MANNY VS THE MEDIA

it's been a week and i won't validate the atrocity boxing fans witnessed in last week's title fight between manny pacquiao and timothy bradley.  i was compelled to write and vent about it here, but i encourage you to do a google search on the fight results and it is clear that my opinion wouldn't be unique at all.

instead, i wanted to post the column i did write before the fight that talks about how the match itself was being overlooked in favor of the persona that manny pacquiao has developed in recent months.  whether it is a distraction now or in the future, only time will tell and i'm sure boxing fans will agree that using last saturday's match isn't a fair benchmark to know what this version of manny pacquiao is really like.

bonus: the good folks at mabuhay also encouraged me to contribute a photo for their monthly feature entitled "mabuh-eye".  big thanks to the editors for the opportunities they've given me the past few years.  and a big congrats to my good friend jeff cruz on his recent engagement.  who in the heck would want to have the pressure of photographing his wedding?

courtesy: mabuhaycalgary.ca

de jesus. still fuming. out.

THE FIGHT ISN'T IN THE RING

here's a link to my latest article at mabuhay calgary - a column talking about the mega fight that is on, off, and then on, and then off again.  the posturing is annoying, but what's more annoying is that instead of covering the event, i'm covering why it might not happen.  to read it straight from the website, click here.

courtesy: mabuhaycalgary.ca

these fighters, these promoters, this industry... many years looking cowardly.

de jesus. still waiting. and out.

WINDOW TO INFINITY

from concept to production, the development of a commercial project is one of my favorite types of projects i get to work on.  i am very lucky to know talented people who sometimes need my help in developing a part of their own creative work by enlisting my photo "expertise".  throughout my blog, you have seen examples of various projects other than weddings, and as much as I enjoy working on weddings, these creatives really challenge me to think outside the box and find ways to use the tools at my disposal to make something work that may have not been there at first.  today's blog features an exciting and challenging project that took a few weeks to develop: album artwork to match the personality and tastes of a very talented musician.

cam mcburney is an instrumental rock guitarist inspired by the greats like joe satriani and stevie ray vaughan.  even without lyrics, his music tells various stories and is in its own way a personal diary of his thoughts, opinions and experiences both good and better.  armed with a guitar, a computer and a unique understanding of songwriting assembly, cam has managed to self-produce albums that unfortunately not many people have heard of quite yet, but it is sort of like an undiscovered indy treasure that "people in the know" are very proud to be a part of.

cam approached me a few months ago while he was working on his third album and had a conceptual idea of what he was after for album artwork.  the third album, titled "window to infinity" was to feature the human eye in all of its detail.  the pupil, the iris, the eyelashes was to figure prominently on the artwork drawing direct parallels to the album's title.

in order to really get that close to the human eye and have access to the kind of detail we were looking for, it was clear that we had to attack this with a macro perspective.  so i enlisted the help of a beautiful model (kaila - who has the most intensely hypnotizing blue eyes) to help us out while i hooked up the elinchrom lighting gear and slapped on my nikkor 105mm f/2.8 micro lens to make it happen.  and after an hour of shooting and various lighting situations, we managed to get the following straight-out-of-camera images:

what did i tell you about her eyes?  amazing eh?

on its own, these images were pretty good and with a little bit of clean up type quick edits (i.e. saturation, exposure and crop) we could have probably thrown in some text and made it work.  but i thought it was missing a little something extra, something to really make this image really pop from a delicious steak to a savoury filet mignon.

so i tinkered a bit in photoshop...played with different tools, tried on different filters, changed hues and a combination of each.  but anything i was trying wasn't really doing it for me.  the sizzle wasn't there. so i left the computer for a while to think about it without staring at it.  and then it hit me.  it was so obvious, why didn't i see it at first?  kaila's eyes, so blue - like giant watery pools of ocean that flowed in some sort of continuous motion without end.....kinda like infinity.  WHAT??!?!

so i sat back at the computer and went at it.  my mission was to give the iris some detail to transform the image into a flowing pool of water, while still making it look like a photographed eye.  and so after several attempts using liquefy and a handful of treatments to choose from, this was the edited image that was selected:

and after a final round of touch up edits here is the completed product:

sometimes transforming an image into something completely different than what was straight out of camera (SOOC) is what is needed.  i'm not a photoshop expert, but there are times when photoshop achieves exactly what needs to be. you can have all the right gear, the right equipment, the right model...but the process from camera to final product is sometimes where the real creativity takes place.

check out the album cover but more importantly, check out and indulge in some of cam mcburney's music on itunes (here) - featuring his new album, "window to infinity".

it's all in the eyes...the true windows to the soul.
may your lenses feel clean.


de jesus "brown eyes" out.

CELEBRITY GOLFERS

in case you didn't get a chance to read my latest column on celebrity golfers on golfwrx, you can find the article here.

screenshot courtesy of golfwrx.com

again, big thanks to golfwrx for giving me the opportunity to write with them on all things golf.  as many of you know, i'm very passionate about the sport and this is definitely a big step in checking off one of my bucket list items.

de jesus. waiting for "spring to swing"...the sticks.

BEAUTIFUL INTERIORS - TYN LOUNGE

unfortunately, i cannot claim to have designed the beautiful interior of one of our city's newest restaurants -  TYN lounge.  but fortunately, i do know who did and was given a wonderful opportunity to photograph his work at the restaurant. Desmond Desmarais, lead designer at labu design, wonderfully crafted the clean interior design to match the modern and energetic feel of the space and menu. for more on desmond's work, please visit his website here.

below are some of the images i took for labu design and TYN:

just to refresh your memory, here are the images of some of the delicious menu items at TYN that i took a few months back in a previous post.

please enjoy the photos, but more importantly please enjoy the restaurant and check out the food, ambiance and staff of one of the more exciting dining experiences in our city.

de jesus. out.

AND THE WORDS CONTINUE...

i am very excited to announce another new collaboration with myself and one of the major golf websites in the world. golfwrx is a community site for golfers and fans looking for tour news, equipment reviews and general golf news from all corners of the globe.  the main focus of golfwrx is to promote the game of golf for fans while providing unbiased, educational information for players ranging from the hacker to the seasoned pros.  the site itself averages about 1 million hits a month, which means they have slightly more traffic than there is on my blog (just by a bit though).

the partnership will allow me to write feature columns on a regular basis on all things golf and thanks to the editors, i have been given a lot of freedom on the topics and theme of each article.  as most of you already know, i am very passionate about golf and this new venture will allow me to share my thoughts with new and old fans while maybe, just maybe, allow me to appreciate the game even more (if that's even possible).  below are a couple of screen caps of my first article on the site entitled "super sunday hangover" and the link to the actual article can be found here.

big thanks to the staff at golfwrx for taking me on as a contributor for their growing website - here's to hoping for good things in the future!


de jesus. golf writer. out.

NO SHORTAGE OF WORDS

i am pleased to announce a new partnership between myself and the hard working gang at mabuhaycalgary.  as i've mentioned in previous posts, i have made contributions to the filipino news-magazine over the last few years on an as needed basis, focusing on the local community sports scene as well as serving a pseudo beat writer for anything manny pacquiao.

after some discussions with the editors and conference meetings with my agent, i was approached with an offer to write on a more regular basis, as a columnist rather than a journalist.  following in the footsteps of the greats such as bill simmons and rick reilly, how could i say no?  of course, i will do my best to put some sort of sports spin to whatever it is i write, but you can be sure that no matter what, it will be 100% authentic opinion whether you agree with me or not.  i have this sneaking suspicion that my following will be slightly less than simmons or reilly.  just slightly.

some of you may not know this, but i wrote a regular column back in 2000 for a small sports website based out of california. i was paid peanuts (literally....which explains my addiction to peanut butter) but despite payment, it was fun just writing and throwing my opinions out there for all to read.  some people didn't like me, but i also had a small (very small) following of regular readers that were fans. either really didn't matter as my young naive self preferred to be masked under a pen name so i was virtually anonymous to everyone.

to celebrate that first experience in "journalism", my feature column with mabuhaycalgary will be named exactly what i called it 12 years ago - "order amidst the chaos (OATC)". only now you know it's me writing and there is no pen name to hide behind. feel free to agree/disagree with my opinion, but either way please read and support us. it is hard work for our editors to put this together each month and we rely on your interest in keeping it going.  mabuhay yoke loves calgary.

originally printed for the Dec 2011 edition

de jesus. OATC. out.

P4P: MAKING AN IMPACT

photos by dennisdejesusjr.com

a shout out to my brother at pound4poundboxing who recently got covered in the december issue of mabuhaycalgary.  andrew is a certified boxing trainer in alberta and through the club, is doing some great things with local charities.  he also recently partnered with a facility in town (MMA University) to help develop his stable of fighters into competition ready shape - both physically and mentally.

i've attended many of his classes and let me tell you, it's not easy...but it's definitely a great way to relieve a bit of stress.

contact andrew if you are interested in learning more about trying boxing out for fitness or for competition.  

de jesus. punching out.

PROJECT 366

at some point or another, you may have come across a friend posting daily photos on facebook and/or twitter. many of the photos seem to have no rhyme or reason and they typically aren't of self or anyone in particular. but there they are, every day, at least once a day.

welcome to the world of project 365.  photography enthusiasts from all walks of life armed with any sort of image capture device are snapping photos of absolutely everything. the half empty beer at the bar with a lipstick stain? click.  the lonely dandelion growing out of the crack of a sidewalk?  click.  the strange orange and pink hue of the sun going up (or down)? click.  the dog looking unimpressed as he is caught doing a number two? click.

  

 

i love it.  browsing through the hundreds of images every day is purely inspirational and helps me appreciate how other people see things.  it is their perspective, their journal of daily life without the need of a written word.  it doesn't matter if the image is blurry, not composed correctly or the white balance is off.  it is simply an image that speaks a thousand words and creates just as many questions. each image independently beautiful and wonderfully unique - there is no need for a theme because taking the photo is the theme.

because of this inspiration, i am participating in project 365 this year and because of the (quad-annual?) occurrence of leap year, 2012 is christened as project 366. find me on facebook, twitter or instagram to follow my story this year and see what crazy random images i try to come up with.  as you can see from the handful i have taken so far - some will be terrible, some will be great, but all will be original and straight from my iPhone for all to see.  some days it will be a challenge to find an interesting image, but the point is not to impress...but to create and find the essence of what goes on in a typical day and how i see it.  much like what i wrote about in a previous post, sometimes all you gotta do is shoot and the body of work might be more valuable than the image itself.  make your lens create.

de jesus.  354 more days.  out.

TEXAS WITH MY IPHONE

at first, i intended this post to be about the experience of san antonio and austin, the people i met, the food, the sights and sounds of these two "little-big cities" that texans really pride themselves with.  then as i ran through my photos, i remembered the story of the images and felt that writing about the process of the iphone-only-photo-project was more intriguing.  so here goes...

in an effort to challenge myself as an amateur photographer, i armed myself with only my iphone 4G and head out each day to find and create images in a new and exciting place.  using the capability of the iphone and a selection of apps, i wanted to see if i would still be able to tell the story of my travels similar to what i could do with my more expensive and more cumbersome  SLR gear.  and to answer your first question, yes - i felt a little naked without my usual gear for this trip, but in order to really challenge yourself, sometimes you gotta run alone in unfamiliar situations.

there definitely is something liberating about not having to lug around a pack of equipment as you wander the streets of a strange place.  you really never quite know who is watching and licking their chops at a chance to rob you and steal your expensive equipment from under your nose.  having all of my necessary photo gear in my front pocket was definitely both convenient and comfortable.

as i walked around, i immediately noticed my first real limitation of only having my iphone camera at my disposal: it wasn't possible to capture all the images my eyes were seeing.  what i mean by that is that i couldn't zoom in/out with the kind of accuracy i'm accustomed to.  the iphone really put limitations on how i traditionally like to compose my images, whether the subject is an object or a scene.  and the zoom on the iphone is terrible, diminishing the quality of the photo with every mm of digital zoom.  i only shoot iphone images on the default focal length...no zoom.  ever.  the solution was to use my legs as my zoom and really look at things differently, managing my physical position to compose the image whether it was a flower or an architectural detail of a building.  sometimes i couldn't really capture what my eyes saw and though there were some failed images, the need to move around and find the image was definitely a good exercise for my eyes and brain.

after composition, the next problem i had was exposure.  because the iphone is essentially a watered down point and shoot device, the issue of exposure is magnified since there is even more lack of control on an iphone.  depending on the time of day and the position of the source light (i.e. the sun) iphone photos tend to be ridiculously overexposed in the day and severely underexposed in low light conditions.   to combat these issues, i am reminded that great lighting during the day is usually found in shaded areas or around sunset. failing that, i tried to use image hot spots as part if not the main point of interest of the image, almost using it to add dimension to an otherwise plain image.  in low light situations, i put the camera into HDR mode and trusted that the iphone's software would do its thing to bring up detail in the dark areas (if that's what i wanted).  HDR on the iphone is not the most accurate way to do real HDR, but it's a nice try (i think i'll address HDR in a future blog).  photos in low light also tend to have a lot of noise in the dark areas and are usually quite blurry.  unless absolutely necessary, i usually don't go for a lot of night shots with the iphone.

so after a bit of complaining, it may sound like that the iphone-only-photo-project was a complete disaster.  actually - no.  one of the things i really enjoyed was the immediate creative aspect of iphone photography.  photography apps are an inexpensive way to take your iphone and make it a canvas for your artistic talents.  you don't even need to have artistic talents to take an image and enhance it with the numerous preloaded filters or selective color edits that can be bought in the app store.  personally, my iphone is loaded with colorblast, instagram, camera+ and photosynth.  these apps do a great job of giving personality to any of my iphone photos that need a little "oomph".  load a photo, press a few buttons and i can take any ordinary photo and add vignette, a fancy border, over saturation or even make it look vintage.  but my favorite app by far is photosynth, which allows me to take a string of overlapped photos in order which is then automatically stitched in a way to make it into a panoramic image.  love this app and the product that is generated after a few short minutes of capture/calculation/rendering.

edited with photosynth

like any travel photo project, it is the images that tell the story.  and instead of putting a caveat on these images and almost excusing myself for taking them with an iphone, i'm pointing out proudly that these great images were in fact taken with one.  composition, exposure, quality are just technical jargon that may make an image easier to look at, but not necessarily be the complete reason why we like an image over another.  sometimes an image reminds us of a place, feeling or moment and at face value might not be a technically perfect image.  the key lesson learned on the iphone-only-photo-project is that taking the best image for a particular time/place does not have to be achieved by use of an expensive SLR and high quality lens or even composed by the conventional "rules" of photography.  just take the photo with whatever works for you and freeze the moment.  no matter what it looks like, you will always appreciate it afterwards.

de jesus.  just shoot.