Yay! I got a chance to participate in Help-Portrait this year again…thought I missed out when I wasn’t available for the Dec. 4th event but another one was setup by Kenneth Wei to do one for the LA Dream Center.
The basic premise of Help-Portrait is finding people in need and taking their picture. Sounds simple and non-eventful right? But you’d be surprised by the positive reactions that people have from having a portrait taken of themselves. There’s something about it that really empowers them and makes them feel special, if only for that day.
Needless to say, I had lots of fun and met some great people. Here’s a little snippet of what happened…
Often times, a word’s meaning will be taken for granted when it is used too often and lately that word has been “Gratitude”. I have heard and said this word so many times that I’ve lost the feeling of it’s true meaning, it’s true essence. There’s something to be said for the power words play in the way it helps to manifest or detract certain energies and patterns in your life. Couple this with actually feeling the meaning of the word itself and you’ve got yourself a double whammy.
So, I want to bring back the feeling of this word “Gratitude”. The word “Gratitude” is a noun meaning “the quality or feeling of being grateful or thankful.” To dig even further, the word “Grateful” is an adjective meaning “warmly or deeply appreciative of kindness or benefits received.” For me, knowledge and experience is a major benefit that I can receive…I really don’t care for receiving material things.
This past year has brought to me tremendous knowledge of not only myself but of other people and the world we live in. I believe life takes us on a journey that is intrinsically the correct one for us. The mere coincidences, decisions, heartaches, and joys are all exactly laid out where they need to be. What I’ve learned is to trust life, love, the universe, and myself. You have been my biggest teacher.
So, tonight, I am very appreciative of this benefit that I have been receiving…am very grateful and thankful…and have and immensely deep Gratitude for you. Thank you!
I went out to Pasadena on Saturday with a mission to test out my newly acquired Nikon D700 camera. Let me tell you if you don’t know yet, this camera has many awesome features. It truly is a difference of night and day when comparing the D700 with my D50! Everybody should know by now that the D700 is a full frame camera, has live view, and I believe everybody also knows that it can go up to 25,600 ISO. These three I expected to perform awesome which it did. What I didn’t expect (and no review I’ve read talked about) were:
kelvin temperature adjustment: you can really dial in the white balance with this. You can also shift the white balance so you can expose your image to a higher temp or cooler temp, thus shifting the colors warm or cold.
multiple exposures from 2 – 10: creating multiple exposures in camera is really fun and with the options of having 2 – 10 exposures on one image can really challenge your creativity. I’ll need lots of practice with this one.
interval timed shooting: you can set the camera up to take a shot every x-number of seconds. Great for time-lapsed photos!
lots of custom saving banks: you can save your settings into custom banks.
d-lighting: this has been reviewed at other blogs, but basically it balances your images when there are extremes in lighting darkening your highlights and brightening your shadows.
I’m sure there are many other features that I have yet to discover, but am looking forward to. Of course, this wouldn’t be complete without images…
During downtime and in-between client projects, it’s important to keep motivated and keep shooting. Thus, personal projects. For me, it’s developing my documentary skills. FocusedOut.com came about because I wanted to document a place that I think is being forgotten…Chinatown. Sure, it’s filled with tourist every weekend but aside from the Chinatown that tourists see, I wanted to document the real Chinatown, the zero generation that call this place their home, the history that’s currently being lost.
This will be an ongoing series for I don’t know how long. I also want to practice being more intimate with my documentary subjects…so check that site often. You can also signup to be emailed of any updates. Feel free to leave me any feedback and comments.
