HOLY COW!!!!!

What I Ordered.....




My Fizzy Drink.....




Tabasco, Anyone?




The Decor.....









Every once in a while, I crave to eat steak. There is something about the smell of newly charred, succulent meat with mushroom gravy that makes my appetite going and my mouth water. And for all you steak lovers out there, I think to have your meat cooked medium rare is the best way to cook a steak. The meat retains its juices and is not dry. Yummy!

So I just had to give in to my craving one day after attending a private function. I was so hungry that to take pictures of the food I ordered was just an after thought, an exercise I suddenly remembered doing before I devoured my steak since I brought my camera with me. The best part was also having a thick slab of battered and fried cream dory to go with my steak. It was so satisfying. Burp!

PIZZA DONE MY WAY....

Thin crust pizzas are my favorite. This kind of pie enables me to savor the flavors of the pizza toppings.Shakey's Pizza is the place I go to whenever I have a craving for thin crust pizzas.

I recently discovered another place to go to for thin crusted pies, and that is at Handuraw Pizza along Xavierville Avenue. I find their prices a bit cheaper than Shakey's and offer more flavors. Too bad though that the owners have not opened a branch at the southern portion of Manila that is near the place I live.

So, I tried doing my own pizza. using those large flour tortillas as the crust. The next thing I did was prepare my own pizza sauce which is actually marinara sauce that I use for spaghetti. I then used ground beef, bell pepper, store bought mozarella cheese and pepperoni as my pizza toppings. The verdict? Yum! But I have to replace the ground beef for something less oily (fatty) in the future. I so wish that I have a brick oven! It did not take that long for the pizza to cook though.

Oh, lighting for the shot was done via flash placed on top of pizza and fired using my Flashwaves radio trigger.

THE COLOR OF MONEY TWO.....

As I continue my quest to produce some images based on the theme "complimentary colors" with the local currency as my subject, I decided to interpret the phrase "paperweight". The orange takes the place of a paperweight. Lighting was provided with the aid of my led lenser k3 since my flash does not have its slave function working.

Eventually, I grew tired of the pictures that I was getting since I could not decrease the light from my led lenser down to a small beam (which can only be achieved with a honeycomb or a snoot attachment). I then resorted to playing with the images in CS5 afterwards. The above pictures are the fruits of my impaired imagination!

THE COLOR OF MONEY.....

The Succeeding Frames.....





























The First Frame.....







My flash isn't working properly. It accidentally fell off the light stand just as I was about to raise the height of the stand during one of my strobist experiments. Strobist is a photography term coined by David Hobby to describe the use of off camera flash as a main source of light while shooting. The flash is used like a basic studio light or strobe. Light modifiers in the form of soft boxes and umbrellas are used to shape the light just like its big brother. Other accessories like barn doors, snoot and honeycombs can also be used.

Since my flash won't fire when I attached my Flashwaves wireless trigger to it, I had to device a plan to introduce light to my subject which I can also control. So I resorted to the painting with light technique. In this case, my mini led changer became my source of light for this experiment. My problem was how to control the amount of light that shall hit the subject since the torch did not have a dimmer function. What I did was place a white plastic in front of the torch and somehow occlude the light it emits by partially blocking it with the palm of my hand.

Seldom do I have this inspiration of doing some experimenting and I was on a roll. The theme for the club competition was complementary colors. In simple terms, it was just taking a picture of subjects whose colors complement one another. These combinations are red and green, blue and orange and yellow and violet.

It crossed my mind that for this theme, I shall be "using" our local paper money! And why not? If there are man made items that are colorful enough to be photographed, it is our local currency. Though my friend did mention that doing so is prohibited. I asked why and he could not give me an answer. Perhaps this has something to do with counterfeiting activities. But I am not into that. I guess this is one of those personal projects then.

The concept was to literally interpret the phrase "pocket money". I used the 20 peso bills and my jeans pocket to represent the colors orange and blue. The photos show the degree of trial and error that I had to do before I came up with decent images.

My apologies for placing the wrong year in some of the photos. I can't correct it anymore because of the way I placed the watermark. I really have to get some adequate sleep!