The varieties of color at this fruit and fish market interested me and that’s the reason I took these photos. Plus, there were plenty of lights, which helped to light up the subjects from the side or the back. This was very obvious, as you can see in Photo 1. Of course, the lights made the fruit more eye-catching too, which was the major reason they were there.
As for Photos 2 and 3, I got more cautious and marked the fluorescent as the WB setting so the color tone would be less disturbing. Photo 3 shows you the fish hawker washing his workplace. He did this every now and then because every time he cut the fish for his customers there was a lot of stuff left behind and it needed to be cleaned off. Photo 5 shows you another scene in the fruit market, with the focus on the customer.
We have humid weather in Hong Kong. Maybe that’s why we always find this rusty stuff everywhere. That was a joke, but, anyway, I think rusty images are quite popular among photographers, so from time to time I go to alleys in remote villages looking for these scenes. There is one concern about getting these images, and it’s about unchained dogs. When you take photos in one of these remote villages, always watch your back because people living there will be suspicious of you and think you’re spying on them. This always happens to me because I use a macro lens for these kinds of shots, as if I’m trying to capture some kind of evidence from the tiniest details there, such as window hinges, door handles, mailboxes, or bicycle wheels. They are, in fact, very good subjects as long as you find the best kind of rust!
I waited a long time for a sunny afternoon for this product photo session. This is a new product called the Ciesta Half-linen Camera Bag. The Indian red bag is the selection featured here. I found a slim model for this session and she was more than happy to play with the Nikon camera and this nice-looking bag. I shot these photos with only ambient light and managed to make the bag look nice. The lens I used is the Canon EF 85 mm f/1.2L II USM. Having this lens in hand, you can take product shots like Photo 3 that focus on the product with a shallow depth of field; this really draws attention to the product.
I took a series of product marketing photos weeks ago for the BLACKRAPID camera strap series. You can see one of these photos (Photo 5), which was shot in a tertiary institute with Celia’s help. It was rather cold and she showed up wearing an outfit that was a blend of red and black. Her look was a great contrast with the background. As you can see in one of my recent video demos featuring Celia, this photo was taken with ambient light only. But it looks quite nice. There is no special skill involved. What makes Celia stand out is that as long as you are marking the right aperture, one that properly exposes her face, maintaining her face tone, so to speak, you can come up with this effect.
Similar things happened when I took the other shots shown here. This is a mall that was designed to utilize a lot of natural light to light its interior (Photo 3 shows you a larger scene of the mall). I marked the white balance mode to fluorescent to make it look cooler. Plus, I marked an aperture to expose the people there properly, so the background turned out to have this blown out effect. It feels like the man was leaving for a supernatural destination… Photo 4 was shot in the bookstore in the same mall, this time with a tungsten mode to reinforce that cool tone.
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