denise on a storefront display

© Joselito Briones

We were shopping in San Francisco today when I spotted this photo I took of Denise on a store front of a fragrance shop :).


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vetta

screen capture of istockphoto's vetta page

one of the photos i took of dan got featured in istockphoto's vetta splash page. makes it worth all the trouble :)


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bestest goto ever!

© Joselito Briones
this morning omar and i drove a couple of blocks to ate uding's apartment to pick up this goto (rice porridge with entrails) that she made. she's basically been cooking filipino food the past few days, always very good. the other day she made pochero. saging na saba and all.


© Joselito Briones
and how handy is it that there's a kalamansi tree in the backyard?


© Joselito Briones
and as if that isn't enough, the goto came with sweetened saging na saba (very similar to plantain) wrapped in spring roll pastry then deep-fried. it's usually called turon in the philippines, but where i came from we call it sagimes.


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Video of the Week! WOOOOOOT!!!!

screenshot of iStockphoto site

i don't know where i've been, it took 2 full days before i found out that one of my video clips has just been featured as video of the week. woo hoo!!


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Hampstead Heath

© Joselito Briones

LIfe's been easy... most weekends Jerome and Ronnie would invite us for a drive somewhere nice for a weekend (they bought a brand new volvo). This time the destination was Hampstead Heath, within London. The area we set up picnic in is called "Kite Hill" or "Parliament Hill". Needless to say, there was plenty of food and wine, and picnic necessities (plates, cutleries, wine glasses) willingly lent to us by Waitrose. Pictured above are (L-R) Mati, Ronnie, Jerome, Gaudi, Mickael.


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an outsider in the inside

© Joselito Briones

as i'm sure you know by now, i'm back. and what time to be here, this place is just full of happenings. on international scale there's the u.s. open (isn't del potro just so cute?), on a more local level there's broadway-on-broadway, and of course there's fashion week in bryant park.

i was difficult to miss the massive tents in the park when i came out of the 7 subway station so i checked it out. at the entrance was a crowd of fashion fans and wannabe's and photographers. i climbed and stood on a podium on the side, but i didn't even bother taking out my own camera as there didn't seem to be anything interesting happening. what did catch my eye was an old man in a blue jacket who was just taking pictures in the perimeter of the crowd, generally ignored. i watched him for a while and saw how smoothly he navigated the crowd, his quick scan of everything around him, taking pictures of what seemed to be nothing in particular (he was in general looking below eye level, so it was obvious he was not interested in taking photos of faces). when i saw him load and reload his camera with an old-fashioned film roll, i took out my camera, took photos of him (circled, above) climbed down the podium, and followed him :)



© Joselito Briones

it was just amazing how fast he looked at things, decisively taking pictures of the few things that interested him, but quickly dismissing everything else. it was clear that the man has been doing this forever. i pictured myself doing the same when i get older :) there's this man who clearly could be someplace comfortable taking it easy and yet his passion brought him here.



© Joselito Briones

the more i followed him tho, it became clear that "becoming like him" is something one can only dream of. the man went up the stairs, was greeted and waved through by the event guards, and entered the tents. without showing an i.d., or badge, or an invitation that was required of everybody else. when he came out it was with people who seemed to be v.i.p.'s of the event (points to you if you can identify whom he's being chummy with in the photo above).

having taken numerous photos of him, i asked one of the guards who he is, and was told that he's a new york times photographer who regularly does a fashion feature. when i got back to jane's here in jackson heights the first thing i did was google him.

BILL CUNNINGHAM.


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markus pimping his watch

screenshot of madetobeunique's design

a photo i did of markus was used in this online bling store.


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Coordinated

>

take 2 - i don't know what happened this time, the photo got posted but not the text that i wrote with it.

we met up with the jonescheits tonight and it was the cutest thing that they showed up clothes coordinated - jeans and white shirt and khaki jacket and summer coat. zoë also had a hairpin on her barely-there hair :) the photo, again was taken by the iphone. i'd have taken a proper photo too, only it was already getting dark when we met up that i didn't even bother bringing a proper camera.


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Luisenpark

>
Luisenpark is in mannheim. We're here until friday, then off to
stuttgart to attend frieder's wedding.
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me and my mini wini

© Joselito Briones

this week is junk food week. why? because. :)

i decided to eat whatever's on the shelves and in the fridge - i find that often i buy things and they end up expired and uneaten. this is food storage purge week. two days ago i had nacho chips for breakfast. and two boiled corn cobs for lunch. also, as the idea is to not go to the grocery to buy stuff while there's plenty of edible stuff at home, i've also been munching on kellogs honey nut cereal without milk (soya milk usually), for dinner. cantuccini and marinated herring for lunch.

the champ tho has been the miniwini's. they're just so lovely and uncomplicated. they're right up there with cheez whiz and spam. they're tiny wieners basically (hence the name), extra crunchy skin, and can be eaten straight from the jar.


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happy hour

© Joselito Briones

this is a stillframe from one of the videos that i've been working on, taken last tuesday, in the dining room that i made up to look like an office space. it's supposed to be friday afternoon happy hour at work, of course - and anyway the beer i gave them is alcohol-free.

i managed to upload a few of them already, but they won't get inspected until after about a month.

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yashica in veronica

katja was sooo kind to alert me on this use of one of my photos, in the popular dutch tv magazine "veronica". this one was taken in brooklyn late last year, the model is yashica.


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the latest harry potter movie - rather boring and uneventful that i'm just putting the whole blog entry in the title field.

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new shoot

© Joselito Briones

i did a shoot today with joel and (mostly) a friend of his, dan (photo, above), a language teacher from L.A. so far i've been lucky this summer to work with nice guys. and so far they all fit in my clothes that no expensive purchase of wardrobe for the shoots has been necessary.

today's shoot was also a challenge. i've pretty much covered the dress-up kind (for now) so i thought i'd do something more stocky. guys at work, working and doing other stuff. that's not the challenging part tho, they both did well and were very professional - it's the dressing up of the set that killed me. it's a short-notice shoot, so there was no time to scout for a real office location (and it's not like i can afford to rent one right now), so i made one up at home. the home office we have is kinda all over the place and not very photogenic (because it's a real working office - ha!) so i decided to dress up the dining area to make it look like an office. it took me all day yesterday, until the wee hours of the morning, to redress the space and i think it did look like a genuine office in the end. i haven't got the energy anymore to put it back to how it was after the shoot, so i'm spending all day tomorrow to do just that (sooo not looking forward to it).

is it worth it? that i saw it was possible (i knew it was possible, of course - just had to actually see it) was good. photography/stock wise probably not. i spent way too much time arranging the set that by the time it was time to shoot i was exhausted and with very little sleep. i ended up shooting only a small variety of set-ups, and in most cases my eyes were too tired to be sharply focusing on what i was doing. i think i'm too old to be doing the one-man-kick-all (to borrow a chinese expression) kind of thing. i don't really have any choice tho. it's not like i'm getting enough from stock photography to afford hiring a team. i did that a few months ago in miami and, well, my projection based on my average sales for those photos is that it's gonna take me at least a year to recover the money i spent on the shoots - hopefully they'll get downloaded beyond their first year so i can get something for my time and effort. it's always been comforting to think that i'm enjoying the challenge and getting whatever fun i get out of it, but to think of it in practical terms (as stock photographers were advised, soundly, at one point - to think of it as a business decision) - it really is downright depressing.


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infectious drive

© Joselito Briones

more photo of Joel. i didn't really have anything in mind for the kind of photos to take of him, but he seemed determined to do a shoot, his drive kinda infectious. besides it's not like i'm busy doing much else.

yesterday i finally got enough of the same drive to travel all the way across the street to the doctor's office. mati's been constantly reminding me that i have to go get some vaccinations, can't remember what kind, it's all written in the yellow card that all germans keep with them, and i've since been issued one from autumn last year when i got myself a flu vaccination. anyway, doctor said i don't need anything right now, and to come back after september, when it's time to get another flu shot. not to waste the energy i spent getting out of the apartment, crossing the street, and going up the elevator to his clinic, i asked him if i could use his office as a photoshoot background, to which he said he doesn't mind, but not now. come back after september. what is it with this doctor and after september? downstairs from the doctor's clinic is a drugstore. well i was already there so i thought i might as well ask them about using their place of business as a photoshoot set, too. the owner was reluctant (she seemed shy, if anything) so i left her my card and asked that she think about it.


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catalog photos, iphone delivery

© Joselito Briones

i've finished some of the photos from the shoot with louis. basically i tried to make them as simple as possible and catalog-like, with blank (so whoever downloads the photos can put their own design) and plain-colored t-shirts and mix-and-match clothing items.


***
the postman's ringing of the doorbell woke me up today. i had to hurry up to put something on (not easy when you're still half asleep) because they usually leave in about half a minute after ringing the bell. he's here to deliver the new iphone - mati's gonna use it and i'll be using mati's, but it's registered under my name, so he asked for my i.d. i couldn't be arsed to look for my passport, so i showed him my nyc driver's license which was just in my wallet, in my pocket. he looked at it for sometime, then said it won't do (you'd think once he saw that it's a driver's license and if a license won't do, that he'd just straight away say that no, he has to see the passport - but no, he scrutinized the license). he asked to see my passport. so. fine. still half-asleep i rummaged through my drawers to find it. couldn't find it for sometime so i phoned mati to ask if he's seen it, but couldn't reach him. all this time the postman was scanning and rescanning the package (maybe he's hoping to get different results each time). finally i found my passport and handed it to him. he actually read through all the pages - when all he had to do is look at the first page where my info is. after a while he said, "your name in passport is (first name + middle name + last name), the iphone order is for (first name + last name), sorry you'll have to reorder". at which point i really can't be bothered anymore, so i said ok. he just stood there tho, like he's expecting me to argue with him or something. i mean what more does he want? that i produce another passport that satisfies his requirement? he just stood there. i didn't want to close the door on him so i just started to walk away, giving him a chance to re-scan the package if he wished, at which point he saw that i wanted nothing to do with him anymore, so he left. i closed the door and went back to bed.


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potato salad

© Joselito Briones

today's dinner: potato salad with mixed mushrooms, sage, pepperoni, white wine, parsley and shaved parmesan cheese. i did the traditional german potato salad the other day (one with ham and gherkin) so i thought i'd try something else tonight.


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chris

© Joselito Briones

last week was floren's, today is chris' birthday. photo taken when mati and i visited them in hong kong late last year. we had lunch in their balcony. chris flipped burgers for us. ha! (he grilled 'em in the balcony). happy birthday chris! 

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mannequin

© Joselito Briones

today's shoot went fairly smoothly, to the point that it was also a bit boring. same seamless paper background as the other day, and lotsa clothes changes. that he wears exactly the same clothes size as me (at least when i bought the clothes) was a big plus. model louis is a skaterboy whose facial features look so delicate. summer holiday for german students started this week, so he was able to do this shoot.


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more from yesterday's shoot

© Joselito Briones

i rushed some photos from yesterday's shoot because i haven't uploaded anything for a week, and i was able to do 4, here's one of them. another shoot tomorrow (if the model shows up). good thing josephine came in today and ironed the clothes for the shoot tomorrow, else i would've had to do it myself.


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today's photoshoot

© Joselito Briones

i finally decided to get one of them seamless background hanger, just so i won't have anymore excuse not to do studio-type shoots. it was delivered this morning. just in time for a photoshoot using a seamless paper background! today's model is Joel, who's swiss and who's just come back to europe from one year of music studies in the lala land.


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Where do you want me to look?

© Joselito Briones




*****
Any photographer who has ever done a shoot with models would have been asked this question at one point. It's easy enough to remember that your point of view will be exactly the same as that of the people who will see your photo. The answers:

"Look at the lens."
-(keyworded and disambiguated as "Looking at Camera (composition)")
Easiest and direct, this is where the photographer makes the most connection with the model. There is instantaneous feedback between the two, and both are immediately satisfied. Ads that use this kind of photos are direct and confrontational - hard sell. It says to the viewer, "You! Look here, you want this. Trust me." Needless to say, for this kind of images to work, you need trustworthy-looking models, or at least ones whom a viewer will not feel threatened by. Exception is when you deliberately want your message to be threatening.

"Look away from the lens"
- (keywords: Looking Away / Sideways Glance) Probably the most popular stock pose. The viewer is totally comfortable looking at the photo because he knows he is not being addressed, yet if the body of the model is still mostly facing the camera, there's still some sort of connection between the the subject and the observer. Like safely watching someone - there's a chance of direct contact but at that particular moment that the photo was shot, the viewer is within the comfort of anonymity. Add a hint of a smile and the ambiguity of connection between subject and viewer is enhanced. If the model's body is also turned away from the lens, the dynamics is lost and the viewer really is just an outside observer - even with an interesting expression, the subject is perceived to be reacting from a third person in or out of the frame.
- (keywords: Looking Away / Looking Up / Candid) The subject is mostly reacting to his/her own thoughts and feelings, or carefree and unaware of his/her body language, usually on the positive side.
- (keywords: Looking Away / Looking Down) Introverted and shy. It could be someone who's very personal or very sly. It also suggests that the subject is completely aware of being observed.

"I don't know, anywhere."
- The photographer is either very inexperienced that he doesn't know what to do, or he's very confident that he kows he can make it work whatever the model does.

"Let's try a few varations."
- The photographer has been making stock photos for sometime.




*****


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floren

© Joselito Briones

it's birthday greets time! this one goes to floren. photo taken of him in his seriously posh home office, something i'm so hugely envious of.


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clones

© Joselito Briones

ok, last ever photo from the uk, promise. this was the intended effect from the previous photo of michael.


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michael

© Joselito Briones

this is the only solo photo of michael i took from the trip, also in harthill hall.


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chris

© Joselito Briones

another one i haven't posted a photo of from the UK trip group, chris. this one was taken at the gherkin restaurant.


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jerome

© Joselito Briones

i've just realized i haven't posted a photo of jerome yet, so here it is, taken in baslow hall.


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wil in haddon hall

© Joselito Briones

and yet another one of wil. so by now you know why there wasn't many of him to begin with.


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one more of wil

© Joselito Briones

he's been complaining that there isn't enough photos of him from the derbyshire trip, so here ya go.


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i thought i'd write you a letter...

© Joselito Briones

one of marco's more inspired performances, photo taken in harthill hall.


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hoshi hoshi

© Joselito Briones

i had my hair cut today. i wanted to have it really really short, but chika decided to cut it little by little while asking if i really wanted it shorter. as always, she did a great job. the short length made my gray hairs more visible, which is fine. it's perfect for the summer.

photo above is of their poster in the hackescher markt s-bahn station, close to where their shop is.


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P.S.

i remember i did another post about having a haircut in their east village branch in new york... and waddaya know... it's the same haircut as i have now!

baked chicken

© Joselito Briones
fresh from the even


© Joselito Briones
ready to go

i made this last sunday. basically chicken breast filled with basil-butter, then wrapped in bacon, then baked with potatoes and cherry tomatoes, and capers. that leafy thingy in the photo is of course rosemary. the recipe was from some charity thingy back when we were still in london.


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the gayest usb hub of all

© Joselito Briones

i bought this one last weekend, made by LaCIE, because i can imagine the effort that the designer must have gone through. ha!. it also comes with a usb lamp and propeller at the end of those stiff cables. seems to work, if a bit difficult to set up. i can return it within two weeks if it turns out it doesn't do its job, so i thought I'd show you now, just in case. ah who am i kidding, i'll prolly keep it.


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vapiano

© Joselito Briones

I so wanted to like this restaurant. It's so nicely located in Potsdamer Platz, and convenient after watching a movie because it's right by Sony Center. It's even recommended by a friend. The decor is decent and yet friendly. The staff is nice.

The concept is also interesting. It's basically self-service. Upon entering, you are given some sort of a credit card that you present to the staff who makes the food, then when you go out you give back the card and they'll see how much you've eaten. Inside, you grab a menu, take your pick, and give it to someone behind a counter who'd cook the dish right in front of you. Okay, that's kinda pretentious in a it's-so-fresh-and-you-know-exactly-what-goes-in-your-food kind because let's face it, everything is ready-made and portioned just-throw-'em-in-the-pan ready, but at least it's different. In Berlin if it's different enough people are bound to at least try it. So try we did. So hmmm... maybe self-service and waiting on the counter for your food may not be the best idea after all, especially when you can be sitting instead of standing and waiting in front of the cook watching him throw everything in the pan. But wait, the serving actually looks pretty! So hey, this can't be too bad, right?

Then of course time to sit (communal sitting downstairs, didn't bother to check out the sitting upstairs) and do away with the food. And this is where it all falls apart. For a restaurant that serves mainly pasta and pizza, and boasts of having their pasta always freshly made, their pasta is just plain yukky. It would've done them better if they bought the usual boil-em in a big pot ready-made pasta, any kind, because any kind would've been better. Theirs managed to be both soggy and gummy at the same time (I tried two kinds, just to be sure). No bite whatsoever and the thing sticks in your gums! Hahahaha! It's just horrible. You know how when you bake bread or anything with a dough and some part of the dough doesn't get cooked, so it's all like sticky and ewwwy? Well, soak that part in some water and you'll pretty much get the consistency of their pasta. It's so bad that I wasn't able to finish my small bowl of pizza dish. I can't remember when's the last time (must be years) I didn't finish my plate because I always eat a lot, so this gives you an idea of how bad it was.

Can't wait to try their pizza! Ha ha!


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peonies

© Joselito Briones

The peonies we bought last weekend are officially dead. It's kinda disappointing because I was expecting them all to open up. I love fully open peonies. When we bought these two big bunches from the farmer's market we were told by the man selling it that we should put it in very hot water, almost boiling, so the stems won't go limp (who knew?), so in hot water it went, and the stems remained relatively stiff, unfortunately the flowers didn't bloom any further either. Ah well.


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ann and chris in hardwick

© Joselito Briones

more of the loving, camera-friendly couple. this one was taken in hardwick hall.


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ann and chris in dovedale

© Joselito Briones

more from dovedale, this time ann and chris again. was such a lovely day.


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david in print

© Joselito Briones

On a recent Air Berlin flight I saw this magazine advertising a man's bracelet using a photo I took of David. Always nice to discover my work used in such a way. Oddly though, I cannot find any web presence for the company advertised - "Rhino".


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wil in dovedale

© Joselito Briones

i took several photos of wil with the ice cream, the things he did with it tho, this was the only one publishable. Also taken in Dovedale.


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video test

© Joselito Briones

i thought i'd try what sort of quality direct video upload in blogger.com gives, because i recently uploaded videos to youtube and the quality degenerated so bad (a 1080 vid shrunk to about a quarter of the size, so the uploaded version was crisp, but the resulting video from youtube's processing looked like it was taken by an old video phone), so i decided to remove them again. after checking youtube's Q&A forums it turns out that they introduced some new quality (or lack thereof) settings recently.

as you can see from above, it's not worth uploading videos here either.

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death by beauty

© Joselito Briones

i wasn't sure at first if this was wil or marco, but as soon as typed in the title, i knew it had to be the latter. Also taken in Dovedale.


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another useless info

© Joselito Briones

Did you know that in moviehouses in Germany (in the commercials part of the screening in the beginning), the last ad would always be for an ice cream, immediately after which all the lights would be turned on, and from some corner, an usher would yell, "anybody want some ice cream?" (in, German of course), carrying with him a box of the goodies for sale?

Photo above also from the recent trip to Miami.

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ronnie in dovedale

© Joselito Briones

This photo of Ronnie was taken in Dovedale river.


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drobo

© Joselito Briones

i'm drobotomized! finally got to buy this data storage/protection system. i can't really afford it, but since i find myself buying external hard drives more and more, i'm hoping this will be the ultimate solution. i bought the standard 4-slot thingy, together with 2 of 2-tb hard drives. the thing's been absorbing my data since this afternoon, so i don't know yet how good it is. will report later.


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classic english landscape

© Joselito Briones

this picture's taken in dove dale. i thought i'd try to make it look like an old english painting.


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do try this at home

© Joselito Briones

i don't know why but i cook almost everyday but rarely take photos of the food i make. maybe i should always set up the camera even before i started cooking, i think usually by the time i'm done in the kitchen i always just want to eat it quickly.


© Joselito Briones

today's food is home-made potato gnocchi and braised oxtail. i made the gnocchi earlier in the day (i'm kinda messy, as you can see), the oxtail a few days ago (always better reheated), i decided to take out the bones and just serve the meat and sauce. would've been better if instead of the basil i used fresh sage fried to a crisp, but i don't have any sage today. ah well, next time.


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