I Was Born To Ride... And Take Pictures.

     Spring time.  Flowers blooming.  Birds annoyingly chirping.  Clear skies.  Dry roads.  Cool weather.  Nothing beats a nice ride down the road to who knows where.


     I've mentioned on one of my earliest blogs about my bikes.  Old George who taught me how to ride.  Sexy Shiella who stayed with me until the accident.  And now the loyal Max who serves me well despite his struggles. I decided to ride Max down the road, to a familiar place.  I took pictures of this scene last Autumn.  The pictures weren't terrible but it needs re-shooting.  On one of my flickr groups, a member tried out taking pictures of stars.  I find this intriguing.  I read about shooting them but never really tried.  Most of the pictures posted are star trails.  But I have something else in mind.

     I remember a mail from PPSOP about taking pictures of the stars without trailing.  Honestly, I much prefer them that way on my shoots.  Star trails aren't bad.  But they give the same impact as water under long exposure.  Impressive, but unrealistic.  There are times when I want a bit more realism on my photos.  And this night is one of them.

     So I decided to chase the dark before dawn.  Early and chilly morning, I rode max to this familiar spot with a lake, some mountains, floating houses, boats, and the horizon.  A perfect foreground for my stars.  Unfortunately the sun was too much in a hurry to come out.  I came to the spot late.  It was too bright to get proper exposure and the stars are almost invisible.  Too bad.  So I just have to make the best out of it.

To the Max
Max waiting for my call, sitting silently on the road side, as I take pictures of whatever.  I thought I'd show him off a bit and hope this picture gave him justice.

     Slowly driving back home, I spotted some flowers in front of an Elementary school.  Good thing it was Sunday early morning.  Not a lot of people around.  So I took some photos of these bed of flowers then spotted some pots within the school's vicinity.  Good thing the school wasn't heavily guarded.  The old pots were a part of a display of some Korean traditional items.  I guess it's for educational purposes.  Well, I'm about to get educated!

Weeds!
From the bed of pink flowers comes out grass.  It's actually the dew drops I want the focus into but I can't find a better composition to feature everything else.  Lying on the ground (again) without the proper gear, I'd rather just take what I can.

So much Pink!
It's interesting how I found a hard time to get a good DOF here.  I never really thought of it much, but aperture plays a big role on how much is on focus and how blurry the others are.  It took me 4 shots to educate myself and find just the right amount of blur in the background.

Oval... tine?
To be honest, I wasn't sure what I was doing here.  I just want to take pictures of these pots along with this rusty cover, and work fast to take advantage of sunrise.  It's golden hour for sure.  And again, the right DOF!  This is really an educational point for me.  Just because the lens can do f/1.8 doesn't mean I have to use it all the time.

Proof of the Hour
Of course there are better titles for this picture.  But I emphasize on the "golden hour" that most photographers talk about.  This is just a wooden mask.  An old one.  A very dirty one.  And I meant to show off its age and condition.  But the sun changed my mind.

     Mid day and people are starting to come out on the street.  I thought it was time for me to go.  But I wasn't satisfied with the number of subjects I photographed.  So I roamed around the place and found some other interesting spots.  Most of them in the middle of farms.  Probably private.  But I'd really like to take my star trail shots (in the future) in these places.  But for the meantime, some day shots would suffice.

Shed
Passing by this rice field, I spotted this lone and aged shed.  I find it fascinating and I was lucky enough to spot a dying tree on the road.  Just for fun, and less "straight forward" picture, I thought of framing the subject this way.  Although the image is cluttered, I also appreciate how the trails on the field sort of matched the branches of the tree.

Modern Intervention
This is one of the themes I really like to feature on my photographs.  Whenever I spot two separate generations, I really like to put them together.  I've tried it in the past but was unlucky to get decent photos.  At least until this one came up.  The black and white was inspired by old Akira Kurosawa films.  I'd like to think that I showed a bit of it here.

     This is why I'm happy with my life right now.  I got a paying job with regular days.  I got a camera that I get to play with.  And bikes that take me to places I've never been before.  Sure, it's not like a road trip and it doesn't take me as far as Busan.  But why would I travel that far if there are still so many interesting places, I haven't discovered nearby?

P.S.
I did not shoot the last picture as a Black and White image.  I only got curious how it looks like when desaturated.  The monochrome looked better and happen to be fitting the bi-weekly assignment on DPS at that time.