(EZRA) 52/52 : Just keep taking chances and have fun.

Happy new year everyone!

Here’s Ezra’s last portrait for 2012 🙂  I forgot to post it here on my blog last night, whoops.  We shot this on the 30th (the same time we did her 51st portrait).

She loves that furry hat of hers.  She wore it all the time when we were in California last year.  Unfortunately, it’s way too hot in the Philippines to wear this.  What do you call these types of hats anyway?

So that ends another 52-week project.  I’m not sure if Ezra will continue doing this in 2013, but I think she mentioned that she will.  In fact, I think she already has some ideas for her next self portrait 😀

Week 52/52 : I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I’ve ended up where I needed to be

-Douglas Adams.

Last day of 2012. This year just flew by!

This was taken in Coron (Palawan) a few days ago. My family went there for a 4-day vacation starting Christmas day. It’s such a beautiful place 🙂   This was shot at Mt. Tapyas.  We had to climb 700+ steps to reach the top, but it was worth it because the view was amazing!   It was the perfect place to shoot my last self portrait for 2012.

I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who followed and supported me during my 52-week journey this year.  I know I post late most of the time and I can take forever to reply to comments, so I’m super thankful to all of you who have stuck with me despite this.  You guys are awesome!  I hope you’ll still be around when I do my 52-week project for 2013 🙂

(Credits to my cousin Raffy for the shot.)

Week 51/52 : Christmas is a time when you get homesick – even when you’re home.

~Carol Nelson

Things have been pretty busy over here so I haven’t had that much time to shoot again. My aunts from California are here for the holidays, so we’ve been trying to keep them entertained.

This was taken in front of our large mirror at home. I was trying to shoot a portrait next to the lights on our staircase but I couldn’t get the angle right so I ended up doing a mirror shot instead – which explains why my camera was on a tripod.

I really love our house, especially during the holidays when it’s all decked out for Christmas. I don’t know why, but coming home to a house full of fairy lights just makes me so happy 🙂

Belated Merry Christmas everyone!

(EZRA) 51/52 : Never underestimate a girl’s ability to find something out

We rushed this shot yesterday.  There was only one day left in the year and she still had 2 self portraits to do.  I told her she had to finish them both before 2013 arrives XD

I like the blues in this shot.  She’s wearing her new wig, but the blue hair extension was a gift from Kurt many years ago.  She finally got the chance to wear it

Week 50/52 : Dissolution

A break from all the strobist stuff I’ve been doing lately.  I missed doing photomanipulations 🙂  My editing skills are getting a little rusty.  I hope it doesn’t look like I’m being eaten alive by moths (or worse – flies). The concept behind this is that my dress (and me, I suppose) is slowly dissolving into tiny butterflies. It’s supposed to represent the transition into a new me as we enter a new year.

(EZRA) 50/52 : Life itself is the most wonderful fairy tale.

Our attempt at high-key photography.   We’re obviously still having a lot of fun with my strobes 😀  Aimed one strobe at the wall behind her, and I bounced a second strobe off the ceiling.  We also placed a reflector on her lap so her face wouldn’t be too shadowy.

I love how this turned out.  She looks so angelic in this shot, totally different from her true personality, mwahaha.  Peace Ezra XD

(Title came from a quote by Hans Christian Andersen)

(EZRA) 49/52 : It’s the season to be jolly

Ezra’s Christmas portrait.  We shot this early December on the first day we had our Christmas tree up, but we keep forgetting to upload it.  This was back when I had just bought my flash and we were experimenting with it.  I put one strobe behind her and aimed it at the tree to light it up a bit, then another one above her, which we bounced off the ceiling.  We also but a reflector on her lap to bring some light to her face 🙂

(EZRA) 48/52 : Some of the greatest things in life are unseen; that’s why you close your eyes when you kiss, cry or dream.

We were trying to do a low key shoot here, but I placed her too close to the wall (which was blue), so it didn’t end up black.  In the end we decided we liked it anyway, so I added another flash behind her and aimed it at the wall for that glowing effect 🙂

Week 49/52 : Elegance is not about being noticed, it’s about being remembered

Another portrait we took while playing with my flash. This was shot the same day as Ezra’s samurai portrait.  This was the result of our Rurouni Kenshin fangirl moments after we watched the movie.  Rurouni Kenshin was an anime we watched avidly growing up.  Seeing it on the big screen was like having our childhood dreams come true.

I really love how this shot turned out.  I do think that my face is a little too bright, but that’s alright.  I probably should have adjusted the flash … but I’m still learning how to play with light.  I’ll get it right someday XD  I used two strobes for this shot as well.  One was aimed at my face to give it some light, and it was bounced using a car reflector to illuminate the back of the yukata.  The other strobe was behind me to separate me from the background.

This was how our set up looked like:

Pretty fancy eh?  NOT!   We did the shoot in the middle of our living room.  I don’t have a strobist kit (yet – hopefully that will be fixed soon) so we had to make do with what we have.  I don’t have light stands so I used two tripods to mount my strobes.  We used Ezra’s car windshield cover as a reflector and propped it up using some stools.  The umbrella was just a regular white one we had lying around the house. I initially planned on using it to diffuse light, but I couldn’t get it right so we ended up doing away with it.

Thanks to my sister for styling my hair and helping me take the shot! 😀

(Quote in the title is by Giorgo Armani)

(EZRA) 47/52 : It finally begins…

Inspired by the Rurouni Kenshin movie.  We’ve been waiting for it to come out on DVD but, luckily, SM Cinema took pity on Filipino fans and decided to show it.  We watched it last week.  It was awesome!   It made me miss the anime so much that I’m planning on watching the whole series again 😀

Rurouni Kenshin was Ezra’s favorite anime growing up.  She’s been a huge fan ever since we saw a random episode on AXN when we were in high school.  She loved the anime so much that she thought no actor could ever do Kenshin justice.  We were so glad to be proven wrong.  Sato Takeru is the perfect Kenshin.  (Our first choice was actually Kamenashi Kazuya, but Sato Takeru looks like him anyway so we were pretty close XD)

Ezra had to dig around our attic to find her old sword for this shot.  It used to belong to my dad but he gave it to her during her Rurouni Kenshin fangirl days.  She used to keep it in her room but he put it in the attic for safekeeping after she “accidentally” poked a large hole in her window while she was playing with it.

I used two strobes for this shot.  One was aimed at the wall for the high key effect, while the other was bounced off the ceiling to bring some light to her face. This was the effect we were going for:

But we decided to do in color instead of black and white.  I’m quite happy with how it turned out.   This is probably one of my favorite portraits of her for 2012.