Break dancer

Posted on December 4, 2012 by Alexis Thomas

Last Wednesday, I had the opportunity to join my photography class on an on-location photo shoot at the Rebel Dancers studio in Nicosia. There were 4-5 different classes going on at the same time, ranging from Belly Dancing to Break Dancing, mostly attended to by teenagers and the occasional adult. The owner there was nice enough to allow twenty or so photographers lagging all their cameras, tripods and flashes to enter any of the classrooms and shoot at free will.

I must say that getting a decent shot was by no means an easy exercise. Freezing motion in a precise and eloquent way, is truly a tough skill to master and requires a bit of luck to be on your side as well. You are in a studio indoors with harsh, unflattering and inadequate lighting, constantly fighting motion blur, taking shot after shot, praying that at least 1 of those shots comes out tack sharp. I brought with me my Canon 24-70mm F2.8L lens, a fairly fast lens one might say, but even at F2.8 and an ISO bumped all the way to 3200, I could barely get 1/100 – 1/250 sec shutter speeds.

I must have taken close to 500 shots, and this was one of only two or three shots that according to my criteria came out half decent. By no means a stellar shot, but given the amount of effort that went behind this exercise, I believe it earned a place on my blog page!

Taken with my Canon 60D camera, at F2.8, 1/250 speed at ISO 3200.

A 94-year old face

Posted on December 1, 2012 by Alexis Thomas

One can look at a portrait of someone and immediately sense the hardship of that person’s life and wealth of experiences. This is my grandmother, who is about to turn 95 in a few months and is every bit as energetic and well spirited, as she was 35 years ago when we first met. Unfortunately last week she lost her balance and fell, ending up in the hospital for a fairly minor and routine procedure. Surprisingly enough, this is the first time ever in her life that she had to see the inside of a hospital as a patient. But even laying on a hospital bed recovering from her operation, her spirits are still high and her mind 100% there. Wishing her a fast recovery and many more years of good health and happiness!

Kalopanagiotis Bridge

Posted on November 26, 2012 by Alexis Thomas

This past weekend, I decided to take a break from scuba diving (that has more or less consumed every one of my weekends for the last 4 months), and headed up to the mountains for a change of scenery. Nothing beats going up to my family cottage with the company of good friends, and spending 2 days of playing board games, watching movies, walking the nature trails and cooking loads of food.

This is a picture of an old bridge taken near the well known sulphur springs of Kalopanagiotis. I mounted both my ND2 and my ND4 filter on my Sigma 18-200 lens, to slow down my shutter speed and capture the flow of water. Taken with my tripod-mounted Canon 60D camera at F22, ISO 100 at 2 seconds.

Toronto Center Island nature

Posted on November 18, 2012 by Alexis Thomas

For anyone wondering where this blog’s header image originates from, well here is the entire non-cropped colour picture. This image was taken back in 2008 on Center Island in Toronto. I am fairly fond of this picture, particularly because it was one of the very first (yet decent) pictures I took when I started experimenting with HDR photography. I am usually good at archiving my pictures, but for the life of me I can’t seem to find the original RAW files, so sadly the EXIF data is pretty much gone.

On another note, it seems that I am heading back to Myanmar in a couple of weeks, only this time I am making an effort to do some sightseeing both on the weekend before, and on the weekend after my work week. More specifically, I am planning on visiting Bagan (an ancient city in the Mandalay region of Burma), and Bangkok (on a 2 day layover on my way back home) to take a train tour on the famous bridge of the river Kwai. Admittedly I am pretty excited about the photo opportunities of both these destinations, especially given the fact that my camera has not gotten much use over the last 5-6 weeks. Stay tuned!

Limes in Soda

Posted on October 27, 2012 by Alexis Thomas

This post is a tribute to the end of summer. For some of my friends in Canada, summer is long gone, but for us lucky people living in the Mediterranean, the bit of mild Winter that we get to experience is just around the corner. No more cold refreshing drinks, and onto hot cups of coffee and tea.

This is my first attempt at a still life picture of a couple of limes in soda. The idea came from an article I read in the Digital SLR Photography magazine that I religiously subscribe to on a monthly basis. For anyone who wants to get more seriously into photography, this is a great magazine to read as it gives dozens of tutorials every month aimed at improving your skills.

For this shot I would have really liked to show the motion of lime splashing into the soda. Unfortunately I don’t really have the equipment for something like that, so I had to settle for something more static.

Taken with my tripod mounted Canon 60D and Canon 100mm F2.8 Macro, at F5.6, 1/15 sec.

Face painting

Posted on October 14, 2012 by Alexis Thomas

A few people asked me why the kids in my previous post had paint applied all over their face. In fact the vast majority of Myanmar people and particularly the women that I saw while I was there, had that yellowish-white paste on their face. Apparently, this paste is called “Thanaka”, and is extracted from a specific tree which grows abundantly in that region. Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia, which explains it in a bit more detail:

“Thanaka cream has been used by Burmese women for over 2000 years. It has a fragrant scent somewhat similar to sandalwood. The creamy paste is applied to the face in attractive designs, the most common form being a circular patch on each cheek, sometimes made stripey with the fingers known as thanaka bè gya, or patterned in the shape of a leaf, often also highlighting the bridge of the nose with it at the same time. It may be applied from head to toe (thanaka chi zoun gaung zoun). Apart from cosmetic beauty, thanaka also gives a cooling sensation and provides protection from sunburn.It is believed to help remove acne and promote smooth skin.It is also an anti-fungal.”

I took the picture below at a local tea shop towards the end of our day tour in Yangon. In fact, this girl was our waitress there, who after serving the tea (which incidentally no one touched), she thought wise to pour the entire tea pot into a plastic bag and hand it to us to take home! Gives a whole new meaning to “doggy bag” I suppose!

Taken with my Canon 60D, and Canon 24-70mm F2.8L lens at ISO 400, at F4.5, 1/250 sec with a +1/3 EV exposure bias.

Ferris Wheel

Posted on October 5, 2012 by Alexis Thomas

Continuing with the series of posts from my recent trip to Myanmar, this is a photograph taken at sunset at Inya Lake near the center of Yangon. Luckily I had taken my tripod with me on the tour bus, on the odd occasion I would need to take a landscape picture in low lighting conditions (very nerdy I know). I guess lugging it around with me sort of paid off with this HDR picture I took of a young couple watching the Ferris Wheel at sunset.

Shot with my Canon 60D and Sigma 18-200 F3.5-6.3 OS lens at ISO 400, F4.0 at 1/40 sec, exposed at -2/0/+2.

Faces and smiles of Myanmar

Posted on October 1, 2012 by Alexis Thomas

Poverty, malnutrition and bad hygiene are very apparent as your walk through the streets of Yangon – the result of the country’s mismanagement and years in isolation. The words of a Myanmar university professor who we met during our trip, described it perfectly – “In the past, Myanmar people were scared to dream of the future. They would close their eyes and all they saw was nightmares. For the first time in years, they are now able to dream of change – a better tomorrow for themselves and their children”. Simply looking at the smiles on the childrens faces this is indeed very apparent.

Part of our tour included a boat ride across the Yangon river, so just before noon we arrived at the ferry terminal. The picture above is of 3 out of many children that greeted us outside the terminal, who were really eager to be photographed. Clearly their motive was money but admittedly their emotions seemed genuine. After posing for what seemed like 100 photographs, they each revealed a set of 10 postcards that they were selling for 2000 kyats (about 2 euros). One must admire the business sense of these kids, as there was no way for me to deny giving up that money; not just for the postcards, but in return for all the pictures I managed to take of them.

Shot with my Canon 60D and my Canon 24-70mm F2.8L lens at F2.8, 1/1000 sec at ISO 200.

The emotional element of photography

Posted on September 24, 2012 by Alexis Thomas

They say that there is an emotional element to photography, and that photographs can sometimes instill deep emotions to both photographer and viewers alike. The picture in my post today definitely falls into that category – at least for the way I felt while capturing this scene on the ferry across the Yangon river.

For someone looking at this photograph, the first feelings would be those of sadness, hopelessness and desperation for both mother and child. For me as the photographer however, there was also another feeling – that of guilt. On the back of my mind I felt that I was taking advantage of the situation for my own selfish benefit of taking a “good” picture. Then again hundreds of pictures are posted each day of children starving in Africa, war amputees, survivors of natural disasters. It was definitely the first time I have ever felt that way taking a picture, but looking back, my feelings of guilt are somewhat relieved by the fact that I can share this picture with the few readers of my blog and help raise awareness of the poverty and misfortune that people in less developed countries have to endure. Pictures like these should make us all appreciate being who we are and being content for what we have.

Shot with my Canon 60D and Canon 24-70 F2.8L at ISO 100, F2.8, 1/60 sec.

Myanmar – A country at a crossroad

Posted on September 21, 2012 by Alexis Thomas

I consider myself very fortunate in my lifetime so far, as I’ve had the opportunity to visit a number of countries around the world and experience cultures, history and ways of life much different than those of my home country. Although I had recently visited other Asian countries, nothing could have prepared me for the last 10 days I spent in Myanmar (Burma).

Myanmar – a country of 60 million people – is in the midst of a remarkable transformation. Since 2010 it has started loosening its protectionist measures, moving from a command to a market driven economy and commencing the long journey from a military dictatorship to a democracy. Its people for the first time can look forward to a better quality of life, filled with the simple things that we in developed countries take for granted.

From a timing perspective, my visit could not have been planned any better, as I got to witness a country at a crossroad – slowly taking baby steps to opening up, while foreign mega-giant companies are waiting impatiently to jump in and enjoy the spoils. I am certain that in the next 5 years, this country will undergo a radical transformation of the magnitude witnessed by China and India in the past few decades.

I was fortunate to join a team of consultants to travel to Myanmar to assist a company in better preparing itself to face the challenges of what is about to come. During the weekend, our client arranged a tour of Yangon as well as the outskirts of the city. I can say without a doubt, that this was the first time I ever had the chance to take a genuine behind-the-scenes look of a country’s culture and way of life. Needless to say that my camera got more use in the last two weeks than it did in the last year! Everywhere I looked, there was a picture ready to be taken. Some of these pictures I want to share through this blog, so there will definitely be a couple more postings to come!

This first picture was taken on the Yangon Circular Railway, which as the name implies, loops around the city and its suburbs. We got the chance to ride the train for a whole hour on our way from the city center to the statue of the Reclining Buddha. The ride itself was an experience, with people carrying eveything with them on board – from sacks of food to even their own mattress!

Taken with my Canon 60D and Sigma 18-200 F3.5-6.3 IS lens at F5.6, 1/400 sec at ISO 400.

Light Paintings

My journey into photography

Author Archives: Alexis Thomas