i have a website... derickalli.com

at first thought, hmmm... having a website is too advance for me. i do blogging just to while away time and be able to have a channel for my photo works and thought. sort of like - a spillage of what i think on the photos i took... but having a paid site, that is something else.

now i have it... a new site: derickalli.com and i am very ecstatic about it. as in ecstatic...

entries in this blog account might come a bit random and seldom.

saranggola...

it is a sunday... i decided to go out with micah and head over to the park... when we reached the place, she suddenly got so giggly and started giving out excited laughter. the reason: the park was filled with colorful kites. some of the kids were running with it trying to make it airborne. vendors of kites were everywhere. families gathered together staring at their kites while it was fluttering and moving skyward. truly, it was a sight to behold. the park teeming with people on their afternoon walk interspersed with the colorful interplay of the lightweight material of the kites.

postscript: i still am wondering how to upload pictures without compromising quality.

glum -- in between laughter

i was at a friend's house for a get together before a friend leaves cambodia for good. i took it to myself to take photos. As the night wore on - out of nowhere - i asked mr e to take a photo of me -- one single shot and here it is...

aglow II

a series of photos taken of micah using quadtones. these photos were shot originally in color. location of the shoot was outside the house of my friend dr m in chicago.

aglow...

i discovered quadtones in one of my readings. sort of tried it on one of my photos and i liked it. it definitely will stay.

i took this photo during one of the gatherings amongst friends celebrating the birthday of bea. i saw micah playing gleefully with michelle with the light source coming from the open doorway and the light bouncing off the floor. this photo was originally taken in color and i decided to convert it to black and white and topped it off with a quadtone finish. the effect is truly amazing.

flowers, state of louisiana

one of the luxuries i have in this vacation is focusing on one of my hobbies -- the click hobby, so to speak. one sunny afternoon at the house of my mother-in-law in the state of louisiana, i took hold of my camera and just sort of like let things adrift -- walked around the house and was mesmerized with the flower garden made colorful with the flowers in full bloom. i am not really a flower photo shooter but this is one subject that is easy to tackle and hands down provides full satisfaction.

bye bye bus... not...

...immigration stop at the border

on my birthday, i gave myself a present - trip to vietnam... all just fell into place for this trip... my wife thought this would be good for me (we celebrated my birthday the night before with friends), a dear friend, m - conceded to my invitation of going to vietnam on a short notice and my work contract has not come out.

this trip was supposed to be for the philippines but due to circumstances that favored me staying - the vietnam idea came up...

bags packed - including cameras - one on my belt (a back up point and shoot) and another one inside a carry on camera bag. my friend m procured the day before tickets for us and arrived at the house twenty five minutes before departure time... left the house still at a comfortable time of fifteen minutes.

as we were nearing the bus station, i remembered that i picked up my mother and sister at another bus station when they visited cambodia before. immediately, we informed the tuktuk driver to proceed to another bus station - five minutes before departure. i was already feeling uneasy thinking that we wont be able to make it. we got there on time but the bus was nowhere to be found. it was stationed at the location where we originally was heading. alarm bells started ringing loud. we definitely are not going to make it.

phone calls were made from station to station. and we were informed to intersect with the bus station in route. i feel like we were on a mission - it was an adrenaline rush and the tuktuk driver was pushing his engines to the limits (could do more actually). as we arrived at the designated intersection, we saw the bus turning and i thought, this is it. we definitely will be able to make it. i was wrong. the bus didn't stop. phone calls again - loud harsh voices from our end of the line asking them to stop for we are already tailing them. the bus kept on going. another phone call - this time harsher and louder. again, it didn't work.

heavy traffic ahead - the bus crawled into a very slow pace, my hopes went up again. we got to the side of the bus and the tuktuk driver started banging on the side of the bus for them to open the door, to no avail. up came the bridge - i said to myself, if we don't make it this time, trip is canceled. phone calls again - the bus will stop at the foot of the bridge on the other end. it stopped. we hurriedly got off the tuktuk, carried our bags and settled comfortably at our assigned seats. the trip is on. as i normally would say on these kind of instances - it was a photo finish. vietnam, here we come...

090527

...of shops and flowers, saigon, vietnam

... machine at rest for the day - olympus e520 of m

as i stepped out of the hotel to start our trek of the 'urban jungle' (urban jungle daw o - hehehe), i couldn't help it but be reminded of the story i read of a photographer visiting vietnam whose camera, a nikon d300, was snatched from him. i think that was the cautious side of me that brought up this thought - hoping too that my camera sling is sturdy enough to withstand a yanking force. but then again, as photo opportunities started materializing, this thought just dissipated into thin air... for an obvious reason... camera capture started.

this time its on the park's flower beds and shops that are scattered around the city... interesting though that parks are named resembling a code, i.e., park e291.

090528

look who's here II... samapi sportsfest 2009

taking photos of people really gives me this certain sense of satisfaction that can't be compared when i take shots of scenery or other inanimate objects. i took another look of the file folder of the shots taken during the second sunday of the samapi sportsfest and decided to have another little compilation of fav shots.

090607

street scenes: ho chi minh (saigon) city, vietnam

here are scenes that welcomed us in saigon as we did our walking tour of the city. i brought along my lighter dslr camera (in this trip) for convenience but as the day wore on it started to weigh like a ton (exaggeration)... i slung it on my shoulder, constantly shifting it every now and then to what-have-you positions to make it more bearable. it was a very hot humid day coupled with being lost finding touristy sites using an old map... there would be spots (cafe), i considered oasis, that re-energized us on our never ending walk around the city. i am amazed by the resilience, patience and most importantly, the sense of humor of my companion. thanks m - the laughter shared during this walk was tantamount to being drenched with cold water on a hot summer sun - rejuvenating. now, let's continue walking... :-)