Lion Dance

Lion Dance at Fort Canning

I’m embarking on a project: I’m going through all the pictures that I’d taken since I bought my first DSLR and re-process them with the latest engine in Adobe Photoshop CS6 and Lightroom 4. This is one of the good things of digital photography, that old pictures can still take advantage of advances in software technology and improvement in skill. (Not true. Thanks to Alessandro for pointing out) With the help of the new software and new skills that I’ve picked up, I am now able to create panoramas and composites that I wasn’t able or didn’t know how to do before.

I’m doing this for 3 reasons:

• to help recover some hard disk space by deleting pictures that are out of focused, blur or generally not worth keeping or learning from,
• to shortlist pictures that I deem can contribute to my best work, some of which I will showcase on this blog (which I’ll be calling “Blasts from the Past”), and lastly,
• to take stock of how I have progress and (hopefully) improved in photography.

I’ve finished 2007 and 2008 so far and along the way, I have relieved many precious memories of places I’ve been, moments I’ve encountered and people I’ve met.

This picture here is one of blasts of the past, a lion dance performance taken back in 2008 on Fort Canning in Singapore taken at an event. It’s rather apt, since today is the final day of the Lunar New Year.

Related articles

• Photos: ‘Drunken lion’ dance 101 (edition.cnn.com)
• Lion Dance 舞狮 (minhasblog.wordpress.com)
• Tips & Tricks: Choosing the Right Photoshop (mpex-experience.com)
• Lightrooming (gnivmcelada.wordpress.com)

Fondness

A model watching a toddler run by

I like the expression in this picture.  The model was posing for my friends who arranged for a shoot in HCMC when this toddler ran by.  I managed to snatch this shot from the side.

HDR Sunday – Carefree at Palace

Carefree at Palace, originally uploaded by anthonli.

I do not usually include people in my HDR shots, but I can’t help it when this little boy started running through the pigeons feeding when I was taking the picture of the National Palace in Phnom Penh Cambodia .
I thought the final results adds more to the impact.  The big challenge touching up the picture is to keep the people looking as natural as possible.

Related articles

• HDR Perspective. (damiankilpin.wordpress.com)
• HDR: Making impossible shots possible (pixiq.com)
• H.D.R. Photography for the Realist (gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Photomatix HDR Workflow (oxfordschoolofphotography.wordpress.com)

Cam Phone Tuesday – Grazing cows

Grazing cows, originally uploaded by anthonli.

Cows grazing by the road. I stopped along the highway just to take this photo!

Taken with my iPhone 4S and edited in Lightroom 4

HDR Sunday – Sunrise in Jeonju

Sunrise in Jeonju, originally uploaded by anthonli.

I didn’t suddenly go jetsetting. Recently, I was resurrecting my old photos and see how I will edit them with my newly developed skills and tools. I came across this sunrise series in Jeonju which I took during my 2007 trip to Korea.
With my D40 (no auto-bracketing), I took 4 pictures of the sunrise at different exposures on a tripod, resulting in a HDR series which I readily did with Photomatix.
This is the result. I intensified the orange on purpose to create a stronger mood.
There is a little bit of surrealism due to my choice of colouring, but this is what you would see there, a little indistinct shadows under the bridge and the distant mountain slightly clouded by the morning mist.

Related articles

• HDR and Beyond – Seeing is Believing! (digital-photography-school.com)
• Day 28: HDR Sunrise (csdsdailyphoto.wordpress.com)