Just about Photography

This is my second portrait album after Sunny Winter Day. Title about this album is “The Exceptional” – there are some reasons why I named it “The Exceptional”. From Wordweb dictionary, exceptional means “far beyond what is usual in magnitude or degree” and “surpassing what is common or usual or expected”. Actually I expect that I could finish this album in the end of year 2008 – but I postpone finishing this album because I am busy for new year party. Since it surpassing my plan and crossing the years (2008 and 2009) so I named this album “The Exceptional”.  Second reason is many photos in this album actually a little bit miss focus because I use 2 cameras (5D attached with EF 35mm f/1.4L  and Kiss Digital X attached with EF 50mm f/1.8).  I just think that 5D + EF 35mm f/1.4L good for taking general portrait (model include the environment) and Kiss Digital X + EF 50mm f/1.8 good for taking portrait (only model). I don’t know why my Kiss Digital X and my EF 50mm f/1.8 give an unexpected result. I checked that some photos taken by Kiss Digital X have a little miss focus problem. I like some photos taken by Kiss Digital X but most of them are miss focus. So in this album I took longer time to edit miss focus photos and also correcting skin color for some photos. Since I edit this specially (some photos also edit with fisheye effect, you can see here for the tutorial) – different than my previous album and the result after post processing also very nice so I think it will be nice if I named this album “The Exceptional”.

Album Title: The Exceptional – Model:水凌 (read: shui ling) – Place: 西門町,台北,台灣 (read: xi men ding, tai bei, tai wan) – Photographer: Edwin Setiawan – Image Editor: Edwin Setiawan. I just upload some photos in this album  that I think it’s interesting. I resized the photos – hope the quality still good.

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We wish you “Merry Christmas” – 聖誕快樂 (read: sheng dan kuai le) – Selamat Natal for all of you that celebrate Christmas. Actually from 21st to 24th December 2008 I have a plan to write something about Christmas in my blog – but I don’t have any idea what topic I should write. Until 25th December 2008 I also don’t have something to write ^^ – so maybe I just write my activity from 21st to 24th December 2008 regarding Christmas.

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7th December 2008 is my first time joining dcview activities about portrait activity. For more detail about dcview, you can click this link – sorry only Chinese available. I named this article “Sunny Winter Day” because when I join this activities the day is bright although it’s a winter season. I think it’s good to enjoy sun light in nice  winter season – for me winter is the best season. “Summer Winter Day” also become my first portrait album title in Taiwan. Because this is my first time, the result maybe not very good – still experimenting on it especially on color management. Anyway I always do my best not only in taking photo but also in editing the photo.

Model is 茵芙 (read: yin fu), photographer: me, place is 435藝文特區 (read: yi wen te qu) – 台北, 台灣 (read: Taipei, Taiwan) – Album title: Sunny Winter Day. In this photo session I only use EOS 5D and 35mm/f1.4L to take all photos. Please click read the rest of this entry to see all photos.

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Colorization is important technique in photography – especially if you like photo restoration. I know that photo restoration contains many things, not only colorization – but colorization is one important aspect in photo restoration. Colorization is important to restore color of monochrome old photo (black and white, sepia, etc).

Actually colorization process is an imagination technique – why I said this ? – as you know if you have b&w photo and wanna to make it become color photo, you need to know the original color. But how to know the original color based only b&w photo ?  no way to know the original color so I think it based on your imagination – that’s why I said that colorization is an imagination technique. Since it is an imagination technique so everyone should produce different color photo based on their imagination.  I think the other important aspect of colorization is style – different people should have different style or taste. It is similar with this case: I like fried chicken but you like baked chicken – although the source material is same (chicken) it will produce different taste depends on cook style. This concept is important for tutorial steps I write below.

The original photo can be seen below (small size), for large size you need to download the original photo in this link – only registered can download the file. Photo is taken by Marjolein H. – why I choose this photo? the reason is because I participate retouchpro colorization contest on November 2008. There are some color information (from retouchpro.com) that you need to obey such as hair: brown; eyes: green; dress: creamy yellow with black polka dots; necklace: black; earring: gold; background: your choice to work with the colorized image.

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Retouching is important technique, especially for portrait photography. Actually this tutorial is advanced step of my previous tutorial. Previously I don’t mention the step very clearly – also I don’t mention about masking, smoothing skin, sharpening in detail. I think you also need to read my previous tutorial as basic for smoothing skin and local contrast adjustment.

The photo (below) that I use in this tutorial is taken by clickjia, you also can see this photo in his flickr.

The steps how to retouch can be seen below: Read the rest of this entry »

Long time not to take Taipei 101 photo because of my thesis. As photographer, I need to refresh our mind by take *nice photo. Elephant Mountain is good place for hiking and viewing scenery. We can see the Taipei 101 with the city – not only that we also can see sunset. I also ever go to Tiger Mountain – comparing city view from Elephant Mountain and Tiger Mountain, I’ll definitely choose Elephant Mountain. The Elephant Mountain hiking route also not very far compare to Tiger Mountain hiking route. I go with my friends – one is nikonian (use D40) and the other is canonian (use 450D). We go together because take photo alone isn’t interesting at all. Different than my photo before – I try to use minimize editing process – in order to increase my photography skill with minimal editing. Elephant Mountain in Chinese is called 象山 (read: xiang shan) – below is photo of the ‘象山’ sign – we will see this sign before we reach the place to take Taipei 101 photo.

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June 14th, 2008 is graduation day for National Taiwan University of Science & Technology (NTUST) or 國立台灣科技大學 (in Chinese). In this important day I am not also graduation photographer but also as participant – because I will graduate on July 2008. This graduation day is a little bit different than graduation day in my country (Indonesia) – in Indonesia all participants should graduate then can join graduation ceremony – but in Taiwan all participants can join graduation ceremony no matter you already graduate or not. Read the rest of this entry »

Computex Taipei 2008 is very interesting exhibition in the beginning of this month (June 2008). This exhibition has been held from June 3rd – 7th, 2008; in this exhibition you can see many technology about computer such as chip set, memory, graphic card, etc. For me as foreign student in Taipei, I think this exhibition is different from common exhibition in Taiwan because many foreigners come here to see the product – and many Taiwanese are ready to speak English – in common exhibition they prefer to speak Chinese. Read the rest of this entry »

I took this photo on February 19th, 2008. The building in this photo is called Sun Yat Sen (SYS) Memorial Hall. When I took this picture, there are many people celebrate lantern festival (Mid-Autumn Festival) in SYS Memorial Hall. I took this picture use EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM attached with EOS kiss digital X (1,6 crop factor). Because I don’t have ultra wide lens and full frame camera, so it is difficult to capture the building. Then I took 3 pictures then merged it using Photoshop, this method is the inexpensive method compare with buy full frame camera with ultra wide lens. This method sometimes will produce a “break image”, so sometimes it needs post processing after stitching process. If you don’t like much of post processing, using tripod when take the pictures; maybe it can reduce this problem.

More detail about Lantern Festival can be seen here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lantern_Festival

More detail about Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall can be seen here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Yat-sen_Memorial_Hall

These are original images before stitching:

This photo is taken at April 19th, 2008. Placed in 陽明山(Yang Ming Shan), 台灣(Tai Wan); especially located in 竹子湖(zhu zi hu). This photo is taken using EF 35mm/1.4L USM attached in my EOS kiss digital X. In Taiwan around the March to April there always the best time for calla lily to blossom. For foreigner like me, I think it’s very interesting to see it, not only that you also can buy some calla lily flowers and take to home. You also can relax in there and enjoying the beautiful calla lily field. This photo also can be seen in my flickr.

The detail about zhu zi hu area can be seen here (Chinese): http://www.5657.com.tw/fashia/p06.htm

The detail about calla lily can be seen here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zantedeschia_aethiopica