photography

Lights, Camera, Action…Oliver the Photographer

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On Sunday, my photography journey takes to Los Angeles for a photography workshop.  For this workshop, I got up at 5am to get ready.  I was getting picked up by Dave and Andy at 6:30am.  Luckily the night before I packed up everything.  And surprisingly I didn’t write a packing list this time which until recently I wrote out a packing list for everything.  Looking back on it, I was a bit frazzled just trying to make sure I got everything pack but as always I packed more than I needed.  Go figure.  So I was ready and waiting at 6:15am.  I decided to wait outside of my house so that I would just be there and ready to leave when Dave and Andy arrived.

At about 6:40am Dave and Andy arrived and we headed off to LA for the shoot.  Driving up we had a varied conversation about photography, freeways, and why certain things are the way they are for example how America isn’t as free as some people would like to think.  It was a good conversation.

After driving for about 2 hours, we finally made it with incident to our shooting location. Today’s shoot was put on by The Socal Photography Group and McCaddenSpace Studio was hosting us.  McCaddenSpace studio is a 3,500 square feet working studio that we had the run of the place.  The studio had many awesome vignettes, one of my favorites was the Kitchen setup.  I dug the kitchen because it was a simple 1960s style kitchen that reminded me of the simpler times again.   And it was one of the locations that I planned out to shoot in for the day.  The studio had other areas such as a awesome bar setup, a record lounge area, and some of the best retro furniture.

One of the first things that we did when we arrived was to grab some food.  Dave was looking for some breakfast food so we headed up to a place called the Hollywood Corner to grab some food.   After waiting for about 15 minutes for the food we both headed back to the studio to some relaxing and planning for the day.

However did we know that there was a little problem brewing.  The issue that started to brew was that people were all running behind.  While some of use showed up early and on time, others we really behind, and one of the most important components of the shoot that was behind was the hair department.  So it was then that we started to look through our phones, facebook, and other means to search for a last minute hair person.  I guess I didn’t understand the gravity of the problem but it was fun to try to figure out we can do the hair ourselves.  All I knew was that I wasn’t going to photoshop any hair.  That for me was a definite no.  I couldn’t comprehend doing that.  But our anxiety was soon over when our hair department arrived.  And the ease and fun returned.  However because they were late we all started later than we would have liked.

Before any shooting started we all did our introduction and house rules.  When I did my little speech, I just tried to make as simple as it is possible.  And I didn’t mention that I won the last competition.  🙂

When the hair department arrived I waited for about 15 minutes for them to prep and than I decided to setup my lighting for the photograph that I had in mind for the shoot.  It took me about 15 minutes to setup the light and scene for my photograph.  However it took another 30-45 minutes or so to shoot because my friend Betty was quickly asked if she could be photographed.  So I waited until she was free.  After waiting I finally got the opportunity to work with Betty once again.

Betty is one of the models that I met at a previous shoot, that I became good friends with.  She is just awesome.  I really do enjoy working with her.  The both of us just work very well with each other and we collaborate very well.  This would be the third time that I worked with her on a shoot.

So after waiting, I finally had the opportunity to work with Betty.  So with the lights all set up.  I prepared her for the story that we were going to create.  One reason that I love working with Betty is because she takes a story that I create for her to act out and take it and makes it work even better.  The story for today’s kitchen shoot was the “murderous wife.”  As always when I get ready to photograph, I act out the scene with my model.  I give them the motivation and a reason for the photo.  I find by doing this it helps both the model and myself.  And it also allows for collaboration to take place.  After spending about 15 minutes of shooting together we finished out portion of the shoot.  At the time it was basically the only thing that I wanted to shoot well mainly because I planned and envisioned the shot that I wanted.

It’s nice to look back and see where I have been.  So far the journey has taken on a journey where I didn’t see myself going.  Over the years I have gone from a trigger happy photographer to a thoughtful photographer.  I still have a lot of things to learn but I know that so far my journey has been good.

I’ll have to save the rest of the day of shooting for another post.  Because frankly I’m a bit tired.  I actually did play some catch on my blogging because Saturday I forgot to post my Saturday post, and then yesterday arrived home late to post my post.   And shortly I will work on today’s post.

 

A Quiet Day but Productive Day…Oliver the Engineer, the Cook, the Photographer

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Today was another somewhat interesting day at work.  Interesting, in terms that it seem that all the huff and puff of getting things done ASAP was immediately wiped cleaned from everyone’s radar.  Seriously it was strangely weird for it to happen but I would be lying to say that it hasn’t happen before.  This is one of the things about work that I’m seriously confused about. And to add insult it makes me frustrated and makes me feel that i’m not productive.  The confusing thing is that one day certain things are a huge issue and then the next its not and then in that same day another issue is priority.  Sometimes I just want to throw my hands up and give up on this project.  But then I tell myself that I’m not one to quit and that if it hasn’t killed me yet, it will only make me stronger.  I wonder if this is flawed thinking?

Is it flawed?  I really do like my job but this project is seriously “work.”  But it is work that just doesn’t seem productive and leading to anywhere.  Writing this is seriously just making me a bit frustrated to think that I just wasted a lot of time doing nothing.  So at this point time will only tell what will happen or at least I will report what happens.

But since it was a quiet day in the office, this gave me an opportunity to do some thinking and some time to go over the work that I just submitted.  So I did that like a good school kid and work diligently at the assignment.  The funny thing is that I found a lot of mistakes that I know that I will have fix and correct soon.  But at least this time around I have a game plan.  I just hope this game plan isn’t interrupted with another “priority” side project.  And it is just this kind of talk that I seriously want to have a cubicle that I can close and work on my portion of the project.

Now with my current coworkers out of the office, that gave me another opportunity to hang out with my work family.  My work family has been an integral part of my work ethic at Caltrans.  These are the people that gave me an opportunity and believed in me to be the best that I can be at my job.  So to hang out with them, we went to one of our normal lunch time hangout places, Ichiban in Pacific Beach, CA.

At Ichiban, we always get the lunch special bento box and a side of sushi that we all share.  It is a nice bonding time.  We catch up on what’s going, talk about what happening around work, and as of lately has been my venting session about my current work place.  I appreciate my former co-workers giving me an opportunity to do some venting.  And then they also give me some feedback on what I should do and just give me support.  In addition my former supervisor gets to hear what’s going on in my group and gain some insight into what’s going on.  So today’s vent session basically just confirmed my suspicions that some people are setting up some other people to ultimately fail which for the life of me I just don’t understand.  I thought, that we are all on the same team but I guess with today’s revelation we are not.  Is it everyman for himself?  I don’t know but it sure seems like that.  Like a said before only time will tell.  But i’m going to try my hardest to not be sucked into this void of a hole.  This session was a good one to have because it has been awhile that we had a talk like this in a few weeks.

After lunch, we head back to the “dungeon” as I like to call it.  I only call my floor the dungeon, everywhere else around the complex is pretty much happyland to me.  The rest of the afternoon at work went by uneventful.  Which is a good thing because it allowed me to leave work on schedule.  So ask you can see it was a relatively quiet day.

With work out of the way, I went about my normal routine which usually calls for checking in with my parents to see what they would like to eat for dinner.  I’ve been cooking for my parents for close to 2 years now.  Wow!  Seriously 2 years, I just realized that.  All I can say is damn.  In those 2 years, I have learned to be confident as a cook.  My cooking aspirations will have to wait for another post.  Let just say for the mean time that I’ve seriously had fears of not learning how to cook.  I seriously doubt that I would like eating out everyday and relying on someone to cook for me.  So 2 years ago I made a promise to myself to 1) learn how to cook my mom’s food, 2) learn how to cook so that I can do it my way and experiment, and 3) to show people that I can do and that guys can seriously cook ( we don’t just grill, ladies ).

For today’s dinner, I was ask to make Sinigang.  Sinigang is a Filipino dish / stew, that is made of pork ribs or any other meat, Chinese eggplant, green beans, onions, tomatoes, and some tamarindo seasoning.  The pork ribs are chopped and boiled and the tomatoes, as well as the tamarindo seasoning mixed together, and cooked until the meat is tender.  Usually I have my meats cut at the market. I tell the butcher what I’m using it for and they cut it accordingly.  Although if I went to a non-Asian supermarket I don’t think the butcher would know what I’m asking him / her to do.  And when I want the meat to tenderize it faster, I use a pressure cooker, to help.  I do have to say that the pressure cooker freaks me out.  I always imagine a huge explosion happening when I use it.  So use caution when operating a pressure cooker.  In the meantime while the meat is cooking, I prep the other ingredients.  The prep usually just means to clean and chop up the eggplant, green beans, and onions into quarters.  And then after about 15 to 20 minutes all of the ingredients are added in the same cooker and then I let it cook for another 10 minutes until the eggplant and green beans are tender enough to eat.  And then you take the soup and have some rice and enjoy.  In a future post I will post a step by step recipe so you can create this delicious dish.

And lastly to finish off the evening I finally finished up my photo edits for my recent trip to the World Domination Summit.  I went through the images and create a gallery to tell the story of that amazing weekend.  This was the same weekend that inspired me to start this blog.  So instead of telling you what that weekend was like, I’ll let you see the pictures for yourself.  Check out it out here: World Domination Summit 2012.  Enjoy!