This is the Dragon fountain, right in front of Dragon Mart located at International City, Dubai.
Lately, there’s been a lot of work in the office… I can already foresee the difficulty on my 365; But, that’s fine, I’m looking at it as a challenge. Time to think some new ideas for the coming days 
P.S. Today, I sold my Sigma 10-20 lens to a guy named Sermed, hopefully it will give him new perspective in his photography.
Gear: Canon 7D + Sigma 10mm f2.8 Fisheye
Settings: f8.0 | 3.2 secs | ISO 100
Post processing:
- Changed the white balance to tungsten to give that blue hour look
- Dodging and burning
- Applied some sharpening
Here’s another shot from a different angle:
“Continuous effort – not strength or intelligence – is the key to unlocking our potential” – Winston Churchill
Nothing much to say, just sharing a quote from Mr. Churchill.
Oh, and by the way, I missed shooting with my point & shoot cam, lumix lx3, so I decided to use it for today’s shoot.
Gear: Lumix LX3 + 580exii
Settings: f4.0 | 1/160 | ISO 80
Strobist:
580exii + LumiQuest Sofbox III @ 1/32 power on camera left
Trigger: Phottix PT04II
Post processing:
- Some dodging and burning
- Adjusted contrast
Thank you for following!
/Mike
Again, some last minute shot. I was planning to shoot with my Lumix tonight but, it didn’t work out somehow. So, I had to come up with something else. I was actually checking what to have for breakfast tomorrow so I checked the milk and found out it was already spoiled… And when I was about to throw it, this idea came to me So, the milk did not get spoiled in vain!
Gear: Canon 7D + EF 100mm f2.8 Macro
Settings: f16 | 1/160 | ISO 200
Strobist info:
580exii + LumiQuest Softbox III @ 1/32 power on camera left
Trigger: Phottix PT04 II
Post process:
- Colorized the plate
- Applied some sharpening
Cheers!
Mike
Today is day 65 of my 365 Now, I have exactly 300 days to go!
On my 365, I have lit a lot of things, lemon, shoes, smoke, water, flowers… etc. But I didn’t have a lot of people as my subject. Lighting is really critical and the thing about lighting is that, you need different approaches for different subjects. In my experience, it’s not an exact science, there is no single formula that will work with anything in any situation. But, once you know some lighting fundamentals it will help a lot. I am a work in progress, I’m new to photography (1 year) and I’m trying to learn as much as I can. Hopefully, I’ll get to have more opportunities in the future for photo shoots like this. I want to thank my make up artist Maria Isolde for this shoot. And of course, my lovely model
Gear: Canon 7D + Tamron 18-270mm VC
Settings: f8.0 | 1/250 | ISO 200
Strobist:
Canon 580exii + shoot through umbrella @ 1/4 power on camera left (main light)
Canon 430exii @ 1/32 power on camera right (rim light & hair light)
Canon 199a + 32″ softbox as fill (23 year old flash still working 
) @iso400
Trigger = Canon 7D for 580exii + 430exii and Phottix PT04II for the Canon 199a
Post processing:
- Adjusted exposure, fill light and contrast in ACR
- Dodging and burning to enhance the mask and the feathers
- Added vignette
Cheers!
/Mike
Told yah I’m going to do smoke photography again This time I introduced another element, a spoon; it’s actually a large spoon shaped kitchen utility. I don’t really know what’s the actual name for that, but this is used for cooking.
Took me sometime to get the color combo I wanted, but finally decided to get the red black combo.
Gear: Canon 7D + Tokina 11-16 + 430exii
Settings: f9.0 | 1/250 | ISO 100
Strobist:
430exii + home made gobo on each side to avoid light spill and lens flare @ 1/4 power, placed on camera right
Trigger: Canon 7D’s built in trigger
Post process:
- Added hue and saturation layer and made the smoke red
- De-saturated the spoon to remove color cast
- Increased contrast
Thanks for following
/Mike
I’m trying to do something else today, but then I can’t pull it off because the flower keeps on falling down; Then I saw some nice effect with the water, so I just roll with it
Most of the time, mistakes lead us to something… might not be what we wanted originally, but still cool nevertheless.
Gear: Canon 7D + EF 50mm 1.8 + 430exii
Settings: f16 | 1/250 | ISO 320
Strobist:
430exii + LumiQuest Softbox III @ 1/8 power on camera left
Trigger: Canon 7D’s built in trigger
Post process
- Square cropped
- Adjust contrast and clarity in ACR
- Added a light vignette
Enjoy the weekend!
/Mike
Took this on the way home; I’m not driving I’m on the passenger seat so… Safety first
This is pretty much how Dubai road looks like at around 6pm. You can see on the right the Dubai Metro and the Burj Khalifa. I like the zoom blur effect created… Nothing much to say.
Gear: Canon 7D + Tokina 11-16 f2.8
Settings: f6.3 | 1/25 | ISO100
Post processing:
- Some blending modes to get some details of the sky
- Some dodging and burning to accentuate some details
- Added a vignette
Cheers!
/Mike
“The fastest way to succeed is to double your rate of failure.” – Thomas J. Watson, President and founder of IBM.
I think what he wants to say is that, failure always precedes success. When we fail, it only means we are trying, and if we double the rate of our failures, then it only means we are really trying hard to achieve success, which eventually will be the end result of all our efforts. Anyway, I took this on my way home, this is the IBM building in Dubai Internet city.
Gear: Canon 7D + Sigma 10mm f2.8 fisheye
Settings: f8.0 | 1/200 | ISO 100 (AEB 3 exposures)
Post processing:
- Stacked and tone mapped using Photomatix
- Performed manual tone mapping using Photoshop CS4 for a more natural look
Cheers!
/Mike
This is our office building in Dubai Internet City. It’s a cool looking building if you ask me
The weatherman predicted rains the entire week, although it didn’t rain till now but, maybe later. Sky is gray and cloudy, it does really looks like it’s going to rain. I took shots of this building many times but I don’t like how it looks, until now, the fisheye lens gave me the look I was looking for
Gear: Canon 7D + Sigma 10mm f2.8 fisheye
Settings: f8 | 1/40 | ISO 100 (+/-2 EV AEB)
Post processing:
- Generate HDR image using Photomatix
- Cleanup in Photoshop
- Applied sharpening & noise reduction
Y’ey! I have done 2 months of my 365
/Mike
This is a video card inside an oven that looks like having a techno party?!? Confused? Yeah, me too! That is what 3 1/2 hours of traffic can do to you.
Tonight’s traffic was one of the worst traffic for me in a long time… It rained heavily and as usual, the streets are flooded… That I assume was the cause of traffic, but, on my 3 1/2 hour drive home, I didn’t see any flood ?!? Still confused? Same here.
Anyway, this technique is often times called “dragging the shutter”. I needed more ambient light to penetrate inside the oven so it can be properly exposed, thus requiring a longer shutter speed.
I need to get some sleep now
Gear: Canon 7D + Sigma 10mm f2.8 fisheye
Settings: f10 | 3.2 seconds | ISO 200
Strobist info:
580exii + blue gel zoomed at 105mm @ 1/16 power
430exii + LumiQuest FXtra w/ red gel zoomed at 105mm @ 1/16 power
Trigger: Canon 7D’s built in trigger
Post processing:
- Increased dark areas by using levels
- Applied sharpening
- Little bit of dodging and burning
Cheers!
/Mike
