Side Project 1

 I made a new blog as a way to get the creative thoughts out of my head. I'm new to photo manipulation, but seeing the large amount of "reject" pictures i've taken over the year, I decided to turn them into some stock images and make more things with it. I decided to go with tumblr being my blog of choice due to the nature of this project. It is to be single photos, for people to enjoy. There doesn't need to be a wall of text, and it makes it easier for people to share. (It also helps that the target audience are teenagers, and i'm going to assume that all the young whipper snappers are on tumblr)

Want to tell me how you feel about my new blog?

Want me to follow you're tumblr?

Leave me a comment below.

Until next time,

-Ivan

Before I head back to California next month.

I'm making a list of things I want to do before I head back to California.
1. Go take pictures of the tourist-y Hong Kong/Shen Zhen areas.
2. make plans for photoshoot with at least 1 model when I get back
3. Hang out with some old friends here before I leave them.
4. Beach
5. Hike a Nature Trail/Get sunburned to death.
6. Take pictures of where I live
7. Go shopping for cheap chinese goods
8. Walk the brightly lit streets at midnight
9. Get my hair dyed
10. Play the Guitar with a buddy



Anyone feel they have something to contribute to my list?
Wanna hang out with me when I get back to Cali?
Tell me about it in the comments!

Shaoguan

Here we go again.

These are a couple of random shots I took on my vacation to Shaoguan.

I've not had time to process/throw my siggy on them yet, and I probably won't have time to do that as I've so many projects I'm working on at the moment.

The first picture is a fountain at this temple, it is tradition to wash ones hands with the water, which is spring water from the mountain that leads to the temple, for luck. I did, but I think the luck was being about to get such a nice shot.

Then on the second day, after an hour hike up a mountain, we ended up at 'males rock' I shit you not, they call this 'males rock' go google it!

It was one hell of an afternoon that day.

Lastly we have a plain landscape of the guardrail, and the mountain side.

Photos of this trip included a sceneic waterfall, more mountains that look like 'other things'(sleeping beauty/etc) some woodlands, and more hiking photos.

I'll link to the album when I finish editing the shots.

The wink

This bird was winking at me for the longest time, I think he gets photographed alot, cause he was just standing there and posing for me.

The original can been seen here.

+watch me here if you want to see the rest of this series!

As always, critique/suggestions in comments is appreciated!

HDR practice

Part of the series for Sunsets around the world.

This one was taking at Tsing Yi, Hong Kong.

I'm going to continue to play with HDR in this series.

I'm not sure if I'm doing it right.

What I'm doing is actually just finding a composition with lots of lights and lots of shadows, setting the exopsures to -2, 0, +2 and letting it rip.

If anyone has any tips or tricks to doing HDR, feel free to share it in the comments. I would also appreciate any critique, here or on my deviantArt page.

Until next time

-Ivan

Sunsets from Around the world.

I feel like alot of my post are crappy in quality, so I'm going to try to put more effort into each one. By doing so, you all will see beetter quality work from me, but as a trade off, it might take me a bit longer to get the work out.

I'll try to have AT least 1 post a week, but I most likely won't be able to get a post a day like I use to.

I apologize to about the lot of 9 of my followers that actually read up on my projects everyday.

So today's shot is going to be the beginning of a series. I plan on(not sure when I'll finish) taking pictures of the sunset ALL AROUND THE WORLD(At least 1 from every continent)! This is my first set to this goal, the sunset in Tuen Mun, Hong Kong.

If you're interested in seeing the full rez(really big) picture, it will be here.

I'd love some critique in the comment, this was my first time doing HDR. and if you're interested in this seriest, feel free to +watch me on DeviantArt(for all you deviants out there) cause there will definately be more to this series!

Reague of Regends?!

My friend and I have been spending nearly a month working on this script(actually, just a couple days out of the month). Now we finally have a rough draft. We now at least know WHO the characters are, and what they're doing. I'm hoping to refine this to a working script by the end of the month, and I can shoot this in August.

::Background::
My friend and I were discussing how the League of Legends community is pretty awesome
I swear Vayne stole OUR dance!

but as we were discussing it, I realized the general conversation we had during a game was like this :

"Me(Katarine) : WATCH ME KS YOU ALL MUDAFUKA!
Him(Caitlyn) has scored a triple kill
Me: I hate you SO much.
Him: U Mad, bro?"

so after collecting some of our dialog, I talked him into helping me put together a little web short.


If you guys are interested in following this project, follow me here or subscribe to my youtube channel, I'm most likely going to be posting it there.
Look forward to reading your thoughts about this in the comments.

Regrets.

::Side track from my actual projects::
This has got me thinking about my life.
The top 5 regrets people had on their deathbeds.
1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
2. I wish I didn’t work so hard.
3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.




I try to life my life with no regrets, one that is true to myself and I think I did a pretty good job.
I try my best to enjoy myself, but I feel as if I've accomplished nothing, or very little.
I can make a small list of things probably only I have experience/can do that makes me unique, but that doesn't make me feel better. It actually makes me feel worst because I think of all these other unaccomplished people..
Reading that article, I feel even now,
that I have failed to have the courage to live the life true to myself,
how I stupidly worked so hard on things that didn't matter, and was how I'm not working hard enough of things that does, but I don't really 'regret it' all these mistakes that I've made, if I had the opportunity to stop myself from doing it in the past, I wouldn't because of all the valuable lessons, I got out of it (maybe not the motorcycle accident, but I learned my lesson!)
Even now, I do not have the courage to express most of my feelings, somethings it's a bit crippling, but not 'regrettable'
I've let so many of my friends fall out of touch, but I feel as there are reasons, so no regret here.
But I don't feel I keep myself from being happy, I just feel happiness is hard to come by for me..

All this, and I've only had the opportunity to live this life for 20 years.


TL:DR
"My life might suck/be awesome, but I'm still unsatisfied"
I'd love to hear how you guys deal with regrets. Got any stories about your regrets? Share them in the comments, If you guys are interested tell me, and I'll share some of mine.

Shenzhen - China

My adventures in Shenzhen. It's a really nice place, but I just walked down the street, and I got solicited by SO many prostitutes! I got 9 random old ladies coming up to me asking to take a look at the girls from just walking down 1 street, then I turned the corner, and doubled back to the metro station, and I stopped counting.

I've some free time lately, and I've been working on the script for a little short. I don't want to ruin it, but I might be weaving in and out of this blog, or some post might just seem like I whipped it together last minute(Like I've been doing so far)

I hope you bear with me, and I'll throw up an entertaining little short by Sept(hopefully) for all you guys.

As always, feel free to answer questions I didn't even ask this time in my comments!

Taipei 101

It was typhooning but as the crazy party animals we were, we still went out to Taipei 101(That really tall building).
These are the "better" of my photos that night, as the rest was just us drinking our asses off, and no one wants to see that, right?

My friend snuck me up to the 27th floor of this other building where the club was in the basement to get some of these shots!

What do you guys think of the night view? Anything like this where you guys are from?

Ever been taken somewhere you weren't really suppose to be, but enjoyed every moment of it?

Tell me in the comments!

Epic Food Adventure : Taiwan

As soon as I arrived in Taiwan, my friend took me out for food from the Shilin Night market. I stuffed myself with fried shrimp, fried chicken, fried squid, fried tofu. I swear everything taste better when it's fried!
We also had some quail eggs, grilled scallops, and enough tea to last me 2 lifetimes(I can still go for more of that passionfruit ice tea, and bubble milk tea now.)

The following afternoon, my friend took me out to this great thai place. THE SOUP CAME IN A LOG BOWL!!!!

I was so amazed by that.

There was SO much food, this trip, it was crazy. In the end, I still had to make 1 last trip back to the night market and pig out before leaving. Now I can cross "Eat my way through Taiwan" off my to-do list.

Fret not, I still have "Eat my way through: Korea, Vietnam, Japan, India, England, Italy, Greece, France, Spain, and Germany" on my list of things to do before I die, and I'll make sure to record it all here.

Crazy Weather in Taiwan

I just finished my trip to Taiwan! I found the name of this Library very interesting and thought I would share it.
I remembered the last time I got a shot of an "Asian" structure, it got flooded with comments. This time I'll just leave this here!

The weather was like awesome when we landed. Nice atmosphere, great sunshine, and a gentle breeze. Sadly a typhoon came by the third day. I still had 2 days to get some awesome pictures. I'll be talking about my food adventures tomorrow(There's SOOOO MUCH FOOD, & it was ALL so very good!), so you definitely want to follow if you havn't already!
Tell me what you think in the comments! Every been to Taiwan? Seen some crazy weather tell me about it!(I heard about the tornados in the states. my condolences out to anyone, or their loved ones that are affected)

Kneeding Dough

I took a documentary filmmaking class last semester at school. One of the requirements was it needed to be about something in the community. I decided to pitch a documentary about how we had a documentary class, documenting our community(2 birds with 1 stone, right?). Sadly, it was horribly, horribly rejected, and much more complicated projects were chosen(I swear, I thought of the easiest, most rewarding project, and the class blew me off). I ended up joining this group that was doing a documentary in a job training program. It turned out to be really fun. We lost 1 member in preproduction, then we had another one flake towards the end. Basically at the end, it was just the director and I editing this piece and doing damage control. This is the first documentary I've ever done, I had alot of fun doing it, but it just isn't what I want to do as a living. My interest is, and probably for a while will be in Music Video Production, but as a side job, I can possibly get into documentary filmmaking.
Tell me what you think in the comments!
Was it informative? Did it inspire you to do something? Will you subscribe to my youtube channel?
Seriously, subscribe to my youtube channel, I'm in preproduction for a little webseries, and you wouldn't want to miss it!

Victoria Harbor

This was taken a last week, when I was visiting Victoria Harbor. It was a really nice misty afternoon, right before the rain. I thought I would take advantage of it, and take a nice panaramic shot across the bay to see Hong Kong Island. I might've gotten drizzled on a little bit, but I think it was worth it.

Does you guys know of any places with a view in your area like this? Have something to say about this picture? Leave me a good long comment.

Fork in the Road

This was a music video I helped edit, and shoot. The band was a local band that I was a friend of the director. I was just part of the crew, and was one of the editors. I think I produce a much better video, when I'm not in charge. Got any thoughts on this, Leave me a comment!

It's not Hawaii

Guess where I'm headed next for a couple of days?!
I'll give you a few hints.
It's located 100 miles off the coast of south east china.
It's an island covering 245 miles in length
It is often called the ‘Illha Farmosa' which in Portuguese language means beautiful Island.
It is also called the ‘The Kingdom of the Corals'
and it's Taiwan...it's just Taiwan.
I'll try to come back with more pictures than my last uneventful Macau trip!

I'm back!

I'm back.
I found out Macau is the Chinese Vegas,
same feel, same look, same casinos.

Next project

Well that was an exciting week. I still do not know to shoot as my
next challenge, for the time being I think I am just going to look for
things I need to practice more on (lighting, b/w photography, HDR).
I've some plans coming up so content might not be as "fresh" as I will
be showing some of my old work.
Do not fret, as I will be travelig around, and when I get back, I
shall hare with you all tales of my adventure!

Take this opportunity to tell me what you guys would like to see. If
you are feeling socialable tell me tell me of some of your travel
stories! Anything interesting ever happened when you were on vacation?
Meet any interesting people that have a fun anecdote attached? I look
forward to reading these comments when I get back!

--
The sky is blue because God used the wrong hexidecimal code.

Saturday - Portraits

It's officially been 1 week of photo fun!

I would never have taken any of these shots if I didn't proactively go after a theme of the day.

I've noticed the most popular pictures this week was that asian theme pagoda, so as a special treat. I'm going to work on a series of shots that I will take in that park!

Okay, so let's discuss these pictures.

1) it was a really nice grainy wall, and I was kinda desperate for a "texture" picture.

I liked how the depth of field, and the sky peaking into superwhites made nice contrast to the dark shades of the wall there.

2) I actually took the time to set up this shot of the sidewalk, a nice contrast of textures there.

-Bonus-

3 Portraits from these two fine gentlemen(Models : Kwan Wing Tai, & Joachim "Eko" SJoberg) of the HKPA.

Special thanks for these really nice action shot of their awesome parkour skills, and helping me with my Portrait photography.

Friday - Shadows

I apologize for missing shadows yesterday,

I swear, finding shadows in Hong Kong is crazy hard.

It's ALWAYS(I cannot stress that enough) cloudy here, and rarely do I get to see direct light, it's always defussed. Today I actually had the proper lighting to take a picture of this old building behind the bar I use to work at. I appreciated how all the pipes and air conditioners cast this really nice shadow on the wall, it also made it look very "industrial", at least it did to me.

I'll make it up tomorrow, with 2 textures, and 2 portraits as interest on this I.O.U.

Textures will be easy, portraits will be hell for me to come up with, so don't think it's easy for me.

As always, tell me what you think in the comments!

Wednesday - Colors

Today's challenge was Colors. and I had a really hard time thinking of how to represent colors, until I looked down. This little flower had a really vivid shot of color I just wanted to show off. 

I know, this isn't my usual style of photography, but I thought it was worth it to investigate how this would turn out.

Tell me what you think of this style of photography in the comments!

Tuesday - Doorways

Today's challenage was Doorways.

I stood for an hour in a light drizzle, looking like like an idiot, waiting for people to get out of the way so I can take this shot. It seems people like to walk into the shot as soon as someone leaves the frame of my shot.

Also people talking on their cell phones, they seem to ONLY have reception in front of my camera, they go along walking, and just STOPS right in front of you to finish their conversation on the phone.

So, let me discuss this picture:

The challenage today was to shoot a doorway. There are many interesting doorways I could have chosen, like this one

I originally wanted to shoot this doorway, It had this really nice circular garden area behind it, but I couldn't shoot into it due to a young couple that's making out there, and refusing to move.

So, of the two, which one do you guys like more?

Tell me in the comments, or show me some shots of some cool doorways in your area in the comments.

Monday - Architecture

Today's challenage was Architecture

I took this in the other park around the villas that i'm currently staying at.

This time it was an old fountain that'd in the process of being drained for repair. There's this really nice gateway I wanted to show off the architecture to, but due to the weather, I couldn't get the shot. Maybe when the weather permits I'll throw it back on as a gift to my followers

If any of you have any cool buildings, nice shingles, or just some from of architecture you wish to show off, throw a link in the comments, or if you have any thoughts, or ideas you wish to share about this pic, leave critique in comments.

Find this project interesting, follow me, I'll be doing tons more.

As encouragement for you guys to follow me, I'm setting a small goal. I want to get to 100 followers, so when that happens I'll poll my followers for what subject they want to see me shoot for a week!




**Edit one : I DID happen to shoot it in raw, after a bit of post production... TADA!
tell me which one you like better.