Happy New Year! Welcome 2009!

Hi readers, happy new year! 2008 has been pretty exciting for me, as it's when I bought my first dSLR and started to shoot more seriously. In the mere 8 months, I have already racked up $3200 in camera gears! Oh well, more to come anyways, ha ha...

I want to share with you a slide show I found, made by MSNBC. It has some of the most amazing photos I have seen. You will just have to check it out for yourself to see what I mean. The images are so powerful! I have much to learn... :)

The Year in Pictures 2008

Please comments so I know who is reading my blog! Thanks!


- Mike

Amanda (Studio Shoot)

Sorry about the lateness in updates, haven't had many shoots due to the cold weather, no girls wants to come out... :(

But, I do have some photos from my last shoot with Amanda. This was shot in a studio style setting, as my friends had some lights for me to play with. Since this was my very first studio shoot, I probably made a lot of mistakes. I didn't know the background was going to be black, so Amanda wore black also, but some shots it came out pretty cool. These were done with 2 flash umbrellas, and mostly at f/4-5.6, with shutter at ~1/250 second.

Watch closely at the curves of the dress, there are highlights to distinguish it from the background! :D

Different outfit, kinda nice!

Portrait style shot

I always love a close up headshot!

Heh, the classic headshot...

Remember to hit the full portfolio link on the right side bar for more photos!

Broken SD card...

I was just reading another blog today, and came across this story. It's about how a photographer worked so hard to get into the White House to photograph the President, George W. Bush, but came across so many road blocks, only to have the SD card literally fall apart! Read the article to see what happened at the end... :)

Maybe that dual card setup in the expensive cameras ain't such a bad idea afterall... Ha ha...

Amanda W.

Met Amanda when we had classes together at college, always thought she had a unique look, so asked her for a photoshoot. Since she is 2 hours drive away, I didn't get to photograph her until recently. I was going for the same casual fall style as Nikki and Jessica's, since most people seems to like them. Anyways, picture time! :)

It was actually snowing/flurry when we shot this!

Looks like she is modeling for the coat or something...

Trying to use the natural light from the big window she was looking at.

Added a little effect...

I like the green background.

Jessica S.

I have actually already shot this girl before at the House of Styles; if you don't remember, you can see her here. I had a nice experience shoot with her, and she happens to live in the same city as me, we decided to just shoot by a local lake. We got lucky because that weekend was actually a lot warmer than the previous days, still a bit chilly though.

By the lake

Strike a pose!

Always like a little B&W... :)

My shoots always have to have a headshot!

Blog Change/Update

I have decided to make a little change for my posts. Usually in the very beginning of the post, I will have a link to the album that shows ALL the photos. Well, since I am following a very important rule of a photographer, Only show your best photos!, that link will be gone. If you want to see rest of the photos, you can hit up the "Full Portfolio" or "Flickr" link on the right sidebar.

I will also be archiving the photos of an old shoot and put only my favorites in the Best of the Best album, while the rest will be gone. Anyways, here is a random photo to make this post look pretty... :)

Honda Shadow Bike