The Penalty Box

Toastbox

Sun, 13 May 2012 20:51:00 PDT

On the order of ridiculous desserts, this isn't the craziest thing I've seen. However, with a name like Toastbox, it's pretty damn awesome already. I've been told this was consumed by one person in one sitting, and no, it wasn't a giant fat guy. To the contrary, it was a Chinese girl who had the waistline of a stop sign pole. It's always the skinny ones...

Anyway, you'll notice a bit of grain in the background due to the high ISO, but since the foreground is the focus, the grain is of little consequence. Besides, if you have to start worrying about noise in your photo, it's probably not very interesting in the first place. Of course, you may find food boring too, so in the end, it's all subjective.

Would I recommend eating this? Not by yourself. Don't listen to the fat person voice inside of you. But to share, it's pretty good. Even the bread is a little sweet, which I suspect comes from a little extra honey in the dough. Get this at Flo Tearoom. Seriously, go eat there. Great cafe.

f/2.0, 1/80sec, ISO 1600

Baby WTF

Sun, 06 May 2012 19:51:00 PDT

Babies are amusing creatures. I haven't been responsible for one for any significant amount of time, nor have I had any fluid other than saliva end up on my person as a result of holding a mini-human, so my views on babies may be coloured to the positive end of the spectrum. Despite the inherent danger of projectile bodily fluids (note tongue firmly planted in cheek), I do enjoy taking photos of the little buggers.

With babies, there's a large amount of honesty in their expressions. When they smile, they are genuinely happy. When they cry, they are genuinely upset. And when they give you an expression like my friend Ryan's daughter gives me here, they are genuinely confused. Said confusion probably had to do with my crouching in an odd manner with what surely looked from her perspective like a large black object growing out of my face. Anything for the shot, right?

(Hey, at least I didn't get puked on.)

f/4.0, 1/500th sec, ISO 200

Shore Clouds

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 20:55:00 PDT

Sunset is one of the best times to take photographs. The setting sun does all sorts of fun things to the colours in the sky and the opaqueness of the clouds provided some patterns that are neat to look at. If I did this again, I'd probably re-compose to include more of the sky, since that's the interesting part. I took the rule of thirds a bit too literally for this one.

f/3.5, 1/60th sec, ISO 200

Dessert Taco

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 16:15:00 PDT

Not having a proper macro lens for my DSLR, I never really experimented with food photography much. I have started setting up a makeshift photo booth for food with some poster board, but that's not so good for restaurants or friend's houses. I got myself a little S95 for general carry-around purposes, and it's got a macro function.

This was an early attempt at food photography. Chocolate fondue has some neat reflective properties due to the oil content in it, while the rest of the dark colour of the chocolate absorbs light, providing a nice contrast. The crepe made a nice base to pool the chocolate onto and still pick up to eat. Don't worry, I added some celery to make it healthy.

f/2.0, 1/25th sec, ISO 800

Thin Ice

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 22:55:00 PDT

One of the things I love about photography is the moments of serendipity you come across in life that you can capture through the lens of your camera. This was a cold (by Vancouver standards) winter in New York and this was a small pond in a garden I was strolling through. What would've made this better is if the sign was half buried in the ice, but this still amused me greatly.

f/5.6, 1/2500th sec, ISO 400

Bottled Sunset

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 22:55:00 PDT

Despite being one of the busiest and cramped places on the planet, Hong Kong really is a beautiful place. Getting out on the water lets you get away from the smog that drifts in from China and appreciate the greenery that still exists away from the towering skyscrapers. I was on a boat coming back into shore and the sun was beginning to set. Light was fading and I didn't have my 1.4 lens on me, so I started playing with some perspective shots while I could still reasonably hand hold shots. An empty water bottle made for an opportunistic subject with the sun setting in the background.

f/5.6, 1/640th sec, ISO 200

Disembodied Hand

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 20:15:00 PDT

My company Christmas party had one of those faux casinos where you play for chip count. The party company that was hired got all dressed up in tux shirts and brought blackjack, roulette, baccarat and craps tables. I noticed the mirrors on the sides of the craps table and saw how the reflections of the contents of the table made for an interesting viewpoint. I got down to the viewpoint of the mirrors and snapped this shot when the dealer was pushing some chips to the lucky winner.

f/1.8, 1/500th sec, ISO 1600

Mannequin

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 22:01:00 PDT

This was taken at some supermall on my trip to China in 2011. The eyelashes on the mannequin's eyes weirded me out. This bordered on British Wax Museum creepy.

f/2.2, 1/250th sec, ISO 800

Liquid Greenery

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 22:58:00 PST

Sometimes in nature, you stumble upon something cool. Something that just so happened to line up perfectly into a neat shot that you managed to take. Whether it's a bird landing gracefully on top of the water or a bright flower growing amonst a contrasting background, you silently praise the photography gods as you try to capture the moment.

Other times, you fake it. This was one of those times. I was wandering around Barnet Marine Park with my camera and saw a small little stream emptying into the inlet. Leaves had fallen off of a nearby tree and a small bit of inspiration hit me. I took one of the leaves, dipped it in the water to get a few beads on it and lined it up on one of the rocks. Sometimes you gotta make your subjects cooperate.

f/4, 1/500th sec, ISO 200

Modern Ghosts of Grand Central

Sat, 03 Mar 2012 10:50:00 PST

When I went on a trip to New York, one of the things I wanted to do was take some photos at Grand Central Station. The architecture of the place is pretty neat, but as I was waiting for my parents on the steps in the main lobby, an idea came to me. All of the people milling about weren't moving that fast, but there were enough people standing around that a long exposure would leave ghostly streaks around them. The result after about a dozen attempts is below.

I like how the people staring into their phones stand out amongst the streaks around them. It's like a commentary on the current place of technology in our soci-ahahahahahahaha I couldn't type that with a straight face.

f/8, 2 sec, ISO 200