framing people

This weekend, I have been asked again to take graduation photos for a group of friends. I am the best person for the job they claim, since I am the only one among them who is not graduating this year. I wondered if this is some sort of conspiracy among all my independent groups of friends to remind me that I am not fitting of mortar boards yet.

I can take jest.

I like taking photos of landscape and architectures. Main reason being, these things do not move. They will always be there. If I screw up a shoot, if I want to try another angle, frame it another way, wait for a better lighting, a better sunset, I can always come back again. So a producing pretty picture is just a matter of time. Here is my confession. The 400 photos you see I lugged around are actually picked out from 2 years of sweat. With a 5% conversion rate, you guys can calculate the numbers of photos I have taken. The number of photos of sunrises I have taken of the Eiffel tower, I can arrange them in sequence beside one another and you will be convinced that sun does not rise up but slide along the Parisien landscape from right to left. One day every month, I would leave school at 4am to catch the sunrise from the same spot at Trocadero. Each time the sun rise from a different spot.

Taking photos of people brings the game to a whole new level. Today, a recce to the Botanic Gardens, NUS and Supreme court gave me a better idea of what to do on Monday. I even made it a point to look at all the graduation photos taken by my friends so that I would be able to direct the shoot. No matter how many time you can tell me that there is no pressure and no expectations at all, I still believe in making every photo count. Not every photo is going to come out nice, I just need practice.

i will to improve. 5 shot 1 kill. someday.