Sunset at Stanford

This is the sunset at sunset after Google lost to Facebook a year or two ago.

More raindrops on plants!

While I was leaving for work this morning, I saw that there were just tons of little raindrops on the roses and leaves in front of my house so I rushed in to get my camera. I think these are a lot better than my previous set (even the ones I didn't post). Guess I'm getting picker. I love how the raindrops on these look almost like scales.

SFMOMA

Went to SF MOMA this weekend and I can't say that I loved the art inside, but man was the building awesome! I took more photos of the building itself than the art inside! I guess I just don't understand modern art at all. I'm not saying there isn't any skill or thought going into the art, but personally, I just don't see it. Or rather, maybe it's more that I just don't like it. I mean, looking at some of the photos I took of the building, you can probably say that they are a bit abstract as well, so maybe it's not so much that I don't understand abstract art, but rather that the kind of art shown in the museum just didn't appeal to me. Maybe it was too messy and busy. I've always been more of a minimalist so maybe that's the reason? Also, I guess you don't have to understand the art in order to like it either. I mean, looking at my photos, I don't see any clear message or anything, I just think they look kind of cool, so maybe that's okay. Anyways, here are some photos. There are a couple more here.

Old photos

I've been digging through some old photos lately and found one of my favs. There's actually nothing technical about it. I was just in the right place at the right time. In fact, I took this with my mom's old prosumer camera on our cross country trip a couple years ago and just snapped this shot while we were still driving. The window was probably still up as well. Sometimes, I just think, after all the books I've read and shots I've taken, I still haven't taken many better shots than this. What have I been doing all this time? Anyways, I just love the simplicity of the colors and the clouds. Oh how I love these clouds. I've been trying find clouds like these ever since I came to Cali. I get excited every time I see a cloud in the sky now. Sigh ... hope you guys like it as much as I do.

More flowers

It was raining this morning and I decided to take some pictures of the flowers in front of my house. Since it just stopped raining, there were some beautiful rain drops on the flowers that I just had to capture. Almost missed my morning shuttle :/

This brings up an issue that I've been trying to sort out lately. I even had a long discussion with a friend about it today. It deals with my passion as a photographer and why I take photos. Many of the books and DVDs that I've been reading/watching always say something about "telling a story" and I don't know if I should be trying to tell a story or have a message within my photos. I mean, at this point, I feel like I just want to take pictures of cool stuff, and especially learn to take pictures of cool stuff that other professional photographers are really good at taking and someday have a picture that's "cool" enough for me to blow up and hang up on my wall. So I guess the question is, is that okay? Am I missing the point of photography? Is my "passion" too superficial? Should I be trying to tell a story or do something for the greater good? Anyways, I guess I'll dive into this deeper in a later blog post, but that's just what I've been thinking about lately.



More pics here: http://picasaweb.google.com/vashthest/Flowers#

Portrait Experimentation

Playing around with my lighting setup (430 EX II with shoot-through umbrella). These are some shots of my friend Yi (we have the same name, I know). I kinda wish the background weren't so dull though. I'll have to play around with distance from the wall to get a darker or lighter background.

Also, I learned that posing people is hard. Everything from the facial expressions to the position on the body and the arms. Also, since we're both new at this, it was hard to get some natural looking shots. I'm already not a very talkative person so it's especially hard to get people relaxed and comfortable in front of the camera. Coupled with the fact that I'm still trying to think about flash to subject distance, flash power, my shutter-speed, aperture, ISO, and composition, it's next to impossible to try and tell my model how to pose. Luckily, Yi's an old friend so he'll put up with me. Thanks Yi!



Also, my trial with butterfly lighting:

More pics here: http://picasaweb.google.com/vashthest/Portraits#

24!

It was my bday yesterday and it was awesome! We had a joint bday party at Buca's. The food was great, the company was great, and the after party was great too! My friends also threw me a surprise bday party at work as well on Friday. I love my friends. And oh, I love my flash =). Anyways, the group shot below. More shots here.