Dragonfly

I kinda missed having the ability to take macro photos with my Nikon, much like the macro function on my old FZ45, so I purchased a cheap macro reversing ring as well as an aperture control ring to convert my 18-55mm kit lens into a macro lens (it made no sense to me to invest in a dedicated macro lens just to play around with macro photography). After photographing loads of everyday stuff just see what it they looked like close-up (string, feathers, needle eyes etc.) I decided to have a go at capturing a more animated subject. I brought my makeshift macro kit on holiday and one day spotted a little brown-yellow dragonfly sitting on a washing line.

I climbed up on a chair, adjusted my flash (with homemade diffuser box!) and began the task of focusing wide open, closing the aperture ring and shooting. Lather, rinse and repeat a few times, cull the out-of-focus images (of which there were a lot!) and clean up the dust spots on the few remaining good ones.

Surprisingly I was able to get my unwieldy camera, reversed lens and flash/box combo really close to the dragonfly without it barely flinching. I thought just my presence and the diffuser box looming over the insect would be enough to scare it but it stayed calm, even with the flash firing off just directly above it. Only when I decided to climb off the chair to try and recompose my shots did it decide to fly away.

I tried my best to get the eyes in focus as that's what you're usually drawn to in the first place, but if you've ever used a reverse Nikon lens set-up you'll know how difficult it is to get the incredibly shallow focus plane just right AND THEN close the aperture to near-darkness to increase sharpness and focus plane. Add to that hand-holding the camera with a top-heavy flash and it made for a pretty testing time. That said it was really fun, despite the arm-aching weight of the camera and googly eyes I got from peering into the dark viewfinder :)

Street dogs

Not actually on a street but close enough, appearance-wise.

Left Out

The way the girl is gazing off into the distance makes it look like she wasn't included in the trio's game, but she wasn't really. She was just looking towards her mother who was out of frame.

The camera sometimes lies.

Spider Hunters

I saw these kids climbing trees in the woods behind my house in the Philippines. What they were doing was looking for spiders, which they would later pair up to fight against each other. Mr. Orange decided to climb the trees, while Mr. Red was on the lookout, directing Mr. Orange to where the big arachnids were.

I kept this shot in colour rather than convert to black & white as the orange and red t-shirts contrasted really well against the green leaves. The colour also helped to define the imaginary rule-of-thirds lines; the picture is divided vertically by the two trees flanking the diagonal trunk, as well as horizontally by the dark green tree canopy up top and light green scrubland down below. The kids sit nicely on the horizontal lines, with the diagonal trunk and Mr. Red's face leading your eye upwards to Mr. Orange.

Diyolin kids

Yeah, I had to Google the spelling of diyolin. I kept thinking it began with a J, even though I know J isn't in the Filipino alphabet.

I was in a car when saw these kids playing with marbles on the roadside in the Philippines. This was one of those moments where I thought that this little slice of street life might look interesting (before street photography was something I took a greater interest in). Luckily there were no cars passing in the lane next to me and we were stuck in some slow-moving traffic, but I was shooting with my 35mm lens through glass and had to frame the shot with a crop in mind as we were a bit too far away to fill the frame.

What struck me was just how close to the road they were. These kids couldn't have been older than 8 or 9 years old and they decided to set their marble game up just inches from the road edge. But it's not like they were short on floor space. Look at how much pavement is behind them! I remember one of my primary school teachers telling us the tale of that kid who was playing with his football in the street instead of just holding it like a good boy, and he kicked it a little harder than usual and it landed in the middle of the road, and he ran between parked cars into the road to get his ball, not realising that he was running into the path on an oncoming car, and the driver had no time to react. Yeah, I thought about that tale when I took this, just replace that football with an over-enthusiastically flicked marble.

But then again these are hardened street children, not soft, pampered wuss-bags.

Askal

My aunt's dog in the Philippines. I forget his name. He's a mutt, commonly known as an askal.

When I met him for the first time he was extremely wary of me. Being a new face/smell he wasn't used to me at all and every time I got even a little bit close to him he would panic and bark his little head off. When I went back to my aunt's house a few days later, it was as if the previous day never happened; he was wagging his tail, hopping up on his hind legs and licking my hand. Endless licking. He even did that puppy thing where he would gently bite on my finger like he was teething, but always being aware to not actually crunch my digit in his mouth.

Just like that.

I did the old point & shoot and managed to get him licking his nose. It's a bit blurry because I just stuck to Program Auto mode and it picked a pretty wide aperture/slow shutter speed on my 35mm prime. I only learned how to use a fast shutter with exposure compensation a few weeks ago (me = still a noob) which would have given a sharper shot, but I like the blurriness that came as a result.

I made sure to let him nibble my finger after.

Gone fishing

On an early morning walk to the beach in the Philippines I saw these three fishermen casting their net into the water. They then paused for a few minutes to watch the rough waves, which gave me plenty of time to take this photo.

A moment of reflection? Caution at the choppy seas? Or maybe not enough fish.

Byebye Kitty

So Kara, my cat in the Philippines died yesterday. Not really sure how or why, just that he was found in the house garden in the morning. He wasn't bloodied up like he'd been in a fight and it wasn't old age (he was only about 3 years old), so it might have been something he ate, or maybe something that bit him. I dunno. While I'm not bawling my eyes out or anything that dramatic, it's pretty sad because he was really friendly with people, unlike our other cats who just aren't used to human contact and will tend to run from you, unless it's feeding time and you have the food.

I took this shot of Kara with my Panny FZ45 last year, moments after a bout of really heavy rain. I saw him taking a quick lick of a puddle so I did the old zoom, point and shoot. I managed to capture a moment when he had his tongue out, which was pretty cool, especially since that camera isn't the fastest performer, particularly when shooting in raw.

He was a cool cat.

Kalabaw

I painted a picture of a carabao for my art blog a while back, and it seems to get a lot of visits, mostly from the Philippines. So I looked in my archives and found some photos of the real deal.

Unlike my painting this particular kalabaw is a fully working beast, hence all the rope and pully attached to its horns and body. This one also has a mottled head, kind of like reversed freckles, which were quite interesting as I only ever see ones that are totally brown or black.
 
It was "parked" just outside the family house in the Philippines after dragging a pile of bamboo into our front yard. I didn't know it was coming that day and when I saw it the yard I ran outside and took a couple of snaps with my crappy phone.

My FZ45 was upstairs in my room, so I ran back inside, up a couple of flights of stairs to my room, grabbed my camera, ran back down and when I got outside it was no longer in the yard :(

A detailed picture showing the spots, hairs, rope and rain-shined horns. My favourite of the set.