Transpo

Here's something I regret, not trying out new or in the above case, old modes of transportation. I know it sounds hokey and only tourists go for this stuff but heck, I am a tourist and I really should have tried it. I also should have taken the gondola in Venice but didn't since I thought it was too expensive. Now I'm kicking myself, when am I ever going back to Venice, I've been there twice and now I got other places to go.

I did take the horse and carriage around central park though. I know, I know all you New Yorkans (?) are groaning and saying "Corny!". But I went with my aunt who has lived in NY for a good 30 years and she had this huge grin on her face throughout the ride. "I've lived here so long and this is the first time I've ever done this" she said.

Rivers

Caught this guy fishing in the Vltava, just off Karluv Most (Charles Bridge). A river running through a city just does something magical to it. People fish, hang out and picnic on the banks. I have a series (got to dig it up) of people on the Seine doing just that.

Photo notes: keep your subject off center, look up rule of thirds.

The Chair

Had our sofa re-upholstered (all in the name of recycling) and it got picked up yesterday. Watching TV has been a little less comfortable ever since . . . . man do I miss my sofa.

Quickie: GPS Art

I like carrying my GPS around to see where I've been after the trip. Here's another use . . . . GPS Art.

Thanks to Anna for sending this in.

Caged

There's something strangely weird about having to keep animals caged to preserve their species but that's exactly what the Philippine Eagle Foundation does. Until someone can find a better way I guess that's the way it has to be.

Ancient Wall Art

Just a quickie, something I pulled out from my archives. Hard to believe that some ancient structures still endure. The above exterior wall corner is from a temple in Angkor. I love the amazing detail.

I got your back!

The sound of silence, I really have to apologize for not posting anything new here but decided to do some admin stuff with my pictures. Translated, that means I'm slowly but surely categorizing them and finally backing them up.

If you haven't backed up any of your pictures or your computer (with all the 'legitimate' music you have on it) I suggest you don't hesitate any further and back up your computer. It's easier than ever nowadays. If you don't have too much stuff, you can go buy one of those portable external hard drives like Western Digital's passport series. Small and easy to carry around and more importantly, they don't need and external power source, just plug it into the USB port. They usually come in sizes from 160gig to 320gig, eoungh to back up any laptop, and have a standard back-up program included in it (maybe the WD Passport Essential doesn't have that but best to ask).

Here's my back-up program. I use two 500 gig external hard drives in my work computer. One gets backed up to another external hard drive on a computer in a different house in my compound. That way if things really go wrong like a house burning down (knock on wood), at least I'll have a complete back-up in another place. The other 500 gig external hard drive is backed up on a networked attached storage drive (NAS), also located elsewhere in the compound (same reason). The NAS though is a pain, it reads and writes slow so for the initial back-up I'll have to probably leave it for a week before it copies everything.

So don't wait for the disaster to happen, BACK UP NOW. Imagine the year's worth of pictures in your computer corrupted and gone forever in an instant. Ouch.

However you decide to back up just remember one thing. Store the back up in a different place. A friend of mine had his laptop stolen, fortunately he back up his files on an external hard drive, unfortunately it was in the same bag as his laptop . . . . wha wha wha whaaaaaaa.

Phnom Penh

I like Phnom Penh. Some parts of the city make me glad I come from Manila which actually has cemented roads and a proper (for the most part) traffic system but some parts totally blow me away like the Royal Palace. We don't have anything as grand and more importantly, culturally significant as that. People picnic on the grassy lot in front of it as night falls and vendors sell their wares. Wish we had something like that back home, I guess you can't have it all.

Bring Elvis Back

Forgot to mention that last year, the UP Mountaineers (UPM) did not hold their annual Christmas concert. This really gutted me and my friends who had been loyal attendees for several years. Where else could you listen to more than 20 bands for Php100 and drink beer while doing so all night long?

So to UPM - Bring Elvis Back! Bring Elvis back! Bring Elvis Back.

You Rock my World!! Rock en Roll!

I was just going through my old photos and couldn't believe I haven't posted these pictures yet. Every Christmas time, my friends and I have a little tradition, we meet up at the annual UP Mountaineers Christmas Concert. The year I took these photos it was called "Elvis goes to Everest" in honor of the Philippines' successful ascent of Everest.

They just have the most unbelievable line-up of quirky, weird, up and coming and also established bands playing. Like the monkey masked spiderman guitarist featured above, or the living skeleton that is Joey Pepe Smith below, "Kids, huwag na kayo mag drugs, masama yan . . . . . . ibigay na lang niyo sa akin hahahaha" (translated - Kids, don't take drugs, it's bad . . . . just give them all to me).
I'm sure he meant well. . . .

River Rafting

I took a trip to Cagayan de Oro some time back to go river rafting and we had lots of fun. Our river guide was pretty good, had the right mix of information, confidence and humor that you'd like on a trip like that. More than that he also had a great photographic eye or at least a great eye for cameras. Whenever we'd ask him to take our picture, we'd hand him our point and shoot and he obligingly took the shot. The moment he saw me take out my DSLR however he never looked back, refusing to take the point and shoot whenever we asked for a picture. Now call me paranoid or whatever but handing my DSLR to a guide in the middle of a pretty wild river ride didn't feel right but sometimes you just got to keep the faith. Turns out our best shot was care of the guide. This isn't accidental, guides normally know where the best viewpoints are so ask.

I hate flash photography

Okay, I admit it. Travel photography was an easy choice for me. You don't need to talk to models (most of the time) and you don't need artificial lighting (most of the time) plus you get to travel a lot. But there are just times when you need to whip out that external flash unit (don't even think about using the on camera flash) and take pics.

Here's a great site that will get your head around flash photography. Fair warning though, this guy lives for flash photography and the site can get a bit technical. The good new is he's also a bit of a minimalist and likes to do things with as little stuff as possible. He's also got a beginners section so if you want to get your indoor shots right, go to the strobist.com

Adding scale

I found the above picture pretty interesting. It's just so not representative of the place as I remembered it. I was bascially about 20 feet above the river jutting over a fence to take the picture of this relatively majestic waterfall but because of my angle and the lens I used it looks more like a trickle. Maybe I should have taken the picture when there were more people milling around but I waited for the crowds to thin out. You can't even see the two people left in the frame for scale.