photography

and so my dream to delve into photography begins in august 2010.

back in college, i had a photography class that turned out to be useless.  our prof only showed up on the first day of class to tell us what plates to submit every week, which places to go to shoot and gave us a super brief lecture on aperture and shutter speed.  i never got to go into the dark room and develop actual pictures.  i didn't see him again.  not even during the submission of plates.  next i saw him was during the finals to get our class cards and our grades. 

it began during my pre-wedding preparations. i was looking for a good photographer for my wedding so i browsed at different websites checking out the works of local and foreign photographers and the uneducated me loved most of what she saw.  i've been appreciative of a good, well-thought of photograph since.   and i thought, i want to do this too.

so armed with a 5megapixel point and shoot digicam, i started documenting occasions, trips, even ordinary days by shooting candid, unexpected, supposedly unstudied photos of people and places.  my digital photos use up most of my computer's disk space and it even caused my old computer to crash.  i was literally crushed when that happened because most of my elder son's baby pictures are there and they were gone.

my best photos (in my opinion) are those captured the first time.  if i try to repeat the same angle of the same subject, it usually isn't better than the first.  or it comes out differently, not the way i wanted to.  i like shooting off center.  i like to put a story in my photographs.  i like unconventional composition.  but technically, i know nothing.

this week, i got me a dslr -- a nikkon d3000.  they call it an entry level dslr ideal for beginners like me.  i'm tinkering, clicking, focusing away since friday but i have yet to schedule a  trip to somewhere where i can shoot a decent digital photograph to make it useful.  but like i said, this is where it all begins....

blast from the past

last night, the hubby decided to let the kids watch our wedding video.  we were married almost nine years ago and it was the time when wedding videos were evolving into better, shorter and more enjoyable to watch.  but it turned out to be another boring watch.  for me at least, coz i kept on telling hubby to press fast forward and step it up.

not for my kids though.  they stared intently at each scene.  they squealed in glee upon seeing slides of me and hubby's baby pictures.  they asked who the other kids are (hubby's sister and my brother)  the little girl asked why she wasn't there.  the big boy laughed when he saw his now 13-year old cousin as then a 4-year old ring bearer. 

the best part was that everytime they saw old pictures of hubby, they got so worked up and excited and shouted... it's dadddeeeee!!!  they raved that ang payat pala ni daddy dati and pogi ahhh!! 

and when they saw pictures of me,

they laughed.  like i was a big joke.  

the punchline:  while the little girl was re-watching it today (she insisted on watching it again), she told her yaya, yan ang mommy ko, pangit sya nung bata.

Don't worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you.  
~Robert Fulghum

smile for the camera

so the family was on a field trip organized by julla's teachers on a fine saturday in february.  everybody was in a good mood and excited to go.  we had tons of food and snacks in hand and two cameras so as not to miss a single kodak moment of our special day.

first destination was rizal park.  migo and julla loved the open air, lush greens and yes, the thomas the train roaming around. they couldn't wait to ride it!  and we were lucky enough to ride in front with the driver.

after getting off the train and walking around, we went to watch the lights and sounds presentation of dr. jose rizal's execution.  normally, according to the presenter, it's watched at night for us to appreciate the lights, but we had to  content ourselves with a "sounds" only presentation because it was daytime.

next was brunch at the chinese garden.  why do kids prefer to run instead of eat?  and feed their food to the floating ducks?  they were uncontrollable but i know they had a great time.  

museo pambata was next on the itenerary.  this literally became a playground.  the guides did not have time to explain each room as the kids scurried here and there, trying out all the different interactive stuff.  it was fun though.

then there's the oceanarium and mermaid show at the manila ocean park.

the funny thing about this day is that hubby and i tried our mighty best to capture everything digitally.  what with two cameras but it's ironic that while we wanted to do that, the kids wanted to enjoy the day and remember it in their own way.  here's what i mean:

scene: oceanarium, inside the tunnel while all the sea creatures swim around us.  dad wants to take a picture as the stingray goes by while the kids turn away from the camera so they can watch it go by.  dad gets frustrated coz he is unable to capture the scene, while the kids are frustrated as well coz they didn't get to see the stingray up close.

so i tell dad, let the kids do whatever they want instead of forcing them to smile at the camera and miss whatever awesome experience they might have.