camera #1

i don't know what to do with my holidays. so, i decided to polish up my photography skills. finish a portfolio. :) i was hanging around Harris the other day and i was walking around searching for my mom but i ended up in the magazine section. they had loads of photography magazines. so, i opened one and there were some activities for indoors photography which is really suitable for me. :D even though i may not have the skills of a professional or enough gadgets to take good photos, but i believe that good photos ain't about gadgets or skills. so, i decided to do one of the activities. it's very simple. but it would be great if you had the right gadgets. and for this one it would be a macro lens. anyways, i managed to do it. not as classy and as professional as the one in the magazine, but good enough for me. :D

so, what you'll be needing:

1. syringe
2. MnMs or smarties or nips or any colourful objects
3. a clear glass (a cd cover would do just fine. make sure that it is bigger than your bowl)
4. a bowl (it can be any colour but make sure it's clean from any pattern. you don't want it to interfere with your object. white is most applicable for this activity. it can be any size, depending on the size of your glass, but smaller the better)
5. and of course a tissue

1. fill in your bowl with the object. i chose to work with MnM. (you can put all the colours or pick only the colours you like. if you like colourful, put different colours. but if you want it to be mono colour choose one. make sure it covers the whole bottom of the bowl)
2. put the glass on top of your bowl. then, with the syringe, drop different sizes of water. make sure you don't drop them too big because then the focus will be bigger which is not what you want. put it as much as you want. and if there's any mistake, just dab the tissue at the water and it'll absorb away. the good thing about this is that you don't have to clear the whole thing, just only point at the ones you wanna clear. :) saves more time.
3. then, take a close up photo. make sure it gets all the colours in the drops of water.

it's hard to get the right focus when you're not using the macro lens. you want to capture the vibrant colours at the same time capture the bubbles. a good tip for the non-macro lenses is to lock your focus once you have the best focus. take as many pictures as you can, and later, when editing, choose the best. :) oh, another wonderful tip is to use you flash and set your white balance to flash/-2 so that the flash won't overwhelm your picture. it would be best if you have a speed light. but if you don't, try and use your flash and get the shine and vibrant colour.

When editing, you want to make sure you don't lose the original colour, but you also might want to make the colours more saturated and vibrant. and to do that, choose the saturation graph and perk it up a bit. not too much or else the colour would fade the real art and intention of the bubbles. you can always have it the original way, but there's no harm in editing. :) every picture is beautiful in it's own way.

so, this is mine. if you have the macro lens, you could actually focus on the water drop. it's super cool. but since i don't have one, i can't do it. :/ really frustrating. but what i can do now is more than enough. :D the best thing about doing this is that you just have to do it indoors. if you're too lazy, it's okay. no need to move far. HAHA. i hope you guys can try it out and have fun. :) don't be afraid to try again and again. it's real simple. everyone can do it.