The Pixels in Pete's World

Flickr new look populated with my Photostream. I don’t consider myself a user. I have an account mostly to use when I need to embed content when I teach WordPress classes.

I’ve seen many an online service come and go as I’m sure with you have.

The nature of the internet is just that.

Lots of Mac users were pretty happy with Apple’s MobileMe service.

Sure, it had problems, but if you had simple needs, it worked fine.

When Apple decided it would go away, not surprisingly, users were not given a choice–even paying ones like me.

Those of you using Flickr, especially those who paid for a pro account, you just had the game changed on you with its CEO Marissa Mayer’s announcement. Continue reading Did Flickr flick off pros with this announcement?

My son traps the ball during a game.

In sports photography, it is all about the moment and most often about freezing the action.

When you’re after action, you need high shutter speeds, so it means lots of light.

As you know, there can be such a thing as too much light.

Such is the case if you were taking pictures at a soccer game at noon for instance.

Because your whole scene is lit from directly overheard, everything in your view is also lit.

Simply put, even if you shoot with a super long telephoto and wide open apertures there might still be lots of clutter in   in the backgrounds.

This directly overhead lighting situation, by the way, is the  reason to set your lowest ISO, so that you can shoot with wide apertures to blur out backgrounds.

Typically the exposure at that  hour with the sun out is ISO 100 1/1000 @f5.6.

And if the game happens to be played in a pitch right next to the parking lot, you’ll be seeing a lot of distractions.

In that instance, just expect to crop or do some post production to de-emphasize the clutter in the background.

Don’t hesitate to crop especially if you have a camera with high megapixels. Continue reading Shooting outdoor sports during the day

The year was 1982.

I was 22, fresh out  of aviation school with a commercial pilots license, but working in the cabin as a cabin attendant.

The bosses said it was a temporary assignment.

18 months was their best guess of how ‘temporary’ that would be.

This picture was taken in the upper deck of Singapore Airlines B747. Camera was on a tripod flash on camera pointing upwards but because the curved nature of the ceiling, the light is very even and diffused even with just one light. Fujichrome 100 was all I shot in those days because i didn’t like how labs would make very inconsistent colors in my prints.

After 3 years, I decided  it was enough so along with twenty others, we secured a study loan and parted ways with Singapore Airlines.

Once I decided to pursue a college education, deciding what to study wasn’t hard.

Amongst my classmates, I was the only one who majored in something other than business or engineering.

It was risky.

Not what my folks would approve off, but I was paying my own way. Continue reading Making photography a career Part1

My mum carrying me with my brother Johnny and my sister Janet in the front yard of Wu Lien Teh Gardens, housing quarters for state goverment employees. The picture was probably taken by a neighbor’s kid.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers out there.

My mum like most in her days stayed home and raised us.

She prepared 3 meals a day, did laundry, went to the market daily and never had a day off.

When my kids were born, she came from Malaysia and stayed for 6 months each time to help my wife and I.

What else can I say about how giving she is?

To give put her own life on hold for 6 months on the 2 occasions of the birth of my two children, is a major self-sacrifice.

I love you mum, thanks so much. Continue reading Happy Mother’s Day