Morning walk to Starbucks...

Most mornings in June, there is usually a marine layer overhead, burning off by noon. But yesterday morning was awesome and I thought it would be nice to take a little family walk to Starbucks together. Should be fun now that Terrence is pretty apt at riding his bike.

I continue to practice my no look photography. :)

No look photography comes out a bit missed-focus at times. Especially when I have a very narrow depth of field. But it allows you to capture the genuine expressions on a moving target. Get in their face intimateness of the photo is hard to duplicate while standing still. Run and gun photography at it's best.

An example of a standard photo. It doesn't have the same dynamic feel as the previous set. Not bad, just a different take depending on what you're aiming to capture.

Love the color harmony of this one and the expression on lil.J's face.

Happy Friday all.

Lakers For the Win!

Congrats to the Los Angeles Lakers on their hard fought win last night at the Staples Center. What a crazy wrestling...errr ball game that was. Nail biter till the end, that's for sure.

Back to back champs so that means this year, Jason gets to don the uniform his Uncle Terry purchased. It's a tad on the big side so here's hoping for a 3-peat so he get to wear it again next year. :)

Gearing up...

I think it's funny how a simple supervised bike ride requires all this safety gear. Oh well, I'll find other ways to toughen the boys up. In the mean time, he looks pretty cute in his gear. Julie had to go pick up some bigger pads than the one his aunt/uncle gave him because he already outgrew them. At least Jason can use it in the mean time.

I can hear them outside riding the bike around the neighborhood while I am stuck inside working on some long overdue client albums. The weather is beautiful today too so I am glad Julie and the boys are taking advantage of it.

Perhaps a stop by Yakyudori Ramen will be my reward after they wake from their noon nap.

I think he's admiring his own reflection.

Wayback machine: Feb 2010

Some photos from Chinese New Year back in Feb.

On the way back from dinner...

Some photos on the way back home from dinner at Luna Grill. The adjacent neighborhood of Del Sur has nice parks and gardens nestle within it's community. I thought I'd introduce Julie to the area since she drives by the area on her way home from work practically everyday, most likely oblivious to it all. :) The light was just gorgeous so I just had to take advantage of it with a few snaps while the kids run around.

Terrence likes to pick up things like leaves and show the camera. Actually, he likes to hide from the camera behind it.

Terrence in a full run and I had the camera down low to the ground to get this vantage point. The setting sun was gorgeous and since Terrence and the sky is lit by the same light, you get perfectly exposed skies. Only thing I have to do is make sure I snap focus on Terrence while running full on backwards and shoot without the ability to look through the camera. These shots were all at f/1.4. The shallow depth of field allow for the nice blurred background.

My two cuties.

Something lurks in the background.

My other cutie. Love him.

Photos from Terrence's 3rd Birthday

More photos from the digital camera. Terrence's 3rd birthday in March. How time flies.

White Bavarian cream cake at European Cake.

This bus goes round and round, not just the wheel.

Film: 3rd Birthday at Adventure City

Some photos taken on my film camera at Adventure City. Adventure City is a little kid centric amusement park in Anaheim. I never knew a place like this existed and it was a perfect location to let the little one work off their energy. The place isn't too big so you can definitely split up and still be able to locate each other when needed.

Terrence was too busy riding on the rides to pose for a photo. LOL Anyways, here are some.

Film: A moment out...

Not certain when these were taken since they were on a roll of film that I got back not too long ago. I think I may have shared a single frame from this set in a previous post. I was practicing metering with my film camera with the light back-lighting the subject. When the sun is high, it makes for very bright, harsh, unflattering light. That is why photographers like to shoot either early in the morning, or during the few hours preceding sunset.

There are tricks to employ when you have no choice. One being to find open shade. Meaning, put the subject in a shaded spot, but towards the edge where the sun and shadow meets. This serves to allow the sun to indirectly light the subject and do it an a soft and flattering way. If you move too deep into the shadow, the light will often give more of a bluish cast. Which isn't as flattering on skin tones.

Another technique is to have the sun backlight the subject. With the sun to the subject's back, it prevent the squinting that would happen if the sun were to in front of the subject. Shooting in this mode, the camera's internal metering get's confused and fooled by the brightness of the scene, so it'll want to underexpose your photo. You must know to override this by either shooting in manual mode or setting your exposure compensation to +2 or +3. Another way is to put your camera into spot metering mode and lock the meter on the subject's face. Even for photographer's shooting professionally, we must practice to have the confidence that we can override what the camera wants to do to achieve the look we're going for. Anyways, here's a few example of that as I figured out how it looks on film. Thought I'd share.