Grinding Metal

BUBBLES

Friday Morning Walk

Just stuff along the way!

Orange Slices

Who the hell cuts & eats oranges like that!!  

Unless it dishes out a good plate for photography :)

Xtreme Sport

Went to the XGames, Kuwait Style :P Naah.. It was just Xtreme sport organised a tournament for local stunt riders to show off their tricks, divided between groups of Amateurs & Pros. Most of the kids in the Amateur Category did really well but what was most surprising was that non of them had any safety gear on? C'mon you could seriously hurt your self out on those ramps. 

The guy pictured above is Superman, atleast that's what his shirt said from the front and boy could he Fly!!  Check some of the pics from the event below. 

Falling Down? or Rising Up?

Rising Or Falling?

Times flies so fast, again its been over a week since the last post.. although I did spend a lot of time with my camera and clicked hundreds of pics last week, I never really found enough time to update the Blog.. today however I decided to make sure I did so. 

Using the flash gun I made captured this image of water bubbles in my fishy tank.. If you didn't already guess by now, the image is upside down. It gives it a different perspective and point of view of a simple everyday object. The below settings were used to make this image. 

Camera: Canon EOS 500D

Lens: Canon

Focal Length: 50mm

Shutter Speed: 1/60

Aperture: f/4.0

ISO: 200

Flash Gun: Nissin Pro Di866 Mark II

Day 15 with the 50mm

Spell Check Error

I'm not sure what the guy wanted to say here!
And if u wondering who is standing behind? It's none other that Kevin!!
:D

The Judge - Pontiac GTO

Aaaaaahhh!! its been a week since my last post coz unfortunately I haven't had the time to update the Blog. Mornings would be busy with work work work and then evenings would be really tiring. Did have fun last Saturday though clicking pics for the senior citizen program, held by the Youth of our Parish. I used the 50mm to click... Yup I don't know what i was thinking. :P but the pics did turn out pretty good.
Today after mass we stopped by the Local Supermarket and parked right outside one of the buildings close-by was this Pontiac GTO, I've seen it there for the last 5 - 6 yrs now and I've always wanted to click some pics of it. So today I Did, used the stock lens only on Av Mode @ f18 for this shot. It's a Dream car to own and I envy the guys how has the keys to this beast. 

Day 7 with the 50mm

Phew! Had one of the most exhausting shopping experience today. 3 guys, 2 hrs, 1 bottle of water later we returned with 0 items, yep ZERO!!! It started out with a yummy Snack of Samosa Chaat @ Amman rest in Salmiya with Kevin and then picked up Anselm or should I say he picked us in his new loaned-out ride.
We had one goal in mind, get some Hawaiian  themed outfits for the Senior Citizens program being held tomorrow. Unfortunately luck wasn't with us, as either the Beach pants were too short, too expensive, too plain or just unavailable. Even good t-shirts were not available in the 6 outlets that we went too. Finally we gave up and decided to pick thru our old stack of clothes. Too tired now to type any further..goodnight all.

Day 6 with the 50mm

The Glowing Lamp

Ok, yea I know the Day 5 Post is missing, unfortunately I was out yesterday from morning 7am and got back home only at 10 pm last night so was too exhausted to do any photography and fell off right to sleep. 

Above i used an Ordinary vase, put an LED light into it and clicked at a slow shutter, it gave this lovely glow to it and was surprised to catch the trails of light exiting out of the vase.  

Day 4 with the 50mm

Just my Regular Cup of Bokeh!

Today I decided to try this Bokeh effect, have seen it done online a couple of times and wanted to do it better. It's been my mind last couple of days & although I wanted to actually make a tribute to Spain today for taking the Euro Cup, somehow my mind was on getting this image done.
Took me about 15 mins to set up the frame to shoot. Tried to use different objects too like a vase, glass bowl and kept adjusting the settings on the Cam till I got this image.
Its very simple technique to do and I enjoyed every bit of it. Dad joined in too and became the Light assistant while i was behind the lens :D Thanks Dad!!

Due to Public Request, I have updated this article to explain further on the Bokeh Effects

Bokeh comes from the Japanese word 'Boke', meaning Blur or Haze & is used to describe the 'Out of Focus' area in an Image i.e An image where you have a subject in Focus (Mug) and the background blurred out (lights) is called Bokeh effect. Here, the Blurred background is pleasing while not distracting from the actual Subject.
Imagine your eye is the lens of the Camera, if you keep the palm of your hand close to your face and focus on it, you will notice that while you are focused on your subejct (Palm) the background is blurred and the further you move your palm away from your Eye & closer to the background, the clearer it gets. So Bokeh effect is caused when the subject is close to the lens of the camera and further away from the Background causing the background to Blur up.
Hope this helps! :)

 Savio A D'souza

-SnapThat

Day 3 with the 50mm

Bored in the Beamer!

Caught this fellow sitting bored at the petrol station waiting his turn to enter the car wash.

Was lucky to even click this pic, apparently there's a no snapping at petrol station rule here in Kuwait, we got told by the station attendant to turn off the cam. Did you know there was something like that? I mean come on!! Who makes these rules up? lol

The 50mm here really impressed me with the image sharpness and clarity and am glad was able to Snapthat ;)

Day 2 with the 50mm

SelfShot

So I took the Cam to work today and started clicking at anything and everything I could find. Called Kevin up and one of the first things he asked me was.. 'Did you take the cam to work?', man i'm so predictable :P But only one guy knows me that well and it's Barco Man (Kevin). enjoyed the day with the 50mm, images seemed to be more clearer and crisp. The auto focus seems to be a lot faster as well. Can't wait to wake up tomorrow and start clicking again!

Day 1 with the 50mm

Hitting the Right Notes!

My poor bass guitar! I don't recall what my idea of purchasing this lovely instrument was in the first place. probably thought it would look cool :P . Been almost 3 years that I touched it and mom has been after me to get rid of it. But for some reason I was never really able to do that. Maybe someday in the future I might pick it up and start to learn again, until then it at least makes for a good subject to photograph!

50 Days- 50 Pics - 50mm

Yea to me! I purchased the Canon EF 50mm F1.8 II Prime lens today! It's the cheapest but one of the best lens of it's category. With an Aperture reaching as Large as F/1.8 clicking images in low light is not a problem anymore.

This little monster came in a tiny little box but packs a big punch on street & portraits photography. Already tested it, clicking a few shots and instantly noticed the sharpness of the images. The super compact sized and light weight lens really makes it easier on the wrist's as well.

I have decided to do a project: 50 day- 50 pics with he new 50mm lets see how far I get with this, so wish me Luck!

Morning out with Ian & Kevin!

Yawn!!! still exhausted from all the running jumping and monkeying around this morning. Woke up @ 5.30 am today as we were supposed to go to the beach to click some snaps. We had to still get the 2nd Image done for the 'Ernst & Young' Brand name competition and had been scratching our head for ideas. Sunrise was at 4.50 am and by the time we could all actually hit the road it was already 6.30am and bright

We decided to set up on the lawns out side Al Corniche Club on Gulf road and tried to get some flying images, motion Blur / Panning shots, just random stuff.

 Kevin and Ian decided to go for a Run :P

Ian seemed to be in a surprisingly good mood to get some snaps pics done and was happy to be the model in most of the pics, he didn't even mind getting into the water fountain.:P

And then we started flying!!!

Just me :)

 My planet needs me!!

Show Off!!! hmph!














On the whole it was a fun day with 2 good friends, wish more could have joined this morning.
That's all for now, gonna go back to sleep.

Check some more crazy pics below

Kevin trying to be funny!

Leaning tower of Kuwait???

Trying to frighten his own reflection!



































Enjoying life with every click! :) 

Savio Dsouza

-SnapThat

Photo of the Day - 28 June 2012 - Wrangler with EY Shades

3 days ago, I was asked by a friend to click a photograph of a vehicle with a sun shield having the logo of EY. Next thing I call-up Savio “Man, we have a job to do” and told him what’s on hand.

So we put on our thinking caps…

First of all, we needed a nice vehicle. Who to ask?? Tadaaa!! called up my cousin Ronnie, as he just got himself a nice Wrangler. He agreed to come. (thank you Ronnie). Meanwhile the next day my friend sent me the sun shield we were required to use. The only problem was we had to submit the click by the weekend and we were all pretty busy. As we are all working people we decide to meet up after work and head to location just before sunset the next day. Our location, outside the Hard Rock Cafe as it’s a landmark in Kuwait and close-by for all of us. We reached location (I had a tire puncture fixed in-between to add to the mix) and began to set up quickly as the sun was setting quickly and we had to get a decent shot before we ran out of time.  The result is here below.

As Ronnie had come with his wife Fiona and sweetie pie Rianna,  we clicked a nice family picture. Managed to get the sunset, and some long exposure shots of the Jeep too. All done, RonFioRia headed back home to watch the Euro Cup Portugal v/s Spain, while Savio, Me headed to Church to help at our upcoming Senior Citizen Program.

Photography Tip of the Day- Don't become obsessed with Perfection!

Don't become obsessed with Perfection!

It’s good to try to be your best and want to click good photographs, but do not become obsessed with perfecting every shot. The only thing you should be obsessed with is clicking all the possible pics.

Even Pro-photographers don’t always get all their shots right. Enjoy the time with your Camera and take a few crazy snaps as well. Keep experimenting & practice, practice, practice!

If you see something you like, keep it! Do not delete the images thinking that lighting or composition of the snap is not good enough. Use people's criticism as a stepping guide to getting better.

Savio A. D'souza

-SnapThat

Fun with Motion Blur

So let’s talk about an interesting article today called Motion Blur!

Contrary to popular belief, your photographs don’t always have to be Sharp!

Shocking right? Yea, sometimes a blurred pic says a lot about the photograph, depending on what the photographer was trying to capture and how the image was taken.

As Kevin mentioned in his earlier post on, "how to click Good Photographs", There are no rules to photography. What is important, is what the photographer is trying to portray in the image.

Like all Topics of Photography this one is very vast and not possible to cover in just one post so we’ll break this down in parts.

What is Motion Blur?

A simple definition would be- An image captured of an object in motion (vehicles moving, people dancing, spinning wheels, etc) which show the movement of the object in the form of a blur or streak of light around the object is what is known as a Motion Blur. Examples are below.

This is caused namely because either the moving object was too fast for the camera’s shutter to capture it in a ‘Still / freeze’ shot and / or the photographer deliberately lowered the shutter speed of the camera in order to capture the object’s motion in the form of a Blur.

There as two types of Motion Blur.
1. In which the object in focus is 'Still', while the surroundings are blurred (also commonly known as Panning)
2. The Surrounding are 'Still' and the object in focus is blurred.

But why would you want blurred images?

Motion Blur photography gives us a 2 dimensional view of the object in the image. Unlike still photographs, we can determine the movement and are aware that the object is focus is not just standing still.

Here below is another interesting shot of Motion Blur.

1. What do you notice in this image?

2. What do you think the people are doing here?

This photograph was taken on Yacht Trip a couple of days back. Unfortunately due to low lighting, we were struggling to get any good shots of this dancing group enjoying themselves.

Kevin suggested that we try to click at a slower shutter and instantly we noticed the results were pretty amazing. Now we could capture them dancing about and enjoying themselves and not just still images of people in funny looking poses.

This post will just give you an example of what Image blur / Motion blur is and how it can be used to bring the snap to life.

We will cover the technical aspects on this subject on a later date.
Until then, be it ‘Moving or Still objects’, if you like what you see don’t be afraid to SnapThat!

I want a Digital Camera !

Now if you’re thinking of buying a digital camera and you’re confused which one to buy…well help is on the way. I won’t say which brand or model is the best, but just a few points to think, which might help you to make a decision.

Most of the times we get carried away with what the salesman has to say, so do your homework in advance. Below are a few things to ask yourself:

* What type of camera do you want? Point and Shoot or DSLR?

* Am I going to shoot in Auto mode, or maybe I’ll do some creative photography?

* What is my budget?

* What features are you looking at?

  -Compact/portable

  -Large LCD

  -Macro, Zoom, Wide Angle

  -Weight/Size

  -Maintenance

  -Easy to use / Complexity

  -Speed

  -Image Quality/Mega Pixels

Mega Pixels!! Almost all of the time the salesman is going to say “Check this camera it has 18 Mega Pixel” it’s the latest. Don’t just jump for it. Consider what you’re going to do with your pictures. Just upload them on Facebook? Print a normal album size or you might want to blow them up wall size pictures. If you’re not going to print large size pictures then, a minimum 5 MP camera will be just fine. I’m not saying Large MP cameras are bad it’s just that you’ll be paying more for something you’re not going to use and its going to consume a lot of Hard Disk space.

If you have thought of going for a DSLR, the price tag on the camera isn’t going to always be the final price. There are a few extras to consider (may be not at that time but in near future) you will need to get an External Flash, Tripod, Monopod, Extra Batteries, Lenses, Filters, Memory cards, Camera Bag, Remote shutter release, to name a few.

A thing to consider on a P&S camera is the zoom range. It is recommended that you opt for more Optical zoom rather than Digital zoom. Digital zoom simply enlarges the pixels in your shot which does make your subject look bigger and also more pixilated.

So now let’s say you narrowed down to a few camera models, your next best friend to consult is…Google! Go read some reviews on those few you selected. Then go to your favourite store and check out hands-on the feel and look of the camera.

A lot more things can be added to consider purchase of a digital camera. This is just my general take on buying one. Take your time in reviewing the pro’s and con’s and what do I need or what do I want in a camera.

...and when you do get one just SnapThat!

HDR Images - (HIGH DYNAMIC RANGE)

The snap below was taken and processed in January of this year. For those of you in Kuwait who have visited the Gulf Run car show at the 360 Mall, I’m sure you have spotted this beauty. Although it was on display at one corner of the show, this model attracted the most attention especially the young & avid car enthusiasts.

Yes, that’s the 2012 Chevy Camaro! Obviously modified but, nonetheless, an amazing work of art. The intricacy of the design on the car and the combination of Blue and Black made it stand out against its rivals.

This photograph was done using HDR (HIGH DYNAMIC RANGE). OK! I know for those of you who are not into photography, this might seem a little too technical. So I’m taking the liberty of explaining what HDR is all about.

In simple terms, an HDR image is a blend of photographs taken at two or more light exposures and merged together using post-processing software (eg. Photoshop, Photomatrix, etc). This creates a highly dynamic range between the lighter and darker portions of the image.

In order to understand how HDR works, you need to first understand what ‘Exposure’ is and how to adjust the exposure setting of a camera.

I would simply define ‘Exposure’ as the amount of light absorbed by the image sensor when the shutter closes.

All DSLRs and, now-a-days, some of the ‘Point and Shoot’ cameras allow you to view the exposure meter on the display. As shown below, the higher the exposure, the brighter the image & vice versa. Unfortunately not all ‘Point and Shoot’ cameras offer you this option to change the exposures settings. Under the manual mode, the exposure settings of a DSLR camera can be adjusted to click at minimum 3 exposures, also known as Bracketing. Below is a shot of the exposure meter showing exposure set at 3 points.

 

For example, if you set the exposure at -1, 0, +1, (as shown in the markings) and click thrice, the first image will be captured at -1 exposure which is darker, the second image will be captured at 0 or normal exposure, and the third will be at a brighter exposure of +1

Now that you’ve got your images at different exposures, you only have to merge them on your HDR software and Viola! You’ve just made your first HDR image.

HDR image processing softwares are not free and don’t come cheap, but I’m sure most of you know how to get your hands on them. Do not download pirated software, It’s ILLEGAL!!

HDR imaging is a vast subject and I have tried to put as much of necessary information as I could in this post. We will definitely get back to this subject again another day.

Savio A. D'souza

-SnapThat

Kuwait Towers

So after some 15 years I was back to Kuwait, this time not on vacation but to stay. Riding in the back seat of my cousin's car down the Gulf Road I spotted the Kuwait Towers ! and I go, Hey, Wait Wait !! I wanna click a picture of the towers and Lulu says: Don't worry Kev, your gonna be here for a few years :) 

Well after living a few years in Kuwait, at last I thought, lets go click a low light sunset kinda picture of the most famous landmark in Kuwait "The Kuwait Towers". So I packed the camera, stand and was off to the towers with my Mum (who is now on visit to Kuwait), my Sister and my friend Savio. We reached when the sun was still in the horizon so, Savio and Me both set up our cameras and waited for the sun to set and then we got trigger happy :) Took a few shots, sat a while, chatted, watched the people at the beach & headed back home. So down here we have the Kuwait Towers for you.

(click to view large)

 

Umm...now all those who are not from Kuwait, here is a small article on the towers taken from Wikipedia.

The Kuwait Towers are three towers of reinforced concrete in Kuwait City. The main tower is 187 metres high and serves as a restaurant and water tower. It also has a Viewing Sphere which rises to 123 metres above sea level and completes a full turn every 30 minutes. The second tower is 145.8 metres high and serves as a water tower. The third tower houses equipment to control the flow of electricity and illuminates the two larger towers. The towers hold 4,500 cubic metres of water.

The towers were designed by Sune Lindström and Malene Björn and built by Energoprojekt, a company from Belgrade, Yugoslavia, and Vatrostalna, a company from Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Photo of the Day - June 17 - Sunset over the Desert City

Yesterday, I wrote about clicking 'After Sunset' pics and you saw the beautiful light shades in the image at the dock. Today, I decided to go a little earlier, just before the sun could go down but I wasn't even planning on clicking the sunset. 
I went for a walk to the Marina, not knowing what i was going to snap. I thought of going to the beach front at first. Thought, maybe I'd catch some kids playing or some of the youngsters on their BMX bikes or click some snaps of the Yachts at the Dock.
But as luck would have it, when I reached the Gulf road, it was impossible to cross with the vehicles speeding from both ends. I was forced to take the overhead bridge, something I wasn't keen on doing but while half way across, the most Beautiful sight caught my eye. The Sun was setting over Kuwait City and it looked SPECTACULAR.

Finding a good spot, I stood there mesmerized, camera in hand.Clicked almost 25 shots and each was better that the other. I finally settled for this one; I like the sun peeking out from under the clouds :)
The Sunset over this Desert City has never looked so beautiful before, without a doubt, this had to be my Photo of the day.
You never know what you might run into, so always keep your camera close at hand and keep snapping.

Savio A. Dsouza

- SnapThat

Photo of the Day - June 16

I'm sittin' on the dock of the bay
Watching the tide roll away
Ooo, I'm just sittin' on the dock of the bay
Wastin' time

Otis Redding couldn’t have got it wrong when he wrote the lyrics to that amazing song. Truly there is something special about spending time out on that dock just looking into the horizon and watching the sunset.

Today we decided to do some ‘After Sunset’ photography. A good tip to capturing beautiful tones of the sky is to wait about 20 minutes after sunset. That’s when the best colors of the sky can be captured with a properly timed exposure. Once the harsh lights of the sun have settled and all you are left with is the soft after-lights. Before the darkness of the sky settles in, take in as much pics as you like, you are going to really love the effects. 

For the above snap, I set the Shutter @ a good long 30seconds to take in as much as the lights as possible. The Aperture was set  to F16 and clicked, obviously using a tripod. 

The snap came out better than I expected, so here it is, my Photo of the Day!

Keep Snapping

Savio A. D'souza

- SnapThat