my wife can shoot too…

it has finally arrived. the latest addition to our “stuff” is now inside the confines of our home. we researched about it… we ordered it… we waited for it… and now, we have it. 🙂

the next thing to do then is… blog about it. 🙂

for awaited moments like these, it is easy to foresee that we we’re gonna blog next. kaya naman nilabas talaga namin ang camera (nahawa na kami kay fol. 😀)namin to document the unpacking and setting up of this new stuff of ours. since i was the one who was doing the setting up, selle took the camera and started clicking away.  a few shots later, she showed me her shots and i was amazed by what i saw. i stopped whatever i was doing at that time to just admire the photos. my wife has got an eye too. 🙂

yes, this post will be about our new stuff. but this post is also a tribute to my wife’s photography skills. 🙂 you’ve seen how good my wife cooks (see rachael ray post), now wallow yourselves on her photography. 🙂 (yah, i love my wife… and i’m proud of her. 🙂)


the use of lines. the contrast of black and white. the placement of the word “dell.” superb photo. 🙂


again, the use of lines… vertical lines to be more specific. the doorway, as plain as it is, even creates a nice background due its lines.


shallow depth-of-focus and the horizontal lines leads the viewer to the subject.


that’s our computer name… and our computer specs. 😆

yes, our new “stuff” is a desktop pc. the first ingredient in a major scheme we are cooking up. since this pc will be used primarily for video editing, photo manipulation, digital layouting and internet surfing, we needed a relatively high-powered pc. it took us quite a while to decide on what specs is enough. through net research, several forums and advice from our trusty videographer, bob, we finally settled on the right specs. now, where to buy? we could’ve easily bought a clone but we needed a reliable machine that would not break the bank. dito na pumasok ang kuya ko. 😀 being in the IT business and having been once assigned in the states, he knows where to get us a pc. 😉

dell is reputable for offering customizable pc’s at low, low rates. and we did get a very good deal with this. it would take a while nga lang for it to be shipped all the way here pero ok lang. it’s cheaper… plus it’s branded. pretty good deal. 🙂


of course, i did take a number of shots also. can’t help it, eh. 😀


our pc looks so majestic, no? 🙂

now we’re still tinkering our pc, installing softwares and manipulating settings. we’ll give our own verdict on vista in a few weeks or so. i did give photoshop and vegas a quick run through and all i can say is this machine of ours flies. that’s good because if we have been productive for years using P4 and 256/512 MB pc, what more with our pc? 😉

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anna’s sendoff: a night with pisay batchmates, up barkada and bob nicolas’ clients

it’s been a while since i’ve seen my friends. excluding our wedding, it’s probably been years since we’ve last spent some time together. kaya naman when anna, a pisay batchmate & college barkada, came calling regarding a “casual” dinner sendoff, we took the opportunity and made it a point to be there. eh matagal-tagal din mawawala c anna kaya dapat lang andun kami. 🙂

going there, we expected the usual… casual dinner w/ the usual faces plus lots and lots of kwentuhan… and asaran. 😆 when we arrived, something kinda hinted that it would be more than that. 🙂 the setting was definitely not casual. eh, akala namin pumasok kami sa wedding reception, eh. 😀 the food was catered, waiters were attentive, the tables had centerpieces… meron pang floating candles. anna, anna… casual pala, ha. 😉

since not everyone knows everyone at the party, anna introduced us to everyone else (us having the “they just got married” tag. 🙂). this became a recurring chore for anna for every guest that arrived. although merong time na c joyce, a pisay batchmate, ang nag-introduce sa isat-isa. 😆 just a few minutes upon arrival, kainan na agad. good thing na din because we’re getting hungry. 😀

from then on, sunod-sunod na dumating ang mga guests and soon the place was packed na. at first, guests were divided in specific groups… we were with pisay pipol, then the up pipol were in another table, then anna’s ofcmates were in another table… etc. d naman yun intentional cguro, it just so happened that way. hindi naman kasi dapat ganun if only kermin (up barkada) sat with us… kaso she soon realized it was a pisay table kaya sabi nya, “ay, this is the nerd table.” 😆 patawa ka talaga, kermin. 😀

sooner than later the “groups” broke up and then everyone started to mingle with others. we then found ourselves having a very interesting and lively conversation with someone we only met that night. charrie is anna’s ofcmate… and an indirect recipient of our email blog (anna, finding our blog useful, forwarded it to charrie, whose daughter is getting married later this year). nakakatuwa nga reaction nya when anna introduced us to her, “ah, ikaw c dyoks! i have to talk to you.” feeling tuloy namin may atraso kami. 😆 ang saya ng usapan namin. and it is very flattering din na charrie trusted so much our blog that she considered most of our major suppliers. sayang lang kasi most are booked na kaya she was only able to get bob, our videographer. eto pa sabi ni charrie, “we were supposed to get jason magbanua pero after reading your blog, we went for bob na lang.” makes me wonder, ano ba mga pinag-su-sulat namin sa blog? 😀 seriously though, we’re just satisfied and confident with our suppliers that’s why ganun mga praises na sinulat namin before para sa kanila. kaya good call, charrie. you won’t go wrong with bob. 🙂 and thanks din for trusting our blog. buti na lang responsible writers kami. 🙂

that wasn’t the only surprise of the party. early in the evening, we got to talk to rheea & gil, both pisay batchmates. they’re not new faces to my wife dahil nakita na nya sila through their wedding video. yes, pinalabas kasi part of their wedding video sa isa sa seminars namin sa church. i could remember pa nga back then noong pinalabas yun, eh. sabi ko kay selle, “eh kilala ko tong mga to, ah.” 😀 at maganda video nila, ha… menu pa nga lang, eh, pamatay na. 🙂 kaya naman instant conversation starter yung pagkapanood namin video nila. and guess what? eh, c bob din pala videographer nila, eh. ah-ah… ano ba to, 6-degrees of bob nicolas? 😆

continuing with the bob nicolas thread, later on the night we spent talking to hes (up barkada) & migs, a soon-to-wed couple na… bob nicolas clients. 🙂 nakaka2wa cla kasi 7 months pa from their big day, eh almost tapos na cla sa preps. invitations na nga lang ata kulang, eh… atsaka souvenirs. at nung tanungin kung ano color motiff nila, instead of naming out a color, eh naglabas ng swatches. 😆 ibang klase ka talaga, hes… kung sabagay, kami din naman ganun. 😀

the party wasn’t over yet pero we had to go na kasi naman ang layo pa ng tinitirhan namin. it was nice that my friends finally got to spend time with me and my wife. nag-enjoy naman asawa ko… masasaya naman kasi kadaldalan mga kaibigan ko. may topak nga lang karamihan (parang ako. :lol:) pero masasaya kausap nonetheless. 😀 anna, thanks for having this party. it was well-worth the trip all the way from laguna.


left photo:  that’s us besides charrie and more of anna’s ofcmates.  btw, to those who do not know, that’s anna sitted right in front of her mom (standing).  🙂
right photo: up barkada table.  from left to right:  fresh-from-yoga lala, 7-months-to-go-and-we’re-finished-with-our-preps hestia & migs, we’re-having-our-5th-baby goshes, i-don’t-want-to-sit-with-the-nerds kermin and of course, the-newlyweds us.  🙂

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desktop project part 2

gone are the days wherein we buy those thick albums with transparent plastic film on each page. alam nyo yun? yung bubuklatin yung parang plastic cover tapos insert pic or pics then balik yung plastic cover to protect & keep the photos in place. 😆 layouting is limited in such albums… and quite tedious if you make it like a scrapbook.

good thing we are now in the digital age… and take God for photoshop 🙂 because layouting has expanded in a totally different level.

which leads us to our 2nd project regarding the photos taken by our guests. we’re making our very own wedding album. 😀

most of you know that we were very particular in choosing a photographer with not only an eye for taking fresh photos but also extraordinary layouting skills. based on what we saw (and we did see A LOT), most photographers’ layouts kasi do not standout. parang pare-parehas lang cla. common. buti na lang we bumped into fol (and we’re so excited to see how he laid-out our artbook ;-)). kaya eto kami, feeling magaling mag-layout, gumagawa ng sarili naming album. 😆

here’s a sneak peak of a spread we have done so far:


this is the very first spread we were able to make. they say that a great layout should be able to tell a story. we were blessed enough to have an image sequence in our photo collection and the layout revolved around those pictures for easier image storytelling. 🙂


here are the unedited photos used for the layout. first 3 photos by our friend vena. he was the ONLY guest to able to capture the unorthodox bridal walk. maybe it was so unconventional that most were not ready to capture the moment. 😆
the last photo was taken by our churchmate/musician friend during their practice session just hours before the event.

we’re no professionals but here is how we arrived into the final layout:
a) so that it would not look too cluttered, try to choose a single photo/image and let everything else revolve around it. in this case, we chose one of the wedding photos-of-the-day finalist.
b) for easy storytelling, succeeding photos should somehow relate to the main photo. the other 2 pictures create the bridal walk image sequence. the violin suggests the mood at the time.
c) add accents like graphics and/or text on open spaces. don’t make it to catchy as it might distract the viewer from the main image. we chose to add a sun graphic to further emphasize that it is a sunrise wedding. also, added the time during that moment for that added detail.
d) arrange the photos in such a way that the viewer’s eyes will not go all over the place. use cropping, the use of black & white images, color management and other techniques to achieve this.

that is how we came up with out layout. happy naman kami. 🙂 we still have A LOT of photos to layout kaya this will take a while. we plan to do this also for our honeymoon pictures… and other pictures, as well. 😉

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desktop project part 1

remember our wedding day gimmick? the photos-of-the-day? we received tons of photos out of that… and a lot of it are keepers. 🙂
so what does one do with such a large quantity of pictures?
a) print them all and place them in an album? inside a box?
b) select a few, print them, frame them and hang them on a wall?
c) place them on an online gallery?we thought of all of these but decided no to do any of the above… for now. bakit? eh, kasi we wanted to get creative with our photos. we wanted to stretch their value. we wanted to make the most out of them.

what exactly did we have in mind?

as mentioned in one of our old postings (see photos from an amateur videographer), i am into video editing. i’ve been doing it for a while and starting to really get the hang of it. we thought, “why not make an avp out of our guests’ pictures?” oo nga naman. that would be nice plus the fact that we could included it in our thank you token… which we did. 🙂

and we had so many pictures, we decided to make 2 avp’s. 😆

here are our self-made, avp/slideshows. enjoy! 😀
this is actually the 2nd avp that was made. a fast-paced avp with a few effects.


our simulated onsite avp. 😆 i gave myself 2 hours to edit an avp from start to finish thereby simulating onsite editing. i cut myself some slack by using a very slow-paced song. 🙂 and guess what, i finished the project in less than 2 hours. pwede na mag-onsite… not! ayoko nga, kaka-pressure kaya yun. 😛
btw, the photos used here are from our non-photographer/videographer suppliers namely, mik (musician) and kaye (caterer). awesome photos must we say. 🙂

all avp’s were made using sony vegas. yah, i know. most videographers on this part of the world use premiere pro… but not me. 😀 i was introduced to video editing thru sony vegas… it was easy to use that i learned editing simply by watching someone edit thru vegas. it’s that simple. but… i might try premiere pro also in the future. 😉

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