If you’re a percussionist, chances are that you’ve seen the Mike Balter MBMB Mallet Bag.  You may even own one yourself.

A couple of years ago, I bought one as a cheap ($25) option for storing a large number of mallets (though back then I didn’t own very many).  And this bag is good at doing that, having a high volume for its size factor.  It even opens up at both ends so you can find the right mallet no matter which way they are facing in the bag.

However, mallets never stay organized in this bag.  Sometimes, I’ll just want to quickly grab a set of mallets from my bag.  But because everything is mixed up, it takes a while just to find three and I’ll struggle to find the last one because I can’t even see it.

Me fishing around in the bag for that last mallet can’t be good for my (expensive) mallets.

But it gets even worse!  Sometimes, the shafts of the mallets will somehow interlock so that I’ll have to shift the mallets around for a while until I can free one mallet.  Repeat 3 more times to get out a set.  Once again, this can’t be good for my mallets.

I really want to get my mallets organized.  One of my options is to purchase a new bag.  But any mallet bag that can hold the same number of mallets will be bigger and more expensive.  Being on a budget this semester, I needed a cheaper option.

Solution?  Custom divider inserts!

This is made of black poster board, costing me $0.32 at the local Target.  I designed this so that it would divide my bag into 4 equal sections.

This is version 1.0 and there are some issues with the design, like not fitting perfectly. But for less than $1, I’m pretty happy with how it improved my mallet bag.  Mallets stay organized and I can quickly find what I’m looking for.

I’m going to test out this design for a couple of weeks.  If it holds up, then that’s that.  But if it fails, I’ll come up with a 2nd version.

Wish me luck!

When Lina approached me with the idea of doing an engagement shoot at Westminster HS, I was thrilled with the idea. Despite having spent so much time at that campus, it was still an interesting and challenging experience trying to see it in a different way.

Here’s what I came up with.

First photos I’ve taken of our guard.

I had a great time at the concert, but of course managed to snap some pictures too. This was, by far, one of the most difficult concerts for me to photograph. Four4 was extremely challenging because there were times when there was silence for over 5 minutes. I had to focus pretty hard to find opportunities to take pictures without being disruptive. The thought of just sitting back and watching crossed my mind, but I’m glad I kept going. What a challenge!

In case you’re interested, there are three more concerts in April. Drop by Southwest Chamber Music’s website to get more info: here.

Christina all by herself after the concert.

And here is the Wind Symphony percussion section before they get ready to leave for their Seattle Tour.

There were plenty of reasons not to get out of bed and get some much needed sleep. But doing that would have been one of the worst choices I would have made in my photographic career.

I was actually pretty excited about this when I found out that Grace was going to run the LA Marathon for Team Livestrong. Because of everything she had struggled with recently, I couldn’t not get out there to support her.

Despite waking up by the time most (all?) of the marathon runners were in Los Angeles waiting to start, I managed to get to my first location even before the fastest runners made it to the spot. I also managed to beat the rain there, but it arrived soon after I did.

These guys were running a 5 minute mile! That’s faster than I could run, and they kept that pace for 26+ miles. That is just amazing.

Unfortunately at this point, the main pack of runners was extremely dense. Grace ran past me on the other side of the street and I missed her. A little bummed that I couldn’t spot someone in a bright yellow shirt, I made a dash for my car to intercept her later in the course.

After getting lost and stuck in traffic for a while, all while dodging bad drivers who were driving insanely fast in the rain, I finally made it to the 17 mile mark.

(There was a cheering booth for Team Livestrong right around the corner where I was situated. If only I knew.)

I wasn’t sure how fast Grace was running, but I had some bits of information to help me figure out where she was. For the first quarter of the marathon, she was running a 10 minute mile. When I arrived at the 17th mile, I calculated that I was only 20 minutes ahead of her, which wasn’t too bad. I didn’t take into account stretches of uphill in the middle of the course, so I ended up an hour ahead. By this point, her pace had slowed down to about a 15 minute mile.

This time, the pack wasn’t as dense and I was sure that I would be able to spot Grace. At 11:36am, I finally spotted her. She had the biggest smile on.

After exchanging hugs and hanging me a jacket, Grace got back to running. At first, I wanted to intercept her again at the 21st mile. But after getting out of the car and starting to run to the 21st mile, I decided that it was a bad idea and that I should try to find a location at the finish line as soon as possible.

Boy was I glad I made that choice. Parking was extremely difficult to find, and even after recalculating her pace, I figured that I wasn’t that far ahead of her. It’s ridiculous that even by car, I was barely traveling faster than the marathon runners. If I were to race the fastest runners from start to finish, I most definitely would have lost, all due to traffic and not being able to take a direct route (maybe I could have won if I just took I-10).

After parking my car, I was about half a mile away from the finish line. It didn’t take me too long to make that walk. But during that time, the rain decided to just pour, and literally within seconds, my jeans went from fairly dry considering the rain to completely saturated with water. They quite literally couldn’t have been more soaked. If I was taking this much of a beating, the marathon runners must have been going through much worse. The wind was also unrelenting, and I think that the runners had to go against it. Despite the weather, everyone must push on though.

Once I got close to the finish line, I managed to secure a spot fairly close but in an area where the runners weren’t too dense. By now, all I had to do was wait.

There were many runners there to support Japan. It was great hearing so many people cheer for Japan whenever they saw one of these runners.

There were quite a few official photographers lined up at the finish line. Unlike me, they were dressed for the weather with water repellent clothing. That day, I learned that it is very important to dress for the weather (camera included, though my camera is perfectly fine).

At 2:10pm, I spot Grace again. Finish line in site, smile still on. And just like that, this adventure comes to an end. One final burst.

I cannot fairly compare my experience to Grace’s or that of any marathon runner. But I know that I would definitely be up to racing (a different kind of racing) through LA to chase down images and memories for a single runner. It’s only March, but this is definitely one of the best adventures of 2011.

Grace’s marathon time:

The shoot-out, as they called it, was of a couple and the point of the entire shoot was to learn and practice photography. For me, I came in with no expectations and with no questions so the entire day (shooting-wise) was pretty organic. Whatever idea came to my mind, I was able to just go for it.

Here’s what happened.

For most of the day, I shot with the 50mm. I pulled out the 70-200mm once, but I just didn’t get into a good flow with it. I also used toe 18-55mm kit lens a few times for some wider shots, but even that was rather limited.

This just confirms that I feel the most at home with prime lenses with wide apertures. The 70-200mm is a very functional and practical lens, especially when I don’t have the freedom to move around. But in situations like the shoot-out where I have free reign as to where I can stand, I definitely have to go with a prime.

Some time in the future, I will need to invest in higher quality primes. As much fun as I am having with the Nikon 50mm, it’s quality just won’t cut it. It’s great as a personal lens and I’ve improved dramatically with focusing manually since I’ve been shooting with it, but I will want a higher quality lens as a work lens.

Prime lenses that I’m dreaming about are 35mm f/1.4L, 50mm f/1.2L, 85mm f/1.2L and 200mm f/2L. That right there is my dream arsenal for wedding photography. These lenses probably won’t work well for recital photography though. Since I can’t really move around, prime lenses would make it difficult to frame shots the way I want. I also wouldn’t really use them for sports either because AF would be a nightmare. I’ll probably be missing shots left and right trying to shoot a football game with an 85mm. I’ll just keep using my 70-200 for that.

Overall, it was a good day for shooting. There was overcast, but it wasn’t too thick so there was plenty of warm sunlight spilling through.

It was also fun being the only one with a manual lens. I was definitely taking longer just to get the focus right for each shot, but in that time I was also able to tweak framing more to my liking. Maybe lightning fast AF isn’t always so good.

I am most definitely falling in love… with the 50mm… again…

Unfortunately, I made the mistake of shooting most of the second half of the concert at 1/60th of a second. It’s fine in some shots, but for Bawa, the dancers were moving so fast that there is arguably too much motion blur. It looks cool for some shots, but a lot of it just didn’t come out looking like anything. The shots are overexposed too, so I definitely could have gone down a couple of stops. Lesson learned, make sure I’m at 1/125th or 1/250th. I could have cranked the ISO, but I wasn’t chimping enough to notice the crazy blur. On the plus side, it makes the dancers look like they’re moving pretty fast.

For Kpomegbe and Agahu, 1/60th is definitely too slow, especially considering the fact that my arm holding the camera was swinging around too. Maybe next time I’ll throw on an IS lens. That might help a bit. But once again, 1/250th probably would have done the trick too. Oh well, there are still plenty of shots to show from both.

It was quite challenge trying to sing and dance Agahu while taking photos though. There was no way I was going to be checking exposures and tweaking settings up there. If we do it again though, I’ll get it right next time. Will also set a remote camera somewhere too, triggered by Pocket Wizards. It’s been over 2 years since I set up a remote camera in one of the concerts, I think it’s time I try again.

So for our Caribbean Extravaganza concert, I am playing on every piece, so there is no time for me to take pictures. If you’ve got a camera, I’d love it if you came and took pictures. Invite people to come watch too! If you’re on Facebook, here’s the Event Page.

The concert will be in the Daniel Recital Hall, at 4pm and 8pm on Saturday April 30th. Come and bring friends and family (and strangers?), it’ll be a great concert!

Here are some pictures of the World Percussion Group rehearsing before we set up the Steel Drum Orchestra.

As I was looking through these pictures, I realized that I only have two, TWO, more World Percussion Concerts at CSULB as an Undergraduate student. But only 4 years ago, I was on the other side. I was in the audience. And at that concert 4 years ago, I distinctly remember thinking, “I want to be up there doing that.”

I’ve been part of every World Percussion Concert from that point up until now, and I’ve photographed every single one except for one! The Fall 2008 Concert was the only one I didn’t photograph because I was performing throughout the whole concert and I hadn’t discovered the wonders of remote cameras yet.

So enough reminiscing about the past, stay tuned for pictures from the performance.

Before we get to the pictures here’s a blast from the past:

First drumline competition I photographed back in 2008. Breaking the Silence.

2009: Diamonds are Forever

2010: Sesame Street

And now some more photos from this year.

So I wonder where we’ll be next year?

Here are pictures from their show, “Generation Next”.

Stand by for video footage.

More tk.

I first came across this concept on a blog post by a photographer named Christian Rollinson.

But enough of that, on to the Golden Ratio.

The most basic form of the Golden Ratio: divide the frame vertically and/or horizontally.

Slightly more complex: divide diagonally.

Even more complex: variations of diagonal and vertical/horizontal.

I’m still having trouble seeing the diagonals. I was off by 4º here, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but it’s quite noticeable.

The most advanced form of the Golden Ratio is the Golden Spiral, which I have yet to achieve. It is so hard to see it! One day, I need to just go on a quest to find and only shoot the Golden Spiral.

This is the underlying concept behind most of my composition, but it is also the thing I struggle with the most.

What composition techniques do you use?

But because I couldn’t resist, here is a preview. Detailed post about each in later posts. (I still have to finish drumline pictures from Aliso Niguel, and the light in that gym is proving to be even more challenging than I initially thought.)

First up, World Percussion Concert:

Second, Photo Shoot Out:

Finally, LA Marathon:

I’m really looking forward to spring break so I can just power through all the pictures I need to go through. I know many of you are also anxious to see what I’ve shot, but this will have to do for now.

See everyone in a week!

PS. In case you didn’t know already, this semester is my Junior Recital semester. Despite this, I’ve made it a personal goal to substantially shoot every week(end) and post and share pictures with everyone via this blog as frequently as possible. How well do you think I’m doing so far? Good? Slacker?

But of course, I couldn’t resist snapping a few pictures here and there. The one set of flood lights made for some very dramatic lighting.

Still to come: stills from the performance as well as video footage from the lot.

Stay tuned for more pictures of the performance.

After a fun but exhausting concert on Thursday, some of us percussionists when to Shin-Sen-Gumi to get some Ramen.  I am never disappointed by this place.

Brought out the 50mm this time because it was darker inside.  Lens isn’t nearly wide enough though, so in hindsight, maybe I should have taken the kit lens.

On a different note, I’ve recently been considering getting a micro 4/3 camera, like the Panasonic Lumix GF2 or the Olympus E-PL2.  I’ve never used one so I know nothing about them.   Time to go figure out how to test drive one of these.

Reasons for getting one?

• Smaller & Lighter- So I can take it everywhere.  It isn’t so practical lugging a dSLR everywhere I go if I want to take pictures.  It’ll also be less intimidating to others if I am photographing them.  dSLRs are scary to some people, really.  Also dSLRs are heavy, this isn’t.  It’s pretty much a pocket camera (at least guy pockets).  If I end up liking it, a micro 4/3 will probably be the camera I always have with me.
• Quieter – No mirror flapping around means it’s quieter.  This will be handy whether I’m photographing a musician or am in a museum, or wherever.  Sometimes, an SLR is just too loud.

I know that it won’t be as powerful as a dSLR, but I am more than willing to make that sacrifice for the portability factor. Besides, it doesn’t cost as much as a professional dSLR. It’ll also be my personal fun camera, rather than a work camera.

The reason I’m thinking about getting this camera is because, right now, I am pretty content with the photo gear I have right now. I don’t feel any urgent need to upgrade anything or invest in anything new. The benefit of getting a micro 4/3 camera is that it will (hopefully/maybe) make me shoot more. It’ll be a fun way to make sure I keep practicing and help me improve my craft.

Anyone who has had hands-on experience with a micro 4/3 camera have any wisdom to share?

These pictures were also from Christina Wilson’s Senior Recital, but clearly they didn’t make the final cut. Here they are for a good laugh though.

This Recital’s Biggest Challenge: Finding a good place to sit where I can photograph all the musicians on stage. Many were hiding behind music stands so there really was no way I see them unless I hung cameras from where the lights are. Also, the pianist was facing away from me most of the time so I would have had to have a camera on stage to see him.

But nonetheless, it was a wonderful recital. And here are the pictures!

Mostly shot with the 70-200mm f/2.8. (I realized, while shooting this recital, that the lens adds a very slight green tint to the images. It becomes very apparent under fluorescent lights though.)

We had Thai food at Chaiyo Thai Cafe in Westminster. Thanks Noriko for introducing me to this place. I always enjoy eating here, and went here last year for my birthday dinner too.

Took the 7D and Nikon 50mm in to take pictures of course. I actually didn’t take that many pictures though as the camera was being passed back and forth between my younger brother and best friend. Dinner and dessert was fun.

We also realized that Chaiyo has some of the best Thai Tea in the area. None of the Asian tea shops nearby even come close to this place.

There was some cheesecake waiting at home for when we finished dinner. Costco Cheesecake is amazing stuff, in case you didn’t already know.

I don’t know what I was doing in the last photo.

Thanks everyone for the Birthday wishes.

Brother won a blender to make smoothies in a raffle. After we got home, we quickly looked for ingredients to throw in to make smoothies. Strawberries and bananas we did find. Yum.

A good time will always be had when having dinner with family and friends.

I was pretty busy running around doing things, so I left the camera in the car so I wouldn’t bang it against something and break something.

But of course I took pictures of the performance. The sodium vapor lights of gyms make it really hard to photograph in a gym, and it’s especially hard when you’re trying to photograph anything with a lot of movement.

When shooting drumlines, I typically stay at 1/250th so there isn’t too much motion blur. I’d like to shoot at faster shutter speeds, but many high school gyms are pretty dark and I’m already at f/2.8 and ISO 1600 or even ISO 3200! So 1/250th will have to do. The problem that this creates is that the color of the gym’s sodium vapors shift at a cycle of about 60 Hz (I believe this is because of AC). It’s possible to shoot at 1/125th and not see a color shift because every half of a cycle is just like the other half, so in 1/125th of a second the sodium vapors will have gone through all the colors that it would go through. The problem with shooting at 1/250th is that the color between multiple shots vary. This is also a problem when you don’t shoot at 1/60th or 1/125th since you’re only capturing an uneven fraction of a cycle. This makes post-processing a very daunting task since I have to go in and fine tune every single photo individually very carefully to get the color right.

I can’t think of a way around this, especially since I can’t use strobes. Any other shooters out there shoot in gyms often and have a solution to this?

Here are the drumline pics.

Shooting there is always a challenge because there are so many different fluorescent lights, each with varying color temperatures. I’m always up for a challenge. (shooting wasn’t hard, but post was tricky)

Shot with 50mm and 18-55mm.

You can see that in some of these, I threw too much light onto the background and am losing fine details like in the hair. Won’t let it happen again!

I may also bring in other light sources in so I don’t have to use the fluorescents. The color inconsistency drives me nuts during post.

It was overcast yesterday so there was plenty of soft light. We only had a little bit of time to shoot since the light was going quick, and it started raining when we were out.

Once again, mostly shot on the 50mm.

I’m trying out a new post-processing technique using cooler colors. (Skin is so much easier to work with under “good” light.)

All of these pictures were shot with the Nikon 50mm f/1.8. On a crop sensor, this lens isn’t wide enough for the small room. I think I’ll bring a wider lens next time.

Many programs and playbills are printed in black and white to save cost. So why not also make B&W versions of the headshots? If I produce the black and whites, I can control the quality of the images better than someone else converting the colored versions.

I call it Quality Control.

Here are some pictures from the walk-through on Saturday.

“If you could have any voice as your GPS voice, who/what would it be?”

And here is what people said:

• Fran Drescher… no wait, Christopher Lee
• Anthony Hopkins or Sean Connery
• Bjork. Jk. Sarah Palin. Jk. Barack Obama. Myself!
• A 1-900 phone sex operator, Droopy, or Marvin the Martian
• Bender
• ‎”Hello. I’m Morgan Freeman. The turn you’ll want to take up ahead is a left one.”
• William Shatner. Because every time I’d approach an exit it would do a dramatic pause causing me to miss it.
• Paul and Storm, Wil Wheaton, Adam Savage. They would all make for very fun voices.
• captain rex from the cockpit
• I’d say christopher walken, but he’d never direct fast enough.
• Anyone other than this guy.
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeK5ZjtpO-M
• Sheldon Cooper “Now you’ll want to make a left turn here” *make left turn* “Bazzinga!”
• Jim Dale :] (the harry potter audiobooks guy) orrrr Bill and Tom from tokio hotel, cuz their accents are cute and they’d bicker about the directions and screw it up xP
• Gotta agree with _______, Morgan Freeman :]
• lavar burton…nuff said
• Dylan Campbell…
  “(insert perverted comment and creepy smile here)”
• Fran Drescher… you’d never get lost cuz the consequences are too painful…
• hmm also maybe pauly shore “make a le-eeeft buuuddy”
• RZA!!! lol
• Morgan Freeman. That guy narrates just about everything anyway, why not my GPS. =D
• Billy Mays (RIP) or the “Shamwow” guy.
• Richard Nixon!
• Clint Eastwood = Are you gonna turn left? Well are you? Punk?
  Nicholas Cage = Now why did you do that?
  Samuel L Jackson = Turn right. I SAID TURN RIGHT ********!

Does anyone else need to be added to this list?

P.S. I think Morgan Freeman got nominated the most times.

I picked up the prints on Wednesday. It took me a while to scan them, but here they are.

So most of these pictures are from the end of the roll. It turns out that when I first got the camera, I was pretty lousy at focusing manually at f/1.8. I wasn’t too bad with the exposures though. I just have to keep practicing.

This roll was from Spring of 2008. It’s so much fun rediscovering pictures on a roll of film that you have little to no recollection of. I really had no idea what to expect from it. You don’t get that experience from shooting digital. You can just look at the LCD screen and you know pretty well what picture you took. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that. It’s just a different experience.

I feel inspired to do a personal project on film now. Any ideas?

P.S. Drop a comment if you’ve been reading my blog.

At first when I was about to arrange the pages for some of my pieces, I just arranged it the way that I’ve seen most people do it. That seemed simple enough. Of course that wasn’t so, or else I wouldn’t be writing this post. There were some issues I noticed with the way I arranged the pages, which led me to look for a better way to arrange my music. This is the experiment I thought of.

A Single Row of Pages

When the pages can be kept on a single row, things are simple. For the most part, the pages will be arranged left to right. (There are exceptions to this, but for the sake of discussion we’ll exclude those for now. Let’s also assume that there are a reasonable number of measures in each line.)

When the pages are arranged in this order, we read from the top of one page to the bottom and them continue to the right to the next page. The path our eyes follow to read the music is simple. There are only a few moderate breaks where our eyes would have to make a leap to get to the top of the next page. This is pretty simple straight forward.

Multiple Rows of Pages

When a second row of pages is added, things get a little more complicated.

From a quick survey, I determined that most people will prefer to arrange the pages in rows. This makes sense because for a single row of pages we would arrange it in a row, so why not just make two rows? Initially this was how I arranged the pages.

This way just makes sense, this is the pattern we read after all. We read a row from left to right and then jump down to the next row. The following diagram traces the path our eyes should follow to read through the multiple pages.

When I started reading the music, I knew that this the path that my eyes were supposed to follow. I didn’t even think of it that far. I just tried to read the music. It turns out that (at least for me) things actually get more complicated after just reading the first page. I see that there are more rows of music under the last row, but I know that I’m supposed to jump to the top of the next page. By arranging the pages in this order, the eyes need to reorient themselves and figure out where to go next. This happens at the top and bottom row.

Arranging the pages this way also results in one very large leap from the end of the last page of the first row to the first page of the second row. This lead is problematic because it goes from right to left. Small leaps in this direction from one system to the next isn’t a problem because it’s not a large leap across a number of pages. This leap is already very natural for us. Overall, this this arrangements, there are too many breaks in the path we read. There is one after every page as well as one massive leap at the end of a row.

I know that this is probably the convention, but it just didn’t work for me.

A Different Way to Arrange Pages

Since arranging the pages in rows didn’t work for me, the only reasonable option left (other than memorizing the music) would be to arrange the pages in columns.

When we think of arranging music this way, it seems very unnatural. We don’t read down. We read across, don’t we? That’s sort of true, but we do read down as well. After each line break, our eyes make a small leap down to the next line.

When I tried arranging the pages this way, it turns out that it wasn’t much better than arranging the pages in rows. I prefer the smaller leaps at the end of each page. But going from the bottom of one column to the next was still problematic. Our eyes are more accustomed to lateral movement than the vertical jump from one column to the next. This is probably the best reason to just arrange the pages in rows.

There is however, one more thing. It isn’t another way to arrange the pages. If I were to cut off more of the top and bottom of each page and stack them in columns, but closer together than before, I get one massive column without any breaks from one line to the next.

Arranging the pages this way still isn’t ideal because of the unnatural vertical leap, but ours would have to make vertical leaps anyways of the pages were arranged in rows. In rows, vertical leaps are especially problematic when there is a row of pages above the one we’re currently on. We know where our eyes are supposed to stop, but it doesn’t pinpoint the beginning of the next page as quickly because there is still music above where we’re looking. In a panic, we could easily get lost or at least stumble.

This arrangement also significantly reduces the number of leaps my eyes would have to take. In this example of 8 pages, the number of breaks was cut from seven down to only three.

I know that most people have been arranging pages in rows, and will continue to do so. But before completely dismissing this idea, try it out the next time you’re learning a new piece. Try to genuinely go into this with an open mind, instead of expecting it to be confusing.

After you’ve given it a good try, tell me what you found out.

#1. NEVER Touch a Cosplayer

In general, no one should ever touch a stranger without their permission.  This starts from when you’re trying to get the cosplayer’s attention.  Don’t tap them on the shoulder, or grab their arm.  This is for several reasons: 1) They may become uncomfortable when you touch them, and 2) you may damage their costume.  So don’t ever touch a cosplayer to get their attention.  (Also, try to approach them from the front in stead of sneak attacking them from the back)

Once you start shooting and start directing them, the rule still applies.   If you want them to stand a certain way, show them.  Don’t grab an arm and twist it this way or that way.   You may break something, like their arm or costume.  Also, if something is out of place, like fly-away hair or part of their costume is out of place, tell them by pointing to where it is on YOUR body.  And if it’s something like a strap, don’t stare as they fix it.

I know that no harm is intended by touching, but it can be completely avoided altogether.  Besides, a 40 year old man touching a 15 year old girl never seems like a good idea.   And I am serious about that.  I may not know either people, but I feel uncomfortable just seeing it happen.

#2. Be Aware of your Surroundings

At a crowded convention, a everyone needs to mind their surroundings.  This is especially important for photographers because we are self-inducing tunnel vision.  It’s harder to be aware when you’re looking through a 24-70 focused on shooting.  Too many times, I’ve seen a photographer step backwards to frame a shot wider without looking.   Most of the time, they stepped right into the path of another attendee.   The other person has to stop and then walk around, and the photographer never knew it happened.

I’ve never seen it happen, but I know it will.  Someone will get hurt.  I’ve seen photographers stick their elbow out as far as humanly possible when shooting portrait as well as photographers lean as far forward as possible (after stepping back) and sticking one leg back as far as possible (like they’re trying to trip someone).   Besides being extremely dangerous, it’s just bad posture and form for taking pictures, especially in low light situations.  You’re just asking for camera shake.   I’ve seen people almost get elbowed in the face by photographers all the time (I’ve almost had that happen to myself.   That person’s elbow then proceeded to block many of my shots afterwards).

#2.a. Upper Body Carriage

Sticking out your elbow reduces the stability of your camera.   I know most people, myself included, by default rotate their camera CCW to go to portrait mode (your right hand sits on top of the camera body).  This position feels better because we’re not breaking our wrist.   It stays straighter, which keeps tension in the wrist to a minimum.   This alone doesn’t destabilize the camera, but once you stick your elbow out all the way, you’re using more of your strength to hold up your arm instead of the camera, which adds tension which induces camera shake.  So bring in the elbow a little bit, but not too much to create an uncomfortable bend in the wrist.

Another option would be to turn your camera the other so that your right hand is under the camera.  This is more uncomfortable at first because there will be a break in your wrist.  To mitigate that, instead of gripping around the camera with all your fingers, simply use your finger tips to hold up the camera.   Even just taking your little finger off will take a way much of the tension on your wrist.   Normally, I would not suggest this, but for crowded environments, I think it’s a much better option than sticking your elbow out.

Or you can get a battery grip.  By the way, when shooting in landscape, keep both elbows in towards your body for more stability.

I’ve also seen many problems with the left elbow sticking out, which is baffling to me because it never should.  When SUPPORTING your lens with your left hand, it should be under the lens and your hand should be turned so that your thumb and index finger are further away from your body than your other fingers.   Do not put your hand on top of your lens or orientate your hand so that your thumb and index finger are closer to your body than the other fingers.  Putting your hand on the side or on top of the lens serves little to no purpose in terms of stability.   Your arm will have to work harder to hold up the lens which will create tension that causes camera shake.  Keeping your hand under the camera but with your thumb and index finger closer to you creates a very unnatural break in the wrist.  Your wrist will hurt.   So by orientating your left arm properly, it will be more comfortable, create more stability and you eliminate the need to elbow someone in the face.

#2.b. Lower Body/Footwork

Most of the problems I’ve seen with footwork do not destabilize the camera but create hazards for other people.  When you move around to change composition, look before you step.   When you bring your feet further apart for any reason, look before you step.  A reasonably wider stance will increase your stability, but don’t do so by putting a leg in someone’s path.  When you need to crouch down, step forward instead of backwards.  If you have to step back, look before you step.

#2.c. Center of Gravity (CoG)

In a crowded environment like a convention, it is important to keep the physical space you take up to a minimum.   Photographers don’t get larger space bubbles than anyone else, we are not more important or special than anyone else.  We should be watching out for other people, not the other way around.   If you’ve had someone bump into you while you were taking pictures, it was your fault (unless you are absolutely sure you didn’t somehow get in their way).

Aside from taking up less space, keeping your upper body in keeps your CoG closer to the center of your torso.   Adding a heavy SLR and a heavy lens and a speedlight significantly shifts your CoG forward so it’s floating somewhere in front of you, rather than being inside of you.  Compensate by leaning backs lightly, but not enough to take someone out.  Overdoing the lean will be bad for your back.   Also keep your CoG right in between both feet.  Shift your weight evenly on both feet.  Once you do these things, you’ll find that you don’t need to take up as much space.  No stray appendages to kill anyone.

#3. Travel Light

I’ve seen photographers carry more gear than a soldier in the Middle East.  Why?   I highly doubt you need ever piece of gear you own.  Learn to shoot with one camera body and one lens.

Having a ton of gear on your body not only tires you, but it can be intimidating to cosplayers.   It does not create the illusion that you know what you’re doing.   In fact, I think it does the opposite.   Someone who’s good with their photography will be able to make great images with the simplest gear.  Someone who needs to have everything is relying on their gear instead of their photography skills.   Leave the extra gear somewhere safe.   If you need it, go get it.

The giant camera bag on your back or sticking out your side is also dangerous.  Like in #2, that camera bag can take someone out.   Especially shoulder bags, which hang lower, other people might not see it and run into it.  Someone can get hurt.   If someone bumps into your gear, don’t glare at them.   It was your fault.

#4. Don’t be a Fire Hazard

Don’t stop to take pictures in a doorway or at the top of a set of stairs or escalators.  When I staffed at AX in 2008, I mainly worked at the entrance of Exhibit Hall.   Too many photographers stop cosplayers at the top of the escalators to take pictures.  This is dangerous because there are still people coming up the escalators, but now they have nowhere to go.  It gets worse when more photographers join in.

All in all, mind yourself and mind your surroundings and you should be fine.

Any photographer who knows me very well knows that my favorite lens was my 50mm. I got my EF 50 1.8 in February 2008 and was easily the lens I used most frequently for my personal pictures. But then last summer (Summer 2010), my 50 1.8 met its demise. Despite being protected by a sweater, the lens impacted against the edge of a table and the lens just fell apart. Plastic shell and mount separated from the rest of the lens. If that was all that happened, then it would have been alright since I’m confident I could have put it back together. But the orange cable that connects the contacts to the main circuit board tore. I probably could have gotten it fixed, but I doubt that it would have been worth it since my lens has already been through a lot.

At that point I felt like there was an empty void that needed to be filled by another 50mm. I had been considering the 50 1.4 for some time, but I didn’t have the funds for it. So the closest thing I had to a 50mm at that point was my kit lens zoomed to 50mm at f/5.6. Obviously, it didn’t feel like the same lens.

Now at the beginning of 2011, I still don’t have the funds to get a (used) 50 1.4. But January 8th, I was roaming around a used camera store hoping they’d have a used 50 1.8 for pretty cheap. They didn’t. I specifically asked if they had any 50mm lenses with an EF mount. The store owner said that he did have many manual 50s. I wasn’t sure where he was going with that, but I already have a Nikon E-Series 50 1.8 so I didn’t need another manual lens. I jokingly asked if he had an Nikon F-mount to Canon EF-mount adapter, and to my good fortune he had a rather cheap one. I didn’t even blink before buying that thing.

I was elated. After 6 months, I finally had a 50mm again.

So last Tuesday (the 11th), I was finally able to go and take the E-series 50mm for a spin attached to my 7D for the first time. It all began as a spontaneous decision to go on a photo adventure. With no plan or destination, my friend Momo and I set out to find some pictures to be taken. We ended up on 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica.

I’m sure the combination of a 7D and E-series 50 1.8 looked odd. A sleek dSLR body with a chunky manual lens. It definitely felt odd having such a small lens on a large body. That feeling may have also been because I hadn’t had a 50mm on my camera for half a year. It definitely took me a while to get used to it.

The first picture I took, shot from the waist, wasn’t even closed to being in focus (see below). To tell you the truth, focusing didn’t even cross my mind.

Not bad. I think I’ll try focusing this time, still shooting from the waist.

By now I realized two things: 1) I was very bad at judging distance, and 2) blur from this lens was very different from the Canon EF 50 1.8, but was I didn’t mind it at all. I also quickly was reminded of how shallow depth of field is at f/1.8. I was done with shooting from the waist for the day. I’m just terrible at it.

Colors doesn’t look too bad through this lens. I only had to tweak colors slightly in Lightroom. For the most part, I left it alone because I just didn’t want to tweak the images. Contrast is lower in this lens than what I’m used to, especially when there is some back light. But these imperfections didn’t really come as a surprise. And even though I call them imperfections, they aren’t necessarily a bad thing. The lens definitely has a different look than a newer Canon 50 1.4, but I don’t mind it at all.

We left the candy store with Dark Chocolate Covered Raisins and a variety of Sour Strips.

As expected, this lens does well in low light. For the most part, I was able to stay at ISO 1600 or slower. I didn’t have to worry about camera shake at all. The lens also captured detail surprisingly well. There I was, expecting an extremely soft lens, but details are not completely lost. This lens is on the soft side, but only fine details begin to lose a little edge, but if you look at the large versions of the pictures, the details are still there. Once again, I didn’t feel the need to sharpen anything. This is just how the lens is and I’ll let it be.

Focusing was a little hard with this lens due to the combination of my bad vision, shallow depth of field, and the softness of the lens. For a camera like the 7D, one solution I used was zooming in through Live View. Live View made fine tuning the focus much easier.

This is no fault of the lens, but I often found myself wanting to frame shots wider. I guess it’s time for me to get a 5D. But in all seriousness, there may be characteristics of the lens I am not aware of because of the crop sensor on the 7D. I’m probably not going to find any of those out any time soon though.

The way this lens blurs the background is also beautiful, in my opinion. The large circles of light have very distinct rings around them that contrasted from the center of the circles. As you can see, some of the rings are brighter, but others shift in color. My Canon 50 1.8 definitely didn’t do that.

Here’s the same scene in focus in case you were curious.

So after a few hours of shooting here is a list of Pros and Cons I’ve thought of for putting an E-series 50mm on a 7D.  Some of these opinions may change in the future as I use this lens more:

Pros:

• The lens feels solid (compared to the 50 1.8 and 50 1.4), which is typical for lenses from that time period.
• Focusing the lens feels great because it’s smooth. The 50 1.8 and even the 50 1.4 doesn’t even compare.
• It’s cheap. These lenses will typically go for about $100 now, which is roughly the cost of a new Canon EF 50 1.8. Mine came with my Nikon FM, but I would have seriously considered it over the 50 1.8s.
• Beautiful background blur wide open. But this is typical for any 50mm.

Cons:

• The image is very soft. It can be hard to focus through the view finder, but when focus is critical, I’ll go to Live View and zoom in digitally so I can nail focus.
• Purple fringes when there’s a lot of back light. Not too surprising for a 50 1.8 though.
• Low contrast when shooting against back light. Once again, another characteristic of many 50 1.8s.

Other Comments:

The camera cannot control aperture or focus. My lens is a manual lens, so it doesn’t matter, but even for electronic lenses, this rather inexpensive adapter does not allow lenses to communicate with the camera body. You have to focus manually when using this adapter I got. Some may say it’s a disadvantage, but I enjoy focusing manually. For the lens that I have, I can control the aperture with the aperture ring on the lens. But be aware that some Nikon lenses have no aperture ring. The aperture of those lenses is controlled electronically by the camera body, so without electronic controls, it will remain wide open. I believe it’s designated by the letter G. To me that isn’t much of a problem because I usually shoot wide open with a 50mm because I like that look. But for those of you who are considering the same route that I took, just be aware.

Shooting with a manual 50mm made me want to shoot with film again. I have several rolls of film that still need to be used up. I also have several rolls of Black & White that need to be developed. Momo and I are planning on going to get a few rolls developed soon. I know some of my rolls are over 3 years old. It should be exciting to find out how bad I was/am at manual focus, and just to see what was on those rolls. I also have one roll of Tri-X 400 left. I think I’ll throw that into my camera next just for fun.

So I feel much better now that I have a 50mm again. I probably will eventually get a 50mm 1.4 because I will need the image quality. But even if I do, I think that my E-series 50 1.8 will still be one of my favorite lenses. We’ll see when the time comes.

I can’t possibly be the only person in the world with a story about my adventures with a 50mm lens. What’s your story?

I did somewhat of a rough edit just to get pictures up on my website. I don’t feel happy about all of them though so I’ll probably be going back within the next few days and switching images out.

I probably need to update my print portfolio too. Some of those prints are 2 years old now and are probably getting a bit worn.

So has anyone recently put together a portfolio? Got any tips on selecting and ordering images?

2. What did I spend this New Year’s Eve doing? I was a bit sick, so I stayed home. I didn’t spend that time doing nothing though. Spent it doing mostly one-light headshots. Keeping it simple to start out the new year.

Click on the picture to see the Set.

3. I’m going to be playing a Junior Recital in Spring 2011! I’ll try to write a few posts about it.

4. I’m hungry, so I’m going to go eat.

The venues for the ceremony and the reception were gorgeous though, especially the ceremony because the time it was set. A half hour before sunset in the Japanese Garden at CSU Long Beach. I just wish I had more time to take it all in because it was amazing.

Here’s a glimpse.

I’ve only barely begun the post-processing of the thousands of pictures that I took and have hours and hours of just going through pictures to look forward to. But after taking a quick look through all the pictures, I’m going to say that this wedding was a success. I had a lot of fun working with so many talented people that all played a huge role in making the wedding happen. The pressure I felt was quite similar to what I felt working at Anime Expo. The only difference is that I’m taking pictures instead.

I want to just plow through all the photographs and finish it all right now! But I have to balance it all with school. I’ll do my best!

So as I’m writing this blog, the weather is taking a turn for the worse. It’s cloudy, rainy, and windy outside. It isn’t actually raining at this very moment, but it was and it will some more. I’m very glad the weather opened up just for the wedding ceremony.

I have two myths actually.

Myth 1.
Does charging your cell phone in your car shorten the phone’s battery life?

There would be at least two parts to this test. One where the engine is off and the phone is drawing power only from the car battery. The other part would have the car’s engine running and the engine supplying power to charge the cell phone. The engine-on part may even be split to engine idling and something like car travelling at highway speeds.

Myth 2.
Does charging your cell phone in your car instead in your home, save you money?

This one is based on the idea that the electrical output of a car is replenished once its engines are operational opposed to a homes electrical power that a homeowner is billed for using. This is assuming that your car is an average consumer’s gasoline burning car or even a hybrid perhaps. Nothing like a gas guzzling SUV. There are many factors to take into account including how much you pay for your electricity, gas, car, home, etc.

The amounts of power being measured in both myths is probably very minuscule. I don’t have any ideas on how anyone would go about testing this myth.

This looks like a job for The MythBusters! But until they can test it out, here’s a discussion thread.

This semester is looking like it will be an expensive one. Expenses keep adding up but I still don’t have much of an income source.  It’s kind of ironic since this is my first semester studying Business.  I haven’t started any HRM classes yet though, so I’ll just have to tough it through all the entry-level classes.

I’m finding the status of my job search quite surprising.  I don’t mean to sound arrogant but I’m a bit surprised that Ihaven’t even found a minimum-wage job.  It was quite a surprise when I didn’t get the Art Supply Warehouse job even with a Manager referral.  Oh well, just keep swimming.

Now let’s rewind to a brighter subject.  Anime Expo’s 6th Annual Staff Dinner happened quite a while ago, but it wouldn’t hurt to mention.  I was surprised with the honor of Operations Division MVP along with James (who should have also won Best Dressed).  I was minding my own business eating my Mango Pudding too!  Well, AX09 was fun, but now it’s time for Anime Expo 2010!

Since I’m on the topic of Anime…

I think my favorite academic class this semester will be my Philosophy class. One of the books I had to get for the class is Virus of the Mind. After reading the Introduction and Chapter 1, I couldn’t help but find many parallels between the topics of the class and Ghost in the Shell. I feel like I already understand many of the topics already because I’ve watched Stand Alone Complex so many times (I’m watching again for kicks). Now kids, that’d another reason to watch Anime! This in my opinion is educational television at its best. Maybe I’ll write another post someday and go into more depth.

So has anyone read The Laughing Man by J.D. Salinger?

P.S. The forum on my website is functional. Feel free to use it here. But if you do, please follow this format for your username: First name + Last initial. I.E. KimLongV, BarrackO, FrodoB, you get the idea. Names not following that format will be edited and then you’ll have fun trying to log in. I think a BBS is great because it allows group conversations to occur outside of real-time and carry on for extended periods of time. With talking, phone calls, AIM or whatever, the conversation can’t go on too long because it’s just impractical. It’s not meant to replace other forms of conversation but just to be a supplement. So don’t be shy, and stop on by.

This is my Wing Gundam Ver. Ka (Katori). I built this guy back in Christmas 2007 but recently brought it back out with plans on making it look even better.

I’ve begun learning how to paint these models and am also experimenting on a few other models. I am working on a new color scheme to paint my Wing Gundam which will make it look a little more lively than it has for the past year. Painting it adds a completely different texture that looks much better than the flat plastic-y look.

Here you can see that I’ve also modded the wings so the sections can spread apart and move too. I saw this mod while surfing different modelling forums. I think it gives the wings a more organic look, rather than all the lines being straight. The first wing took 5 hours to complete while the second only took 1 hour. I still need to fill in the holes and gaps so it doesn’t look messed up before I paint it.

I don’t have enough money now, but when I have some extra, I’m going to go to Brookhurst Hobbies and pick up some paint so I can start working on this model some more.

I still have to sand everything down anyways. My old 320 grit block is falling apart so I might have to pick up a new one soon too.

I also recently discovered the chisel blade for an X-acto knife. That blade is amazing, and anyone who’s building model kits should give it a try. Just wish they had a saw blade that small too; X-acto’s saw blade is way too big.

In the mean time, I’ll be job hunting.

I need to come here and take pictures more often because there are so many little interesting things that are just beckoning to be photographed.

I must go back one more time before Summer starts.  There are only 12 more days left that I can go in June!  July is completely blocked out and so is half of August.  The second half of August I will be busy with my high school, so that’s no good.

Anyone want to go any time soon?

Aside from that, I also attended a couple BBQs. The AX one left me smelling like smoke and it took a whole day for the smell to go away. The one on Memorial Day was nice and quiet and relaxing.

And that’s it for the good news.

This is a minor nuisance, but my laptop charger is dead now. The wires in the connector are short circuiting so it will not provide any power to my laptop anymore. I am currently borrowing my sister’s whenever she is not using it. So that was two chargers that died on me this month, and there’s only one good one left in this household.

Because it’s so annoying having to wait for my sister to not use her laptop to get anything done, I thought this would be a great time to cross over to a Mac. I’ve been thinking about getting a 20″ iMac for a while after all, so why not do it when my PC continues to fail me. But of course, that wouldn’t be the plan for long.

This next bit is rather ironic I think.

I told Michelle about the problem with my laptop, and she (being a Dell user) offers to let me borrow a charger temporarily until I can resolve the issue. So Monday evening, I start heading up to UCLA to pick it up. I only made it half way because my car engine started acting up. While I was going at 75MPH two lanes over from the carpool lane, next to a CHP car, and with a large SUV with rather bright headlights coming up behind me at probably 85MPH, my engine experienced a sudden loss of power. RPMs dropped and my speed was down to 50MPH in about 5 seconds, which now that I think about it is abnormally fast. I tried to accelerate back to 88MPH so the flux capacitor would work, but then my engine completely cut out and RPMs dived to 0. Time of death, 11:12PM.

So my engine is blown, and considering how fast that thing leaks oil, I’m not too surprised. It’s just not fun having to deal with it. It uses over a gallon of oil a month. If it lasted any longer, I would have been using more oil than gas.

Oh and earlier, my shoot-through umbrella and my backpack broke. At least those two were easy to replace.

So plans for summer are going to have to change a bit. No new computer, not as much new camera gear. I have to get a replacement car soon after all.

But the good news is: AX2009 is less than 5 weeks away!

My good friend Johnny B’s girlfriend Alyssa was kind enough to take pictures for us during the second concert and she got some amazing shots.

The lighting for this concert was interesting because it was the first time we performed in a dance theater. I thought they would turn on their side lights, but they didn’t for whatever reason. But the pictures still all came out pretty good I think.

Come to my next steel drum concert in December!

Maybe while I’m writing this entry?

My plan now is to hope it will last me until summer. And hopefully by then I’ll have enough money to buy a new computer. But this time, I plan to switch over to a Mac. I plan to get a 20″ iMac. I had trouble visualizing what a 20″ screen would look like, so I stopped by the Apple Store to take a look. 20″ is pretty big, and 24″ is way too big for my desk. At roughly the price of a new SLR body, this better be a good investment. But before getting it, I have to figure out one thing: Aperture or Lightroom?

I have exclusively been a PC user so this will be interesting.

Any PC to Mac users have feedback?

Now that I have some time to sit down and blog, I will.  Then I shall do some very much needed spring cleaning in my room.  I probably have lots of things to toss out and a ton of photo gear to organize and store somewhere.  A lot of my free time (if that exists) I used to make random photo things out of stuff like cardboard and tape, so  need a place to put it all.

Let’s begin by recapping everything that’s happened since the last post. (I am currently consulting flickr and my pictures to refreshen my memory on stuff that happened)

I should have posted this one on my last post, but here’s my birthday cake just because I like cheesecake so much.

But besides that, more drumline competitions for Westminster HS. That’s keeping me busy. It’s getting tiring because I feel like I’m more motivated than some of the kids marching. Shooting pictures at the competitions is good practice for my photography though. Bad gym lights, fast moving kids… how much harder can it get?

Happy 5 months! I feel like a jerk for not doing anything special…

I think the highlight for me is the World Percussion concert. We all had a blast! Friends and family went to this one! So I’m happy. Thank you everyone who showed up.

My sister’s blog has some videos if you want to see because you couldn’t make it or something. None of the steel drum performance though, just the African stuff which is still super cool. That just gives everyone a better reason to stop by CSU Long Beach on May 2nd to go to the big steel drum concert!

I’m going to cut this post short because I am going to bed earlier so I can wake up and clean tomorrow! It’s time to discover what’s underneath the pile of stuff.

I have totally been neglecting my website.  It’s just that I’ve been occupying myself with so much other stuff.  And school started again.  I pretty much spent my last free weekend for the next few months working on this.

I should have blogged about so many things.. But at least there are pictures on my flickr to show for them.

Since my last post, there was Christmas, New Years which I spent in San Diego,  Road Trip through California, school starting again, my girlfriend leaving to study abroad in Korea, getting new camera gear, turning 21!! and heavily contemplating my future.

Still don’t know what I want to do as a career.  Might switch majors, might change current major to a minor.

A lot has been happening, but I’m still alive and healthy.

The first week of December was packed with concerts.  December 2nd was my first Percussion Ensemble concert.  It was a very busy day, and a very long day mostly because I only played in two pieces.  But after a semester of hard work, I had a lot of fun in Percussion Ensemble.  I’m looking forward to next semester and am curious to what we’re going to play.

We also had our annual Caribbean Christmas Concert, but I couldn’t take pictures because I was playing most of the time. I just wished more of my friends and family would have gone. That would have made me happy. And then I had the last Concert Band Concert of the year and it was fun getting to play horn again in spite of being a busy percussionist.

Then there were a few recitals that I went to and a few I didn’t.

The week after was Juries, and I felt pretty good about my performance. I think I set the record for the shortest jury every by playing a 1.5 minute jury on congas. I walked out of there feeling confident.

Then Finals Week: I only had two finals, one for Conducting and F & A. I just breezed through them, and it wasn’t overwhelming at all. No overworked stressed out feeling after finals, that makes me happier.

So right before juries, I snuck up to UCLA to spend some time with Diana. We went to Santa Monica and the 3rd Street Promenade. It was my first time on 3rd Street, and we picked a beautiful day to go. The sunset was beautiful, especially because the clouds were still lingering in the sky.

A random smiley face was spray painted on the ground, and I couldn’t resist taking a picture of it.

On the 16th. My sister returned from Japan! I got to go to welcome her home this time. LAX is not a wonderful place because of traffic and bad air, but that’s all not so important compared to my sister coming home.

So only Huy, my little sister and I went to the airport. My mom stayed home because of an ongoing headache and she didn’t want to aggravate it. But that’s ok. My little brother had a performance that day that we made it back just in the nick of time to catch.

We overestimated the amount of traffic we would encounter so we arrived really early and had to wait for a couple of hours. But finally, the airplane touched down, and we had to wait another hour, and then my sister showed up!

So the Friday after finals, I went to visit Diana again. She surprised me by taking me to The Getty Center. That was my first time going, and once again on another beautiful day. I was confused at first since we took the bus to get there. I had no idea it was that close to UCLA.

I was very happy with the pictures I took that day because I was finally starting to get a grasp of using the Golden Ratio instead of just following the Rule of Thirds. The Rule of Thirds is really just a simplified version of the Golden Ratio. But like I was saying, this visit to The Getty Center was the first time I could actually see the Golden Ratio within some of my pictures.

The place was beautiful too, but it was too cold to completely enjoy it I felt. I’ll need to go back and take my time to appreciate the place. But we had to get moving to get some dinner, and then after that was a surprise for Diana. Miko, Derf, Angela, Gale, Steven and Frank came to wish Diana a Happy Birthday at Ice Kiss (a Korean shaved ice dessert place). She was genuinely confused and surprised. Thanks everyone for making it possible, especially the master mind: Miko.

And today, I had a short photo-shoot with Lizzy. Originally, we were going to shoot the whole family, but things got busy and pushed back because of illness and weather. But on the plus side, pictures came out well today.

And with that, my adventures before Christmas come to a close. I luckily finished most of my Christmas shopping really early on, so I can just relax now.

Happy Holidays everyone!

Some of my friends were already there too. There was plenty of food. The barbecued food was pretty good; it wasn’t too hard to eat, just a little messy. At first, the dads who were there were barbecuing the food. But people started tag teaming, everyone’s gotta eat and the smoke must be hard on the senses. Even some of us started barbecuing some of our own food when there was no one else to.

Some of my friends showed up later. But luckily there was still food for them. We all stood/sat around a lot and talked. And we ate some more of course.

After a while, some of the guys and my little sister went to play basketball. I didn’t play but had fun taking pictures.

After that, we all stood around and did nothing some more. My mom and little sister left early because my little sister had to go to choir rehearsal. We kept standing around doing nothing even more. It’s nice being able to relax once in a while.

P.S. Lighting was great yesterday, so I got lots of interesting looking pictures. I always say, autumn time during late to mid afternoon has the best natural lighting of the entire year. The way the light falls on everything is just right. The color, light, contrast…

Everyone came over to help prepare the food. The traditional Thanksgiving dinner seemed much easier to prepare because it was done rather quickly. Most of the efforts were concentrated on the Vietnamese food instead. We are Vietnamese after all.

While we were getting the food ready, my sister logged on and everyone wanted to webcam with her. But since everyone was really busy, we all kind of took turns talking with her. So I guess in a sense the whole family was together for Thanksgiving.

When the food was ready to eat, everyone gathered around the table really quickly to eat.

After eating, we played some games. No karaoke-ing by the adults though. I think they just stayed down stairs and talked. We discovered one of my little cousins is very good at Guess Who? and we all had trouble beating him, even when we teamed up to try to beat him. I hadn’t played that game in a long time, and it was fun. I also played Connect 4 with my little sister. We changed the rules up a few times like connecting 5 or playing 2 at a time. And checkers.

Another Thanksgiving over, that means it’s time to get ready for Christmas and everything in between. It’s going to be fun.

The day started out with a long bus ride from Westminster to Moorpark. I think the drive is about 70 miles.

The ride there wasn’t too long because there wasn’t much traffic, but we were going pretty slow so it did take a little while. I’ve driven that distance several times before, but this time I wasn’t driving so I got bored really quick and started taking random pictures.

After we arrived at Moorpark, there wasn’t that much time to sit around and next thing you knew, they were already performing.

I couldn’t really tell how the performance was because I was standing in the back. I had to conduct 30 seconds of this show because one of our Drum Majors couldn’t make it. Some of what I heard from the drumline back there was pretty clean.

Well, that was the last competition and it was fun while it lasted. Now moving on to more fun!

But wait, there’s still the drive home and a CIF home game.

I ate some popcorn on the way back.

The light from the sunset bouncing off of everything looked beautiful. The smell on the freeway was a different story.

The bus ride back was much longer due to traffic. And I dozed off a few times. But by the time we arrived at the stadium for the football game, the temperature had taken a dive and it was really cold. But the day wasn’t over yet, so it’s time to unload and get ready for another performance.

The lighting at night with the fog rolling it made the lighting situation amazing.

On the field, the band looked even more amazing.

The football team played an exciting game that night. Unfortunately, things didn’t end well for them either. They missed going into overtime by one yard. I guess it wasn’t the same for me since I don’t know anyone down there anymore. But even then, it was a close and exciting game.

So yeah, what an end to a season.

I made pancakes for the first time on Sunday with Diana. It was so much fun to make and to eat of course.

This is actually my second attempt on Monday. They look a lot nicer than Sunday’s try. But both tasted just as good and just as fun to make. For some reason, all the things I can cook are for breakfast. But that’s perfectly fine by me because breakfast is a very important meal.

And they’re pancakes! Yum…

As she’s leaving, she sees some speakers on the ground and asks me what they’re doing there.

I tell her, “They’re my old speakers.”

The she notices the really big box under Quang’s desk and asks me about that. I told her I found it, then I remarked about how she could totally fit in the box.

So she tried it.

“First day of school! Wake up! Come on. First day of school.”

Yesterday was the first day of Vietnamese school!  How exciting.  My Mom is the Principal now, my best friend is a teacher aide and all sorts of things going on.

Vietnamese school used to be a big part of my life.  Not so much these past couple of years… but now that my Mom is running the show, she really wants me to somehow be involved again.  I’m done with being a student there.  But now I have a new friend: my 400D.

Now this was the first time I used my new lens, EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS, in the real world.  And it really felt different, this being the heaviest lens I’ve ever used.  But so far it’s been dependable when it comes to getting my shots, I’m just not that familiar with it yet.

So anyways.. First day of School!

It’s Truong’s first day of viet school I think..? I wasn’t around much last year, but I think he was too young last year. So it must be really exciting for him. And look, they have matching pants.

Their parents help out at Viet School too.  Both of them are actually behaving for once, which is pretty amazing.  And Lam didn’t totally run away when I tried to take a picture of him.  Aren’t  they such good kids?  They even have backpacks.

How sad for Kevin, all by himself. Where did all his friends go?  I think most of his friends are in a different class than he is this year.  But that’s ok, that’s what break time is for.

Many of us are involved with Viet School because our parents are. And of course, on the first day, they’re all working hard.  I also noticed that all of our parents dressed up real nicely and looked all official for the first day of Viet School.

Registration is getting busier as more people want their kids to learn Vietnamese. Looks like they have things under control though.  My mom isn’t working here for once.  She used run this department.  Looks like tuition went up this year, but that didn’t stop hundreds of parents.

Of course, our new principal is on the front lines making sure things are going smoothly. I kept losing track of her because she’d disappear to other places so quick.  I’m not even sure what she did all day, but here it looks like she’s figuring out which students belong in which class.  Or helping the parents figure that out. Attendance increased by quite a bit this year, so there are many more classes.

Now remember those hundreds of folders we packed almost a month ago? (I didn’t write a blog, but I posted pictures on my flickr) Well here they are, finally getting distributed to the students. Those kids better appreciate the binders, we worked hard (we referring to us younger folks). That’s my uncle leading the way.

After seeing how silly it was to drag all those folders around on a tiny red wagon, Mr. Sheldon Walker the custodian lends us a hand to speed up the process. My uncle gets to ride shotgun.

That made things so much faster, and within minutes they were done distributing the folders. Next job, pass out all the books.  I’m not sure they did this yet since the roll sheets haven’t been finalized.

Blah, blah, blah… I wasn’t paying attention to what they were saying, just minding my own business.

By now, it’s almost break time. Time sure flies when you’re busy.

John and I decided the drinks looked too boring, so yeah…

What a masterpiece. We didn’t even drop a single soda despite the concerns from some of our parents. It’s bound to attract more customers.

We finished setting up for break a little early, so John and I set off to explore a little. Not that there was much to explore. Let’s see who’s enrolled in which class.

And in case we got lost, not that we would have, there’s even a map. All we need now is a compass.

And break time just started so we’re all busy doing our things. Looks like they’re trying to sell Popsicles this year too. I wonder how that went, just hope they didn’t melt too quick. Drinks are always popular though, because who wants to drink from rusty drinking fountains. Gross…

And then before we knew it, the first day of Viet School was over (for some of us). There’s still the afternoon session. What a fun day. It feels good to be back.

So the camping trip was last weekend, Labor Day weekend. Stupid stop and go traffic gave me major headache, but once we got there things started getting better. The location wasn’t quite what I expected. I was ready to get lost in the mountains! But we were on some camping site with lots of other people, a medium distanced walk away from civilization.

Now the first thing to take care of was to put up the tent. I couldn’t get pictures of the tent going up because I was doing it. In our lot, there were two tents in all.

Here’s our tent with my uncle in it. It’s huge! But the air mattresses made it feel cramped (I wouldn’t know I slept in a secret room.

After figuring out how to put up our tent, helping with other tents was a breeze.

The ground was so hard that when I was trying to hammer in these plastic things to hold down the tent, I broke two of them (also broke two more taking them out).

The funny thing about this camping trip is that most of what we did was… eat! This whole thing was like a really long picnic a little further away from home. There was enough food to last us probably a whole week, not just three days.

Yeah.. food, eating, that was pretty much what we did most of the time.

On the first day of the trip, we watched Shrek 2 at some amphitheater place. Shrek 2, great movie by the way. The parents loved it (well, my mom did). I really like it too, but I’ve already seen it. So instead of really watching, I was mostly taking a picture of…

…our beautiful sky!

Did you know all those stars were up there? It’s so beautiful, I couldn’t stop trying to take pictures. There’s still a bit of light pollution, and I found more limits of my camera. I can’t believe I’ve only had it for 8 months and I’m already reaching some of its limits. Oh well, it’s still a really good camera.

Anyways, back to the camping trip.

Now guess what the first thing we did after waking up the next day. That’s right, EAT!

Here are the mothers of the trip, the ones responsible for all the great food. We really did eat more on the trip than we normally do. All the males just sat around doing nothing…

On day two, we decided to go to San Clemente Pier. Parking was terrible! But we eventually got a spot. Had to walk a bit though. The main activity for some people at the pier was fishing.

That not a duck…. it’s a PELICAN!! Yeah, people weren’t the only ones fishing there. This guy looks like he knows what he’s doing.

So other than fishing, we also ATE! Yes, that’s right, more food!

Now that’s my Victorinox in action right there. My mom loves that knife! When she started cutting food with it, the blade just glided through the veggies. I love my knife too. Food was good of course. Even the bees could stay away. You can see one on the juice bottle in the picture.

Once again, the guys sit around doing nothing.

That was a fun day on the pier. And when we got back, we ate some more. And we ate some more. The younger people on the trip went and played ultimate frisbee, and then played mafia in our tent.

The morning of our last day, we had even more food. Good breakfast consisting of quesadilla and scrambled eggs. Last thing was to break down the tents. That was so much easier than putting it up.

So yeah, we’ve already started planning for next year. We’re going for a better camp site.

Well thanks everyone for a fun trip.

It’s here from Barnes & Noble: my copy of Feasting on Asphalt.

Hosted by the host of the only cooking show I watch (Good Eats), this is a documentary of a group traveling on motorcycles across the United States in search of real, authentic road food. This is what inspired me to want to get a motorcycle (and mark my word, I will).

I’ve always kind of wanted to travel the U.S. but never really knew what to expect or search for. This kind of helped at giving a glimpse into the different regions of the U.S. because, well, what better way to get to know people by what they eat? I think learning about food is a good way to start learning about other cultures. After all, the first things we learn in other languages is food! (other than bad words and phrases that is…)

I never really thought about it, but I’ve always longed for real, authentic road food myself. After drumline competitions, somehow Jeff would always manage to convince us to go to a Denny’s to eat. In all honesty, Denny’s food isn’t good. Greasy, fattening, it makes me sick to my stomach (unfortunately, literally). The tough thing is that most places don’t open that late.

It’s time we go in search of restaurants that open late!

This was the third time I’ve watched a musical live, the second time I’ve seen a professional production of a musical. But this is the First time I’ve seen a Broadway Production live.

And it was amazing!

The cast captivated me from the very start, even giving me goosebumps. I was almost overwhelmed by the amount of detail they put into a show: the costumes, lighting, choreography… everything. I also thought the cast was wonderful, very talent and good at singing and acting.

I’m still in awe from the whole experience.

I now have in my possession, a new guitar! Epiphone AJ 200SCE. I restrung it though because Guitar Center sucks at stringing guitars (whyy…?) and they were old. Well, I really like how it sounds. So that’s good enough for me.  I haven’t been able to play it much though because school starts next week.  So I need to get ready, like by buying books and supplies.  My room is still not clean enough though, so gotta keep cleaning and organizing.

I’m currently listening to Sweeney Todd.  I’m in love with the music.  It’s a really dark story, but a really good musical…

I just restrung this here guitar, finally..  Got new steel strings instead of nylon this time.  Restringing a guitar for the first time is a very interesting experience…  And I’ve been playing it a bunch since then, so my fingers really hurt.  It’s fun though, I’m trying to write music for more contemporary groups (i.e. my friend’s band and such).

Oh yeah, Libi is going to be my partner in writing a musical.  She’s the lyricist I’ve been looking for all this time.  Yay for musicals.  Speaking of which, I just saw Sweeney Todd:  The Demon Barber of Fleet Street with her, Joe and his friend Max on Friday.   That is a cool musical!  Go watch it if you don’t mind lots of blood.  It’s great…

Meat Pie …?

The drive down there was interesting… Let’s just say everyone but Glenn got lost, but that’s because these venues are like in the middle of nowhere. But a gig is a gig, so whatever. It was a good performance.

So this is Atrementous:

From Left to Right: Stacy (vocals / sax), Patryk (guitar), Glenn (drums), Phillip (bass) and Stephen (guitar).

So this gig was done with the new vocalist Stacy. She’s played and sung with them before, but this is the first time she’s performed a whole show with them. Everyone loves Stacy as the new vocalist.

So despite the not-so-great venue, ATS (short for Atrementous) still put on a good show for everyone. Lots of compliments from the audience (and not just because some of them are friends). I myself am most definitely looking forward to their next performance wherever and whenever that may be.

We were trying to get a cool band picture for them, but then they all moved and then I moved because they moved… Stand still!

Here’s the band and some of their friends/fans (whatever, they’re both). Find me!

After the gig, the band decided to treat some of us to dinner (again). But this time, they made sure they had enough money… from the gig…. And this time, they decided to NOT try to crash into each other while driving home.

So we ended up going to this place called Westminster Café, off the 405 next to the In-N-Out. Maybe we should have gone to In-N-Out? But anyways, this place has an interesting menu, with items like 3-D Burger and With Bacon or Ham..? I don’t remember, but it was funny.

It’s nice getting to sit down and have a (sort of) quiet dinner after a (loud) show. We usually go to Denny’s, which I am absolutely tired of for now (thanks) but this time we didn’t so it was nice trying a different place for once (not that I would really recommend this place to anyone).

The bunch of us just slowly dwindled away. But you can’t blame us. It was a school night and we had to get everyone home like before midnight…

So does anyone know any good So Cal venues for ATS to play at?

So Christmas and New Years came and went since my last post… Merry Christmas! Happy New Year! Ok, got that out of my system.

So once again, I am redesigning my website. I’m leaning towards a less straight-edge look this time. Something more organic? I’ve only started sketching it out, haven’t done anything in PS yet. I’ll probably start on that Tuesday. But here, take a look.

I’m also scrapping the current logo, not that I don’t like it. It’s just that I don’t think it’s practical; it’s awkwardly shaped and rather plain. I do have an idea for a new one though, anyone want to help or critique? Some new perspective is always welcome.

So that’s pretty much all I have now. Gotta keep working hard to finish this before school starts. Once school starts again, I’ll definitely have no time…

So what’s new since my last Blog?

• Three concerts at school, including my First Caribbean Christmas!
• Juries for Percussion. I bot Bs on them, which means I am now officially part of the CSULB Percussion Program.
• Finals… Ugh…… I did okay on most of them. Got sick though so totally bombed one. Oh well, got a 3.something this semester so it’s alright.
• Westminster HS’s first annual Christmas Concert. They did great, and it went really well for their first Christmas Concert.
• Knott’s Berry Farm with WHS. I chaperoned and got to hang out with friends (still in HS friends, duh). Lots of fun.
• Annual Book Room Group Christmas Party. I look forward to this every year.
• Christmas! Thanks for all the awesome gifts!
• Ebisu with Amanda, Leanne and her bf.
• Atrementous performance:good performance, bad venue… Then we hung out afterwards, which was fun too.
• New Years! Hung out at the Reed’s playing Cranium, Scrabble and watching Romancing the Stone (which is soooo cheesy, but good).
• Got a new camera!!! Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi. I’ve been saving for this since graduation, practically.. Finally got it and I love it!

So yeah, keep bugging me to keep this thing updated…

But within the last week, a lot of people have been IMing me or adding me as a mySpace friend.  I don’t mind, I just thought it was interesting.  It’s not like I got nicer over the weekend or anything.  Well, maybe it was because the band competition last Saturday or something.

Speaking of which… Westminster HS had a really good performance on Saturday.  I really was feeling the energy and getting chills down my spine in the warm-up arc.  They got 4th out of four, but that’s alright.  With a score of 74.00 they improved over 10 points in a couple days.

Well, now that that’s over with, it’s time for concert band, steel drums, jazz band, and indoor drumline!  Hope everyone’s hyped up for it, chair placement auditions are two months.  That’s right, practice practice practice.

Ok, well I hope everyone had lots of good food for Thanksgiving.  But I drove by the mall today in the morning… And I’ve never seen that parking lot filled up so much before.  Now I know why the roads are so empty the day after Thanksgiving.

Is anyone going shopping today?

Today, or yesterday, I was part of the audience for two amazing recitals.  It was a long day of recitals, but totally worth staying and watching.

The first recital at 11am was Amanda’s Junior Recital.  Her opening timpani piece was fun to watch, as there were plenty of mallet tosses and cross overs.  CaDance, which was a duet Amanda did with Danielle, was really intense.  You’d have to hear this one to understand.  My favorite piece of her recital would have to be Blues for Gilbert for vibraphone, which I think I’ve heard her play before, but it was even better this time.  That piece sends shivers running up my spine.

A few hours after was Jesse’s Senior Recital.  I have to admit that the recital was almost nothing I expected.  His multi- piece was probably one of the coolest things I’ve seen.  The whole time I was watching, I was totally thinking he moves like a character from a fighting video game.  I also really liked his vibes piece.  Actually, I liked all of his choice for recital pieces.  They all sounded great and were fun to listen to.

So yeah, congratulations to both Amanda and Jesse for a very successful recital by both of them

You all should have been there, especially anyone who’s into percussion stuff.  Should have been there!

For my first time going, I thought the water was pretty nice.  It was cold out, so the water must have felt a little warmer.  But the waves were pretty nice.  Hobie stood up on the board for the first time today, and he was totally screaming his head off when he did.  He made sure everyone knew that he did.

So I took a long board out; Chris suggested it since it might be a little easier to get on it.  But I had no idea it was so hard to turn that thing.  Too bad I didn’t get any waves this time.  One of them threw me off the board and hit me in the head a bit.  Maybe next time, but I’m definitely ready to go back out there.

I like Shrek III as much as the other two. It’s one of those movies you can just sit down at any time, start watching and have a good laugh. There’s really no serious plot to confuse you or anything, but that’s the type of movie it is: a family movie for some laughs. As with the other two, there are a bunch of allusions and puns to so many things literary, so it’s even funnier if you’ve watched your movies and read your books. I like to think of it as a bonus for the well versed. So yeah, go watch it and don’t think too much.

Now about Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.  You know, I still don’t know what to think yet.  It’d be kind of hard to follow if you haven’t seen the previous two, or at least the second one.  They hint at the plot of the previous one, but it’s still hard to catch on, even for those who are very sharp.  But since I’ve seen the first two Pirates movies, it wasn’t bad at all.  It’s full of silly scenes as usual.  I wish there were more swashbuckling pirate sword fights, because even though large scale naval battles are fun, it’s really all about a duel to the death between two captains.  There was an extended fight, but I still think it needs more.  And I’m not so sure I’m happy about the ending either.  I’ll make up my mind later.

As for now, I’ll wait for movies like The Spiderwick Chronicles or Prince Caspian to come out some time in the next two years.  Can’t wait for the next large scale fantasy movie to come out.

For those of you who haven’t heard yet, I joined the Golden West College Symphonic Band.  Hobie and Chris play in the band and I heard from them that they’re playing some songs that are fun for French Horn.  But they didn’t have any Horn players!  So, it’s a win – win situation if I played with them, so now I am.  I can’t give you guys a concert date yet though, because I don’t know when it is.  But whenever it is, hope to see you there.

Cal State Long Beach Concert and Symphonic Band also had a concert on March 20th.  If you missed it, we’re going to have another one on May 10th (that’s a Thursday).

Now that I think about it, I’ve been to/in a lot of performances this month: three WHS Drumline competitions, Chris’s choir concert, Ngan Khoi concert (which was really long and tiring…), the concert and symphonic band performance, a Marimba solo concert (Naoko Takada), the World Percussion concert, the WHS Festival at Garden Grove HS and the WHS Spring concert.  Now, did I miss anything?

Oh yeah, did I mention Stacy got me a totally awesome book for my Birthday?  This Is Your Brain on Music by Daniel J. Levitin.  It’s more of a music person’s book, but it’s a really good read.

And another note, I’m now a Music Composition and Education Major.  Looks like I’ll be stuck at school for 5 years now (I would probably be here for 6 if I didn’t do AP classes in HS).  So next semester, 10 music classes.  It’s gonna be awesome, it’s gonna be great.  I might not be able to study abroad now, but we’ll see.  I could just travel in the future, so it’s no biggie.

Well, I can’t believe March is over already.  That means less than 2 months of school left.  I’m going to go enjoy spring break now, so until next time.

But the bad news is they misspelled my last name as “Yo” instead of “Vo.”  Now that’s the second time that it’s happened.  I don’t know why though because I don’t even write my V’s like a Y.  So I’m guessing it’s the person who wrote out the application that was sent to the FCC writes their V’s like Y’s.

Hopefully that doesn’t cause too many problems though.  Well, maybe I’ll be on the air soon after I get my hands on a radio.

Just in case you were wondering, I just received my amateur radio operator license: Technician Class.  Now, it’s time for some fun!

I’m in nearly the perfect position to go study abroad right now for several reasons.  First, I’m practically a Junior already thanks to Advance Placement tests, so that means I qualify.  Instead of graduating 2 years early, why don’t I take one of those years and do something new, fun, like an adventure.  There are so many places to go too so it’s a good way to start my traveling and such.

So being a music major must mean that I have less options than math / science majors, right? Wrong! That’s the great thing about college: the grounds are made even for us music majors, unlike in high school where there’s nothing for us.  I have such great options.  There’s the our next door neighbor Canada, Chile, South Africa.  There’s the absolutely gorgeous countries of Australia and New Zealand.  And in Europe there’s Italy, Germany, and of course the United Kingdom.  If I could I’d go to at least four of those choices.  The good news is, I have pretty much a whole year to narrow it down to two countries.

Financially, I’m pretty much covered thanks to the government, and I have a whole year to save up money to prepare for it.  I pretty much have nothing to lose to studying abroad.  So why not?

Well now begins the second phase of preparing to Study Abroad: Selecting a country.

Now where should I go . . . ?

Good thing I was over at the Reeds that one day when they were installing their new water heater, or else today would have taken a lot longer than 3 hours. Our water heater shouldn’t have broken though, because it’s only 2 years old. All the other ones in the apartment complex are still working just fine, so I’m guessing we got unlucky and ours was defective or faulty.

Now after that experiece, I figured I’m going to be very involved in building my house. That way I know less things will go wrong. Maybe I’ll be the contractor instead of some loony one. We’ll see.
Okay, that was exciting, but I think it’s time to take a nice warm bath.

The Music section has a subsection for WHS band, and there’s some information that I think is important to the people it concerns. Chair Placement, though incomplete, is listed there. If you’re curious about your score and how you did, talk to me in person or message me somehow.

Another subsection is CSULB Music, where I listed my performances at the school. It’s just like a schedule of events.

Well, that’s it for now, more updates later.

Well, next step for me is to catch all the fishies, find all the Poes and get all the heart pieces. I already did the 24 Golden bugs. And pretty much everything else I guess.

So if you’ve played or are playing Twilight Princess, how are you doing on the game?

(my current game time 53 hours)

It’s been a while since I even touched my website since music and stuff has been so busy. And when I finally took a look at it again, I thought to myself “I really don’t like this layout.” So I set off again in search of a layout that would work for me. And when I say “in search of” I mean I’m going to make my own. I did like some parts of the last layout though, so this one still resembles it slightly.

The most striking difference is probably the new logo I’ve begun using. My old logo looks cool and all, but what does a dragon have to do with SilverTree? Well it doesn’t (not directly anyways) so I went and made a more organic looking logo that has elements of a tree. It’ll probably be modified some more in the future since I change my mind so much anyways.

Now enough of me jabbering on about my website. I’ve got to work on it some more.