Living Under Imagination

Last week, I had a toy shoot for some Castlevania toys that were going up for sale. The shoot was pretty straightforward, and all I needed was one off-camera strobe and a shoot-through umbrella. I initially planned to use my DIY macro studio, but it was too small for these action figures, and the ration of the diffusion sides to the size of the action figures wasn’t that favorable as well. If you want to make your own macro studio, there’s a tutorial over at the Strobist website. It’s easy to build and is a quick and effective way of getting great lighting in a jiffy. (more…)

I apologize for the incredibly long delay. But without further ado, the conclusion…

After our mini food-trip around Laoag, we were now back in Balay de Blas. Some of us chose to rest, while playing Monster Hunter, and some of us wanted to…uhm…relieve ourselves. I had gone first, and partly due to the poor ventilation of the CR, partly due to the intensity of my power, it took Rhoy, who was next in line, a few minutes before he could acquire an immunity to it. It was very unfortunate to Rommel, the third person in line though.

After our little rest, we went out to find a great place to cap off our whole trip. And we went to one of the best places there is in Laoag. We had sinanglao, some insrabasab, and a few more dishes that I can’t now remember. For dessert, our resident cheesecake aficionado, Leon, decided he wanted to treat us all for cakes. He bought three kinds for us to share. The carrot cake was delicious. Sadly, it was the blueberry cheesecake that fell to last place. It’s not that it wasn’t good, but it was just mediocre.

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Tripod curls using a heavy-duty tripod

As I mentioned last time, in a few days me and my buddies are off to our Northern Exposure trip. Since we’ll be travelling by bus, we’re going to be foregoing the luxury of trunk space and instead we’ll have to rely on our backs to carry all our luggage.

It’s important nowadays for photographer’s to stay in shape. This isn’t only for outdoor photographers to keep up with the rigors of on-location work, but also for studio photographer’s who might find it easy to just kick back and relax in the comfort of your studio. Fortunately, you can do these exercises without having to go to the gym and using equipment you might already have.

Disclaimer: I am a photographer, not a trainer. Do these exercises after consulting with your doctor or trainer.

Read on to start getting in shape.

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Front view of the Square Shooter 2

One good thing that came out of my flood experience, was that during the cleanup, one of the things from my grandma’s stuff that was washed out of her closet was a Polaroid Land Camera Square Shooter 2! It was a nifty little camera. I don’t know if it still works. When I got it, it was quite covered in mud. Upon opening the film chamber, the inside didn’t seem like any water seeped in. It was a bit dusty, as most old stuff do, but otherwise it was spic and span. The type-88 film that’s used for it has been out of production for quite some time now so unfortunately, I won’t be able to shoot with this thing any time soon. I’m considering getting one from PolaPremium or from The Impossible Project once their films roll out next year.

Polaroid Square Shooter 2 Land Camera

For those of you who don’t know yet, the Polaroid Corporation went bankrupt taking along the production of their films. Florian Kaps, an Austrian photographer rented out the Polaroid factory and equipment and is developing a new type of film for Polaroid cameras which will roll out by next year. You can read up about it in Wikipedia or from The Impossible Project website.