The book begins with the discovery of whether a statue was legitimate or not. A lot of data was taken and analyzed over many months and the scientists were convinced that the statue was an original. On the other hand, a few experts, seeing the statue for only a few seconds felt uneasy and were convinced that it was a very good imitation. They were right They didn’t know how they came to the decision, just that it didn’t look and feel right. Their spontaneous reaction in this case was better than the carefully considered one.

And so the book dwelled deeper into many more examples. I like one of the analogies someone mentioned that you can see all the pieces on a chessboard, but does that guarantee you a win? So you can have all the information you can collect but does that make your decision any better?

In photography, Cartier-Bresson coined the phrase decisive moment. The moment when everything falls into place and you just know when to hit the shutter. Sometimes you plan the shoot, sometimes you just react to the situation without giving much thought to information like shutter speed, ISO, aperture and the likes. The book concludes that experts generally make better judgements in a blink than after careful consideration. Same with photography. Experts need to have that intuition. And being an expert comes through practice and familiarity with your equipment. If you like street photography or even shooting a fast moving event unfolding, practice puts you waiting at the perfect spot. And hitting the shutter is just a matter of a blink after that.

I like the example of shooting a wedding. Because it’s a shoot like this where the photographer is on his toes anticipating action and firing without even thinking. It’s second nature. See every element falling into place, and shoot. Its reacting to the situation. If I had to consider everything, I’ll probably have to direct and orchestrate the action. A definite no-no in my photography.

BLINK AND THE DECISIVE MOMENT is a post from: blog by eulee

I was told by another photographer that a client joked with him that since he had the same equipment as my friend, he should be charging the same thing. Although in jest, that might be the way he perceived my friend’s work, forgetting that the camera doesn’t make the man.

I sometimes come across people in a wedding shoot having a ‘bigger and better’ camera than mine and they perhaps feel that they’re ‘better’ than the professional photographer. Funny how people think that the camera determines the level of competency. I can think of this analogy, if you have the same pot as a chef, does that make you one? Or if you buy the same racquet as Roger Federer, you’re on way to the Grand Slams. People seem to think that photography bucks this trend.

Going back to Malcolm’s 10000 hour rule:

Assuming we spend the 8 hours a day shooting, processing, editing, critiquing, teaching, researching and doing any other things related to photography,

10000 hours = 1250 days

Assuming we spend 7 days a week working:

1250 = 178.5 weeks
178.5 weeks = 3 years 3 months

Many of us have been in this field more than 3 years so we have achieved a level of competency described by Malcolm.

Now if you know someone with all that equipment and shoots only on Saturdays, will he have the experience and competency that professional photographers have? 10,000 hours of Saturdays is a very long time.

Having deep pockets and buying all the expensive glass doesn’t say much about the skill, does it? The less time you spend worrying about equipment, the more time you have actually shooting. And that sets apart the people who make money from photography and those who don’t.

THE CAMERA DOESN’T MAKE THE MAN is a post from: blog by eulee

Lauren has the biggest smile, and reserves it especially for Peanuts. I’m just amazed at the strong interaction between her and man’s best friend. Very heartwarming indeed. After about an hour shooting indoors, we ventured out. Not many place to go in the searing midday heat but I’m happy with the locations we chose. It’s just around the block and convenient to pop out and pop in without being drenched with sweat.

Here are a few images from the shoot:

More of family photography images can be found in the Family Photography category of this blog.

DANIEL, IRENE, LAUREN…..AND OF COURSE, PEANUTS is a post from: blog by eulee

If you’re using Aperture already or are thinking of it, here’s a very useful website to learn tips and tricks: http://aperture.maccreate.com/.

Well now that I’m ready to buy it, I’ve been told it’s out of stock. Duh! And I think the money I spend deserves a nice little box, a CD and a bunch of useless material, instead of just downloading the key. I can wait. I have 20 more days to use the trial version.

APERTURE IT IS! is a post from: blog by eulee

At the moment I do all my shoots on location, instead of in my studio. I’m enjoying doing this because:
1. Images can have different settings. You can have a choice of environment eg, at home with a lifestyle twist, against a black backdrop for a more arty feel or outdoors for the fun. There’re so many options available.
2. For kids, a change in environment may make them apprehensive. Having it at home or outdoors will bring out the best from them.
3. Unlimited change of attire. As I’ve mentioned, you can wear anything and everything. The only limit is a 2-hour timeframe coz even if you’re not exhausted from all that changing, the photographer is from shooting.
4. You have toys to attract your kid’s attention. Put on Sesame Street, Thomas or Bob, and we have a smiley kid. And that looks great on the pictures.
5. If your kid is tired, take a short break, have a kit-kat, and he’ll be bouncing all over from the sugar fix. And we’ll have another go at this.
6. I feel great after a shoot with great images. And I’m sure you will too.

Call (97616405) or email (eulee@photographybyeulee.com) me to find out more details. Spread the word! Thank you much!

FAMILY AND KIDS PHOTOGRAPHY is a post from: blog by eulee

Botanic Gardens never fails to deliver when it comes to providing a backdrop of lush beautiful greenery. We were also blessed with good warm lighting which gave a golden touch to the pictures. It was a bit crowded but there were pockets of space to give the privacy and the backdrop.

Here are a few pictures from the shoot:

Dylan

Thomas, May and Dylan

More of family photography images can be found in the Family Photography category of this blog.

THOMAS, MAY AND DYLAN is a post from: blog by eulee

What I found impressive was the Places feature. As long as you have a GPS enabled camera, you’ll have a lot of fun with this. Here’s a screenshot of my iPhone images with the location service enabled and the places tagged. You can use it even in the slideshow where your slides can be automatically captioned with the location. Very impressive indeed.

Aperture 3 screenshot showing the Places feature

So Faces and Places are cool. Just that as a professional photographer who works mainly in Singapore and who catalogs images based on event instead of faces, I can’t say I can find a lot of use for it. Sure, if I’m a National Geog photographer, Places will be extremely useful or if I go vacationing a lot. Or if I constantly take pictures of my friends and family, Faces may be useful. But counterintuitively, I find that because the face recognition processing is done all the time, I feel it slows down my other processing. I can see that processing in the status. I’m not sure but perhaps, that can disabled.

The brushes feature was not new to me since I’ve used it a lot during my evaluation of the software. I find it very easy to use and quite intelligent if used with the ‘detect edges’ feature switched on. It’s smart enough to detect edges like mountain and sky.

What I find the most useful is the slideshow. Occasionally I get asked to prepare a slideshow for a wedding dinner, or perhaps present a photojournalism piece and I can see how useful this part can be. You can time each slide with every beat of the music by pressing the enter key. Kind of like clapping to the beat….but, too bad if you can’t clap in rhythm. Plus if you have sound bites and video, you can incorporate all into the slideshow. And I think this is the key. Apple is strong in multimedia and I’m glad they show their prowess in this. There’s even automatic ducking if you include a sound bite with music in the background. When the audio fades out, the background music fades in automatically. Very cool indeed. So you can have two audio tracks: one for music and one for the sound bite. I used to mix this in Garage Band to get one audio file and use it with the slideshow but Aperture makes it so easy. And everything is a drag and drop.

I tested out the tethering part this morning. Unfortunately I didn’t have much success with that using my Canon 5D Mk II. Once, the tethering menu was grayed out. And other times, my camera gave me an error. I have rebooted my mac, my camera, Aperture 3.0, changed USB cable, everything I can think of but I still haven’t successfully tethered my camera.

Aperture is indeed an extension of iPhoto. And if you have done extensive work in iPhoto previously, you can import all this into Aperture and it’ll look exactly the same. Aperture is optimized for 64-bit computing so unfortunately if you don’t have an Intel-based mac, you can’t use it. But looking at all the features it has, I think a high performance machine is justified.

Will I buy it? Most probably. Like mentioned, I don’t know how I can benefit from the Faces and Places features that Apple is so big on, but the adjustments features is a big draw for me. And the advanced slideshows. If only I can get the tethering working.

APERTURE 3.0 MEDIA BRIEFING is a post from: blog by eulee

There was something very special about the attention given to the details, from the colour of the flowers, dresses, and the very elegant bridal gown. Lin looked really great when walking down the aisle. Their mothers started the processional with each holding a candle. It was very touching and significant sight. The bridal party was also a long one, all the while keeping Chris in eager anticipation.

I have not been shooting in the church recently and I remember how grand it was the last time I shot there. I had to take a shot, holding the camera high above my head, just beside the pulpit, with live-view on to capture the grand interior of the church. I’m glad that shot turned out ok.

Here are some of the images taken from a selection that was shown at the dinner:

And more here..

[View with PicLens]

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More of such images can be found on my Actual Day Wedding Photography web page or in the Wedding Photography category of this blog.

CHRIS AND LIN WEDDING IMAGES is a post from: blog by eulee

A piece from Elinchrom BX500Ri light

I’ll probably keep it for awhile before I junk it.

I still like to tell the story of how this light of mine fell 4m and suffered only a cracked shell and this loose plastic piece. Next time I tell it, it might have fallen 5m or more….

DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS IS? is a post from: blog by eulee

This is how you do it

So what's next?

Nope, not right

The girls' version of Charlie's Angels

The whole family

The whole family, not so serious after all

More of family photography images can be found in the Family Photography category of this blog.

SHARM’S FAMILY SHOOT is a post from: blog by eulee

Screenshot of Aperture 3.0

Here’re the things I really like about Aperture:

1. It’s fast. The thumbnails render almost instantaneously and any adjustments can be previewed real time. Bear in mind, I don’t have the fastest machine, just a 2.15GHz Intel Core Duo machine with 4Gb RAM. And I’m happy with the speed.
2. I like the Adjustments Inspector or tools. You can customize to always display your favourite tools. I added in the sharpening and vignette adjustment to the default.
3. White balancing is easy, especially when using the eye-dropper tool and fine adjustments.
4. All the other adjustments are also easy to implement and also easily ‘lift’ and ’stamp’ed or cut and paste.
5. The full screen feature is a nice touch. You get the entire picture to fill your screen. Very handy for fine adjustments.
6. Plenty of keyboard commands and easily customized too.
7. Exporting to another format is also very user friendly. You can customize the format, eg jpeg, high quality, etc.
8. The very attractive brush-in feature. Use this to brush-in any adjustments, eg, spot sharpening, and after the brushing in, you can still make amendments. Only the brushed area will be affected. Very cool indeed.

Only thing I’m not comfortable with is the library structure. I’m not a big iPhoto fan because I want to know where my images are instead of depending on it to organize it for me. And Aperture will do the same thing. But I think I can get used to it once I understand this better. I just wished it’s like Expression Media, where you can access the files in their original folders without having to copy them into the library.

I’ve probably used only like 20% of the software so far but these are the most important to me and good enough to get me started in processing my wedding pictures. I have not done a detailed evaluation, just using the tools I need to get my work moving along. I’ll discover more stuff along the way I’m sure. I’ve been invited to the Media Briefing of Aperture 3.0 in a few days time and I’m hoping to learn a few more tricks there.

APERTURE 3.0 TRIED AND TESTED is a post from: blog by eulee

Another thing to make it memorable for me was the fact that I was with John and Yanleen in Paris last year, for their pre-wedding shoot. Prints were displayed at the entrance of the ballroom, and the stage was decorated to reflect a Parisian setting. A beautiful touch indeed.

Congrats John and Yanleen!

The display of their pre wedding shoot in Paris

And more images here

[View with PicLens]

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More of such images can be found on my Actual Day Wedding Photography web page or in the Wedding Photography category of this blog.

JOHN AND YANLEEN WEDDING IMAGES is a post from: blog by eulee

Shot with Canon G9, balanced on the balcony, Tv, 8s, -2EV

At the strike of midnight on the eve, the sky in Penang lit up with fireworks. Reminded me so much of my childhood. I missed the sight, smell and sound. Of course, I had to settle for ‘moon travelers’ last time, unlike the variety I was looking at last night. And they said fireworks is banned here! I gotta find some and relive that childhood of mine

BLESSED LUNAR NEW YEAR is a post from: blog by eulee

One look at Aperture 3 and I think I can retire all my other software. I’ve downloaded a trial version and I can’t to put it through its paces in keeping up with all the processing I do. It’s supposed to be optimized for Intel Macs so I’m looking forward to a better performance.

It’s also supposed to support tethered shooting. I use EOS Utility to do that and it’s painfully slow when I’m transferring 21Mpix files at 3fps to my notebook. I haven’t found a way (if there is one) to just transfer thumbnails over, so that the transfer can keep up with my shooting. Perhaps Aperture allows me to do that. I’ve to check it out.

I like DPP because I can batch process one set of images and work on another concurrently. But it just takes too long to render the preview and I learn to guess the outcome before it’s completed. Nevertheless it’s still guesswork. I much prefer to see the preview live as I make the adjustments. Aperture doesn’t seem to have the problem but perhaps the photographers evaluating have some mean machine churning behind the scenes.

Well, so let my evaluation begin and if all’s well, I’ll have another toy to play with in a week or so. You can also read more about it in Chase Jarvis’ blog since he was one of the photographers evaluating it for months.

APERTURE 3 is a post from: blog by eulee

Paris. City of Romance. Maybe cliched, but nevertheless a most beautiful place for your pre-wedding images.

After an amazing time there last year, we’re planning another trip there in September 2010. September should be a great time, not as crowded as summer, cooler weather and lighting should be great. Exact dates are still on the drawing board but we have kicked started our planning. So if you are considering this, let me know and lets discuss further. Places are limited so sound me out as soon as you can.

PARIS 2010 is a post from: blog by eulee