Is It Obvious?

I have been practicing my Photoshop skills. This is actually a composite image. I have been trying to get better with composites...advertising photography uses composites, and I really like the stuff that some commercial photographers come up with...Is it obvious what I have done with this photograph besides turning it into a black n white photo? If not, I will give you a hint...look at my post I made two days ago...

An Office In The Garage

I thought I was bad about collecting stuff until I walked into this garage. It actually looks pretty organized as chaos can get...what cracked me up was the pigeon food on the tires...I am not sure pigeons would really find the top of some tires as a great place to hang out, but what do I know?

More From The Jakarta Dump

If there can be such a thing, it WAS a gorgeous day at the dump...blue skies, fluffy white clouds, and not too hot and humid. Such days are rare in Jakarta where the skies are usually white, and it is unbearably hot. I was thinking about that when watching these people hard at work picking through garbage day in and day out in all kinds of weather...the trash doesn't stop coming in. People consume, throw away, and never really think where all their trash ends up...at least a great deal of the garbage dumped here doesn't go to waste....the plastic, wood, and metal waste is all collected and recycled, and they have an electric plant that is fed with the methane gas that comes from the organic trash...pretty good system, actually...

The tractors just dig in...people have to make sure they stay out of the way...

Another tough day at work...

Very sad to see kids at work too...they seemed happy and healthy, though...

The Tool Shed

The Drobo is still not in action....it has been over a month now without my library of photographs....it is driving me crazy. I am still confident, however, that I will be able to retrieve all my data one day...in the meantime, I have taken a few new photos like the one below that I got yesterday in the junk yard...

The Junk Yard

On Thursday it was the Jakarta Dump...today, I went to a junk yard to take some HDR photos. Junk yards are great for HDR with all the rust, cables, old engines, and broken down cars...when I arrived to take some photos, there were already a few other Indonesian photographers with a model doing a photo shoot amongst the broken down cars...I just walked around with my Leica looking for good HDR subjects...funny...no one was there buying car parts, only us photographers...they should start another business catering to photographers...

The Jakarta Dump

So, I made a trip today to the place where all of Jakarta's garbage ends up. It was not a pretty sight, nor did it smell nice, but it was an incredible experience. It was mind blowing, actually. These people make their living picking through the garbage looking for plastic, wood, aluminum, and other things they can sell. One guy told me he sells plastic for 1000 rupiah (about 10 cents) per kilo. I am not sure how many kilos per day he collects, but even if he collected 100 kilos of plastic, he would only make 10 dollars...can you imagine working in such a place for less than 10 bucks a day?? Wow....it was really an eye opening experience...

Surrounded By Mantas

I shot this with my 10.5mm lens, so you can imagine how close these guys are to me...the big black one is only a few inches from me, and the big white one is about 5 feet away...it is an incredible experience to be swimming with these gentle giants...they are HUGE, but so graceful in the water...

Kayla and Kelly

It has been awhile since I posted a photo of my family. My daughters and I were hanging out in the gazebo, and I couldn't resist getting some photos of my two favorite people in my life...that's Kayla (left), 7 years next month, and Kelly who just turned two.

Some tech stuff....shot this with the Leica M9 with the Voigtlander 50mm at f/2, natural light. How about that "bokeh"? Not bad for the Voigtlander...

A Visit To The Zoo

I took the kids to the zoo today, and gave myself a personal project....take some photos at the zoo, take some texture photos, and then combine them to make one piece of art...this is what I came up with. Gotta love the expression on the Orangutang's face...

From The Archives #11

This was the balloon trip of a life time. My buddies and I were actually disappointed early in the morning with all the fog, and thought the trip would be a bust...but when we rose above the fog, we were treated with a spectacular view that I will never forget...

Have a great weekend!!

I am still working on my Drobo, but at least now, I am in contact with Drobo Support in Singapore...so far, no new news, and it is still reading "0 items"...arrrrgh...

FromThe Archives #10

What I remember most about this day was how cold it was. I was walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, and it was 1o degrees (F) outside, but the fierce wind in my face made it feel much colder than that. I could barely hold my camera my hands were so cold....so, I snapped a few photos as quickly as I could, and ran back to the warm subway station...

From The Archives #9

Here is a nice shot of the variety of hard corals you can find in Papua. My daughter, Kayla said this photo kind of looks like a big Moose...see it? The butterfly fish are the eyes, and the Staghorn coral are the antlers...ha ha...I wouldn't have noticed that...leave it to a seven year old to notice something like that...

Looking For A New Camera?

I usually don't advertise on my site, but I am pretty excited about the release of this camera...I have been reading about it for the past year, and many are waiting for its release...

The Fuji X100 is now available for pre-orders at B&H Photo. This camera brings back the "old style" of shooting like my Leica, but at one tenth the price of a Leica. From what I have read so far, it has gotten rave reviews. I may even consider this camera as a nice "second" camera to carry around...it is 12.3MP with a CMOS sensor, a fixed 35mm (equivalent) lens, and also does 720p video with stereo sound.

Click on the link above or HERE for more info...

An Old Boat Launch

Another photo from the archives....still don't have my Drobo fixed. Drobo's service is proving to not be reliable on getting back to their customers in need...

A Pile of Pots

This is one of the shots that I featured on my short "before and after" video last week. I really like the texture and colors on the wall...the "before" shot is below. I was telling the students in my workshop to keep an eye out for color and texture to add to their photos later. The "before" shot is a cool pile of old plant pots, but it lacked the really colorful wall that was just around the corner...so, why not combine the two to create more "pop" to that pile of pots??

I Hope The Best For Japan

I didn't hear about the earth quake and tsunami in Japan until last night when I got home from work. What a terrible disaster. It appears that the quality of construction has paid off in Japan. I can only imagine the damage that would take place here in Jakarta if a similar earth quake had struck here. However, no matter what technology was put in place, nothing would have stopped that tsunami...wow, what an incredible film of that tsunami hitting the shores of Japan...

My photo today is not from Japan, but it shows well the beauty of nature mixed in with the fury of nature looming in the distance...

Everything You Need At The Beach

You got your boogie board, a broken boat, a bike, and some shade....all that is missing is a good, cold beer...

The Village Homestay

We slept in these small bamboo huts...they were actually very comfortable, and sound of the stream trickling by at night is something that puts me right to sleep...

Betel Nut

I am not sure of this lady's age. I was told she is still quite young, but after years of chewing Betel Nut, it is taking its toll on her teeth...almost every woman in the village was chewing on it...

Chiang Mai Car Wash

My Drobo is still in limbo...I may have to wait until my next vacation to bring it to Singapore to have it hopefully fixed. In the meantime, I found this folder of photos I took in Chiang Mai, Thailand a few years ago...one of the few folders of photos that I just happened to save on a different drive...so, I thought this week, I will feature some of the photos from that trip...

There are no cars up in this far Northern part of Thailand...at least not in this village. The mode of transport is the Elephant. Every day, after a tough day of work in the fields, they get a relaxing bath in the river...

On another note, a good friend sent me THIS LINK of some fantastic photos taken by photographer, Timothy Allen when he accompanied film crews for the BBC series, Human Planet. Do yourself a favor and check out the video of photos...very inspirational. Sure wish I could take a year and a half off of work to follow some film crews around the world...a dream job, heh??

Before and After Photoshop

This past weekend, I ran a photography workshop for thirty High School Students from our sister schools (IASAS) from Bangkok, Singapore, Taipei, Manila and Kuala Lumpur. We took the kids up to the Bogor Botanical Gardens and they rotated through three stations doing water color painting, painting on mixed media, and my station, Photography. The next morning (yesterday), I ran a Photoshop workshop showing the kids how to create a nice HDR photo, use textures, and a few other tricks to make their photos look better and more artistic...

Below is my first attempt at using Vimeo to show some of my work. I wanted to show the "Before" and "After" shots, and have the photos merge from the "Before" into the "After". So, I loaded up the before and after shots into Lightroom, and created a slide show...and then exported the slide show as an HD movie which I uploaded to Vimeo...I like the way it came out, and I also like that I could re-size the video to fit my blog with no loss in quality. I don't think you can do that with YouTube...can you? So, give the video a look, and let me know what you think...these are six of my favorite shots that I took during the workshop...

Before and After Photoshop from Scotty Graham on Vimeo.

From The Archives #8

I think this is one of my favorite shots from my trip to Hoi An last year.

I have been really busy at work lately, so have not had the time to deal with my Drobo problem...it will have to wait till next week, I guess...so, I hope you are enjoying these photos from the past...

If you want some inspiration, check out THIS SITE...some very good black n white photography out of Africa...

Have a great weekend!! See you on Monday!!

From The Archives #7

This little guy ( a Spotted Box Fish) was cruising the ship wreck I was diving in Bali...I had to chase him around for about 10 minutes with my camera...he kept hiding from me, but I managed to catch this shot of him just before he ducked under a small ledge...

From The Archives #6

My buddy wanted me to take this photo of this old building in Hoi An turned into a restaurant as he was directing the play, "Romeo and Juliet", and thought he could use this as a model for his set. I guess you can imagine Juliet on that balcony, and Romeo climbing the wall to greet her...

On another topic....check out these photos of a Lava lake in Africa...some very brave guys walk right up to the edge, and take photos...very cool stuff!!