If you can't go natural, go Cokin

Time to post something photography-related. Been struggling to translate my thoughts into words so I decided to continue a delayed project. A friend of mine suggested that I do a sample shoot using my Cokin filters. I instantly thought it was a good idea and so a week after here I am uploading some of my sample shots. All photos were unedited for you to see the real colors rendered by the filters. I also used different focal length, aperture and shutter settings with some of the photos. Exposure may vary depending on your desired effect. While doing this project, I tried to increase my shutter settings one to two stops higher to achieve different effects on the photos and I just liked the overexposed ones. Whether they were overexposed, they just stood out. Who cares anyways?




So if you have color filters at home, I suggest you give your camera a go and have fun! (Note: Click photo to enlarge.)

Colors of Summer 2011

I just noticed that this is my 95th post. This is pressuring. I must have the best 100th post. Will leave it to fate.


It's summer here in the Philippines and I cannot wait to show you some of the photos I took during my last trip. It was altogether fun and exhausting. Exhausting because I was part of the core group who planned the whole thing. FUN because, once again, I did it with some of the amazing people I know. But there was one thing I never expected. I learned something which was life-altering.


It started with a breathtaking jump at the underground cave. It was fun at first. I didn't jump though. Not that I was scared or didn't want to try it. It was a girl thing. Almost everybody dove into the cold and clear water except for one. She was too scared that she was shaking on the edge of the cliff while looking down to the ones who jumped ahead of her. Hours passed and she left us on the edge of our seats. She was obviously in need of support from us, from the people waiting in line, especially me who was waiting to capture that final jump.  I tried to be patient and comforting but the summer heat got the best of me. I impatiently screamed at her to jump.


After a few minutes, she did it. It was an amazing feat for someone who has acrophobia. I left the cave, together with another friend and complained about how long I had to stay just to take photos of them. We left the island as if nothing happened. We rode the boat and I sat beside her. When we reached the next island, I asked her if she was mad. She said, "Ganun ka, ganito ako. Kailangan lang nating intindihin yun." 


I felt guilty for what I have done. It took me two days to finally get over it. I was too weak to personally apologize and so I wrote a letter for her instead.


I have learned that I am not yet the good friend she deserves and that I will make it up to her to gain back the trust she gave me. I allowed myself to be dominated by the extreme heat and impatience. It was very human yet ungrateful of me. I wished I could turn back time. I wished I remained calm.


Nevertheless, the day went smoothly for others and absolutely one of the best summer experiences I've ever had.

Semana Santa 2011

"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." (Luke 23:34)

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46) 

 As we remember Christ's passion, may we be touched by His heart full of forgiveness, love for mankind and God.

The Ghost from the Past

All these years I've been trying to protect myself from the only thing that scares me the most, YOU.

For the first time...

I ignored my doubts hoping you were the one for me.

For the first time...

I cared.

For the first time...

I took the risk to fall completely for you.

 For the first time...

I felt the pain I was trying to avoid for years.

For the first time,

I thanked a guy who broke my heart.


You are now a ghost from the past. 

An Early Morning Reflection

It's a sad truth that here in the Philippines only a few have access to e-learning resources. What's worse is that not everybody knows what e-learning is. 

Good thing someone heard and felt the need and actually came up with this wonderful website where teachers, students and even parents can learn together! CE-Learning is the online portal to C&E’s pool of e-learning resources. Learn more about the site through this link. 

Another online project hosted by C&E is the Philippine E-Journals (PEJ), an expanding collection of academic journals that are made accessible globally through a single Web-based platform. PEJ serves as an avenue for local journal publishers to get noticed by both local and foreign researchers, students and researchers. 

The ever-growing need for quality education has now reached the World Wide Web. At this point, all we need is access to these online resources. I bet the government can provide this kind of service to schools around the Philippines, especially to those in the rural areas.

Carlos Ruiz Zafon's "The Shadow of the Wind"

It has been my tradition to list quotable quotes from a book I recently finished. Last time, it was Amy Tan's "Saving Fish from Drowning." Now, allow me to share to you some words of wisdom from one of the brilliant writers I know. Get to know him more here.


"In this world the only opinion that holds court is prejudice."


"That sorry specimen is nothing but a corrupt pedant. A fascist buttock-polisher."


"Sometimes we think people are like lottery tickets, that they're there to make our most absurd dreams come true."


"She used to say she wanted to be an author and write encyclopaedias and treatises on history and philosophy. Her mother said it was all my fault. She said that Nuria adored me and because she thought her father loved only books, she wanted to write books to make her father love her."


"There are no second chances in life, except to feel remorse."


"'Making money isn't hard in itself,' he complained. 'What's hard is to earn it doing something worth devoting you life to.'"


"Nothing feeds forgetfulness better than war, Daniel. We all remain silent and they try to convince us that what we've seen, what we've done, what we've learned about ourselves and others, is an illusion, a nightmare that will pass. Wars have no memory, and nobody has the courage to understand them until there are no voices left to tell what really happened, until the moment comes when we no longer recognize them and they return, with another face and another name, to devour everything they left behind."


"Time has taught me not to lose hope, yet not to trust too much in hope either. Hope is cruel, and has no conscience."


"...the art of reading is slowly dying, that it's an intimate ritual, that a book is a mirror that offers us only what we already carry inside us, that when we read, we do it with all our heart and mind, and great readers are becoming more scarce by the day."


"Television, my dear Daniel, is the Antichrist, and I can assure you that after only three or four generations, people will no longer even know how to fart on their own. Humans will return to living in caves, to medieval savagery, and to the general state of imbecility that slugs overcame back in the Pleistocene era. Our world will not die as a result of the bomb, as the papers say- it will die of laughter, of banality, of making a joke of everything, and a lousy joke at that."

Making History on a Saturday

 

We all made history with Hyundai on Saturday as they celebrated their 10th anniversary in the Philippines. 

• Running for a cause felt a lot better than just running for fitness
• Getting to the the finish line was merely a bonus
• Running with friends = Splendid!