring out those lights and the chair better. Oh well. Anyways, this was a really fun assignment especially since I had the time and patient model to really work with it on. He is a very driven teenager; I am certain he will succeed well with film in the near future.

Not nearly as dramatic, but I wanted to show the school setting too.

Apples to Apples

I just bought a new toy to play with; my new foldable lightstand with umbrella mount. I think it was my last assignment in which I photographed a 16-year-old filmmaker using 2 lights which had to be held up by boxes and the filmaker's dad that finally pushed me to just go out and get a stand already. I will post the filmmaker photos soon...they turned out really cool I think. So, with my newfound freedom with being to able to shoot with 2 lights, I feel my creativity is just getting started. When I got assigned my latest Food&Drink assignment which was just asking for photos of apples, I thought I'd try out my luck and really take advantage of my flashes. For the shot above, I actually used 3 lights. I cross-lit a row of apples from the sides and used my master flash to fill in the direct highlights. I used CTO gells to give it more of that "autumn" glow. I've also included my set-up shots and technical info in case anyone is interested in how I shot this. Disregard my ghetto studio which is actually a desk in the newsroom that is always overflowing with newspapers and books.

Technical Info:
camera:Canon 20d using lens @20 mm, Iso 100, f5 @1/250.
strobes: Left Canon 550ex, snooted and gelled with full CTO@ 1/64 power
right Canon 430, snooted and gelled with full CTO@1/64 power
Master strobe on camera, Canon 550ex @1/128 power

this one is my favorite, I'm glad I decided to spritz on some water to really give it more texture and eye appeal.

technical info:
camera: lens @35mm zoom, Iso 100, f4 @1/250
strobes: left 550ex snooted and gelled with full CTO @1/64 power
right 430ex snooted and gelled with full CTO @1/64 power

found objects

soon to be nonexistent

Whoa, it's been forever since I posted on here. I don't really know why it has taken me 5 months to finally post something new. I figure indifference, laziness, and self-doubt are the main reasons to blame. But that's changing. I'm trying to push myself into new directions of photography...getting better moments, becoming more patient with assignments and seeking out better composition, and seeing objects in a different light. So, in between my assignments I've started looking out for interesting lines, shapes and shadows found in stationary objects. This is all personal work I'm just doing for fun and posting on here. I don't know what it is about lines and symmetry but I seem to be gravitating towards it with my lens sometimes.

21 colors of the same shoe


imprints on the pavement

patterns repeated

Robots!

Somedays when I'm working down here I'm reminded that I'm in the smack dab of Silicon Valley, completely surrounded by incredibly smart people. While teaming up with a reporter on his story about local robotic-engineering (ok, so it's probably officially referred to as "artificial intelligence") we got a sneak peak at the robots of the soon-to-be future. This includes the all robotic operating room, which is controlled by a surgeon who could be as far away as space, using voice-recognizable 3-D virtual reality technology that controls the bots. They even thought so far ahead that there are several robots in the operating room who duplicate the tasks of their human counterparts, such as a scrub nurse, and a supply nurse. The all robotic operating room is currently being used for simple surgeries -although you won't be able to sign me up for one anytime soon. Do you think you could picture yourself lying on this gurney? Of course they tell us there will be actual humans to supervise the whole process....lest something terrible happens, like the robots taking control.

The O.R. of the future?

Robotic fingers that can even sew stitches