Harthill Hall

© Joselito Briones

This is the manor that we're staying in for the weekend. It's called "Harthill Hall". The fact that it has a huge functioning old kitchen that has an old country feel (solid wood table and bench that could sit 12, chandelier, the works) is already a wow, but that the whole place, including the two living rooms and 6 bedrooms, are done in the same way, is just great.


© Joselito Briones

Photo above is Ann working the kitchen.


Next: Chatsworth

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Bakewell

© Joselito Briones

Video above was taken in Bakewell, a small village-town that's pretty. Unfortunately, the cafe shown above called "Ricci's", whose outside signboard boasts of having "friendly service" was actually very rude. Half of our group went there first and occupied two tables, and ordered drinks accordingly, but when the other half joined us and occupied a third table (there's a total of 11 of us), they were asked to vacate the table because this is for customers who buy drinks for them, but without asking them first if they wanted to order drinks. Losers.

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Fischers Baslow Hall

© Joselito Briones

Today's lunch was at Fischers Baslow Hall, a one-star Michelin rated restaurant in Derbyshire.

© Joselito Briones

Photo above is the reception area where guests can have drinks while waiting for the table.

© Joselito Briones

And this photo above, in the main dining area, shows (clockwise from left) Chris A., Ann, Ronnie, Chris O., Wil, Marco, Jerome, Michael, Gau, Mati and my pork dish.

Next: Bakewell and Harthill.


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gherkin lunch video

© Joselito Briones

video version, just gotta show marco and mati too.

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lunch at the gherkin

© Joselito Briones

Lunch at London's Gherkin Building today. The very pregnant Pearl extended an invitation to us (dining here is not open to the public, only people working for Swiss Re, the building owner for whom Pearl works, and those they invite are allowed in). The view is excellent, as one can see all of London - and it was a clear day by London standard, and above us was only a spiral dome of glass.

Photo (L_R) Chris, Wil, Pearl.





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de-stressing

© Joselito Briones

More birthday greetings. Marco flew in to Portugal from Manila for a bit of R&R, and we'll be celebrating his and Wil's birthday in England this weekend.

Happy birthday Marco!

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No cat needs saving

© Joselito Briones

On my last birthday, having mentioned to him that I now want to make a full length film (ha!), supportive as he always is, Wil sent me a big box of books on film making - everything from screenplay writing, directing, story bording, and digital videography. I managed to read through the books in two weeks and was psyched to get started, so I thought what better way to practice skills than to try to shoot footages on our forthcoming trip to the English countryside. Guided by the screenplay writing book "Save The Cat", I started doing a screenplay, planning to use only the (would-be) available resources - friends to be in it, locations we're gonna be in anyway. It was gonna be a totally camp "Emma" (location, location), but it proved too much in the end. The project is cancelled and instead (as per Wil's request) we're gonna do a video montage to a song. It's his birthday, and the weekend trip to the English countryside to celebrate his and Marco's birthday, so yay! Should be fun.

Happy birthday Wil!


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poker face

© Joselito Briones

This was a test on focus pulling (shallow depth of field, focus shifting from one subject to another). This is a 400x300 crop from an HD1920x1080 video.

j'adore

photo ©Joselito Briones / design: Adapt/Ryan Gello

It's always great when a designer sends me a mail to say he's used one of photos for an ad/design. This one is for a fashion event. Thanks Ryan!


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execution

© Joselito Briones
This is what I get for being too cheap to get a steadicam. Ah well.

bewitched princess

© Joselito Briones
this one is also from lleida, in catalunya. the models were there to have their photos taken, so they were surprised when i asked them if i could shoot video instead. on the first two takes they looked at the camera a lot. then they eventually relaxed and totally camped it.

video taken with Canon 5D mark II, processed in Photoshop Extended.
audio track "revenge" by plain white t's, provided by youtube

bloody catwalk show

© Joselito Briones
this one's from lleida, in catalan

busy weekend

© Joselito Briones

it's summer and people are traveling. a friend, rene (photo above), visited us this weekend overnight. it was a short visit on a short notice so i wasn't able to prepare anything to do a shoot - he's modeled for me before - and anyway it was too hot i didn't feel like doing anything but stay in and sleep. he went out shopping with mati. another visitor last weekend was marcus from london and his boyfriend, who dropped by on their way to ibiza. tonight it's mike from singapore, who's currently doing his euro tour (he was in london and iceland, and passed by berlin on his way to poland). i took an iphone photo of us at the restaurant where we met (tony roma's - for the simple reason that it was right there at our meeting place - the marlene dietrich platz) but when i switched phones (the new iphone arrived finally! and no hassle from delivery guy this time) - the photos were lost. it was actually the first time i met mike, but we're in the same email list that regularly gives updates of what everybody's up to, so we've been corresponding for some time already.


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A change of color

From shooting to being shot. Frieder and the Habbekrats team filmed a commercial video for a special line of Asics shoes that changes color when exposed to the sun, and decided to include me in it. The video includes MTV Deutschland VJ Patrice (ex of pop/soul/rock diva Anastacia) - he's the one riding the bike.


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donath

© Joselito Briones

it's becoming our regular thing to do dinner at donath cafe trattoria on a weekend. we like the place a lot. it's good home-style italian food, no frou frou, nothing fancy, the crowd is not the pretentious type, and the staff is very friendly. that it's a couple of minutes walk from where we live is a plus :)

the owner was also very nice to let me do a stock shoot there with another photographer a few weeks ago (photo, above, is from that shoot).


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p.s. the people from tineye dropped me a thank you note note for what i said the other day. there's no goodie bag, but they were nice to allow me to invite some people (it's by invitation only for the meantime while still under development) who wants to try out their awesome image search engine. if you're curious to try it out, give me a holler and i'll send you an invite!

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floren gallery

© Floren Caintic

remember i once told you about floren putting up his own gallery in hong kong? it is now a reality. he calls it floren gallery, and recently held a successful group exhibit of filipino artists based in hong kong, called "alternatibo".

and the timing of this post? his birthday, of course :)

happy birthday rene!


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holy macaroni! batman, is that you?

© Joselito Briones

did the ikea thing (buy useless must-buy things, eat tasteless food) last weekend. just about everything was available in black. is black back? i didn't get the memo. even the gloves i usually buy for dishwashing are now available (only) in black. ok it's latex and it's matted, so not really shiny black but more like lead charcoal. either they've finally caught on to the emo thing, or they're riding the barack popularity wave. and seeing how popular ikea is, don't be surprised if you find black in just about every household you visit, at least in germany.

i ran out of the old tangerine-colored gloves last night so i tore open the new black pack (even giggled a little: black latex gloves, hi hi). lo and behold, i like it! now i know how batman feels when alfred is out running errands and he's got to do the dishes himself. of course after nearly dropping the plate i was washing i just snapped back into reality. the magic was gone. some wise guy once said it's not the mask, it's the process of transformation. that process ended abruptly, unfortunately.

home dining tip #12: get yourself proper pasta plates. even mediocre pasta tastes good in one. it makes the food look special. it makes the serving look less (you'll feel less guilty in gobbling the whole glob of whatever trash you put in it), and it gives you a feeling of "there's something special in the air" which is, sad to admit, the only time we ever go to a restaurant that uses this kind of plate. the one pictured above (really big and heavy) is from manufactum, one of my favorite shops in berlin.


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image search technology

© Joselito Briones

thanks to tineye's ubercool search technology, i've recently found more of my imges in use, including the front page of msn.com's swiss site (unfortunately already changed to a different photo):

cosmogirl.com
zigonet.com
openroad.tv
healthtalk.coom
hubpages.com
hoax-slayer.com
real-restaurant-recipes.com

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models, inc.

© Joselito Briones

am now totally sold on using professional models, not exclusively, of course. it's just so easy. it's difficult to take bad photos of them, they know how to love the camera, they come all groomed, and at least here in berlin, they come on time. :) one even came with a viktor & rolf goodie bag for me when he picked up his copy of the photos. how cool is that? :)

photo above is of david , whom i photographed a couple of weeks ago.

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photos coming out

© Joselito Briones


Some of the photos I've taken are starting to show up in some online magazines, including the one above, in "Women's Health":

womenshealthmag.com
cosmogirl.com
boston.com
eurorizen.be
mcflight.de
voyageetbusiness.com
primus electronics



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Image of the Week

screenshot of iStockphoto.com website

Woo yay!!! A photo I took of Daniel made it to the site's Image of the week feature. :)


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Our Story Now Begins

© Joselito Briones

Yep. Finally happened. I got my copy a couple of weeks ago. Have a listen.


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