Water Dance

Another image took during the visit to Shanghai World EXPO 2010, still around the shallow pond where all the reflection were by design. Again capture by using the Canon 5D II with EF 24-105/4L IS, probably not the pinnacle of today's low light capturing platform, but coming from using films, it is nonetheless remarkable.
The water dance, as it is in elsewhere in the world, runs together with beautiful orchestra as background music, and a subtle skyline - without doubt - also by design again.  It is known that Shanghai city in order to present its modern, versatile, and of course powerful rich, ask many non-government owned buildings to work together under city policy - add LED lighting features as part of Shanghai's presentation to the world. Somthing against what they meant to display in World EXPO, but it is China, a nation awake from long sleep, give it a break.

More on Design Reflection

Again an image took recently in Shanghai, while visiting the World EXPO 2010.  As the water becomes a more precious treasure now (it always is, but a fact not emphasized to recognize), the water is one of the important theme in EXPO.  Few post earlier I mentioned the pond, but here I have to come back to cover more because it is not a simple execution in building it to have such shallow depth pond, it is not small, but then I assumed it does not take much amount of water, to create this half natural scene. This image taken with Canon 5D II and EF 24-105/4L IS, thanks to its image stabilizer that allows me to shoot this image handheld.  Cut the reflection of this picture, it is a rather common night image and the reflection adds the drama in manifolds.

Make Up

One of the often forgotten element in the finished picture, it is not always just the model and the photographer.  This image, taken on Marco. a Russian model, using Canon 1Ds III with EF Macro 180/3.5L is one good example, it could have just been a common studio portrait.

Lashihai

Shot recently in Lashihai, Lijiang China, with Panasonic GF-1 and its beautifully made 20/1.7 pancake lens.  An otherwise common travel photo.  The afternoon blue sky reflected from the surface of lake with a nice polarising, graduation effect, it is the situation when PL is of not much use here.

Design Reflection

A recent image made during a visit to the World EXPO 2010 at Shanghai, China.  The major square is cleverly designed to have a very shallow pond, perhaps only 15mm deep, a perfect execution in construction and a great idea itself, something I beleived will be adapted by many large construction work in the future.
The heavily use LED technlogy is the main lit of the site, with programmed color shift and animated image, festive, but a bit too much to my taste, but this is China - more is better!
Shot with Canon 5D II with EF 24-105/4L IS. ISO 1,000, the camera's low light ability allow me to shoot this one hand-held, at 1/20s.

Breeze

Certainly taking a picture is not simply pressing the shutter button, it has a lot more process into it.  It starts from observation.  And then you come to expect.  It all happned spontaneously, but getting an image is not depend on luck, it depends on heart and mind, and your eyes.
Shot very recently in Zhou Chuang (Village Zhou), China, with Canon 5D II with EF 24-105/4L IS, an all too often scene one would see in Zhou Chuang, or many places in China, here the subject is a cool day and  the breeze.

Sharpness

Sharpness is often ignored, but quite an important factor in the final pictorial quality.  Not that it has to be sharp or other way around, it is the right degree of resolution to our eye that define the image is sharp, or less sharp, soft, or even blur.  A heated debate more on the digital imaging, both still and motion; less a subject in the film days, perhaps because digital technology allows higher degree and more flexible manipulation. Whatever it is.  This image was taken with Canon 1Ds III with EF Macro 100/2.8L IS.  While finishing the final image, I merged a less sharp layer on the original ones to reduce the visual sharpness to give the final image a softer feel.