I felt like I have outgrown the wordpress blogging platform and prepared a new home to continue what I have started here. I also felt terrible with the wordpress.com support services as I have tried and tried, and continuously failed to register a new blog under my current account. They will just send me to an error page and forwarding me to an error reporting page which is actually ridiculous to me as I have tried it for more than five times already. Before, the support and fix was very quick, even sending me an email as to the update of the error. Well, that’s technology and I have been hit hard with a persistent bug that I cannot tolerate.

Thank you so much for the comments, likes and shares from all of you. Thank you also for following me for last one year or so of blogging. Some of you here have witnessed my learning curve in photography, my post-processing techniques I have either adopted or developed, and some of the personal thoughts and realizations I have shared based my photographs.

I would still continue to do photography and digital artworks. It will be a lifetime hobby. If you would still want to following me in my daily struggles, photography and other things life has to offer, you can visit my new home.

Thank you to all! You are all part of what I have become not just as an artist but as a person as well.

P.S. I might still visit my dashboard here for approving and replying to comments including feed backs but I cannot promise an immediate response to these.

Take Shelter (Movie Review)

It’s a great film. And weird. And strange, too. Watch it if you have the time to spare.

As I have been saying in a lot of my early posts, I am not a professional photographer. I am more of an enthusiasts. So, I’m very interested in experimenting and trying something new to enhance my craft.

This time, I tried a technique called “vertorama”. It is a portmanteau of the words “vertical” and “panorama”, hence, “vertorama”.

Why the need of a vertorama (IMHO)?
As an enthusiasts, I don’t have the luxury of money to purchase all the gears, least the photography lenses which are very expensive. For this reason, my not-so-wide-angle-lens (which is the 24-105, and when mounted on a crop body gives a minimum focal length of around 38mm) cannot capture the scene that I wanted. Furthermore, I cannot distance myself farther from my subject because the place was also limited (farther to where I took the shoot is a cliff already). Also, assuming that I have my ultra wide angle (UWA) lens, there might be a slight probability, depending on the composition of course, that I will be cropping my subject because using an UWA sometimes gives you so much of what you really wanted to take. Now, that last reason might sound just crap but just let it pass, it might make sense later on LOL.

Therefore, this limitations made me think “why not do a vertorama?”. So I did. I took several photos from bottom up (starting from the crop up to the sky) in landscape mode, did some mumbo jumbo batch processing with photomatix for merging the photos to HDR, and finally stitch them in Photoshop using that automated whatever PS called that. Alas, I have my vertorama picture!

P.S. The croc is a fake!
P.S.S And the duck, too!

]]> http://markya.wordpress.com/2013/01/13/the-croc-bites/feed/ 2 markphotoblog http://markya.wordpress.com/2013/01/11/happy-2013/ http://markya.wordpress.com/2013/01/11/happy-2013/#comments Thu, 10 Jan 2013 17:45:32 +0000 mobspark http://markya.wordpress.com/?p=515 Read More

Sometimes you regret the things that you’ve done — that if only you can rewind time, you’ve already done so yourself to correct it. But there are also things that you are happy you had the courage to do it especially to those that made your life such a drag.

Merry Christmas and happy new year to everyone!

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Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 6,100 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 10 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.

Reblogged from Legends Undying:

Tinuy-an Falls Bislig City, Surigao del Sur, Philippines

"The Niagara falls of Surigao del Sur"

I chased some lightning and caught some using my camera. I was like WOW!!! Those thunders, I’ve caught Zeus’ thunders LOL.. Here are the photos:

How did I do it?
First off, I should say this is the most spontaneous photographs I tooko so far, and I love it. I don’t have any plan at all of how to capture the lightning. In fact, I did not even know there will be a storm coming while shooting that blue hour photo from the previous post.

After taking some photos during twilight, the sky started roaring with flashes of lights coming down. Then an idea struck me: how about capturing those lights? I won’t loss anything, I first thought, except from the fact that I’m dealing here with a 10,000 or so megawatts of light energy and if my camera gets caught by it, I’m sure it’ll be fried down to ashes. Well, it’s worth the risk anyway.

So with a tripod, I scout for some good location and waited. The very first thing that came into my mind is that taking photos of lightning maybe the same as capturing fireworks, which I have fortunately done in the past. The biggest variable, I thought, between the two situations will be the difference in the intensity of the light which means a little mistake in the camera settings means overexposed photos, which isn’t the same as taking fireworks because it’s not as intense as lightning.

It was trial and error and with luck, I caught those photos. For those who wants to do the same, I set my camera into bulb. Why? So that I could open the shutter as long as I can and close it immediately after a lightning. Of course, there is always the possibility of overexposing because you don’t know when the light comes off and you might have opened the shutter for far too long that even with a  less intense lightning will already blow the exposure. That’s why you should be patient and with some degree of luck, you’ll get what you’re chasing.

The aperture is pretty variable but I set mine at around f/11 to f/16 so that the lightning will look really like a lightning and not some halos or bokehs of light. It is the same principle photographing streets for the tail lights of vehicles and street lamps. If you’ll be shooting wide open, you will only get colorful bokehs. If I just messed up this part, search for bokeh lights and you’ll know what I mean =).

The ISO is also very important here. I suggest, based on experience, to set it at 100 or 200, and not too high because it would also cause that halo/bokeh effect. There will also be a big possibility of an overexposed image with a very high ISO considering we have a very intense source of light for painting (this is obviously light painting to me ).

By any means I’m not a professional photographer and I’m not sharing a de facto technique of capturing lightning. I think that’s how I did it and I’m just sharing it. (Some disclaimer here…LOL)

I will appreciate it more if you leave your questions, comments or suggestions below. =)

[Some might have trouble viewing the flickr slideshow so I'm posting here the photos.]

Hello! It’s nice to be back with a new photo with you. By the way, don’t forget to check out the on going TDG Photography Contest. Also, thanks to all the visitors, and to google as well (LOL), directing the traffic to this blog. I haven’t posted anything new for more than two weeks already but there is still traffic. So, thank you once again.

About the photo
This is a photo taken during “blue hour”. A lot of photographers, especially the landscape artists, plan and wait patiently for this hour of the day. But what’s with this time that makes the landscape photographers to love it? From my readings and some google searches and some basic knowledge about the science behind the light, the spectrum and all those sorts of things, the shortest explanation is that its because the light is at its softest during this point of the day. It is too diffused because of the position of the earth in relation to the sun.

Sound a bit scientific? Nah, it’s just my conclusion of the facts I’ve read. To demonstrate it further, just imagine the position of the sun during sunset (and sunrise). You’ll see that as the sun get lower with the horizon as the point of references, the sky starts to turn from blue into reddish, yellowish, orangey, sometimes violet,… ok that sort of color from the shades of red and yellow, however those colors are called. You see, the blue seems to disappear, right? It’s because the color blue becomes too dispersed that it becomes invisible to the naked eye, and to the camera sensors as well (? i think so LOL). That’s why, you’ll see that it seems the sky becomes gold, and it’s just beautiful. Sunsets also becomes more beautiful in urban places (like the Manila Bay) because of the smog or pollution in the sky. Yep, that’s right. The red/yellow color becomes more intense. No more photoshop is needed for a saturated red sky (LOL).

So after the sun really goes down below the horizon, you know when you can’t see it anymore, the source of light is at its farthest distance from the earth, and…and…and…I honestly don’t know the real scientific explanation (seriously LOL)…so let’s call it “magic” here…so when the source of light which is the sun is at its farthest distance from earth, and just before we call it the night, this “magic” turns the sky intensely “blue” and diffuses light to these parts of the earth making those landscapes give you that “magical” look, the colors are vibrant and landscapes are just really nice due to, again, the effect of the light from this phenomenon.

P.S. If I just messed you up and all of these blue hour thing, just search for Yen Baet and her photography, you’ll know what I mean .

Reblogged from Legends Undying:

The Dark Globe "Tell Us A Story" Photography Contest Has Begun!!

Ladies and Gentlemen, to your Cameras!!

The Dark Globe "Tell Us A Story" Photography Contest has Begun!

I will once again post the Rules, and if you have any Questions along the way, please don't hesitate to ask, either here, or at the E-mail Address Below...

Good Luck Everyone!!

Read more… 218 more words

Reblogged from Legends Undying:

Dark Globe "Tell Us Your Story" Photography Contest - The Official Rules, Your Judges & 2 Themes Chosen 1 To Go!! Need Your Help!!

Read more… 234 more words