To take pictures or not? ( camera or rocks?)

Traversing Mt. Guiting-Guiting (Sibuyan, Romblon)

To be or not to be... a photographer or a just a climber?

Either you can't have a best shot or you will not always be satisfied with somebody's shot. That will happened only if you are not holding a camera or if you are a photographer and someone has a camera and he/she keeps shooting at you.  Or, you have a camera, but it is inside your backpack, and you are on the edge of a cliff of a mountain, with both of your hands holding on to something that will keep you from falling. Are you going to get your camera and take a dangerous shot or you will just be a climber and let somebody with a camera take a shot at you?

Traversing Mt. Guiting-Guiting can test you as a photographer and a climber. Imagine trekking for more that 10 hours for three days, exposing yourself for more than 6 hours to a more than 35 degrees celsius direct heat from the sun, carrying more that 10 kilos on your backpacks and climbing and descending close to 60-90 degrees edges of the mountain... plus big boulders of rocks as your path on going down... and with more than 3 peaks of deception on your way up and down the mountain. Three liters of water will not be enough for a day. And you can't free your hands from the wall rocks on your way down and always blaming yourself for not taking the shot or deciding between exposing yourself to the heat or exposing the camera lens to a light.

Good thing I did not bring my heavy and bulky film camera, instead, I brought a lighter and compact digital camera. With a camera just larger than my palm, with Sony Cybershot, you don't have to worry about your aperture, shutterspeed and ASA settings. Composition will be there, also proper lighting and some principles of taking photographs... but not in the mountain like G2, one of the toughest mountain to climb. All you have to do is point and shot with your right hand while holding on to a rock with your left hand. Or... let someone hold the camera and enjoy the climb and sight.

by: kapreng barako

Put-I- tim (images of light and shadows)

I love to shoot in black and white: that's in black and white film.
Where images can be represented by light and shadows; and how light is being represented by white and its different values and gradation; and its opposite - the color of black, and how black and white can be separated by the color gray .

Here's some of my photographs, printed not in the darkroom but in digital laboratory.

Kapre in the digital world

MMS 173: Photography in Multimedia
I'm a film photographer. I was trained to shoot film and to create images with it. I have to wait to exposed 12, 24, or 36 shots of frame, processed the negatives and make a contact prints out of it before I can see what I aimed for.

With today's technology, with the emergence of digital technology, where images can be represented by 1's and 0's, film photography seems to be fading in obsolescence. But film technology, where photography started it all, will not just shoot in silence, it will continue to make images from light and shadows where patience is a virtue.

Digital photography, comes like a lightning, where you were struck by its effect before you've seen it and brings more than 220 volts and more, and knocks out your consciousness and brings you 1000 years to the future(okay make it ten).

Imagine:
You can shoot a product shot out of two 40 watts bulb and have digital setting more than f/8 on your aperture?

Florescent lamp will not give you a light reading of f/1.4 or f/8 if you are using a 100 ASA film or even a 1000 ASA. The equivalent reading of your built-in meter on your analog camera will be f/1.4 in 5 seconds or more (sec) - with a color temperature of green. That will be your picture, if captured and properly set to correct exposure. It will give a f/1.4 exposure in 5 seconds or more.

In order to give a f/1.4 exposure reading with 100 ASA(or ISO) film, you need an 800 watts of tungsten artificial light with a distance of 1 meter from your subject or model.

A tungsten light bulb will give a color temperature orange or close to red if you're using a daylight film.

With just a press of settings on your digital camera, it can correct the color temperature of your image, that is the correct color rendition of what you are shooting for.

Digital camera compared to analog camera?
I have to buy a new one, in digital settings where images can be captured in 1's and 0's.