Stream of Unconciousness, the Mind of Zarli

Wilma: ahhhh. so what's the event?
Zarli: he wants to meet to tell me more
Wilma: interesting. are you going to
Zarli: yeah can't hurt.. not like he's going to Rogue my photography powerz and dump me off a bridge .p

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The quote is from, "The Three Cornered World" (orig Title, "Kusa Maruka"), by Soseki.  As most people that know me know, my photography has gone beyond just an attempt to capture beauty, but for me it is a growing experience.  Every new model i work with, every new theme or technique is explore, helps me to discover a little bit more about myself.  Even rehashing older ideas in new ways shows me a little bit more.  For some reason this quote came back to me recently.  I'm not even sure why i thought of it.  Perhaps i was looking at the way i approach things.  I think i have an intense passion for what i do.  There's a certain bit of drive that makes me want to pursue something.  I think that perhaps that kind of passion and instability might scare off people who live in a four cornered world.  There might be people who don't quite understand my drive and mistake it for something else.  Fortunately, i have been able to meet many great people who also live in this three cornered world.  People that inspire me, support me, and give me passion.  With any luck i will be able to continue to drive myself and the people i work with further.

Posted via email from Stream of Unconciousness

Posted via email from Stream of Unconciousness

So Kim wanted me to do this idea for a goth rock band... cept she was going to be the whole band.  I've done these multiple exposure blends before, even though they take a lot of work.  We went to Kaka'ako rather than trying to shoot it on a green screen, because we were hoping for some wind... which never came.  The Key light was an AB800 with the octobox.  I removed the baffles, because i wanted a more specular light.  For the Singer and Violinist (yes it's really a Viola, but it was supposed to be a Violin), the Key light was camera right and above.  For the Bassist, the Key light was camera right as well, with my LP160 acting as a fill, so we could see her face.The Hair Light was an AB800 with a 20deg Grid, right behind her head.  I think i over exposed the hair light, though.  Next time, try two stops down from the key rather than 1.

In post, i took the liberty to changing her lipstick for each one to match.  The Violinist was softer and more classical, so i kept it natural.  The Bassist, had the blond hair and red bass, so i made it red.  The Singer looked more hard core, so it was more brown.  Found a picture of an opera house.  i only used the very top of it which was highly distorted.  It might have been taken with a very wide lens.  Combining transform, puppet warp, and liquify, i tried to straighten it out a bit.  Brought it back into Lightroom and added a vignette

Posted via email from ryusen's posterous

I was hired to shoot a new club (The Villa @AlohaTower) for their website.  The owner wanted a good shot of the two bars and the dance floor as a customer walked in.  The difficulty was how to balance all the light coming from the bar with the dark side of the dance floor.  I first thought about doing HDR, but sometimes HDR can be a pain to balance the contrast and keep it looking real.  I decided to try an idea i got from David Hobby (I.e. The Strobist) of using a long exposure and firing the flash multiple times to fill in dark areas.

The Camera was tripod mounted.  Settings were F/22 and 30 Sec Exposure.  Once i hit the shutter, i walked around the dark side and fired the flash into different areas of the dance floor, where i was guessing it could use some extra fill.  Overall, i'm pretty happy with it.  The only thing i might do differently next time is to use multiple flashes so they will recycle faster.  I might want to do something like this with a dance on the floor and try and get different exposures of them dancing.

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I'm one of those photographers that get sensitive when someone assumes the reason why my pictures come out nice, must be because i have an expensive camera. Last year, for a contest i did a set of cell phone pics, just to see how those would come out. They used the modeling lamps from my Alien Bees and softboxes, with my Cell Phone as the camera. I just enjoy challenging myself and learning new things. This time i downgraded even further. The victim is the beautiful Crystal. She might have thought that she could get away fro me by flying to Korea, but not a chance. Over a skype call, i noticed that she had some make up on and had some really nice soft light coming in from her window. I had her turn till the light hit her just right, then posed her over skype. Clicked snap a photo and ran it through photoshop. I don't think i've ever run this low res an image through PS before.

Overall, i'm very happy with the results.  This might be fun to do more of in the futre.  

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http://arstechnica.com/media/news/2011/01/canadas-much-ado-about-money-for-nothing.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss&comments=1#comments-bar

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Just a few quick previews from the Count Dracula Pageant.  1/21/2011 @ the Venue, by DJ Nocturna.

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Kim has been helping me on my shoots for a few months now, but it's usually BEHIND the camera as a make up artist.  She offered to help me with make up if i help her learn more about photography.  Now she wants to be in front of the camera again.  The first time was her Ezio/Assassin's Creed Costume.  This time was an inspiration that just hit me.  This is the beginings of a sort of tribute to Lady Gaga's Poker Face.

Shot in my bedroom studio.  one AB800 with an Octobox at Camera right and slightly above her.  a Speed Light Camera Right as a fill and a light behind the backdrop.  I thought it would be cool if i made one shot out, where i turned her into the Queen of Hearts... but then i decided spades.

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This Past Saturday, i was supposed to meet a model, but she got really sick.  As i was sitting aroudn the house bored and just aching for somthing to do, i just happened to catch Candace online and she was bored too.  After some plotting and waiting for her bf to get off of work, we met up and took some shots in a back alley.  One of the collections that i am always happy to expand on is my femme fatal, basically sexy girls with weapons.  This particular theme is "School Girl Ninja." 

The Key light was to Camer Right for these shots, because i wanted a definate shadow as if a street ight was casting light on her.  I filled it in with an on camera flash withthe EXPO Rayflash.  While it did make for a nice fill, i think in some cases the Ring Flash overdid it and got rid of some of the shadows i wanted.  I was trying to see what i coudl do with less gear.  Normally for this, i would have used 3 or 4 lights, but in this case, just two.  The Ring Flash was sometimes scattering the light too wide.  If only there was a way to grid it.    I still like the results even if they were not perfectly what i had wanted.  That seems to happen a lot when i experiment.

More will be uploaded here:

http://ryusen.smugmug.com/Models/Candice-Ninja-Schoolgirl/

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http://ryusen.smugmug.com/Models/Jessica/Jessica-Revisited/

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 me:  nice! Nissan is making achievements for environmentally friendly driving in their Leaf
 Addison:  yeah i won't be winning any of those 
"you've unlocked, coast to the stop light!"
 me:  you've unlocked "keeping it below 2500 rpm!"
yeah.. i don't see that happening for either of us
 Addison:  "Unlocked, Drives Like Grandma!"
 me:  (side note: Passedena not included)
 Addison:  indeed

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Addison: oh looks like LG is putting out the first dual core Android
me: might make a good hand warmer for 10 minutes till the battery dies .p
Addison: hehe my thoughts also

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http://gawker.com/5705070/google-pays-couple-1-for-street-view-trespassing
It's not very straight forward, but here's how it works: 

Because they won the case they can't ask for an appeal, which means they can't further harass the defendant about it, and since the amount is on record, no one will make any money suing google for this in the future. Also, the fee for such cases is 1/3 of the award. Some law firm just spent a month of work and laid out thousands of dollars to be repaid 33 cents"

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"Parents, not politicians, should decide what their children eat, especially when it comes to spending their own money," said Newsom.

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http://press.nintendo.com/articles.jsp?id=26345

"In honor of the upcoming Nov. 21 launch of Donkey Kong Country™ Returns for the Wii™ console, Nintendo has filed a request with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to trademark the pop-culture phrase "It's on like Donkey Kong.""

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Posted via email from ryusen's posterous