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What is the future of new media?

I kept myself on a self-imposed non disclosure agreement until the news broke out. that Duncan Riley has left the (b5media) building. There were several signs that Duncan had left b5media before the announcement was made public. The most obvious one was that someone pointed out how his blog was no longer in the b5media channel blogroll. Even the interview with 1938 media with Duncan leaves us all wanting for more info as to where Duncan is off to.

It is sad to say goodbye to someone you’ve never actually met in person. In a private email exchange with Duncan after his departure from b5media, I thanked the guy tremendously for being my ticket to the professional blogging industry. I also found out from him that I was the very first blogger for b5media, when some others had come from Weblog Empire. How about that?

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Mostly Everything

Photo Project: Food Photography and Styling

Today, Jed and I attended a food photography and styling seminar by Jo Avila and Pixie Sevilla. We learned to cook and style two dishes – salad and pasta. I’ve taken an interest in photographing food because the opportunity to shoot horse de oovers has been getting more frequent because of F&B World Magazine (it is under our mother company at HIP).

The 3 Cherry Tomato Pasta dish is below. I highlighted the cherry tomatoes because that is what makes the dish unique. The redness of the cherry tomatoes also become a very attractive color to the eye.

three cherry tomato salad.JPG

The Two Pasta Combo dish is below. I wanted to take a shot of the cute bell pepper around the cherry tomatoes again.

two pasta dish.JPG

There are two ways to look at the end goal of food photography in my humble opinion. You need to ask yourself the question, “Do I want to eat this food afterwards or not?” Because if you really want to get that perfect photograph you will need to make your meal as unedible as possible: In this salad and pasta dish, the plates have been poisoned wiped with glass cleaner and the fresh water sprays you see is glycerine. Also, there’s a huge mound of tissue underneath the lettuce and the pasta. And I tried to pin the olive onto the pasta using a safety pin. I would have used super glue but that would have permanently fastened the olive onto the pasta.

Here are some behind the scene shots.

the tissue mound.JPGlooking at stuff.JPGjed styling olives.JPGsauce goes in last.JPG

PS: We won best photo for the Cherry Tomato Salad arrangement!!!

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Mostly Everything

Photo Project: Lighting

We have a very friendly stray cat in the house named Ming Ming. While doing our once a year drinking binge slash photography session, Elber brought along his Nikon external flash which we used to do an impromptu portrait take for the cat.

cat photography.jpg

Click on the image for the full view.

The result was absolutely amazing. One the hardest aspects of photographing animals is getting them to stay still – and stay uninterested with your photography equipment that they won’t care less about being shot. Good thing the cat was patient enough to sit through the whole thing.

We did something different here. Elber brought along his home made diffuser, very similar to the DIY FinnBounce and Smelfen for the 350D. But instead of bouncing light, it stopped it. But since the internal flash still fires, it triggers the Nikon slave (apologies, I forgot the model) allowing us to flash from anywhere. His home-made device is made of film strip bunched together and taped with masking tape which is inserted above the lens. I then uploaded the image to iPhoto and with a click of a button, converted to B&W.

So that is how we achieved this image. I was using my favorite prime lens for this. You can check out the full EXIF data here.

When shooting animals – especially cats, it is advisable to try to get the whiskers and eyes as your focal point.

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Mostly Everything

Ynzal Christmas sale for Apple Products

Juan sent this over to me the other day. Ynzal is selling Macs at ultra low prices. Basically, you can avail of a MacBook Pro Core Duo for only P94,990.00 (before P118,000.00) and MacBook Core Duo for only P59,990.00 (was P69,980).

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If you buy a MacBook Pro, you also get P9,000.00 worth of accessories including an Airborne Access Unlimited Account for 1 month, a PowerSleeve, a Coolpad, a Corel Knockout and a KPT something something.

In addition, you also get something that other PC users don’t get – that familiar “smug” feeling of Mac users like me 🙂 Besides, you can install Windows on it now.

Click on the image for more details.

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Mostly Everything

Groovenet Blogger Meet: There PH and Wablet

EDIT: Postponed for a more convenient date 🙂

I’m helping organize a blogger meet up with the folks from Groovenet – the guys who are the local franchise holders of There Philippines as well as the same guys who are developing Wablet.

Wablet is a hot new web based IM client that can do more than just chat. It was featured in TechCrunch before and there are currently a lot of alpha testers from Microsoft, Google, Netvibe and more. This is your chance to test the client out.

I’ve met with Groovenet President Greg Kittelson several times already and assure you that this will be one eye-opening event in the Philippine gaming, e-commerce and Internet business road map.

The date for this event will be on Wednesday, November 22 2006 at 7:30PM at the Groovenet Penthouse office in Makati (I forgot the name of the building – it is the one beside the Shell Station across RCBC Plaza — I’ll post the correct building address soon). There will be drinks, food and a presentation on the implications of locally made content for There, as well as Alpha tester keys for Wablet. Party in Absinth follows!

To sign up for this small gathering, just leave a comment here 🙂