ping’s posterous

As some of you know, I am making it a habit of mine to make a calendar at the end of each year to sort of summarize my year, my experiences, and the beauty that I was blessed enough to witness. Here is a slideshow of the photos for my photo calendar this year (perhaps it is no surprise that many of the photos came from New Zealand :D):

From Happy New Years

From Anza-Borrego Desert State Park

From Taipei snapshots (台北隨意拍) 2007

A few years ago I saw a coworker post some pictures he took at Monterey Aquarium of these beautiful jellyfishes set against a a nice blue background. I was really blown away by how beautiful it was (I think the photo was this one: http://picasaweb.google.com/andrewmitchell1975/MontereyTripJune2006#4940152518086295570). Since then, I've been dreaming of capturing similar images myself but never had a chance... that is until last weekend when I finally stopped by Long Beach Aquarium for a quick afternoon photo shoot. While I never quite got that shot I wanted, I got a few other shots that I liked. Full album available here: http://picasaweb.google.com/pingc315/LongBeachAquarium?feat=directlink).

The day started off on a pretty good beat as I got this shot:


I'm really a sucker for kid silhouette against the glass staring at fish type shots. This particular shot was done in manual mode as metering became difficult but I really love how mesmerized kids are by fishes. I think I first fell in love with this type shots when I visited Sea World last June... it would have been better if the water was deeper blue but I thought this shot worked fairly well either way.

As for Jellyfish, my favorite shot might have been


I just like how it is zig-zagging through the water and how it looks like it is glowing. But perhaps the other lines are a bit distracting... It seems as if everyone's favorite jellyfish shot ended up this one:


As Joe puts it "white and clear jellys owns yellow ones". Well, I guess I can't quite argue with that logic there. But overall I found photographing these things a bit of a challenge. The jellyfish themselves were rather small and really cramped together in a small tank which made composition more difficult. On top of that the water wasn't very clean in a few of the tanks so it didn't make for attractive background... I ended up zooming in all the way to focus in on smallest clean area and pressed the lens up against the glass to reduce reflection and what not... Lucky for me, these things move slow which made it easier to track and photograph :).


This might be my favorite from the day... I was surprised at how colorful the world is under water. Unfortunately here I used my 10mm lens shooting through a curved glass so the distortions in the corners are really terrible.

I also got a few lucky shots of sea horses and sea dragons:




For the sea horses it was a bit trickier as these things moves quite fast. I had to sacrifice noise and use ISO 1600 (basically the entire day) to have a chance of keeping up with them. Shooting through glass and water also plays havoc on auto focus... just kept snapping away until I got lucky with a sharp photo here ;).

On a side note, I also updated photos from San Diego Wild Animal Park from Christmas vacation. Here the main thing I kept in mind the whole day was a lesson I learned from John Shaw's Nature Photography Field Guide, and that is to keep your shots eye level with the animals as much as possible. It makes the image feel more intimate and more dramatic effect compared to photographing them standing up (so you will be looking down at them).

Keeping that in mind (and also wanting to practice isolating details), here are a few photos from that day:

From San Diego Wild Animal Park

Sorry I haven't posted anything in awhile, but I finally got through Day 5. We spent most of day 5 on the road, the cross country/island drive from Lake Wanaka to the east back to Christchurch. We only made a few stops along the way, but we drove through some amazing landscapes in New Zealand from the barren wasteland (as seen in the final battle for Gondor in Return of the King) to the grassy plains perfect for sheep farming. But overall, Milford sound was definitely the climax of the entire trip and everything since then is just going down hill. I still felt I got a few good shots in, but mostly thanks to HDR and post processing... less thanks to the natural beauty of New Zealand like previous days.

The morning started off early for me as I got up extra early to catch sun rise but it was still pretty cloudy. After breakfast we got some time to walk around the shores of Lake Wanaka and I finally got to explore the vineyards next to where I took the star photos during the previous night. When I got to the vineyard, I was really intrigued by the numbers identifying the rows so I snapped this photo.



It was originally an HDR but I didn't like the fake look of it so I decided to desaturate the image and add a lot more warmth (yellow) to create the almost monotone image. Some minor touch up on the pole to accentuate the 43. I think I just like the perspective of it, the repeating pattern of the poles getting smaller as well as each row leading away from you leading into the background.

The next image was taken at Lake Pukaki. The weather was pretty terrible with gray bland overcast sky not giving me anything to work with. But the lake had really beautiful rocky shores along with this amazing blue water (thanks to the glaciers). In order to bring out the details in the rocks and not blow out the sky, I had to use HDR... I played a bit with the effect this time creating a more storybook fantasy feel (actually it really reminds me of those motivational posters...). I hope you don't mind me taking some liberty with the effects.



The next image is probably one of my favorites from the trip, a photo of The Church of Good Shepherd at Lake Tekapo (one of the most photographed landmarks in all of New Zealand). Again, I had to use HDR to really bring out the details as the sky was just a boring gray.



This was the exact image I wanted when I first saw the church... for some reason I just had this image in my mind, a low super wide angle shot of the church, exaggerating it a bit against the background a plain small church look even more amazing set against the cloudy/dark sky. I actually waited for close to 10 mins for all the visitors to clear the area (it is a heavily visited site, so tour bus after tour bus would drop people off). I was really fortunate that there was this small pause in people visiting the church for me to snap a few quick photos of the church, un-disturbed (needless to say people in my tour were less than happy with me as they all sat waiting in the tour bus way off in the distance there). I used this photo as the October photo in my calendar, titled "Shelter of Hope". The name was partly inspired by the local artist (Esther Hope) whose sketches were the basis for the actual church, but it is also about how this image made me feel. In many ways churches, more specifically religion/faith, provides a shelter for us against the storms and turmoil we face in life. They not only give us shelter, but strength and hope to face each day, knowing that the storm will pass and a the skies will be clear one day. This is how the image made me feel.

As usual, the full album can be found on my picasa web gallery or here: http://picasaweb.google.com/pingc315/NZTripDay5LakeWanakaToChristchurch?feat=directlink

A couple more interesting photos below:
From Lindis Pass, near where the battle for Gondor was filmed.




Of course you can't have NZ album without sheep and alpacas. SO cute!





Finally image of Christchurch Cathedral in Christchurch

So after a short break from processing photos, I finally uploaded the photos from day 4 of my New Zealand trip a couple days ago. We got up pretty early that day (at about 5 AM) and headed out to Milford Sound for a 2 hour boat tour. This was probably the highlight of the whole New Zealand trip and offered some of the most spectacular views of the whole trip... needless to say, this makes keeping this blog post short very difficult as there are a lot of photos I really liked from that day. The full set of photos is available at: http://picasaweb.google.com/pingc315/NZTripDay4MilfordSoundAndLakeWanaka?feat=directlink.

As mentioned in earlier posts, a storm swept through the area days before we arrived, so the weather was always questionable. In addition, the only road leading up to Milford Sound had a mudslide just the day before... our tour lead had hoped it would clear up by the time we got there... Luckily for us, the weather stayed clear for most of that day and the road was cleared 30 mins prior to our arrival... I really think someone upstairs was watching over us this entire trip. Other than the poor weather on the first few days, this entire trip have been really blessed.

On our way to Milford Sound, we made a quick 10 min stop Mirror Lake (well... they say 10 mins but I stretched it to like 15 ^^;... kept everyone waiting). The weather was so beautiful that the lake was really like a mirror, perfectly reflecting the beauty in front of us. Unfortunately it was rather difficult to capture the full experience on camera due to the extreme dynamic range (the reflection and lake was in the shadows where as the actual snow capped mountains were in bright sunlight). I doubled stacked filters (2 stop graduated ND to darken the top half of the photo and a polarizer to bring out the reflection and colors) and then in post I added another graduated filter at the bottom to bump up the brightness of the shadows to create this final image.


When we got to Milford Sound, the weather was still mostly clear but there was enough clouds in the sky to make it even more interesting. It was on this boat tour that I took most of my HDRs (high dynamic range, where 3 photos of the same scene are then combined in post processing to form a single image), in fact I think I ended up with 30+ HDR shots so in total I took close to 100 images just for HDR. I tried to keep the HDR fantasy like feel down and stick to what felt natural.

Here are two shots of Milford Sound with Mitre Peak (doesn't this feel like something out of LOTR? You know the part with Frodo on the boat passing the giant statues?).




The first shot was shot in RAW and then post processed in Lightroom. I really had to brighten up the green on the mountain but it gets a tad bit noisy. The second image is an HDR with -2, 0 and +2 stops. It's not too different from the RAW shot but I get so much more detail in the clouds and the green just pops better making for a more dramatic image (in my opinion at least :)).

There are so many photos that I really liked from Milford, but this is perhaps one of my favorite from the entire trip. I used it as the August photo in my calendar, titled "Heaven's Blessings" mainly because it looks like the water is pouring down from the heavens. Additionally, this is actually not a permanent waterfall (it's called Fairy Falls), it will dry up in a few days without rainfall so in many ways, we were blessed to have the storm pass through revealing this hidden beauty within Milford Sound.


Here is another photo from Milford Sound. I really like how the cloud just wraps around the mountains... It also shows the entrance to the sound being mostly hidden, this is why the early explorers did not discover Milford Sound as no one expected it to lead to anywhere.


One final shot of Milford Sound as the boat was returning to dock.


After the boat tour, we drove straight to Lake Wananaka where we stayed for the night. Just before dinner I saw these two Paradise Ducks near by. These ducks usually live in pairs and mate for life.


Since we spent the night right along the lake shores, there was very little light pollution allowing me to get a few nice shots of the Milky Way and stars. I had to use my 50mm 1.4 wide open and a 1600 ISO to get the shutter speed fast enough to capture all this without star trails.




Only 3 days left of New Zealand photos, hopefully I'll be able to get through them quicker now :)

One of my new year resolutions was to take some time off and rewatch all the Miyazaki Hayao movies. I decided to get a jump start on this with my favorite movie of all time: Sen to Chihiro no Kamekakushi or Spirited Away as it is known in the west. It is just such a beautifully made movie with one of the most beautiful soundtracks ever to go along with it. I've actually forgotten how much I love this movie until I watched it again, noticing all the cute little details (the scene with the mouse imitating Sen is still the cutest...), breath taking scenery (the train ride is still my favorite scene of the entire movie) and of course the deeper messages involved. I was actually fortunate enough to attend the US premier of the movie at El Capitan in Hollywood where Miyazaki-san made an appearance himself. I remember how excited I was when I found out he was coming, I think I heard it driving to work (intern at AOL that summer) and I immediately called up all the friends I knew to buy tickets ASAP... 

Track - 17  

(download)

Click here to download:

17-いつも何度でも.mp3 (3360 KB)

I almost feel like I can watch this movie again right now and still enjoy ever second of it. Anyways, on to the next Ghibli movie... I'm debating between Kiki and Laputa... maybe Kiki first since I haven't seen that in forever :)

Happy New Year everyone! I hope everyone had a good (and safe) new years eve. Looking back at 2008, it has certainly been an interesting year... buying a house, traveling to New Zealand, growing as a photographer... thanks to all who have helped me along this long (but young) journey. I really look forward to 2009 and all the new opportunities it will bring. My number 1 new year resolution is probably to continue traveling, visit at least one new country this year. Perhaps visit a few more national parks in the US (all those national parks out in Utah and Zion etc) and maybe Alaska. Perhaps another east coast trip?

Here are my last photos taken in 2008...

From Happy New Years

From Happy New Years

Instead of partying and doing count down like normal people, I went out for a quick photo shoot as a thick fog rolled in. Visibility was probably less than 30 ft at times (maybe even 20). Perhaps a somewhat fitting end to 2008, with the future of many shrouded in doubt and uncertainty. Hopefully this fog will clear up soon and we can see a more defined (and brighter) path to the future. I wish everyone an happy and healthy 2009.

As usual, my wishes arrive a few days late :). But I guess better late than never! Happy Holidays everyone, hope you had a safe and wonderful holiday season with your friends and loved ones.

From Happy Holidays

As 2008 comes to a close, I am just beginning to realize what an eventful year it has been for the world and for me personally (that probably deserves a post on its own). I've spent the past few days on a break from all things related to photos and just relaxed, doing different things - ok ok, mainly just going back to video games for a little bit :). Finally got to finish Eternal Sonata - a Japanese RPG about Chopin and this fantastic dream world he enters while on his deathbed. The game had some of the best video game music ever (not to mention a few pieces from Chopin), amazing visuals and some of the most creative character designs I've seen in awhile (oh and a very interesting battle mechanism). At first I mistook this game as something for kids with the art style, characters, and premise but I decided to give it a try based on some very positive reviews. While it's not a perfect game I loved just about every second of it... I mean just the music and visuals alone was worth the 40 some odd hours I spent on the game. I'm also starting back on Ys Origin, another Japanese RPG (one of the more recent Ys games which also has amazing music ;)).

Anyways, I did get to go out for a quick photo shoot the day after Christmas. With recent storm in Southern California, there has been a lot of snow up in the nearby mountains so my family decided to take a quick day trip out to Lake Arrowhead. We got there kind of late in the afternoon and wanted to leave before nightfall since we didn't have snow chains or anything so I only got a few shots in. Here are some of my favorites from the day (full album here: http://picasaweb.google.com/pingc315/LakeArrowhead?feat=directlink)

Sorry the long delay in between posts, a lot of stuff has been happening both at work (you know, like the launch) and outside of work. Personally I've been trying to take a short break from photography (and processing photos) so I can attend to other areas of interest and hopefully come back to photos with a lot more passion and creativity. I actually had day 3 photos almost fully processed 2 weeks ago but I got side tracked by a personal photo calendar project I was doing... Thanks to everyone who helped with that and provided valuable input.

Here is a photo from Lake Hawea, to me this really feels like "New Zealand"... the expansive blue lakes set against snow-capped mountains with a thin string of clouds. In fact, the native Maori's name for New Zealand is 'Aotearoa' which translates to 'the land of the long white cloud'. While this photo is an HDR composite of 3 images, the actual vista wasn't too different. In fact the main difference between the HDR and the non-HDR version of the image is that you see a bit more detail in the sky (and has more gray) and the lake water is a bight brighter more like turquoise rather than a darker emerald color.

After our brief stop at Lake Hawea, we stopped by the town of Cromwell to buy some fresh fruits... of course my mom and I completely ignored the fruit stand and instead started taking pictures... The places just had the largest field of Sakura (Cherry blossom) trees I've ever seen and almost made me feel like I was in Japan... BTW, in case you don't know, I'm totally obsessed about sakuras but have always struggled to take good photos of them...


I think the reason why I really like this photo is because it feels like a post card, you know one of those photos looking down a long path under the blossoming sakura trees. Just like one of those images you would find in the random "inspirational" PowerPoint you'd get in the mail.


While I didn't really need to use HDR (there is a similar non-HDR shot in the album) on this shot, I thought having the darker angrier looking cloud made the image feel a bit more dramatic. In the end, I think I just really liked the sun shining through creating the long shadows on the ground.

We arrived at Queenstown just before sunset and took the gondola up the nearby mountain for a great buffet dinner overlooking Queenstown and Lake Wakatipu. I managed to be one of the first ones up the gondola to get myself a bit more time shooting the sunset. While the sunset itself wasn't that great, the view from the top overlooking Lake Wakatipu was just amazing, offering a nice reflection of the nearby mountains basked in the warm light.



This is one of my favorite shots from the day... I just love sweeping vista... I mean you can see all of Queenstown, the mountains nearby, Lake Wakatipu and just see it extend all the way out to the horizon.


This is by far my favorite photo from the day... but there is a reason for this. In my home in Taiwan, my step mom has a laminated aerial photo of Hokkaido (at least that's what I think it is...) during twilight... I mean this image had it all, huge city with bustling city lights, large bodies of water... and this deep blue sky. For some reason that image just connected with me and I really liked the royal blue color of the image (white balance trick I believe) and the city lights against the darker water surrounding the city which really made it stand out. So when I saw this scene earlier in the day, I knew I just had to come back during twilight just after the sun has set but leaving enough ambient light for me to get some detail out of the mountains in the distance. Well, the sun set just half way through dinner so I had to just stuff myself with as much food as I could (only had time for 1 plate at the buffet and gave up on seconds or the wonderful desserts they had... I mean they had some amazing desserts) and just grabbed my tripod and ran outside. I think for this image, it was well worth giving up dinner and dessert... I ended up eating cup noodles back in the hotel room. OH well, such is the life of a photographer :).


Before getting to New Zealand, I knew I wanted to try taking more star trail shots and also try to capture the Milky Way. Day two actually was the perfect opportunity given the low light pollution of the area, but rain killed any chances of seeing stars. While Queenstown sill is a pretty large town with decent amount of light pollution, I was able to find a quiet corner along the coast of Lake Wakatipu during the walk back from dinner. I quickly set up my tripod and took a few test shots. This particular shot was taken at f/5.6 over an 8 minute exposure. I was actually really surprised you can capture that much of the star trails that clearly...

So here is a late "Happy Thanksgiving" post... I've been fairly busy the past couple days stuffing myself full of great food (there goes that diet I was working on...) and working through all the HDRs I took in NZ (after 80 some HDRs, I can't even tell what looks real or fake anymore). But given the economic uncertainties (by uncertainty I mean the hell hole that we are in...) and suffering in the world (think Iraq, Mumbai, China... the list goes on), I had to stop for a moment and really count my blessings. I am really thankful of so many things in my life... For one, I have my health (I mean, I've sleep-driven myself to Santa Monica on numerous occasion and survived - please don't tell my van poolers that... But really, thank you God for watching over me.  This point hit even closer to home with Joe McNally's recent post.), the world's best mom that constantly watches out for me (even though I'd probably prefer she didn't), great group of friends that I can count on for support (no matter how stupid I am), a beautiful house to come back to every night, and a great job that I enjoy (yes, even on the days that I want to pull my hair out), what more can I ask for? Heck, even the Lakers are at 14 and 1...