Our Forests, Our Oceans, Our Resources - Our Earth

Our Forests, Our Oceans, Our Resources - Our Earth taken to commemorate Earth Hour 2011

I was sitting at my desk at home, working away as usual, but as usual, your mind begins to wander. And mine usually thinks about photography when it wanders in the right direction. Suddenly I got inspired!

Earth Hour 2011 is coming around the corner. I thought I could dedicate my inspiration to the event. And so I dug around the house and came up with this shot.

What it meant:
- Background Blue Gel-ed lights represents the Oceans that we must protect for they are always the ones unseen, in the background.
- Greenery represents our forests which we must cherish.
- Stones and candle lights represents the earth which our precious resources lies.
- Patterned Vase represents us and everything synthetic, but is part of the full picture... that we MUST try to live in harmony with OUR EARTH.

Equipment:
- Canon 50D.
- Manfrotto Tripod.

Materials Used:
- Pebbles.
- 4 tealights. (one inside the vase!)
- Artificial Grass/Moss.
- A translucent Vase. (Or whatever you think is pretty.)
- 2 Blue Flash Gel (for...)
- 2 Diving Torches (yup, I dive. My gels are for Speedlites so they are tiny. Therefore out comes the dive torches!)
- An Ikea Stool as a studio table. (wished I had one)

Finding My Voice

Retreat

I haven't found my photography voice yet. People who look at my photos may begin to observe a style but to me, I haven't found my conviction, my voice. I KNOW I haven't found that voice.

My creativity ran stagnant for about 1 year, for too many reasons in life, valid or invalid. 'Retreat' is the first loved piece of the year and also from the first shoot of the year.

I had wanted to blog it earlier but had nothing to say. Well now I do - I just finished watching a short interview of Ryan Muirhead, a photographer.

His words has not only inspired me but he has put into words what I needed to hear. Here's what brought it home for me:

find your own voice...
and the only way to do that, is by working
you can't read up on it
you can't learn it
you can't absorb it from someone else
but if you are out there shooting... constantly
on good days
on bad days
when you are feeling creative
when you are not
carrying a tiny camera with you everywhere you go
wherever you are, anywhere, there is a beautiful photo you can take
maybe you don't have as many possiblities
maybe it's reduced to just using what's there in the best possible way
but there is always beautiful light there
if you do that... enough
your voice will find you
it's inevitable
- Ryan Muirhead, not just a Film Photographer.

For those who are interested in that interview, here's the link: http://www.framedshow.com/?p=469

Marbles

Marbles

I had wanted to share this quite sometime ago - In December last year, 2010, this photo became the winning entry of a casual online photo competition. The theme of the competition was "Festive". It won me a tiny Nikon digital pocket camera.

I took this during Christmas the previous year. There were candles and these beautiful strings of christmas decorations on the table. So I curled one up, used candle lights to light them up, propped my knees up while sitting on the chair (instant tripod) and shot away hand-held.

This was also one of my submissions for the 5th Annual Color Awards 2010, under the category Abstract.