Changing Lanes

My CC had once tried to surprise me on my birthday. The idea failed miserably due to the failure on the part of our (then) common friend Ash and a sloppy execution. Then last year Begg and Biela tried to surprise me a day before my birthday and failed because it was obvious to me what they were up to. I’m not easy to surprise or so I thought.

After a not so exciting birthday, I drudged along to pick up NA a day after for a meeting. We drove to Capri Italian Grill (located near the Trade Centre metro station) to discuss details regarding my photography brand over dinner. On entering the restaurant I asked the waiter for a table for two but NA jumped in and said we didn’t need one as we made our way to a table hidden in a corner that had three people already seated i.e. SJ, Dots and Nizam. As SJ later pointed out, the look on my face was priceless; a mix of embarrassment and surprise. A decent meal followed by a birthday cake that was devoured by me. A dark chocolate mousse from Pascal Tepper that would melt away in your mouth leaving an after taste that would last for several minutes. Delicious...

In my defense, I blame the extremely stressed/lack of sleep state I've been in for my downfall... (>_<) On a side note: I’m glad the waiter/s didn’t break into a birthday song when they placed the cake on our table. That would be highly embarrassing...

Still persisting with the Sigma 24mm f1.8 as my main walk around lens, I managed to snap up this photo of the view from my balcony while it was raining heavily last night. It took me 3 tries to get it right as I wanted to get a proper exposure of the complete scene while capturing the rain in the air.

I chose a slow shutter speed of 1/40 to capture the rain with some motion blur, combined that with the lowest possible f number (large aperture) of f1.8 to allow maximum amount of light to enter the camera and increased the sensitivity of the sensor by bumping up the ISO to 1600 to achieve a proper exposure (though I think I've over exposed the shot a little).

The lens flare wasn’t added in post processing but done in camera as this lens tends to flare a lot which I took advantage of with some careful positioning of the light source. If you look carefully at the bright white lights in the background, you’ll see a bit of purple fringing. This is the only (for now) drawback of the lens when shooting wide open (small f number) which might get distracting in some cases. It can be removed in Photoshop but it doesn’t bother me here.

I’ve become a bit of a sucker for prime lens. My dream collection would be a 35mm f1.4, 50mm f1.8, 85mm f1.8, 135mm f2, 200mm f2.8 and 400mm f5.6. I already own the 50 and 85 while I’ve been eyeing the Sigma variant of the 35mm (more like the 30mm f1.4) for some time. Instead I’ve landed up with a Sigma 24mm f1.8 for AED1,000, second hand. SJ picked it up for me a few hours back so I still haven’t used it but I’m excited. Next is to bribe myself with the dreamy 135mm… ^_^

Four months and around 10,000 kilometers after my suicidal intention blog post, today I managed to change the faulty tyre. Why it took me so long is completely because the tyres my car rides on (Pirelli P Zero Rosso 235/40ZR 18 95Y) are never in stock. I chose not to go for any other branded tyre cause I didn’t want to change all my tyres due to the cost (eg. Pirelli cost AED1,200 per tyre) and I didn’t want to change just one tyre due to different tread design and performance. In the end I decided to change just one tyre (bought a Michelin Pilot Sport PS2 for AED1,350) cause the faulty one was falling apart and I still couldn't afford to change them all. As the Michelin goes in the rear, I should be fine for now as there is no noticeable change in driving ergonomics. I do plan to change the other 3 tyres in another 10,000 kilometers to Michelin (hopefully the Pilot Sport 3) as a quick google search claims they are a lot better then the Pirelli tyres..

I photographed Jo while assisting Bobby Lane in a portraiture workshop in Abu Dhabi in November. While looking for some other image, I came across this one which was screaming to be processed into monochrome. Simple Adobe Lightroom split tone processing with plenty of contrast and clarity to make the blacks darker and the whites brighter. Also increased exposure for the eyes to make them pop.

Had completely forgotten about the Solar Eclipse today so with a last minute reminder from SJ, I managed to capture this. Luckily it was cloudy which made my shot more interesting and easier to take. Shot this through two tinted windows of my house to reduce light along with a circular polarizer to reduce light further by a stop and to reduce reflections/doubles (slightly visible) created by the windows.

Even though I don't like the way this car looks, it sounds like a beast which put a huge grin on my face. This might possibly be the only Lexus model I like even though I still dislike the normal IS.

After a very long time, I spent over 2 hours editing a single car shot. Could have spent more time fine tuning it but couldn't be bothered cause it isn't a very exciting car for me at least even though I ended up with a 600MB photoshop file which is huge.

Shot these with a 70-200mm @ f2.8 with a mono-pod at sunset/night with ISO ranging from 800-1600 to give myself a bit of a challenge. Spent 5 hours taking 112 pictures of 90 or so cars in an effort to be different from the rest of the shooters. It was a hard job as I clearly was struggling in the end(read: loss of ideas) though the results I ended up with are surely something I am proud of.





Any feedback or critique for these pictures or my style of shooting is welcome.

Spotted this little critter at the 'Mamzar Cultural And Scientific Association'. There were three of them along with their mother but I managed to get a picture of only one of them so technically it wasn't alone though they were feeling quite cold. They were adorable and very soft to hold, wish I could have taken them home. Anyway talking about cold, winter is here at last. Time to find time to head to the beach with some friends.