dEaringfilm

Mighty Mai T - Early May 2008

From what I hear Riverview Park is flooded right now, it reminds me of the summer of 1993. There was flooding all over Iowa that summer, I remember a lot of my friends would volunteer to help sandbag. When I would travel to play the summer tennis tournaments I would have to worry about the driving routes because some highways were flooded! I sort of called it the great flood of 1993. My buddy Wyatt Coleman would drive his Power Wagon or as he called it the "PWah" through the flooded streets of Fort Madison. On a funny note he also drive his normal car through it and we had to vacuum the water out, great times. So as you can guess the sun would only shine when the clouds cooperated and I would go outside as fast as I could to play tennis or enjoy that great sunshine. In this month model gallery of Mai I let that good friend of mine the sun shine right into a lot of the photos in hope for fair skies :)

We shot from evening till night and in some of the night photos I used the Alien Bee's Ring flash. The thing feels like its gonna fall apart but it delivers a pretty decent looking image, its best to use a small camera like the Nikon D300 on a portable ring flash because it can get heavy and you have to drag that big battery around. Rumor is buzzing that Nikon will release a handful of low light fast primes sometime this year and a few other cameras but its the primes that really excite me. Hopefully they do it before my trip to Japan end of year. I will also be adding a new section to the site very soon on articles that I write, some will be photo articles, while others are almost blog like in nature.

Mighty Mai T is of course a play off of a cartoon I used to watch as a child in my babysitter Dodie's basement on Oak Drive called Mighty Mouse. Mai is not as small as Mighty Mouse but she is just as willing to get the job done :)

related links outside dEaringfilm: Downtown Los Angeles camera i used nikon d3 and Nikon D300

Mollie with the Golden Smile - April 2008

When I was a kid growing up in Iowa I used to play video games at Wong's arcade downtown Fort Madison, Iowa. I loved that place and it was 3 blocks away from my grandmother's house, so it was a easy walk. Kwok Wong had the best ham fried rice and egg rolls in town (the only ones), and you could eat while playing games. Kids would typically go there before and after a movie at the Fox theatre. While I was in Junior High Wong's got a game named Street Fighter II, about every kid I knew loved it. There was a character in the game called Sagat and he was a Thai Boxer (Muay Thai) from Thailand. Every character had a special killer move and I thought Sagat's was a move called "Thailand Uppercut," because he would shout it out while doing the move. But remember true readers that this was back in the basic 8-bit sound days and maybe my ears needed cleaning but he was actually saying "Tiger Uppercut." I had also liked a song called One Night In Bangkok, but I had no idea Bangkok was in Thailand.

Fast forward to today, I think Thai food is pretty decent and I really like the vegetable curry and music I currently like is on my Muxtape. So this month I have photographed my first Thai model, she has a great smile and wonderful personality and her name is Mollie. We did some interior shots and some in my favorite ever repeated hotspot downtown Los Angeles. The entire photo shoot was shot with a Nikon D3 and a nice spattering of Nikon's finest lenses. I guarantee she will not give you a "Thailand Uppercut" while browsing! heheh

The gallery name comes from James Bond's The Man with the Golden Gun, which was filmed in Thailand. I know its a stretch, but hey I like her smile :) Only like 20 more Bond name gallery rip off titles to go! I also named my last gallery with Sherry Wu "From Sherry Wu with Love" after the bond film From Russia with Love.

related links outside dEaringfilm: Downtown Los Angeles camera i used nikon d3

Lake Balboa Cherry Blossoms - April 2008

I really like the color pink, and I have grown to really enjoy the presence of flowers. They smell great and look great, what more can a man that loves beautiful things like? I also have a healthy obsession with the Japanese culture, which in turn they have a healthy obsession with time of the year that the Japanese Cherry (Prunus serrulata) are in in bloom. Japan has donated a lot of Japanese Cherry Trees to places all over the world including my very own Lake Balboa Park. LBP is close to where I live in Los Angeles so come April-March every year I try to venture there to look at their beauty and take a few photos. This does not even compare to the season in Japan, but if I am ever in Japan during that season I will be ready to take some great grabs. My mom would love to see this, she should come here this time of year :)

related links outside dEaringfilm: Lake Balboa, Los Angeles, California
camera i used nikon d3

Dogs - April 2008

I grew up as a cat person, my favorite cat was given to me on my sisters birthday (hahah got you Hilary), his name was Odie. Since his passing my experiences with cats has been hit and miss, it even seems I have grown allergic to them now. So at this point I guess on a daily basis I have to result to a Sphynx cat or grow to love dogs, which I have done. This gallery features a few dogs that I have been around this year, and leads me to believe that there are only a few species of dogs I can tolerate. I really like my parents dog Sachi, (Japanese for “Lucky”) he is a real Pembroke Welsh Corgi and is a pleasure to shoot. He also appeared in my gallery Tails of the Heartland back in 2006.

related links outside dEaringfilm: Iowa
camera i used nikon d3

Miracle Mile Sarah - March 2008

Sarah Kim gets down in the Miracle Mile's hot new LACMA run BCMA (by Renzo Piano). I was surprised how cool this new structure is, and have yet to explore all the photo related opportunities. One can have quite image creating day or night there. We also shot downtown LA, which is a hot spot of night based photography in Los Angeles. There seems to be more and more renovation going on downtown as the city has been cleaning it up so it feel much safer than it did just 5 years ago. Some of my other galleries with beautiful Sarah are Sarah As You Love It, Sarah Kim Beauty and the Beach, Sarah Kim a Midsummer Nights Dream and Sarah Kim Spring 2005.

I used the usual suspects like the AF Nikkor 28mm f/1.4D the AF-S Nikkor 24-70mmf/2.8G ED and the AF-S Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8G ED . I can totally depend on the D3 at night without a tripod or monopod, using proper self bracing techniques. Nikon Capture NX is not as bad as it seems. I was a "Capture Classic" pusher, but this new version with Windows Vista 64-bit and 8gb of ram almost runs as fast at the "Classic" version. I tend to edit only about 4-5 images at a time because it still has issues, but it really treats NEF files better than other RAW editors.

Miracle Mile was a badly made 1980's movie with a very dark ending. But it suited this gallery name perfectly because most of the images we shot were in duuuuh Miracle Mile.

related links outside dEaringfilm: Miracle Mile, Los Angeles, California, Downtown Los Angeles camera i used nikon d3

Oh Mami Mia - Late January 2008

I choose a dark and moody shoot for Mami and I think it worked out well, although we did some stuff in the daylight in Malibu for the fun of it. She was energetic and fun to work with but when it came time to shoot she knew what do to, which is surprising for new models. As you will see we did low light indoors and outdoors just to really push the limits of what we can get.

Shooting in low light without a tripod can cause a lot of focus and slight camera or subject movement errors. I experienced these issues with the Canon 5D but tried to deal with them at times unsuccessfully. The Nikon D3 has given me the assurance I need in low light by providing better focusing and a much higher frame rate while maintaining the FX (full 35mm frame) advantage for my style of shooting. Shots that would have been lost with just about any other digital camera are achievable now with the Nikon D3. I also enjoyed using the AF-S Nikkor 24-70mmf/2.8G ED, it is pin sharp wide open which is a surprise given the results of the previous version. I just hope Nikon realizes that not everyone can get their hands on a overpriced AF Nikkor 28mm f/1.4D (like I did when it was out and not overpriced), and releases a new version for us low light and hand held lovers. It should not be impossible to produce a version of the 28mm 1.4 with AF-S and VR. Anyway the D3 is quite a dream to use and finally there are no excuses for us low light people in terms of camera bodies.

This gallery name come for the old saying "Oh Mama Mia," and sort of a take on the ABBA hit song and musical "Mamma Mia!" Yes I listened to a lot of ABBA growing up, ABBA gold was one of my favorite CDs.

related links outside dEaringfilm: Park La Brea, Los Angeles, California, Malibu, California, Gardena, California, camera i used nikon d3