Visual Effects – Drawing

This is my first try in creating visual effects in Photoshop.  I wanted to create a drawing effect toa picture.  I am not good at drawing so I’ll just convert my pictures into drawings.  After several google searches, I tried three techniques and I find this technique much suitable to what I wanted to produce.  The guide is in this link http://www.tutorialized.com/view/tutorial/Photo-to-Drawing-Effect/43283.  I took a picture of my recently purchased African Love Birds and here’s the sample result.

    

No Plans, Ended Well, My 50mm/1.8 Canon Lens Did it All!

Sometimes… No no no… Most of the times, things really work out well without a plan.   We sheduled a photo shoot in the office for some marketing collaterals today.  We did not  brainstored about what to compose,  I actually thought that the photo session will not push through since the person coordinating had just came back from her Coron vacation yesterday(Yes Kat it’s you). 

I received a text saying “Please bring your camera, photo shoot today”.  Whoaaa, I don’t have the studio lights, I don’t have sketches of what to compose,  no reflectors, worst, it’s raining,  no sunlight, aaaaaarrrggggghhhhhh.  In situations like this where I don’t have the lighting equipment and natural light is absent,   there’s only one thing that I know will not fail me during the photo shoot, my Canon 50mm/1.8 Lens.

I packed up my old camera (I don’t have a new one anyway), a Canon Digital Rebel and went to the office.   Everything was shot using available light which is mostly flourescent.  I set my camera to Av Priority, Adobe RGB profile and  fixed at f1.8 most of the time and moving up two or three f stops once in a while.  Even at ISO 100, I always get a shutter speed of 1/100 or 1/50, not bad!  I will be needing a bigger aperture most of the time so I went on.

Here are the things I did to survive:

1. Press the shutter during exhales, this helped me to keep a steady hand.
2. Look for a different location if shutter speed falls below 1/50.
3. Take lots of shots, I took 150 shots during the 2 hour session.
4. Shout freeze!  Having steady hands is useless if the subject moves a lot.
5. Shoot near the window.

I’ll be posting the results in my next post.

10 Destinations in Camiguin Island

Coming from a long trip from Manila, we arrived at Paras Beach Resort, Mambajao at 1:00.  We are still tired so we spent the entire afternoon inside the resort and watched a beautiful sunset. 

 We booked ourselves for an Island tour of 9 destinations and a trip to White Island for the next day. 

White Island – The Island is about 2km from our resort and the white sand bar is visible from the dining area.  The Island is a C-shaped pure white sand bar with crystal like waters where you can see Mt. Hibok-hibok.  During high tide, the Island sinks for about a couple of feet so our trip at 7:00 AM is just perfect.  The sand bar is very visible and the water is perfect for swimming.

Camiguin Island Tour – We left White Island after 2 hours of swimming and picture taking and went on an Island tour.  We booked an aircon van for one day use to visit 9 Island destinations.

1.  Mt. Vulcan Mountain Trail- First stop is at the old volcano trail where the governor placed life size statues depicting the 14 stations of the ‘Way of the Cross’.   From the top, you can see a very nice view of the sea.
2. Gui-Ob Church Ruins – What remains of the church are just the walls and the belfry due to the eruption of Mt. Vulcan and earthquakes dating way back in 1871.
3. Sunken Cemetery – Another casualty of Mt. Vulcans eruption is the Catarman Cemetery that now lies several feet below the sea.
4. Soda Water Spring – “Drink while you swim”, a poster at the entrance says, this spring is bubbly because of the soda contents of the water from the mountain.
5. Sto Nino Cold Spring- Still at Catarman district, this cold spring is perfect for picnics, people uses the water from the spring in cooling coconuts and soft drinks. 
6.  Fish and Clams Nursery – You can see baby tuna on the facility and they also have a restaurant where they serve fresh seafood. 
7. Ostrich Farm – Who would think that you can see an ostrich in this Island? I never knew that they are able to breed ostriches in the Island so it was a surprise. 
8. Katibawasan Falls – 70 meters high waterfall located at Mambajao district, the pool below is ideal for taking a dip and relaxes while hearing the water splashing down.
9. Ardent Hot Spring – After getting tired  visiting the all destinations above, it was  relaxing to take a dip into a 40 degree centigrade spring water.  This last destination relaxed our tired body before going back to the resort.

Camiguin Island, How I Got There

My wife and I were invited to attend my friend’s wedding at Cagayan de Oro (CDO), Philippines, the capital of Misamis Oriental. I decided to arrive three days earlier so I can visit Camiguin Island situated also in the same province.

We took the first flight from Manila to Cagayan at 4:45 AM and arrived at CDO airport by 6:00 AM. The ferry boat going to Camiguin Island is at Balingoan town which is a two-hour bus drive from Agora Market Bus Station. Agora market in CDO is like Divisoria in Manila where you can buy very cheap local products like dried fish, fresh fruits and others.

By 9:00 AM, we are at Balingoan ferry station where you can see Rocky Island 300 meters away from the port. The ferry is a little slow so It took us another hour to arrive at Benoni Ferry Station in Camiguin Island.

The Island is divided into 5 municipalities, namely, Mambajao, Mahinog, Guinsibilan, Sagay and Catarman. Upon arriving at Benoni port we then took a jeepney going to Mambajao, the capital, then a multicab to reach Paras Beach resort where we stayed for 3 days.

One good thing at Paras Beach Resort is that White Island is just a 5 minute boat ride. You can see the white sand from the resort.

I’ll try it anyway

I am standing beside the window in our office talking with my colleagues when I suddenly remembered my upcoming trip to Camiguin Island, Cagayan de Oro, Philippines.  I did not have any major trip worth noting in the past couple of years and I am really excited on this one because my wife and I have been dreaming of Camiguin for a long time.   This will be one dream coming true for both of us and I want to keep an online log of the trip.

I am an IT professional for more than 10 years now and I love photography but I was never a fan of social networking websites like friendster, myspace, facebook and others, believe it or not I don’t have an account on any of this sites.  But blogging? Why not? But I am not a good writer; MS Word will do the spelling and grammar checks so I’ll give it a try. 

Here I am now starting a blog, I really don’t know how this will progress because I am really bad at organizing things, what more my thoughts inside a blog. 

Anyway, Welcome to my Sequence of Random Thoughts blog.