Shooting in the RAW

No, that doesn't mean I'm going to be doing a photography shoot in my birthday suite. :P

I'm going to be shooting for Gail again tonight at her Wine Event, but this time, I'm going to be shooting it in RAW format (ok fine, along with an L sized .jpg file as a backup in case I screw up in post-processing). You see, I decided to really take these events as serious practice sessions - in previous events, I would merely focus on getting the right composition and lighting. Now I've decided to really treat it super seriously even from a post-processing standpoint.

I always thought that shooting in the RAW just meant a fantastically large file with absolutely no benefit - then I started expermenting. You see, shooting in RAW format (.cr2) means that the camera processor doesn't do any processing and compression (hence the large file size) as it writes the image to the memory card. It writes the image as it sees it, which allows for better flexibility in post-processing. You get to apply and fine-tune your WB settings, your RGB settings, and even color saturation.

Hopefully, this *should* make my pictures look so much better, as I'll be relying on my judgment in post-processing as opposed to just letting the camera do all the work. This will involve more effort on my part, but hey, I *did* promise myself I'd take this as a serious hobby.

A thousand thanks to Gail for letting me moonlight as a photographer in her events! W00t! :D

Save our language!

Yes, and this comes from a MASS COMM graduate.

God save our language.

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hi XXX! hhhm, im speaking for myself. i dont know what te XXX or te XXX thinks.
but id be willing to give cscst until tuesday. let's see muna.
ung swu, wala na rin e. so, lets see kung what cscst can produce.
please follow up them next week ha.

ang poster.. te XXX, in-corporate nlng nato ang design sa ubos na gi-make ni XXX ug katong sa edited nga logo something ni rankine.
kay ang ka-XXX, nana man mga details. whatchathink??

XXX XXXXXX XXXXX XXXX
BA Mass Communications
University of the Philippines

Fussing

During my 41 hours in Baguio during the past Holy Week, my cousin Brian infected me (yes, INFECTED is the right term since he sneezed in my direction) with the colds and cough and fever. So I was sick on Sunday and Monday, being sufficiently wasted to actually leave the office early on Monday. Before I went home, Gail brought me to her place and prepared some chicken soup for me and generally fussed over me since she was concerned over my being sick.

Prior to this, during my first karting experience, I accidentally brushed my right forearm against the engine as I was getting up (I didn't really trust the steering wheel to be able to handle my....er, gravity pull so to speak) and, as a result, got a very small first degree burn that's about the diameter of a 1-peso coin. Gail had us stop by Mercury Drug (since she was out of betadine and big bandaids at home and Doc Harry, much to his chagrin, did not carry a sample in his pocket...MEDIC!!!!!) to get some supplies then we went over to her place where she cleaned my wound, applied betadine, and put some bandages over the wound so it would be protected.

In a nutshell, she's been fussing over me as I was injured and sick in 2 separate occasions in the past 2 weeks. And I'm not used to it anymore.

It was an odd feeling to have someone worry about you just because you were sick or injured. From where I was coming from, I had steeled myself over the past year or so to not expect or depend on other people for help or sympathy (beyond the norm) whenever I was sick - and since I'm the type of person who gets sick easily but gets well easily (as opposed to some folks who rarely get sick, but when they do, are bedridden for about 1-2 weeks), I had a lot of opportunities to get used to it. Also, as a habit, I rarely if ever inform my parentals about my being sick because they just worry to the high heavens, as parents are prone to do (which often includes a mini-sermon from my dad about taking better care of myself - yes, that's how my dad expresses his love for me!). So the usual habit for me was to pop a few meds, drink a lot of liquids, and just try to sleep it out till I get better after a couple of days - no fuss.

An odd feeling it may be, since I haven't had anything like this in quite some time - but I must admit that it's a nice feeling to have someone fuss over you. Some doctors MAY argue that it doesn't do anything to make you get better, but it sure does make me FEEL better - which, in my book, is half the battle.

So a big thanks to Gail for fussing over me - you may think that you're not doing enough, but trust me - you are. MORE than enough. :)

And yes, that's definitely a good thing. :)

Holy Week Travel

The Holy Week just ended, and I fully expected to spend it as I spent the last 5 Holy Weeks - staying at home. You see, in this great country of ours (for the foreign folks who read my blog), Holy Week is also known as the Great Traffic Jam Outside of Manila. Almost everyone travels to visit relatives or to just take a vacation.

Not me - I always treated Holy Week as a break from the world, so I usually just spent it at home with the parentals. We would just go do the traditional visita iglesia OR do the Stations of the Cross on Maundy Thursday and stay at home on Good Friday.

This year, however, my dad requested that we all go to Baguio, as it's his last year before he officially retires from his office. So I said "why the hell not?" and decided to go with them - then they told me that we would be leaving on Maundy Thursday.

Good Lord. That's the equivalent of taking a nice quiet stroll at the Korean DMZ.

To make a loooooong trip short, the trip to Baguio took us 9 bloody hours. Yes, 9 hours to travel 300 kilometers (which included an hour's worth of lunch). To give you perspective on how bad it was, during my last trip to Pagudpod (~600 kilometers from Manila), it took me 8 hours to get there.

Plus I forgot to fully charge my iPod. Argh.

The trouble spots were NLEX because of a) numerous stalled vehicles, especially one that involved an 8 car pileup, b) the long line at the Dau tollway (5 kilometers!), and c) the SCTEX toll entry from NLEX (25 minutes!). To be fair to the NLEX management, they did an excellent job of managing the traffic during Holy Week - all stalled vehicles had at least one patrol car along with the proper orange cones for safety, AND at the Dau tollway, they were physically managing the traffic by coordinating the merging of cars as one approaches the tollway itself. PLUS they had numerous employees ranging ahead to collect toll fees. PLUS they all had a positive cheery demeanor that you really didn't feel the urge to lash out at them. The NLEX problem was really brought about by the volume of cars - which, given that it was the middle of Holy Week, should've been expected.

SCTEX was another matter. For some insane reason, it took us 25 minutes to get our toll card - we were debating why it was taking so long (my mom was saying that maybe they were collecting the payment already) but as we arrived at the toll, the lady did *something* to the card (either swiped it OR printed something, since I heard a dot matrix printer) then handed it to me. It took her about 7 seconds to do that - which, in my opinion, was idiotic. Why do you need to do something to a card that comes from just ONE location and the payment system was based on where you entered?! The SLEX system uses the same payment system - but when you get up to the toll, they just hand you a magnetic card that's pre-encoded with the entry point where it was handed out. No fuss, no delay. SCTEX should fix that system - it was the one fault that they had.

Anyhow, after spending just 41 hours in Baguio (yeheesss, let's talk about payout, shall we?), we zoom zoomed to Manila, which took us just 6.5 hours. Not bad at all.

It would've been great if I was able to bring Gail along - but as my mother said, "since Chad and Gail aren't official yet, no one can bring their respective significant others as well." *lol* Now if that isn't an endorsement, I don't know what is. :P

Allow me one rant though, about motorcycles.

Everyone knows how motorcycles behave in this country - no need to go into that much detail about their generally despicable driving ethics. But take note of this pic:

Pardon the lousy shot, I had to shoot it through the tinted windshield of my dad's car.

Now if you're going to drive like a moron without any regard for manners or the proper and safe way of driving a motorcycle, at least have the effin' decency to wear a HELMET. Now, if you like living on the edge, that's fine - hey, it's your moronic life, not mine. But for the love of all that's holy - if you're going to compound your idiocy by making your CHILDREN ride a motorcycle with you, at least have THEM wear a bloody helmet!

*growl*

Ok, rant over.

It's been a while since I've purposely gone out for a photo shoot - hmmmm. Must schedule one soon. My DSLR's glaring at me already for ignoring it.

Of dogs and karts

Gail and I lead very disparate yet busy lives at work - Gail's job is about 20% office work and 80% fieldwork, involving restaurant visits everyday, and since most restaurants start to function at lunch time or in the afternoon, her work inevitably takes her all the way to the late evening.

I, on the other hand, have the more regular (a.k.a. "boring" in some circles!) work schedule of a roughly 9ish to 7ish in the evening. It's choke full of meetings and data analysis and more meetings, with the occasional fieldwork (both consumer and trade) about once every 2-3 weeks or so.

Needless to say, both of us have very busy work lives, so as much as possible, we try to "vege" it out during weekends or holidays. Which is exactly what we did during this long weekend prior to the Holy Week.

Last Monday, Gail and I decided to have a "Day of the Dog" and took Wuffles (Gail's shitzu) out for a walk at the Makati Salcedo park initially. Given Wuffle's perpetual state of hyperactivity, we figured that she'd enjoy the wide open spaces of the park...unfortunately, no dogs are allowed in the actual park itself. Boo! So we just took her around the park and nearby places.

Yes, Wuffles actually knows how to pose for the camera!

Taking turns!

*pant* *pant* *wheeze* *smile for camera*

After numerous incidents of "marking her territory," we decided not to push our luck and headed off to Gail's neighborhood for part 2 of the Day of the Dog. We toured Gail's place, which is an amazing neighborhood of contrasts - you'd see a wide range of house styles that seem out of place but they blend in really well. I wasn't able to take any shots as I opted to leave my camera in the car (given the numerous dogs that would range across the streets of her neighborhood, we had our hands full with Gail occasionally picking up Wuffles and myself attempting to stop other canines from pouncing on Wuffles!).

What's funny is that I'm quite familiar with her neighborhood from a work perspective - I had done numerous trade and consumer fieldwork in her area, from the Puregold to the public markets and side street sari-sari stores to the different fast food restaurants where we would have lunch. Again, it's pretty damn amazing that Gail and I had numerous - and I do mean numerous - opportunities in the past to have met up but never did. Whodathunk...

We ended the Day of the Dog after about 1.5 hours as Wuffles was panting like nothing...when we got back to Gail's place, Wuffles just ran to her water dish (despite giving her a lot of water while walking in Salcedo) and afterwards plopped down on the floor to rest. Gotta give it to the dog for being a very well-behaved trooper!

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Another thing we did to "vege" happened just last night - at the invitation of Gail's good friend Uichi, we decided to go karting! W00t! It was myself, Gail, Doc Harry, Uichi, and Uichi's cousin Jen (thanks Gail!).

Gail with Doc Harry (1st pic) and Uichi (2nd pic). Yes, the price of being a photographer is not appearing in your own pics...!

*zoom zoom!*

It was my first time to go karting, and damn it was fun! I was a bit hesitant at first since I still had to figure out the dynamics of the kart, but after a couple of rounds I was zooming down the track! Of course, I wasn't as good as Uichi (who must've lapped me at least twice!), but I'll get there with enough practice - and hell yeah am I coming back for more!

It's a nice gimmick for team building - P300 for 12 minutes, which may seem to be short, but I think it's just right. Any longer and the fun factor would go down and the pain factor would go up. Yes, pain - these karts aren't exactly equipped with power steering, so work out those laterals! But it's definitely worth it, so try it out for yourself!

Ok, enough blogging while at the office (ah heh!). Time to start working!