Breaking the Record

Ten Years ago it was Kuala Lumpur with the Petronas Twin Towers . Now its Dubai turn to break the world record in having the tallest building in the world with Burj Dubai (photo above). I have the oppurtunity to witness the construction of these two skyscrapers.
I was involve in the Construction job of the Retail Podium of the Petronas Twin Tower. Just working below this building so I have the oppurtunity to go to the top floor.
I always see Burj Dubai since its near to where I workk so i passed by that structure everyday so I took time to take a snap of it and hoping I will have an oppurtunity go to its top level oneday. Currently the Construction are on its 93 rd level what is rumored to be 180 floors well till now they haven't confirmed on how tall this skyscraper will be. Lets just wait and see.

Seasons Greetings

Wishing you all a Blessed Christmas and a Prosperous New Year.
Thank you very much for taking time to visit my page.

Caroling in the ME

One scenario I missed during the Christmas season here in the Middle East is children singing Christmas Carols (Caroling) in front of your house or in your car during traffic stop in exchange of giving them loose change.
Well I didn't missed it completely as the next door kid together with his cousin go in every room in our place to do some caroling there are only four rooms iin our place so they sing in every room like 4 times.
Suddenly feels like your home again. Well before giving them my "Aguinaldo" as they say it back home I took a couple of snaps at them.

I just want to greet everyone who have time to read my blogs for the past year a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

My Top 11 Photos for 2006

Shot in a Desert in UAE

I started it last year where I show my top 10 photos of thr year now I'm showing you my top 10 Photos in 2006 actually its 11 just having hard time till the final minute to choose on which photos I will drop so I decided to post the 11.

A view of Dubai Creek by night

One of the many Mosque in UAE

Creek Park, Dubai

Somewhere in our neighborhood

Most of the photos here were shot in the UAE with a photo shot in Manila. Photos here are a mixture of Digital and Film (Yes I still shoot in Film even in the Digital days ) shots. And these were from my personal project and arrange in Ramdom order.

Portrait of a Friend

Portrait of CJ

Burjuman Plaza, Dubai



A street kid in Manila Bay



Somewhere in Dubai


In a Desert somewhere in UAE

Honorable Mention:

I also included a couple of picture though thay don't rank in the top 10 or 11 but they are pictures that are shot using my Cellphone so i thought to include them as honorable mention.

Macro this time

My first crack in Macro photography in years. Well I didn't even used a Macro lens (shame,shame,shame) but one of my Mentors told me before that he was able to do Macro photography for several years using a Close up Filter. So I used one to give it a try for my first subject I use what most of Macro Photographer used a "Flower". I have to photograph this flower early in the morning (on the way to work actually) because this flower wilt in the afternoon and have some fresh one when morning comes don't know the name but its similar to the Yellow bell but obviously its not Yellow so for sure its a different name har har har.
Well what do you think?

Now its Cricket

After shooting Rugby last week now its the turn of Cricket. Used to watched this sport in Star TV but even I watch it for hours still couldn't understood the game.
Last Thursday was our company annual cricket tournament. I have a chance to watch the game live and since I'm already in the area its time to bring out the long lenses and switch on the 5FPS mode of my DSLR. While I have a chance to shoot the game I begin to understand the it even just a little bit.
Here are some photos I shot.

Rugby

Just want to show some picture I shot during the Dubai Rugby 7. Its my first time to shoot a Rugby game as its my first time to watch a live Rugby game as I watch the sport every now and then in Star Sports when I was still in Manila. I seldom shoot sports and on that rare times I shoot a Basketball game. Well late this week I'm looking forward to shoot another sport which is Cricket as our company will held its annual Cricket tournament. For the now here are some Rugby game pictures.

Lately I started to enjoy listening to Podcasts. In my iPod I actually listen more to podcast than to music I always download even the past episode of the few podcast I subscribe in iTunes which ranges from Photography podcast to some Tech news and podcast about Mac. I enjoy listening to "Mac Geek Gab" have some news, useful information and tips about Macintosh a must for a new Mac user like myself. Right now I'm catching up with my listening . What I enjoy about podcast is I have something new to listen evey week.

Its raining

For the first time in my stay in UAE it rained.So whats the big deal well its the first time for this year that I experienced rain. Its just a minor drizzle but it lasted for hours so theres mud all over the project site. Traffic was much worst. Then late in the afternoon Power went out in the office. Suddenly feel like I'm back in the Philippines.

Update of previous post (What will happen to this??)

Just attended the awarding ceremony of the nationwide photo competition without expecting anything. Just went there to see my entry being exhibit in the hall and to chat with my photographer friends. Seeing the other entry makes me think if my photo did make an impact to the guest and judges.
As the awarding goes underway all the participant were presented with a certificate well at least theres something I got. Then when they called the top 20 finalist out of 200 entries well to my surprise my entry was one of the 20 finalist whooaa didn't expect that my photo did make an impact. We'll it will always be that way. Whenever I don't expect anything when wentering a competiotion I always got away with something.
(See the photo of my entry on my previous post.)

Zager

Zager001
Originally uploaded by mondp.

Its been weeks since I got hold of my Camera and did some serious shoot. Its not I'm lazy maybe I'm not into the groove of shooting pictures. Every now and then I just want to post some old pictures which does not yet appeared in any my galleries/blog.
This is one of them (I think). A portrait of a Colleague. Shot mid this year supposedly for my project submission when I took up Black and White Developing and Printing.
I did not submit this picture in favor of another picture. But this one is worth posting because its one of my Favorite Black and White portrait.

What will hapen to this??

This will be my entry in a Nationwide photo competition sponsored by our Camera Club. The theme is "Green Desert" the way I interpret it it should show trees in the desert. For the duration of the competiton I didn't have time to go deep in the desert again to shoot some pictures for my entry. So the logical thing to do is to look in my stock photo library and here's what I got that that will go with the Theme at least. Judging and awarding will be less than 2 weeks from now. Not to sound pessimistic I'm not really expecting my entry to win but for the record everytime I submit an entry for a competiton that I didn't expect to win I always come away an award (one of them First Place) but if I submit an entry with confidence expecting with an award I always get empty handed. So what will happen to this entry??? We'll find out in less than 2 weeks.

A connection at last

Finally got a connection from the house only thing I have to go out of the house literally in order for me to get a decent speed. Just okay for checking some quick email and to write a quick post such as this one.

Playing with Light

Doing some experiment shots a few months back this involve playing with available light in Interior shots. Came up with this shot of a stair with the light source coming from the skylight.
This was shot around 3:00 PM.
Place: Burjuman Centre, Dubai, UAE

One Lazy Afternoon in the Park

Last Thursday was a Lazy Afternoon. Half day at work with nothing particular place to go and nothing specific thing to do. I decided to go to a nearby park in my place and shoot some cityscape on dusk. The skyline was not that clear as there are some traces of sand storm but I still shoot some frames as I'm already in the place. This are some shots that I like.



The building in the Background is the Emirate Towers one of the landmarks of Dubai, UAE.

I'm planning to come back to take some pictures again hopefully that this time the skyline is clear.
Picture below are a view of a Man made lake in the park plus one of the park's restaurant and of course the Emirate Towers.

It happens to other places as well

Take a closer look at the picture. Whoever says that this happens "Only in the Philippines" is wrong look again. I will not mention directly where is it but if you know my current location knows where is it.

Digital IR Photo

A couple of months ago I showed a photo tweak to simulate an Infrared Photo. I've always wanted to do Infrared photography. Since Infrared films are hard to find nowadays what I did is what they called Digital IR photography where you tweak your digital image in Photoshop to simulate an Infrared Image. I'm showing you some of the image I've done so far. I'm still doing some more experiments in shooting as well as the tweaking to further improve these IR images.

I'll post again when I come up with new Infrared images.

Front Wheel

This is the latest from the series of bicycle pictures that I shot for the last 6 months. I will rest of my bicycle picture collection later.

Shooting Kids again

Its been a while since I shoot some Kids pictures. I seldom shoot Kids nowadays not that I don't like to shoot kids in fact they are one of my favorite subjects in fact I won first place in a photo competition a couple of years back with a portrait of a kid as my entry .
Its really challenging to shoot kids back in the film days I'll be happy to have 5 good shots in a roll.

Special pics

This is one of the rare times I took a snap on her. So its time to post her pic. I haven't post her picture before in any of my blogs and online galleries, so this will be the first time.
To some of you who knows me personally knows what I mean.

Another Portrait

Another portraits shot with the Lensbabies. I'm beginning to enjoy doing street photography but of course the usual etiquette specially when shooting people still applies and thats keeping me out of trouble so far.