I'm Back!

That was quite a dry spell. :))


It's been a month since I last updated this blog, and honestly I haven't had the chance to shoot SP since. Perhaps because of that very special and surprising "incident" regarding my Electronics career which happened late October that kinda distracted me from the streets. Nagpaka-studious muna tuloy ako. haha

© Julian Carlo Barbadillo || Kalyegrapiya || 2012

Despite the seemingly endless dry spell which I've befallen into, I've also been trying hard to get over it but time constraints just kept winning. And as the Christmas break have dawned, I have tried to shoot in the streets again - but to my utmost dismay, it felt like I'm starting all over again. That familiar feeling of uneasiness of having a camera pressed against my nose in the public resurfaced. I went home empty-handed with just around 10 worthless images on my card. Awkward ulit ampotek. 

After a day of trying, I decided to take it slow. Instead, I focused temporarily on a side project. My Smoke Photography Series. I had it running for almost a week in a make-shift studio set-up that I made on our kitchen table. It was a very calming and refreshing and addictive experience (perhaps because of the incense smoke. haha). After finishing the series (which garnered 6 final images), I decided that I'll be re-learning and conquering the streets again. 

© Julian Carlo Barbadillo || Smoke Series || 2012

*The ff. are some preparatory (or should I say, "mood-setting") steps which I did for re-familiarization of the SP experience:

1) Visited the archives of the Magnum photographers for inspiration.
2) Performed the Zen meditation technique which Sir Luis Liwanag taught me.
3) Ran through my favorite SP shots.
4) Finally went out to shoot. Tugs tugs.

Aaand I have finally re-experienced that Zen feeling of being one with the chaos, that is the streets. I honestly missed that. No more awkward eye-contact with strangers, no more sweaty hands, and such. I'm hoping that this would continue all year out!

© Julian Carlo Barbadillo || Kalyegrapiya || 2012

© Julian Carlo Barbadillo || Kalyegrapiya || 2012

© Julian Carlo Barbadillo || Kalyegrapiya || 2012

I'm back on the streets, Baby! (reiterating just because. haha) \m/

Sem-break Photos

© 2012 Julian Carlo Barbadillo

© 2012 Julian Carlo Barbadillo

© 2012 Julian Carlo Barbadillo

© 2012 Julian Carlo Barbadillo

© 2012 Julian Carlo Barbadillo

© 2012 Julian Carlo Barbadillo

Camera settings, workflow, and a bunch of SP technicalities [Part 1]

A friend took the time to ask what my usual settings-slash-procedures-slash-technical techniques (?) on SP are, and I thought I'd just answer her through a blogpost. Para sosyal. JK.

*Shoutout: Eileen, oks na ba 'to? haha :))

Camera Settings

(1) Shooting Mode:

90% of the time, I shoot in Aperture Priority mode. That is Av on the mode dial in Canon, and A in Nikon, I believe. (Forgive me Nikon fanboys, I've yet to learn your language. :P) My choice of aperture value mainly depends on the weather and/or relative lighting (under shades/indoors or out in the opens). The following are my simple rule-of-thumbs (which I have just adapted from other streettogs):

Sunny to partly cloudy days - f/16

Cloudy days - f/11

Rainy days - f/8

Indoors and under shades - f/11 or f/8 (it depends~)

©Julian Carlo Barbadillo, Kalyegrapiya 2012

I rarely go under f/8 as I easily get bothered by the thinning of the Depth of Field (DoF) as the aperture gets wider and I worry more on getting shots out of focus. 

*Refresher note: 

Higher f-values mean that the aperture is opened less. (Analogy. Do the chinky-asian-eyes. That correlates to a high f-value. Do the tarsier-eyes-look. That's a lower f-value. ). 

Higher f-values also correlate to a "deeper" Depth of Field. That is, a greater amount of planar space gets in focus, as contrasted to low f-values where you get the creamy goodness of bokeh. Remember that in Street Photography, we need a coherent subject and background, thus, usually we make use of higher f-values to preserve the relationship of the foreground and the background. 

©Julian Carlo Barbadillo, Kalyegrapiya 2012

(2) Metering Mode:

80% of the time, I use Evaluative metering. (that's the Canon term, I'm not sure about the Nikon Equivalent). The other 20% of my shooting instances, I use Spot Metering.

©Julian Carlo Barbadillo, Kalyegrapiya 2012

Almost always, I underexpose my shots by 2/3 fstop. Especially on sunny days when highlights are more likely to blow up. By underexposing, I get to retain highlight details, and also get an allowance for faster shutter speeds. (I prefer recovering details in shadows than in highlights. Even if noise is more likely to be amplified during shadow detail recoveries. I don't really mind the noise. I kinda like it, to be honest. Gritty.)

(3) Focusing Mode:

Manual focus is my way. Well, except in rainy days when I have to hold an umbrella on the other hand; those are the only days when I rely on autofocus.

I do zone focusing. It is a focusing technique which uses the principle of hyperfocal distance and relative sharpness. I'd better pass the explaining to Eric Kim, one of the most famous Streetogs of our time. Click his name for the video explanation of zone focusing. :D

©Julian Carlo Barbadillo, Kalyegrapiya 2012

(4) Focal length:

Since I have a crop sensor camera (entry-level), I shoot in 24mm exclusively. 24mm in crop sensors rounds up to an equivalent full frame focal length of around 35mm. Being the cheapo that I am, I used to tape my kit lens (18-55mm) to the 24mm mark. But after a while of shooting with the tape on, I decided to rip it of and clean the lens. Well, to my surprise, my zoom ring started to fail to roll smoothly and snaps on the 24 and 35mm mark. Which i was quite unsure if it was a bad thing or not. But since I can now shoot without the tape on as I can easily locate the 24mm mark even without me looking, I'd like to think of it as a perk. :))

(5) ISO

Given that my camera is set on high f-values, I normally bump my ISO to compensate for the shutter speed. My ISO settings in all of my shots range between 800-6400 (depending as well on the weather and/or relative lighting). Note that even on sunny days, I use a minimum of 800 ISO (I rarely go below that). A very unconventional setting to dive into. As I've said earlier, I really don't mind the grain and the noise. In fact, they add texture to my images in a subtle yet beautiful way (well according to my sense of aesthetics, that is. :P)

*PS: Thanks to sir Rico for asking about my ISO setting. I honestly forgot to write about it. :))

*workflow and other techie stuff would follow in the next post! keep updated! :)

A break from solo shooting: New photobuddies

I might haven't said before that 90% of my street time, I shoot solo. Call me forever alone, but I don't really care. :P 

Shooting street alone is my regular dose of Zen. It leaves me tied to my thoughts and passions at the same time, thus giving me a very special sense of satisfaction afterwards. (More like the feeling of giving out that long burp after downing a bottle of Coke, or vinegar perhaps if that makes you happy.)

But then, it is undeniable that there would always be this urge to spice and jumble things up once in a while. So I decided to have an open invitation through Facebook for a street photowalk here in Baguio. And luckily, there were some who responded.

From left: Cyril, Daniel, and Gevenlie, that face-implanted column, and random strangers pretending to text so as to keep things less awkward. Too bad Darla wasn't able to come.

Cyril is a fellow engineering student. Daniel, a fellow photojournalist in the school paper. Gevenlie, Daniel's friend, a Legal Studies student. (Yee. Haha. Intriga. Sorreh. XD)

The walk was pretty much fun. We started around 7 with a short introduction to street photography by me. I was pretty excited to share my thoughts and stuff I've learned in SP from months-worth of readings and forum experiences. But nonetheless, I don't see myself as a so-called-"mentor", just so you know. SP is an endless learning process - we're always students. :)

Unwavered by rainshowers, we scoured the streets of downtown Baguio in search of photo-worthy scenarios. But as Alex Webb has said, "Street Photography is 99.9% failure", It seems that I have indeed got my mere .1% out of the 4-hour photowalk. I have gotten only one image which I like very much.

Copyright: Julian Carlo Barbadillo

So yea. It turned out that shooting with buddies is really quite a different experience. At least you get:

1.) BRAVER - with buddies, you can gather enough courage to explore places you might be too afraid/intimidated to go to when alone.

2.) More confident - you really don't have to worry about what others say when you're with a buddy/ buddies shooting. You know what I mean, those voices of strangers seeing you shoot streets that you imagine in your head. (or maybe it's just me)


So yea. I'm looking forward to shooting with them again. And with new photobuddies too. Perhaps, you. ;)

Rain + Umbrella + Camera + Streets

For most photographers, rainy days are no-shoot-just-stay-at-home-and-browse-9gag-days. But for streetogs, rainy days are days-to-shoot-and-die-for. Or something close, like cotton-candy-on-sundays-under-the-golden-hours shizzle. 

Seriously, shooting the streets during rainy days are almost zen-like. Well, at least for me. The rain brings about both advantages and disadvantages to the streettog. Let me enumerate some, okay?

Advantages:

1. Invisibility. 

Most people are too busy/concentrated/irritated on their efforts to ward off the rain from their precious bodies that they don't really pay too much attention to strangers taking photos of them face-to-face. Really. I swear no one gives that much attention to me when I shoot in the rain. I feel most invisible during these days. *smug face*

©Julian Carlo Barbadillo

2. Characters. The rain seems to be nature's open invitation for unique characters to go out and roam the streets. You can encounter a variety of weird and funny-looking rainwear fashion, faces with stories that complement the rainy mood, etc.

©Julian Carlo Barbadillo

3. Mood. Rain and fog provides a full-landscape makeover which proves to be a temporary cure to overfamiliarity to a place. The mood that accompanies rainy days are so much fun to exploit and to play with  to create some pretty interesting photographs.

©Julian Carlo Barbadillo

Disadvantages:

1. Camera-Handling. Unless you have weather-sealed cameras, this won't prove to be too much of a problem. But for us low-enders, extra care must be given to prevent our cameras from being soaked and rendered useless. Well for me, an umbrella does the job. But it limits my handling. An umbrella on my left hand means that I can't use manual focusing, or I can't brace my camera well to prevent camera shake. I normally rely on autofocus in these situations. Pre-focusing just won't work for me in these handicapped times because subjects do tend to pop out in every proximity possible - without my left hand on the focus ring, missing money shots would really be a pain.

2. Camera-handling. I just have to make sure I made the point. :))

So yeaaa. Shooting in the rain is a must try, and must be a habit for streettogs. Promise! ;))

*Check out works of Danny Santos II, a Singapore-based Filipino street photographer. His Bad Weather Project won so much acclaim in the international Street Photography scene! I'm a fan of his. :D

8th of July Streetwalk

After two long weeks, I finally had time to shoot! Woke up early and finished my laundry before scouring the streets. But when I started my walk, that dreaded feeling of over-familiarity with places that I've always been covering started to manifest. Seriously, that's one of the direst enemies of streettogs. 


Over-familiarity with a place hinders the ability to perceive and recognize interesting patterns, scenarios, and moments that would rather be momentous for one who is not as familiar with the place. I wandered for almost an hour on my regular route and got nothing. Dang,  I just wet my armpits (I was even wearing grey! Talk about greyscaled armpits. Haha. Gross. Sorry). 


With no inspiring scenarios in sight, I decided to go and grab some breakfast at Jollibee first. There I tried to do the Zen meditation technique which Sir Luis Liwanag had taught me. The technique supposedly clears your messy brain (due to overthinking and what not) and lets your it work faster afterwards. Something like a Cache Clear in internet browsers. So yea. And not so surprisingly (as I have already tried that for so many times), I finally got rid of the over familiarity and got some pretty nice photographs. Yey! :))
But not for so long. I really felt the urge to get lost. I mean to wander off track, to places I have never been. So I decided to brave the city market's alleys and found rather nice scenarios. I even felt invisible as the vast number of people busy with their own businesses weren't paying attention to me. Hoho.


So the following are my picked photos from this photowalk. Hope you like them! :)

"Light the way!" [no offense meant. hihi]

Life Event: A humble recognition from the OES forum

It has been a very busy and tiring week! I'm just being sneaky enough to steal some time to write about some pretty awesome stuff that happened in the past few days.


So there is this facebook forum/group called On Every Street (OES), a street photography forum with members/street photographers all around the globe. And there is this contest held by the group called the "OES Hall of Fame". Every month, photo entries are submitted by uploading them to a container album and are deliberated upon by the administrators of the group (who are experienced international street photographers). The best for each month is granted a spot on the Hall of Fame itself.


I joined the June HoF contest. And luckily...

My entry for June's OES HoF contest. My personal favorite as well. 

Man, this is my first award/recognition in the field of Street Photography! I felt so humbled and overwhelmed when Marco told me the news. I dunno, after all the efforts on learning and practicing SP, things like this would really prove to be a pat on the back, a reward and an affirmation that I'm on the right track Baby I was born this way. Though I don't really see myself as an awesome street photographer still. I feel that awesomeness in SP can not be measured by a single photograph, but by a consistently high-quality-jaw-dropping-knee-melting body of work. And that's my goal. :)


So yes. Just wanted to share the news. Hihi. Thank you all! Thank you again, OES family! And most of all, a big thank you to the Almighty. :)