My first ever macro shots...

I wouldn't say that these are 100% macro shots. My Sigma 10-200 OS lens can only take a maximum of 1:3.5 lifesize ratio. These are some of it.

About to be eaten...

Well, they are just funny and cute!

Pahiyas Festival 07

Some of the beautiful faces seen during the parade.

Pahiyas Festival 05

It was raining the whole day. We spent more time hiding from the rain than taking pictures.

Pahiyas Festival 04

Pahiyas Festival 2008-23 (Large), originally uploaded by brianherradura.

He is actually a beggar. He just aligned his wardrobe to the current theme to blend in. I bet he earned a lot more this single day than a month's worth of asking for alms.

Pahiyas Festival 03

Pahiyas Festival 2008-46 (Large)
Originally uploaded by brianherradura

This is a sample of how people in Lucena decorate their houses during the Pahiyas Festival.

Pahiyas Festival 02

Pahiyas Festival 2008-47 (Large)
Originally uploaded by brianherradura

These are some of the decorations that people in Lucena put on their houses during the length of the festival. The whole day it was raining. This photo was taken just when the rain had stopped and the sun peaked a little before it started to rain again.

Pahiyas Festival 01

Pahiyas Festival 2008-17 (Large)
Originally uploaded by brianherradura

I had the opportunity to take a snapshot of this group before the parade started.

Puerto Galera

Puerto Galera is a beautiful place but a bit over crowded. I'll just post two pictures in here. I took the first one when I was in the banca waiting to leave for Puerto Galera. The second photo is a picture of the bancas waiting to leave for Batangas pier.

Ayala Greenfields

Every Thursday, we usually have a fun basketball game at Ayala Greenfields basketball court in Calamba, Laguna. That day, we had a meeting in Batangas city and it finished early. Since I had my camera with me that time, I went straight ahead to Ayala Greenfields to take some shots. Here's one.

Summer Skies

This was the first summer that I started observing the changes in my surrounding with my photographic eye. The summer skies during sunsets in just plain spectacular. One can see colors such as red, orange and gold. In this photo, I asked myself how can I make the summer skies more interesting. By mere taking a picture of it may result in boring compositions. So what I did was to take a photo of this tree against the bright summer sky to form a silhouette.

Twilight in Tagaytay

This is not what I originally imagined when I composed this shot. I shot this hand held at ISO 800 (I think). It should be a little bit better if I shot this with a tripod.

Turtle (Close focusing kit lens)

I was testing the close focusing capability of the Nikkor 18-55mm 3.5-5.6 Kit lens and here's what I got. This lens is sharp and very light weight and it can focus really close. This is the only lens that I brought with me to Macau. It's an excellent walk around lens if I'm only planning to shoot during day time.

JET

After church my brother asked me to take some portraits of him. These are my amateur approach to it. I used my 50mm 1.8 Lens and the thing we put on our windshields to block the sun when we park our cars as the reflector.

The Ruins of St. Paul Church (Macau)

A little bit further from the entrance of Senado Square, you can find signs that can bring to you to this very famous place. Interestingly while walking on the way to the ruins, vendors from stores left and right are offering everybody free sample taste of all their products. I highly suggest that you stop over and take time to taste everything that they have to offer. Not only that you've tasted the delicious foods of Macau such as the Almond cookies and the very delicious Egg Tart, which you can buy from Lord Stow's here in Manila (but of course nothing beats the original), you may have saved yourself extra cash because after tasting everything you'll be satisfyingly full.

Welcome to Macau

Macau is the very first Asian country that I went to. I've been in the US last 2003 but I haven't discovered the passion for photography at that time.
This is a picture of Senado Square in late afternoon at very hazy weather. This is the place to be if you want to shop from outlet stores and discover delicacies from Macau. It is also en route to the famous St. Paul Ruins.
At this point of our travel, my friend and I were both still carrying our bags while walking around the shallow streets of the city because the people that we were supposed to meet have moved their flight to a later time of the day that's why we have to wait for them. Well it turned out that it still took us 8 hours before we retired to our room at The Venetial Macau.

Kit Lens Power

I just recently discovered that my 18-55mm Kit lens has the ability to focus at a very close range thus having a pseudo macro capability if fully zoomed at 55mm. Well I know it's not really macro but it's the only lens that I got which can focus at the least distance from my subject. These are some of my sample shots. I really like it. At least now I know that if I need macro shots I can rely on my ever useful kit lens.

My dog's world

Meet Clark. He's my dog. This is his favorite spot in our house which is the stairs going up to the family room and the library. I would like to think for him and try to decipher why he loves staying on that spot. One reason that I can think of is that he has a great view of the whole house from there which is important to him because him primary job is to guard the house. Nice work Clark!

What's outside?

Here's another picture of my favorite niece, well she's the only one which explains why she's my favorite. She's already starting to explore things around her.

Under construction

The Fort has still a lot more to offer. There's just so many construction sites in the area. I would have shot a lot more pictures if not becuase of the stupid securty guards. Haay. Maybe next time when I do it legally.

Facing the east

It's just beautiful how the morning sun reflect from the window glasses of these buildings.

Foursome

These are just some of the residential condominiums in The Fort

The Fort Sillhouette

I woke up at around 5am to bring my father to the airport . One the way back I decided to take the route through The Fort. When I saw a good scene I stopped my car and started shooting. Then a security guard approached me and asked if I have a permit to shoot Turns out that I have to ask permission from their arts department before I can take photographs within The Fort's vicininity. So I stopped shooting and went back to my car and started driving. Just when I drove around 100 meters another security guard riding a motorcycle was waving at me to pull over which I did. He asked to to erase every photo that I took. Well, the genius in me took the driver's seat. I showed him my camera, pressed the erase botton which prompts the delete dialogue box. After ensuring that he saw the delete dialogue box I hastingly pressed the cancel botton and immediately transfered to the next photo. I repeated the sequence until I got to the pictures I took in Tagaytay. Thank God I didn't start shooting in an emptry SD card.

The dwarf's house?

This is still in Sonya's garden. They use these stained glass little houses to lit the pathways in the whole garden.

Dining HDR

Sonya's Garden dining area in high resolution HDR.

Fountain HDR

This is an HDR image of the fountain in Sonya's Garden in Tagaytay.

High Dynamic Range (HDR)

This is an HDR image of the interior of the place where we crashed in Tagatay Highlands. I combined 11 photos shot at different exposures to make the HDR image then tone mapped it to create this beautiful image.

More Tagaytay Highlands

Temperature

The reading says it's 23 deg Celsius. It's a little bit cooler in Tagaytay. I love it there. It's not too cold and definitly not too hot. Just perfect.

What time is it?

Portrait

This is a portrait shot of my cousin. He's sitting on the same rock where he stood in the previous post.

No, he's not jumping

This is my cousin attemting to emmulate the UP Oblation. He won't strip down though. Haha

The Silhouette Remedy

This is still the original shot from the last post but this time a tweaked it using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom to have that silhouette effect. Got you there!

Attempted silhouette shot

This is an attempted silhouette shot of the place where we stayed in Tagaytay Highlands. It didn't turn out to be what I originally intended. Therefore, I just tweaked the shot to become a regularly exposed photo. Haha

Tagaytay Highlands

Our family spent the early days of the Holy week in Tagaytay highlands. I just want to share some pictures.