Photography as a Career

Is it possible to become wealthy through Photography? This coming 2014 I'm pushing the limits of our flagship show, "Camerageek TV" by following two special friends of ours as they reach their aspirations and goals in life by engaging in the Photography business. Meet Bernard, a hunter by day, a photographer by night. Find out if he can become a high-end photographer at the end of the 13-episodes special. Marvin on the other hand has been a freelance photographer for almost 7 years and intends to acquire high-end equipments to materialize his ambition to become a better photographer and entrepreneur. Join me as I unravel the secrets of their failures and successes only in our show, "Camerageek TV" airing every Saturday night at the People's Television Network. Here's a glimpse of Bernard and Marvin.

Surviving Yolanda

Yolanda left us with stories of courage and how mental health is important in surviving a catastrophe. After we get a go signal from our producer, Boss JB, we'll be releasing the exclusive video of Erlend Johannesen (pronounced as, "Allen") - a norwegian based in Tacloban who spearheads Streetlight Foundation. It's fascinating to hear first-hand accounts of surviving the world's most strongest typhoon... The interview with Erlend this morning lasted more than an hour, and our crew was struck in awe by what all of us heard. Coming soon...

The L Series Printers

The best lighting always come from natural sources. This video was done months ago demonstrating the capabilities of the Sony a77 DSLR camera under low light conditions. I used a 35mm 1.8 and a single Aperture Led light from Aperture Trading.

And now the slideshow

Iphoto create slideshows in a snap, i mean literally in two clicks. Here's the slideshow of Bryan and Kat. Make sure to turn on the HD option to fully appreciate this video.

Bryan and Kat - A pre-wedding photoshoot

Many question my ability to do photography and that makes each of my photography project quite challenging since I've been known in the industry as a videographer. There is an excemption, especially, if my partner in crime, Jen, requests me to shoot her couple's pre-wedding pictorial or fondly called,"Prenuptial shoot." I want photographs that are candid, fresh, and just plainly simple without any articulated poses that somewhat forces a couple to become models. I believe a pre-wedding photograph must show the couple at their natural yet beautiful state :-) Here's some of the photos I took for Bryan and Kat, without photoshop yet, no liquify, clone, healing brush, etc, so you have an idea how I light and incorporate shadows into my photograph. Assisting me were Bernard and Marvin.

Data: Canon 60D ISO 1600 Sigma 30mm 1.4 (All photos shot at full open) utilizing one single Apeture LED Light. White-balance set to daylight.

Note: I don't get rid of the shadows since they add depth to the image. I go as natural (lighting) as I can go. Bry and Kat did a very great job in selecting their location in Eastwood Libis, darn I forgot the name of the Italian restaurant... :-(

The beauty of natural light.

Kat's simple pose.

Candids are better.

Add a bit of foreground makes your subject stand-out.

More foregrounds.

"Behind" a success of a man is a woman.

Just love that pose.

Blur shots are intimate.

No need to style.

"Hold that pose."

Curve.

Be at the lower left thirds of the frame.

Just close.

Look through the shelf.

Kiss and...

Stare.

Marvin shot this with the 11-16 2.8 mm Tokina then applied an on-camera creative filter (Canon 60D)

Simple and Elegant.

Let the shadows do the talking.

Timelapse (The Traditional Way)

Recording at 6 minutes, this video clip was colorized in Final Cut Pro X, time-stretched to 10 sec. Feel free to download the file using youtube downloader.

Great places are actually in our backyard

Yesterday I saw a magestic view from a familiar place I pass by often on a day to day basis. Using my AEE SD Magicam 21, I took this snapshot and edited the image on Lightroom 4 adding up a "Direct Positive" effect plus lowering the highlights and whites, then adding little blacks / shadows to the photo.

Feel free to use this photo. It looks great for a smartphone backdrop ;-)

My newest lens, the 42mm - 4 Halloween lens

To make things more interesting, I created my newest arsenal for my Canon cams. I call it, the 42mm Halloween Lens. It's made from damaged minolta 35 to 70mm glass, then a Canon mount cap!

Here are some sample images.

The Minolta MD to Sony Alpha Mount

It's hard to find a MD Minolta to Sony A mount adaptor ring here in the Philippines, so I decided to bring out the "Makeshifter" in me. So here's what I came up with to create a 50mm 1.7 macro lens for my Sony A mount series cameras.

I created a hole on the Minolta MD cap using a soldering iron, and bonded the lens mount ring of my irrepairable Minolta SLR. Videos using this lens will come up soon...

The Plump Pinay on CGTV

The awesome plump pinay is here on Camerageek TV!

FRAME ONE Feature

I'm proud to be featured in FRAME ONE Magazine of the FPPF. Tim did a great job in the writeup :-)

Martz on CGTV

Introducing the Kamerar SD21 (Slider - Dolly)- a wonderful tool that enabled our team to shoot Martz at various angles with cinematic trucking and dolly inside his condo in San Antonio Village, Pasig City.

A 6 minuter SDE

It's a different story when you do your video editing during preps, a little at the ceremony, and finally, just adding photos from your photographer friends at the reception. Same-day edits give editors barely an hour and a half to complete the editing and exporting to a file or DVD.
I've tried to lay-down first the important video clips of the event versus laying down the soundtrack first, and during the ceremony, make "himay" with the clips from preparations. My total timeline was running at 4 minutes already!  I dragged the soundtrack to my timeline and found it easier to trim down clips and remove what I didn't needed to form the MTV. I got my soundtrack from MUSICBED.COM. There's a secret behind how you can get the soundtracks for free, but that will come up in my show, Camerageek TV soon!

Here's what we did for our fellow supplier Kaye, courtesy of the photographer friend Abner, who hired the team  to do their onsite AVP.

How Do We Film Weddings?

Wikipedia defines a wedding as a ceremony where people are united in marriage. Wedding traditions vary greatly between customs, cultures, ethnic groups, religions, countries, and social classes.

For me, a wedding is the most grandest day ever for a modern-day Filipina. That's why careful planning and execution in filming a once in a life-time event calls for an experienced and professional video team such as our production firm :-)

Normally an onsite edit or others call it, "same-day edit" is challenging considering that the video editor must finish a 3 or 4 minuter video to be shown during the couple's reception. Usually the onsite avp is shown 1:30 hr after the start of the first greeting line of the host at the couple's reception program.

So... What if here's the scenario given:
1. During preps, I didn't do any "himay" or video editing because I was busy trying out the new SONY VG-900 with the 24-70 2.8 mm lens :-)

2. I was so happy using the Sony 70-200 2.8 mm lens during the ceremony that I lost track of time. So no editing happened there too.

3. Mark and Enrae had a very short reception program! Even my newly photographer friend (the couple's official photographer) was so stressed because he needed more time to create his onsite photos (which were excellent, by the way...)

 With these three scenarios at hand, I needed to devise a quick minute plan... To cramp candid and "you were too busy to remember" video clips our team captured during the entire preps and ceremony! 

Here's our gears:
Sony VG900 with 24-70 2.8 , 70-200 2.8 mm lens
Canon 60Ds with 30mm 1.4, 10-22mm, 18-50 2.8 mm lens
Glidecam HD 2000
Benro KH25 Tripods
Arri 1000 watts lighting kit
G3 Evolution wireless lapel
Edited with a Final Cut X using a macbook pro 15" retina 2.3 GHZ

Majority of the shots by Marvin Dela, Bernard Barberan, My partner in crime, Jenny Taopo.

Here's what we did.

Start Up

Grandest Day Media Production was conceived early September of 2013. Its mission is to provide professional videography services that caters to a wide range of clients who are in need of almost any video requirement from events coverage, AVPS, to documentaries and other TV feature presentations. Here's a 2 minuter edit I did for our client in the U.S.