It’s over a week now since 2013 had begun, and I’ve decided that I do want to set some goals. More specifically, I want to set some tangible goals for blogging+photography.

It’s short. But the goal was to do things I could personally achieve at this time of the year.

Clear backlogs.

Here’s a guy who have 500 GB loads of mostly unsorted photos. I can finally work on that portfolio. Yippee!

Meeting personal deadline.

A  must. I’ve been so slow in achieving this last year. I wasn’t actually lazy, just got caught up in a lot of mess again. Here’s hoping for a mess free new year. Let’s cheers to that!

No shoot, no blog. It’s that simple!

Shoot, shoot, shoot! I’ve got a couple of things in my mind right now that I wanted to do. Can’t tangibly say how many, but I know it’s gonna be pretty amazing this time of the year!

So here it is, my 1st post for 2013!

Last September 15 of 2012 I was privileged to have attended another photography workshop by a team of fine-art, wedding and portrait photographers.

Each one of them is an artist of his own and believe it or not I was so amazed watching their slide-shows of their past and recent works.

But before I could even attend to this workshop, we have a bit of a problem. The country is currently experiencing non-stop monsoon rain since early dawn on that day. I woke up worrying the workshop might get canceled or I get to sing and dance a Gangnam style if I got stuck in traffic due to the floods and came in late because of it. Hahaha! To add, I have another problem of my own and that is, I don’t exactly know how to get around Makati, seriously! Somewhere in Makati is the place where the workshop is gonna be held, and Makati is the place I mostly try avoiding to go to but when I do, I never bring a car with me. 1st of all, it’s hard to find a parking space there. Secondly, the roads there are quite a maze not to mention the one-way streets. Lastly, this place has it’s own traffic policies that is totally confusing for a motorist that hails from Quezon city.

A few hours before the workshop, I was up already reading a message I received earlier asking each of us if we should push through even with the bad weather. I was having mixed emotions reading the message. A part of me says, “Oh my, I wish the workshop gets canceled as it feels so good just to sleep around with this weather” :). Lol. But, the other part of me says: ” I hope it pushes through as I have a flight the next day and I can only come back until next year, waaah!” 😦

Fortunately, “A Workshop” had pushed through as soon as the rain slowed down a bit and the floods have already subsided in some parts of the metropolis. As for me, I took the MRT route and rode a cab which got lost by the way 🙂 thank you! I was only able to find the place right after I asked a very kind “tricycle” driver I saw. After braving through flooded streets here and there, we were able to find the place just in time before the workshop starts!  I said to him; “ayus ang galing mo, eto po extra at salamat na marami!” (you’re so good, here’s a tip and thank you so much!).

And so we came, the second batch of participants since “A Workshop” officially started. The “A Workshop” team consists of (in no particular order) Patrick Diokno, Nicolai Melicor, Jaja Samaniego, Toto Villaruel & Ms. Jill.

The workshop started off with the “Basics”. It was more detailed and individualized to cater each and everyone’s level of “knowledge” and must I include that this workshop mostly concerns portrait photography. One of the key reason why I liked it.

The handouts used was neatly presented. What’s more flattering is that, each page is a photo itself 🙂 It was clean and very precise. It so small, it can almost fit my back pocket and it could serve as a field guide— neat!

Moreover, I didn’t know that food was included in the workshop!

After the hearty meal, we rested a bit and had a brief of Q&A. A few discussions left and we are off to a shoot. Yippee!

The shoot is the second part of the workshop. It was still raining that day although it was an on and off scenario. The thick, black and large clouds are still hovering above us. A sure way to ruin a shoot. It didn’t stop us though 🙂

I was struggling a lot shooting in that scene. Things we enjoy having when we are out on a shoot are the auto-focus, programmed shooting modes like portrait, landscape, etc. or semi-auto modes like aperture priority, shutter speed priority, etc, auto white balance, auto ISO & all the auto features your DSLR could handle are set to “ON”… Life, then would be a breeze for us enthusiasts out there isn’t it? But this time, the weather isn’t so. The light coming from the sky is not even enough for us to have a spot on focus. I had to toggle that M/A switch on the lens for me to manually focus every time my lens hunts. Manual exposure is the only way to go with this tricky scenario. I’ve been shooting manual ever since I’ve attended Purpose Driven Photography (PDP) workshop in 2011. Although, shooting in manual is also covered and discussed very well with “A Workshop” this should come in handy for those who don’t know how to do it yet.

Here are the photos I took…

I hope you enjoyed viewing them as much I enjoyed post-processing them above 40,000 feet! Yes, I did the post work on most of these images while flying back here in the sandbox. The very next day after I went to “A Workshop”! Of course, I didn’t want to forget all of those things I’ve learned not just yet 🙂 Just to add, I was really lucky to have very kind seat companions on my flight. The persons seating beside me (I was in the middle) were total strangers. I did told them, that if they wanted to sleep already they could just let me know and I would gladly turn my laptop off anytime. Both of them actually didn’t mind at all and they were quite an audience too! They were watching me doing post work to the images I took. They both said, I was good at what I was doing… they actually thought I was a professional photographer! hahaha. I just said thank you and I’ll take that as a compliment! 🙂 By the way, one of the best things doing post-work stuff on an airplane, is you get to be served by the cabin crews every now and then — like a bottomless coffee and peanuts.

It was still raining when I left Manila. Something I’ve always miss when you are in a country that has less precipitation over a year.

Due to my scheduled flight, I didn’t had the chance to attend the 2nd day of the workshop which covers the post-processing part. Fortunately, “A Workshop” didn’t left me behind but instead, they’ve decided to extend the workshop for me on that very 1st day I get to attend which should only cover the basic and the shooting part. It was right after we had the shoot and they— the awesome, A Workshop team! decided to teach me what’s in store for tomorrow, lucky me! And oh yes, it was Mr. Toto Villaruel himself who have taught me that day 🙂

For an hour more, I did learn a lot from him.

It was an amazing experience for me in getting the chance to learn to one of the country’s finest wedding and portrait photographer like Mr. Toto Villaruel. The very main reason, I attended this workshop is because of him… Even if it was just a short encounter, it was well worth it! Don’t get me wrong, all of them from “A Workshop” team are great photographers as all wedding photographers out there too. It just so happened I kinda liked images that breaks the “rules of photography” and nobody else does it better non-other than Mr. Toto Villaruel himself.

To know more about ‘A Workshop’ team and also for you to see some of their works. You can do so by clicking the links below….

Toto Villaruel – http://totovillaruel.com/blog/

Nicolai Melicor – http://www.nicolaimelicor.com/

Jaja Samaniego – http://www.jajasamaniego.com/

Patrick Diokno – http://patrickdiokno.tumblr.com/

To know more about ‘A Workshop’ and inquiries you have in mind, you can do so by sending them an email with this address:

aworkshopteam@gmail.com

The best part of any workshop, is actually being able to gain friends who shares the same passion as you do. I can’t imagine myself more other than being surrounded by great people from all walks of life talking about the same language as you do and that is photography.

I know, that when I do get home again. I always have something to look forward to. Awesome people whom I’ve met along my journey into photography. Who knows, one day I might get an invite to back one of them for a shoot 🙂

Or maybe at this time around, I could get into an apprenticeship 🙂

Me thinks, it’s gonna be a bright and exciting 2013!

Oh boy, am I so glad to be back blogging again! So sorry as I got caught up with some demanding issues lately at work and had an unfortunate and unforgettable experience with the authorities recently where me and another friend of mine (name withheld) were seized by civilian clothed police authorities while we were out taking some photos in the street and by the shore.

It sure was a scary experience for the reason that I can barely understand what they were trying to say about us. We were still lucky though as one of the officer on duty was fluent enough to translate to us and to his co-officers our answers to their queries. He also said that he was once a photography enthusiast when he was about our age which is really good and just in time as his co-officers had doubts already as to why I had to go down to the pile of rocks near the shore and shoot from there. They probably had it known the way I was shooting as we saw a coastguard interceptor boat and a helicopter hovering above to the scene where we were shooting from.

As I was trying to explain to them that I needed to have a nice reflection of the water and those rocks on the sea-shore are distracting my frame, I could see their faces cringed as they were trying to picture what I was saying then this officer from another room heard us and gladly came and helped us translate everything on why we are in such a place that is currently restricted which by the way we were totally unaware of.

Sadly, I wasn’t able to get the name of the officer who have helped us but I was able to say how grateful we were having him there and helping us with the translation. I could still even remember him saying in between the interrogation proceedings that his SLR camera was placed into an auction by his son somewhere on the internet for a couple of hundred dollars. He shoots film and does this while he travels which he does a lot on cruises back in the day. He was even proud to say how he enjoyed and loved seeing our country the Philippines about 20 years ago and as he fondly recalls some historic places and hotels where he stayed, I just couldn’t help but only wonder on how these places looked like as I’m not familiar with them but my friend does and lives close by to these places…

Now, the question is, what was I really doing in a place that most photographers even seasoned one’s wouldn’t even dare going to? Here it is, the main reason why we got into this trouble in the first place…

Weeks before we were held in custody, my dear wife saw some ads on Facebook about a photography contest. Little did I know she had the whole website printed already in an A4 size paper and carefully placed them on my desk where I saw them the next morning while I was having my coffee.

I just smiled… but it wasn’t about the contest but more of the sweet sticky note that came with it that my wife wrote 😉

While I was reading the details of the contest I already knew that it was going to be a landscape kind of work which I have not been doing for quite some time now, as I’m more into portraiture these days. And besides, I already had my share of bad experiences in the past doing landscape work and so it kind of didn’t appeal to me much in joining 😦

If it weren’t for that sticky note that my wife made I wouldn’t have given this a second thought. And so I came up with a mindset that if I were going to do this, then I might as well do this in an approach that would be more appealing to me. Since I’m into portraiture, I need to have some actual people in my frame and probably shoot in a way what a photojournalist would do. To me, this sounds like fun and it sure did boosted my willingness to join!

However, given with the situation this country is currently been facing and the heightened security imposed on almost everywhere. I realized that it would be an impossible thing to do and since I can’t do the kind of vision I had in mind, I again lost interest in joining.

And so, that’s what I thought…

With just a week left before the submission of the contest entry ends, I personally saw the ads on Facebook and followed their Facebook page. I even read some streams on their Twitter too but even if I kept reading their posts and streams I just couldn’t find an inspiration to do it anymore… Then it finally came to me that my wife’s birthday is coming soon and so I thought that the 1st prize which is a BD500 (US$1,300) shopping voucher is more than enough to buy her the iPhone which she really liked 🙂 That’s if, if I do win of course.

As the end date of submission drew closer each day, I’ve learned that some of the country’s top and well-known photographers locally and internationally was selected to judge the contest entries. I personally like Mr. Ali Rifai’s work in some of the billboards that I saw scattered all over this country. And when I saw the Twitter feed of the contest that Mr. Ali Rifai is indeed one of the chosen judges and another well-known Italian photographer Loredana Montello. I got into this thinking that this would be a great tool in my opinion of having my photo/s get to be critique by these well-known panel of judges, that even being included in the shortlisted category should be an honor already.

On that same day and after a day’s work, me and my friend went off to find the perfect spot to shoot for the contest. We basically have no idea where to go as most of the places we found are heavily secured by security personnel. Simply put, we just couldn’t find a place where there isn’t any security forces around. Be it on sea, land and air. That’s how the current situation here looks like.

After much persistence, we eventually found a place to shoot but unfortunately we were caught when we were about to leave the scene. Next thing we knew we are already being escorted on our way to a nearby precinct.

I remember praying so hard that night while we were heading over to the precinct they are bringing us. I remember to have been praying and praying every time I couldn’t understand anymore what they were saying about us. I didn’t know what else should I do as I can hardly speak their language and so I just kept praying. Soon enough, my prayers were answered! There’s the officer who came and have helped us with the translation, my boss and my friend’s boss too came later on. With our bosses arriving to the scene, we were temporary released after signing some release forms. It’s just that our camera gears and our car stays until the investigation is over. Technically, we could be in jail for the next 10 days until our case gets it verdict and if we were found guilty of a crime then we could be there for a much longer time…

Days passed and another officer from the precinct handling our case called me and informing me that we can already pick up our cameras as our case was dropped! I won’t get into further details anymore of how we were able to resolve our “case” but a LOT of people (and literally they were a LOT!) whom I have never met before have helped us get through with it. Through our families and friends, we were able to approach these people and they gladly lend their help to us strangers.

I’m just so grateful to our dear Lord that it is over by now and I thank Him more that He never ceases to listen to our prayers and kept us far from harm while we were in this ordeal. To all of my families, friends and the people whom we have sought help, thank you so much for all the help you have extended and the prayers you have given to us.

That basically ends the agony that I’ve been through recently and the main reason why I was in the loop for a while without shooting.

Up to this moment, I still couldn’t help but just wonder God’s work bringing all of these people to us together that even with our differences in religion, culture and beliefs and aside from the fact they were perfect strangers they still did everything they can in helping us. Whilst, most of them I haven’t even met personally and yet they were all doing these great things for us without asking anything in return. I don’t know how am I supposed to pay these guys back for what they did for us and I truly am grateful for all the acts of kindness and the experiences that these guys showed us, it truly changed the person I am today…

In summary, I won the contest although I didn’t get the 1st prize, I was able to take home the 2nd prize which is an Ipad 2! Yipee! 🙂

I didn’t get to shoot again after the incident… I didn’t even bother sending that photo I made that night that got me into this trouble. And so, how was I able to win then?

A day before the submission ends I was frantically thinking on how should I get the chance of joining still as I was on home arrest 😦

Then I remember in one of the guidelines. It says, images of entries can be from the year dates of 2010 up to the present. hmm… 🙂

I then kept thinking of any images that I have probably made in the past which I think qualifies. I smiled like having a day-dream as I recalled having a handful of images that I have made in the past which I think would fit the contest theme. Now, all I need to do is to run them down into just 3 which I know reflects my style. Unfortunately, I was able to find only one. Although we were allowed to send 3 entries, I went to the less traveled road that most contestants wouldn’t go and just gladly submitted a single photo entry.

Here’s my winning PHOTO:

Most of you might have seen this already but this is actually not the same as the one you’ve seen before (technically) as the one you saw before have a bit of post-processing work done into it. But this one doesn’t have any edits and it’s one of the shooting style that I mostly do and which I really love doing. This photo came straight out of my camera. Although post-processing was allowed in the contest to some extent. I didn’t go with that one since it just doesn’t reflect much of my style. Just to add, I saw this view while I’m on my way home from work. It was just before the bridge coming from Hidd. I came back to this place and brought along 2 of my fellows from GPN (Gulf Photographers Network) Kim and Red to shoot the view that I saw.

Here’s some of the images I took from the exhibit wherein our works were showcased in Seef Mall along with the other winning entries. Boy, I was so glad seeing that one of my co-fellow from GPN to have bagged the first prize! Congrats Ferdi 🙂

– My surname was erroneously replaced by my middle name. LOL. It’s ok, my mom would surely be so proud! 😉

My wife was more than happy to have the Ipad 3G that I’ve won as her birthday present instead of the iPhone which she originally liked 🙂 So I gladly gave it to her the very same day it was awarded to us. As she’s mostly into novels and after finding out that reading eBooks on the iPad is more convenient because of it’s larger screen size compared to an iPhone, she fell in-love with it at first sight! She loves it more these days after I installed the apps she mostly use on the PC and now all of them can be found and be accessed with just a simple touch of her fingers while she’s crumpled on a couch or in the bed.

1 lucky winner, 1 happy birthday celebrant and most importantly, case closed!

and our little bonus from our prize:

Izzie loves it too! 🙂

To my surprise, I just found out that our winning entries was published in yesterday’s newspaper! It’s actually one of my first! *blush

I’ve just known that there are about 500 entries that joined, it was then narrowed down to 100, down to 29 and finally, only nine of us was left as Gulf Weekly said.

Here’s some photos from my phone that I took while reading yesterday’s publication of Gulf Weekly 🙂

—chriscarinophotography.wordpress.com—

I won—again, yey! the photo posted above is a portrait of Rodz that I took and my winning entry for bagging the 1st place in our shoot out 🙂

note: sorry for posting this late, my pc crashed when I was about to post this…

Last Saturday – July 16,2011, is the day of our shootout! It was a day of reckoning for us students as we get to apply all the theories we’ve learned hands-on for the past 6 weeks and choose one photo unedited or non-photoshopped that is to be printed and submitted on our graduation day which is to be held on July 23.

We all first met at Imagine Nation Studios to discuss the things we need to do and divided ourselves into groups then off we go to have our lunch 1st at the nearby and ever famous Alob-Alob restaurant! xD

I personally find the six (6) themes that was given to us to be challenging as I don’t or haven’t tried doing those kind of shoot yet but I liked them anyway 🙂

One more thing, we were all shooting in manual mode… it’s daunting at first but we soon got the heck of it. Being in a team does help a lot in setting our exposure right as we share and discuss to have the right exposure tailored for our theme. We were given 15 mins for each model. And 15 mins is just too short so we need to work fast, really fast! There were 4 models that will pose for us during this event
and I should really say this, that they were all really patient and cooperative, thanks to all of u guys! 🙂

The place:
– Wildlife Center in Quezon City

Time:
– We started shooting around 2:30pm I think and the sun was really overpowering that time. What makes it more difficult is the passing of some thick, dark clouds every now & then. And because of that, light values was very unpredictable. One minute its too harsh and by the time you got your exposure right then here
comes the cloud/s and now, you are just left with a itsy-bitsy quality of light 😦 but it eventually turned great as the time starts hitting almost 4pm 🙂

Whew! I think we were all physically drained as we finished the shootout. I personally would like to thank my classmates for being such good samaritans in having us in their cars 🙂 Thanks Steve, Joedel and Doc Nenel! 🙂
and of course the rest of the PDP Batch 10! I hope we still get to meet, shoot and pass on the word of God even though we are almost at the end of our class.

Lastly, to the rest of the staff of Imagine Nation Photography most specially to Mr. Derrick Lim, Mr. John Mateos Ong, Ms. Shayla Sanchez-Hembrador, Ms. Arlene Briones and Mr. Toto Villaruel. In behalf of PDP Batch 10, I personally would like to thank all of you for having us in your class and sharing your God given talent to us be it photography or not. You guys are just awesome! Wishing you a thousand if not millions of batches este weddings and shoots to come! ^.^

Update: July 29, 2011

I honestly didn’t know that the photo we would submit would be an entry for another contest! and my photo of Rodz’s won 1st place! yey!:) thanks a bunch PDP and Imagine Nation Photography for the prize you gave me! 🙂

below are some additional photos I took from our shoot out:

besides working full time in an office. Rodz does part time work as an image model. if u guys are interested in working with her let me know so I could hook you up.

this last photo is a portrait of Ina from which I almost ended up submitting. but after knowing that no-photo editing/enhancement software’s should be used it ended up sitting on my desktop 😦 and so I’d thought I’d share it here so you guys could see it 🙂