Leaving 2008 behind, yet not forgeting it

Happy New Year 2009 to all viewers who come to this blog. I am feeling blessed throughout last year and would like to thank God for all the opportunities He gave me last year, especially the gift to cheer people with photography. I would like to appologize for anything that was posted wrongly or anything that did hurt someone out there with all my posting in this blog. It is my pleasure to serve and to offer my best for everyone who wishes to have my service. There are times I did things wrong, there are times I did it well... whatever the outcome... We must remember that everything we have now, is a gift from above. Its temporary and won't... really wont last for long.

Bellow was my recent shot last month. Its a picture showing the sun set at Kota Kinabalu. Reminding the ending of our year 2008. I do have loads of nice pictures to share with everyone but I am sorry as I don't have enough time to share it with everyone. on time. Perhaps if you could wait and link my blog to yours, you will see more works and improvements coming in.

There are loads of plans and challange that I have sorted out to be faced in this year. First I am going to graduate as a Teacher end of the year, thus most of my times will be on the desk with my book, and laptop. Second, I'll still need to ballance my life as a student and working as a freelance photographer. Third, my commitment to my friends, family, love ones, God, Church... and last but not least... My leadership roles in life.... Those are the vital points that shape me as human.... without it... I am not what I am today....

Life is just a journey, we choose... God project... we follow by faith. I am a no believer in fate or destiny. I strongly believe that the CHOICES are IN OUR HANDS. God doesn't destined, He gave us a free will.. WE are FREE to CHOOSE... either GOD's omni knowledge preferrance , or OUR own limited knowledge's choices.

Friends, lets take a while and count our last years blessing and give thanks.....

Sincere Greetings:
Frisco Daniel Maligir

Landscape Shoots

I have many shoots kept in my External HD. If you are a photographer and love shooting, I suggest that you get yourself an External HD with the capacity of not less than 250GB. Right now I'm shooting 10mp at 3-4MB sized Jpeg or 16MB sized RAW format with a 8GB memory card. Just imagine if my memory gets full... eventually it will, I know, thats why I sometimes have hard time sellecting which pic to post when I have loads of option=) hehehehe...

These two shoots was taken when I was on my way back to Tawau from Kota Kinabalu. I traveled from Tamparuli at 5.30pm and arrived National Park, Kundasang at 6.10pm. At first it was cloudy and taking good landscape seems a disapointment, however luck changed and the clouds give way to the sun... and here are some of the shoots i manage to record.

I did saw a photographer near the Nunuk Ragang area (not really sure what mile was it), was thinking of stoping however time is catching me, I really need to reach my hostel before 2am and yes, i did manage to arrive safely with 3 stops of resting the eyes. This will be my routine most weekends until next year ends... and by then, I'll make travelling my great hobby.

The Mosque

it was 7am (or was it 9..), i was on my way back to Kota Marudu from Kota Kinabalu. I was pretty exhousted that day (i remember) with lots of business while its bright, remembering a client once requested me to edit her wedding film-negatives with a mosque as the background, i quickly remembered that i need a big mosque picture in my portfolio. So i stop by the roundabout in Likas and took my tripod, levelling cube and camera gear... lari2 crossing the road and took some shoot. So atlast i manage to took one nice shot, but unfortunately i forgot to click in RAW... aiyo.. sayangnya...

Dantai Sunset Scene Part 2

Here's my part 2 of the previous Dantai Scene shoots. The first picture is somehow not really up to what i expected to be, however i wish to share it with you. I know you could get something better than this,yeep.. its probably not my luck to be on a beautiful sunset this time. Here's a lower angle, taken with a slow shutter speed of less than 1 second/f1' using a tripod. so here you are... enjoy my humble shoots.

Dantai Sunset Scene Part 1

Presenting to you some of my best shoots of ocean view that i manage to snap this week. I was very-very busy the whole week (although it was holiday). I had to drive back and forth Kota Kinabalu - Kota Marudu and attend the Dantai Sabah Wide Adventist Youth Festival Camporee from thursday,friday, and taking clients wedding pictures saturday night then driving back to Tawau for 8 hours with less rest on sunday. Not counting the days i've been busy on Mon-Tues-Wed too.

The shoots bellow were taken at Dantai sea shore. Not a very great scene with fantastic evening sunset cast on the sky, yet it is still something i manage to take despite the BUSY-BUSY days. I admire Jollence shoots of sunset, knowing that to have it right, you need to be on the RIGHT TIME, RIGHT PLACE, and RIGHT EQUIPMENTS. So enjoy the two humble pictures, and hope you wont miss Graham & Erniwee's Wedding Shoots posted previously too.... REGARDS!

Still Life Photography

This shoot was taken with my kitlens 18-55mm at 3.5 wide aperture opening. it seems like it works quite well in blurring the subject, but i believe steping down from 2.8 to 1.4 can increase depth of field well enough.(picture taken at SDA Retreat Centre Kundasang, without tripod, macro lens or reflector)

Shoots like this are really easy (for the amateur and pro levels) since the subject-flowers aren't moving. But when theres strong wind then you might need to wait till it stills. The most important consideration is not your lens, but how you plan to compose the picture. Applying the rule of third will work sometimes, but still it doesn't apply to all photo's. Therefore you need to be patient and imaginative to create something great.

Bina Insan Guru- BIG Borneo Paradise Eco Farm Resort

Welcome to Borneo Paradise Eco Farm Resort, Lahad Datu Sabah... This is my first time to step this place. We were here to participate in the Teachership Attitude Development Programe which 'maktab' students use to call as "BIG" or Program Bina Insan Guru.

We had kayaking, hiking and abseiling as part of our activities besides having tutorials in group activity forms. The camp was challanging for some but for those who are fit on the going, its just another vacation trip for them.Unfortunately i couldn't post for you the shots taken while we were kayaking, i just fear my camera will get wet... and damaged... argh, there were others who help record the moment but the pictures haven't been handed to me, so this are only some photos of the scene which i manage to capture for you guys...
The landscape isn't that outstanding compared to other well maintained travel destination, but if you're a fishing fan, with those fishing rod,bait and box ready, this spot is surely a great spot for fishers lovers...

Wild and rare creatures are perhaps another good point of attraction for why you should be here. During our camp, i did spot a few rare birds, the red nosed Bayau (scientific name forgoten), and this fishy thing with legs... hey, you know what creature is that? do buzz me if you do, its like a fish, but can live above waters, it has gill, and legs too, just like amphibians but isn't it a fish... rare, wierd yet true...
The view of our camp... close view are guy's camps, the ones to the far end at the background are the girl"s camps... we slept on flat but stoney ground and its really hard to sleep, but when youre damn tired, you wont mind much about comfort...
view from the jetty, this is where we start kayaking out to the sea.
Okay, this is another technique called Framing your subject with another subject in the foreground. i purposedly used the flowers to add sense of depht and scale of the subject, it also acts in hiding unwanted objects or sections of the subject to be included into the picture. photographing the bus alone will make ur picture looks dull, so add some contrast, variance... (i learnt this from famous photographers book from the library, trust me, this is not mere empty bluff...) hehehehehe
Pink in contrast with the grey-brown wood pole as the background. focus is on the flower.... erm, reminds me of the pinky sakura leaves la...

Times Square and Pudu

This was a shoot taken using just my Digital Compact... again, i would like to stress out to everyone... who says a digital compact couldn't give you good result... But ofcourse for the professionals, you will notive that this shot isn't the original one, surely i did some image tweaking in Photoshop... and to name the technique-HDR that stands out as Hyper Dynamic Range... urm, i don't want to talk much about it, all i can say is play with layers, brush... it doesnt matter if its a single image, or you have a sequence of multiple exposure image... whatever.... all you do is add layers and brush it out...
You can see the colors stand out more than ussual.. saturation, details... yeep... and the location? above is the famous shopping mall in Malaysia- Times Square and bellow is the view of the old-old historical Pudu Human Cage... a.k.a panjara... heheheh... picture taken at Hang Tuah train station....

A Landscape of GASS Raintree

A simple Shot of the grassessssss... normal eyes can hardly notice its significance, but if you train them to have the artistic sense... you can get good eyeing results. A picture of the Raintree, full of story and hidden secrets of many students who once studied in GASS - Goshen Adventist Secondary School. Shoot was simply taken in Raw with a Circular Polarizer attached. did minor adjustment in PS.
Patterns and Contrast of the sky and branches does add some good lead to the eye. disadvantage is the High Dynamic Range effect that causes the dark to be more darker and the highlights to over.
Again, the contrast of green and blue sky.
See the patterns? if you are a fine art lover, i think you might be interested in this:)

How I Took My Shoots~

Like i say before, photography is full of fun and exciting experience, discover how i took this wonderfull shot as you go through every pictures.

What do you guys think about this? i edited it in photoshop with layers. Top layer was BnW, base layer was colored. i used erasers and a bit of burning here and there for the photo. pluss i tweaked the colors a bit to let it stand out. if you wish to know more.... i can teach you=)

This one of the first shots i took during the first few days right after i got my Pentax k10d. the colors are a bit underexposed yet it was purposedly meant to be so. i'm trying to portray some dramatic effect to the whole scene.

This shot was taken using my Canon Powershot A540 (who says a digital compact can't get great effect like this!!!). all i did was increase the shutter speed, waited for the right momment and snap. Timing is important here...

This is also quite simple, slow down your shutter speed. check for the brightness in your lcd screen, dont just hand held it, make sure your camera is solidly stable to avoid movemment. for this, i placed my Canon Powershot A540 on a stable ground, set the shutter release to 2seconds and crossed fingers"!~ (again, who say a humble digital compact can't take great shot!!!)

This scene is the same as the one taken above. this was taken from another side of the walkway, which is on the right side. i couldn't rest the camera on any solid structure, so what i did was rest my hands while holding the camera on one of the raillings and held my breath. it was quite challanging since the Thai Sky Train caused the ground to shake. however, waiting for the right time pays you well... like this shot...

Free Wallpaper

You want wallpaper for free? i can give this for free for you. hehehe, no kidding... although the quality wont be as good as... those found on the net, but still... this is a good chance for you to collect good quality Sabah Photographs as your wallpaper... all you need to do is send me an email- tico_tic@yahoo.com or tricky_tic@hotmail.com and send me the pixel dimension a.k.a pixel ratio of your monitor screen, and i'll adjust for you the best resolution for your screen.

(pinky green)

(View of Institut Perguruan Tawau, Sabah- where im currently studying now to earn a Bach Degree in Teaching, majoring in Physical & Health)

(Black n White Conversion of IPTS)

Photography Watermarks

Someone has just given comments to my pictures through Yahoo Messanger, at last, someone appeared and criticized me.. (something that i have been long waiting for)...

Im currently upgrading and promoting my service for you. Im currently upgrading my camera kit for better performance, besides that, im also thinking of creating a simple, objective and creative watermarks for my photo's...

(My Watermark)

At the moment, i have tried ACD text adding and its a bit.... uncreative and old fashioned, so i begin designing using Photoshop C2 and got one, yet its still very disturbing to the whole view of the photo...

I'm also thinking of setting a website with my own domain name. that would easily link viewers directly to my photos and blogs, including other sites related to me & photography. current software for building is Microsoft Frontpage, but it's not that good enough. Dreamweaver is one of the good ones, however i'm exploring Flash maker... for a more artistic and dynamic site... heh~ the site will probably get published by mid year. with the domain name that you might be able to guess... try if you can~?

Hello Everybody

Hello,

I was searching for the best blog server to post my pictures, i have surf and even created account in a few sites. so i found this site.

trying to put up something...

here are some pictures i took...