Holiday Airfare Deals from my Friend in Paradise!

This is a sponsored guest post written by Ali Kendall on behalf of Airfare Secrets. Post powered by Sponzai.

Just wanted to send a quick "shout-out" across the Pacific to my friend Ali in sunny Honolulu, Hawaii!

Ali runs the airfare-now.com website with all kinds of tips, coupons, strategies, etc. for findng holiday airfare deals. Now airfare comparison travel sites have come a long way in the past few years but there are still literally thousands of them to choose from. So here's a big aloha and mahalo to Ali for keeping it simple on a pretty nifty little travel website!

My Christmas Wishlist 2009

Okay, since I think this has been long awaited by the people who would want to give me gifts this Christmas heheh. I would want to make it easier with you so I am putting up this short list of things I want for my self. I'm not selfish eheheh

Nikon 35mm f/1.8G AF-S DX

This awesome prime lens that I want for my camera is first on the list because I don't have one yet. I need this for portraits and glamor shots. I need this also for the 1.8 crisp focus that will automatically adjust on my Trish (Nikon D60). Not bad! It costs around 12.5K only!

Wii, PS3 and PSP3000

Now for my gaming itch, it is still the Wii, Playstation 3, or PSP 3000. These three different gaming systems will be a good substitute for my Online gaming habit. That's if I have time for it hahaha

IPHONE 32GB

Yeap, since my phone is already giving up on me already... I would like to have one... It looks like I am going techie this year but I don't mind. If you have the money why not purchase one for me now LOL it is gonna be humiliating if you don't! LOL

The Need for EMAIL Security

The EMAIL functionality at the office showed a lot of promise because we had to use them again today for uploading files on our servers. It is relatively a new and easy way since we now are connecting to main office servers through virtual private networks. The most important part of this structure is the security involved in transferring data if you are in a public network and if you are outside on business trips you may have no choice but to use WIFI networks provided for in hotels and establishments. Outlook email encryption has been a necessity on these occasions since the added AES 256 bit blanket of security adds a lot for the safety of non public information. This is a plug in you need to install on OUTLOOK and a lot of multinational corporations have benefited from this.



The transit of data should never be compromised since a lot of reports, statistics and planning are done with the exchange of electronic document copies sent through this medium. I would have preferred someone have these printed and sent through messengers; but in this day and age you need to have them sent instantaneously. You should think about it too if the offices are oceans apart. If the messenger could travel with the speed of light then that would be a better alternative; but that would be impossible. Data encryption is a necessity and getting those additional things to secure it would make your work easy and worry free. You should check out experts at ENCRYPTOMATIC and get the solution you need.

The Art of Strobing: Winston Baltasar's Workshop

Sir Winston in Action!



Strobing at it's finest!


It was Sunday afternoon and I just woke up from last night's clubbing event. I know I had to have some more sleep and work the night after but we all were waiting for this day. I know I was not able to get the chance to meet the master a few weeks before for fashion photography lessons (which is my passion by the way courtesy of Xander Angeles! XD) and I was getting excited of my Deedee (Nissin DI622) because this week it was going to be STROBING. Yeah I know, I have a lot to learn about this subject and the one before that so missing this one again would literally be like abandoning my craft. I made sure I get to see him this weekend even if it meant less sleep for me so I jumped out of bed and took a cold shower... got CAMMY (Mah Crumpler) and set on to go to Makati for this very important workshop.

It is all about lighting and how it could enhance our photos. It was also time to try some things I read from the XBOOK of Xander Angeles and how to take fashion and post processed photos to another level. I was inspired by his work when we got the chance to meet him Friday evening at the DPP Loaded event and if there was one thing I will do after this strobing workshop by Sir Winston, it was to make my output mostly like the magazine covers Xander does for US fashion spreads.


Here is my shot, hope it did work LOL!



We started off having discussions on how we can practically apply lighting in outdoor shoots. Our settings obviously would differ in different lighting conditions so after we got out group assignments and had our models made over we went upstairs to take some shots so we can compare notes later on about our output and the settings we did to achieve it. Sir Winston shared some advise on how to make our shots better on the extreme outdoor lights we had that afternoon. As you know, the sun was up and we were all under the sweltering heat worried about our model; and how those strobes would go off if the on cam flash was not getting detected because everything was too bright. My camera was making the best out of it since I found out my batteries just ran out. Too much thinking went into all of these but the one thing I forgot was charge my camera and get batteries for the flash! Geeze!

Anyway I already have some shots taken that afternoon. I thought I did not have enough photos for critique later on but I listened to the things he said to other photographers and learned from their mistakes as well. The direct sunlight was harsh and it needs a filler in order to have ample amount of shutter speed and stop the motion of the subject (hence no motion blur) and the aperture level would dictate how much bluer skies we want on the outdoor conditions we were in. We needed to use a smaller aperture to keep the ambient exposure constant while not sacrificing flash synchronization on a subject since distance and ISO would dictate what would happen on a flash unit that only would reach around 1/1000 rates. Going over that is not advisable so some of us were only at 1/150 +/- 5% and stayed on aperture setting that would get us a nice blue sky. Some of my shots went overboard and got too exposed in the beginning but fixed that after a couple test shots on two locations in the roof deck of Sir Winston's house. My indoor shots fared better though because I had more control on light; and experience on studio settings from my photo shoots before. I was not able to borrow a light meter this time but the setting was not that different and the adjustments were minimal since I had to only use my on board flash since Deedee went kaput on me. The others were able to use radio triggers on their cameras and take advantage of the umbrellas they brought for the occasion. I was in the end very pleased with the few pictures I had to work with in post processing. Here are some excerpts on the part where we raffled off some prizes for that shoot. Awesome DPP and FHM issues for beauty and you know what were given away by Sir Winston.. that was a treat!


Awesome Mags were given away!



And another one!



How can we forget the birthday boy Benjo Licup!



The naughty Senor!



Nikon and Canon DO NOT MIKZ!!! LOL


Overall I learned a lot and the guys did too. Some had fallen inlove with the models that day LOL while some were just around for the experience shooting with the NOCTURNALS and Sir Winston. I hope the next one is going to be big... I want extreme makeup and "totally" almost naked glamor shots. I know there maybe time for that next year! I will be there! Thank you to our awesome models Ms. Jinri Park, Ms. Rowhe Rodriguez and Ms. Rix Benares. My favorite MUA in the whole wide world Ms. Yuan Yim THANK YOU!!! Without you this would have never been a huge success! Thank you to Sir Winston too! =)



The NOCTURNALS, CitiCameraClub, Sir Winston and the models GROUP HUG!