Last week, I introduced HDR to my digital photography class. To present a working example, I chose to use a photo of the Subway Cafe that I shot six years ago. Fortunately for me, it’s one of the few photos from my past where I kept all of the originals I shot, so it gave me an opportunity to play around using techniques that I didn’t really know of back then.

Here’s the 2003 version, which was composed of two exposures.

Here’s the version I did this year (2009). It’s composed of three exposures. I used an underexposed version of the sign, added some unsharp masking to the bricks, did some Shadow/Highlight to the sky, and did a bit of dodging and burning with my Cintiq.

As a photographer, it’s frustrating to realize how many of my pieces I’ve done in the past that could be revisited and improved upon–furthermore, how many that could have been revisited had I not saved over the files. Nowadays, I make a point to save all of the originals.

Courtesy of Frank Borges

Yesterday certainly was a chilly day for an interview.

I was outside yesterday morning for an interview with ABC 27 regarding the recent Beyond Second collaboration on the GraphTech holiday calendar. The desk calendars feature the work of 10 Beyond Second photographers and 2,500 copies will be distributed for free in the Harrisburg area (locations will be announced soon). The interview is should be airing on tonight’s news.

UPDATE: A list of locations to pick up a free copy of the calendar are listed on WHTM 27′s site.

UPDATE 2: Here’s the Beyond Second interview on WHTM 27

I guess the timeliness of this post is a testament to how busy I’ve been with moving back to Pennsylvania (that’s best left for a subsequent post), transferring a corporation, and working. Anyway, I thought I’d share a few shots of the lesser-seen aspects of the last game at Yankee Stadium. It definitely trumped the vibe of the All-Star Game in terms of sentimentality, but there were definitely undercurrents of reaction to the clearly Capitalist move across the street.

Riot police were there in full-force following the final out. I saw one missing chair–an attempt at a free souvenir–on the way out.

By the fifth inning, anything with “Final Day” on it was gone. So were most of snacks in the condiments stands.

Bohol’s Chocolate Hills

I’ve been asked a number of times how my vacation to the Philippines was, and while I categorize it as good, vacationing in a third-world country can be exhausting.

For instance, my family and I visited Jagna, my mother’s hometown, which lacks the typical amenities one simply expects in the States. It’d been 11 years since I’d last been in Jagna, and almost nothing had changed save for an Internet café in the town market. Collarless dogs still freely roam the highways and chickens are tied to street corners to provide them exercise. Cockfighting rings, basketball courts, and Catholic churches border jungle; there are no supermarkets, fast food restaurants, or department stores, simply a half-built marketplace and a number of open-air homes that anyone in the States would consider a shack. We got a lot of blank stares from people simply because of our skin color–that’s when it becomes clear that many of the people have never left the town.

“Prony,” a 25-foot python and the largest snake in captivity. The caretakers actually let us enter the cage and pet the snake, something unheard of in the States.

I could also point out:

• There’s no processed chocolate for sale–anywhere–which was downright killing me. Cocoa beans grow on the trees, but the means to process chocolate are simply too expensive.
• There’s almost no brewed coffee, although instant is very popular.
• The water isn’t potable in many areas, and while showers often have heaters by the spouts, I didn’t have a hot shower until I got back to the States.
• Like hot water, water pressure is no guarantee and the power outages are more common.
• Toilet paper can’t be flushed, and some toilets are flushed using a water bucket.
• Almost every shower we came across had a toilet in it. There was no division between the two. I’m still pondering the reasoning behind this.
• Mosquitoes are pretty abundant, given all the red marks up and down my arms and legs.
• I couldn’t find a wireless signal anywhere, even in Manila (Daphyn figured it was the only way for me to take a real vacation). My iPhone was pretty much a paperweight until I found a signal at the exclusive Tagaytay Highlands Country Club on Luzon.
• Almost every meal consisted of rice and pork. Did I mention I don’t like pork? It was kind of funny talking about it to my cousin April when she was shocked that Americans (or at least me) don’t eat rice with every meal.
• It’s pretty hot, and the natives rarely use the air conditioning since they’re so accustomed to the temperature.

Bohol Beach Club: It definitely wasn’t the Jersey Shore, but I assure you we made do

Then there’s the travel aspect of it all.

We were only there about a week, and it’s roughly 24 hours of flying each way and a 12-hour time difference.

That’s not to say all the experiences were rough, though, as I had hot cocoa every morning and needed no guarantee to tell it came straight from a cacao bean. The calamari was caught and fried fresh and was arguably the best I’d ever had. Then there’s the mangoes, bananas, and pineapples (minus coconuts, which are downright nasty to me)–I don’t think you can fully appreciate the taste of any of these fruits outside of their geographic origin. Lastly, there’s the beaches, which are nothing short of beautiful. It’s definitely nice to not have to compete for sand space on an empty beach.

Food was definitely fresh. We watched our lunch get sewn up and roasted over an open flame.

This is the remains of my grandparents’ home, which a number of family members in Canada and the U.S. are having torn down and rebuilt. It’s a bit hard to believe coming from the States, but my aunt and cousin still live in the remains of this building. Homes that look like this in rural areas aren’t that uncommon.

One of several red dragonflies I captured while visiting the Highlands Country Club.

My cousin asked me what I thought of the Philippines compared to the U.S., and I said I’d ask her the same question once she moved to San Francisco. She wasn’t thrilled at the perception of how impersonal Americans are compared to the Filipinos of her small hometown. Luxuries aside, I would tend to agree.

Daphyn had been bugging me for awhile to get a new digital camera for her (since I loathe playing photographer at family events) and I kept pushing back because Canon strayed away from pocket cameras with manual settings. When her birthday came around earlier this month I almost bought her a Panasonic Lumix–but discovered the Canon SD 790 IS.

It seems like there’s been fireworks going off every night for the past few nights (either Jersey City or Battery Park), and I took the opportunity to borrow my wife’s new camera and take it for a test drive.

Sadly, RAW settings have been made exclusive to SLRs since I last used a pocket camera. I also found myself bumbling around the controls in the dark while taking the above shot. Overall, though, I’m impressed with how far these small devices have come: the digital macro is a nice touch and the accelerometer that automatically rotates previously shot photos is nice.

I’ve struck again, this time posting on Wikipedia a picture of Phil Hughes during his last 2008 start (prior to his trip to the DL). I had a few action shots but figured I’d post something a little different this time. Who knows, maybe I’ll replace it if I ever sit on the third base
side (since he’s a righty) or if I treat myself to Box seats (doubtful, considering NYC prices).

I like Hughes, and, despite the rough start, think it was still the smart move to not trade him for Santana.

I definitely think it’s cool he’s got the guts to maintain a blog through the season; it provides a unique perspective of the game for the fans. I will say I’m surprised superstition hasn’t set in with the number change from #65 to #34, and I also wonder if the youngster pitchers (Joba, Ian, etc., who from what I read are gamers) think of playing themselves in MLB 2K8.

I was recently at a FlashCodersNY meeting where a rep from Adobe acknowledged that CS3 has some bugs in Leopard. I told him I hadn’t run into anything, however, I clearly spoke too soon. Two bugs I’ve found in Photoshop:

1. Using the crop tool crops the image to 1×1 pixels. As a workaround, I’ve been using the marquee tool and cropping based on what’s selected.
2. Sometimes the font menu in the top panel won’t accept typed-in font names or scale the font’s pixel size based on pressing the up or down keyboard arrows. I’m having trouble replicating this, so I didn’t report it.

I’m not trying to point fingers, but rather find out if there are other bugs I haven’t run across yet. I’ve already submitted one to Adobe bug form, and figure that Adobe will be releasing updates soon enough.

My friend Jeff pointed me out to this post on Seam Carving for Content-Aware Image Resizing by Ariel Shamir. Apparently, it was just shown at this year’s SIGGRAPH, and, to put it shortly, it’s a way to make images in HTML pages scale/adhere to liquid CSS layouts.

Overall, it’s pretty impressive, and I’m sure some use will come of it. Would I want my photographs being manipulated in such a manner, though? No way

My friend Lian just posted a site for Fashionably Late for the Relationship (you might have read about it in the Times or scratched your head passing her at Union Square last July). I’m hoping the footage (along with my 1/2 second cameo) will surface, but in the meanwhile, the site features a number of pics by yours truly.

I’ll admit I didn’t bother to clean up many of them (several are slightly underexposed), but it’s definitely cool to see what shots others took of the performance.