Sacrifice

You bet I was smiling ear to ear, upon receiving an email from Digital Camera UK's POTY team. One of my pictures made it to the finals of the magazine's Portrait Photographer of the Year competition.


date: Jan 7, 2008 10:34 AM
subject: Digital Camera's Photographer of the Year 2007

Hello fibz

Happy New Year - and congratulations! You have been short-listed in the Digital Camera Photographer of the Year competition.

Your image, Sacrifice, has been chosen to enter the final judging stage in the Portraits category.

We received more than 81,000 entries in the 2007 competition, so to reach this stage is a real achievement.

As your image has been short-listed, we now need you to send us a high res version. This should be print quality, in preparation for the reproduction of prize-winning and short-listed images to promote and publicise the Photographer of the Year competition and exhibition. As stated in the Rules, you, the photographer, will retain copyright of your image and where it is reproduced, you will be credited.

The image should be supplied at a resolution of 240-300dpi, at an approximate size of 25cm along the shortest length. If your image was originally uploaded with a digital frame, please remove this for the high res version.


Good luck!


The Photographer of the Year team

Using Window Light

It was a rainy afternoon. It would have been nice to shoot in the rain, but on second thought, NOT really. Autumn rain in California is coldest compared to the tropical rains in the Philippines which I am used to. Not only would the subject chill on these drizzles, but I most probably would freeze first, and also the camera would get wet and sick. I told Anamika (the East Indian beauty you see in above photo) to feel comfortable near my kitchen window, while I take her photo. I pulled back the venetian blinds, and the light fell softly on her face. Facing the window, she positioned her head where I want the light to fall, and the shadows where I want them to be.

When the window light was getting dim as the skies became more gloomy, I told Anamika to lean closer to the window to catch more of that remaining light available. Resulting shot has this washed/over-exposed effect, I like this effect as much as I like the natural and calm expression of her face. And of course those eyes.

Let Your Subject Lie Down

Take a different angle. Request your subject to lie down, be it on grass, on the table, on the ground, (in this case, on the railroad), and you'll be amazed you'll get interesting perspectives. This also makes the subject comfortable, ( I can hear you holler what's comfortable lying down on a railroad?!) believe me it was, at some point. Until two minutes later, the pretty Z. and I were both running away from the appraoching train. I've been using this simple trick, and it works all the time. Above photo is one of the Editor's choices, in UK's Digital Camera Magazine.

Lovely model Kharu (a Miss Avon pageant winner), laid down gracefully on this floor. I took this picture during a photoshoot with a friend who happens to be master photographer, Manny Librodo who I so admire. Manny told Kharu to lie down. *Light bulb flashed in my head*, from then on I tell my subjects to try lying down.


Even more stunning when model Mallory relaxed her back on the floor in this photo.


This tip works as good when photographing, kids or couples. In here, I let Scott and Janet lie down and look what I've got, a relaxed couple in an intimate moment. I get good reactions from wedding clients when they see this picture in print. I added the radial blur during editing to create atmosphere.
Likewise, this tip is also effective the other way around. (Photo of me on my back) Fair enough!

About Marc Aviles - POP Photo Photographer of the Year 2007

Grab a Popular Photography Magazine, October 2007 issue, yes, it's that yellow magazine with a Canon camera frontpage. (I bought 2 copies from Barnes and Noble). Turn to page 11, my husband Marc Aviles is featured in the Editorial, as he won this year's annual Photographer of the Year title of Pop Photo New York. *Applause* :) Visit Pop Photo for more details.
Thanks to everybody and all the forums and sites who cheered Marc. Aside from the forums Photonski.com, Ph-photo, PinoyITdotSG, Photoworld, FilAm-Fotogs, I found more sites mentioning or congratulating Marc about the POTY.
Digital Photographer Philippines
Shutter Box
Studio Lighting .Net
johpassion
Connected Photographer
Imaging Insider
Tip of the Day
digital_cam
soocool
ClubSnap
PhilPhotography
guerrerosdelkaos.es

I've been urging Marc to put up his website to show his personal works, a vast array of documentary street life, and breath taking landscapes and city scape. I'll let you peak on some of his works here.

I blog

You blog, they blog, he/she/it blogs. Everybody blogs.
How about I give it a try.
I declare Today is my official start day as a bloggahhhhhhhhhhh.
Do drop by and leave some footprints in this website. I'm a voracious comments reader.