Do you see the light ?

Notre-Dame de la Garde, Marseille, August 2009.

Just a random pic I felt like posting.

HxC Rules !

Took me quite some time to start searching for HxC shows, and local bands here, but I finally met some people in the scene, and I'll try to stay updated on that from now on.

A few weeks ago, I went to see Arkangel for the first time along with Martyrs and Bloodshot. I was very surprised to discover Arkangel now features pretty much half of former Paris HxC band Es La Guerilla. I miss those guys ! It brought back some good memories of past HxC shows and the Paris scene from a few years back... Anyway, I love the pic above... I guess it represents what I like in Hardcore : some sort of a violent outlet to our daily worries, and openness to other cultures that people may not expect because they believe HxC is all about wearing black clothes, long hair, and eating babies ! lol

For more pics of that show, check out my flickr page : http://www.flickr.com/photos/sebchang/sets/72157621898281982/

Beauty And The Beast

I was driving around, coming back from a quick skate session at the Gardanne Ditch, when i spotted that big factory, hidden behind a wall of trees. The name of the yet-to-exist post immediately came to my mind, because of that paradox between the fountain and the flowers in the foreground and the factory in the back.

What I didn't know yet was that there was way more to it than just a couple shots... I went around, then inside the train station, and followed the railroad, stopping every 2 meters in awe because of a train car, railroad stuff, or that fascinating factory behind the fences... A couple hours later, my first real photoshoot since I moved to Southern France was in the books, and I was heading back home, with a satisfied mind...

I'm probably weird in some way, but I can't help finding that beautiful...

What do you think ?

More shots here :

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sebchang/sets/72157622440942145/

Sittin On Top Of The World

Patiently Waiting

I'm back. Just a sample pic I stumbled upon the other day, thought it would be a good start :)

2009. New Year, New City, New Job... Same old self

No internet connection + Busy Schedule = No Updates.
Just a quick post to let ya'll know that I'm still alive, and put up my first pic from Marseille... As seen thru my eyes...

Catching up in progress / Change of plans

I haven't had much time lately for the blog, even though I had things to blog about... Sounds familiar, uh !? Anyway, I'll try and get back at it more regularly, but It might not happen in the near future... More on that later, but until I explain why, I'll just post some of the things I would have liked to post these last few weeks...

As for the purpose of this blog, I've changed my mind a little bit.... It was supposed to be a photography-driven blog, but obviously I have not been able to post pictures regularly. And even if I could, I'm currently considering signing up for a pro flickr account, or something similar, allowing me to have unlimited bandwidth and storage space, and have people checking / commenting my pictures more easily than on a blog... If you have any recommendation about such a photo sharing service, let me know. A free one would be better, but the flickr pro account is only $25 a year, so it's pretty reasonable, and it might be the best deal out there.

The blog would then only serve as a 'news' blog, allowing people to stay up-to-date with what's going on in my life, be notified of pictures update on that potential flickr account, and share whatever comes to mind...

Be right back !

Detroit Shock, 2008 WNBA Champs !

Naah.... I did not shoot that pic myself, unfortunately :(

I've been playing Basket-Ball for more than 10 years now, and I've always loved watching NBA games on TV, well... whenever I could, given the lack of NBA exposure in France back then. It got better, and thanx to the internet, I've been able to follow the NBA very thoroughly lately, watching games regularly, daily recaps, and multiple games a day when playoff comes.

Since the WNBA started back in 1997, I had not heard much about it, let alone watched it. I did watch some Olympic Women Basket-Ball games though, and I remember being very impressed by the level of play, and unselfishness showcased during the 1996 Olympic Finals in Atlanta, between the USA and Brazil. Then I watched some more at the Olympics the next years, a couple WNBA games on TV, and also attended the Open LFB event in Paris the last 3 years (every team playing their first regular season game over the weekend in the same arena).

But this year, for the first time, I tried to really stay up to date with the WNBA season, in large part because of Candace Parker, the rookie sensation of the Los Angeles Sparks (who ended up being Rookie Of The Year and MVP of the league in his first year, by the way), and I'm very pleased I did so. I managed to watch a few regular season and playoffs games, then watched the whole Finals. It was amazing. Of course you won't get all the highlights, the athleticism and the trash talking you're used to in Men's Basket-Ball, but these women definitely know how to play ! Katie Smith, the Finals MVP, was phenomenal, Deanna Nolan impressed me with her athleticism and hustle, and Becky Hammond almost did a "McGrady" in Game 2, scoring 3 straight 3-pointers in less than a minute in the 4th quarter to try to bring her team back in the game, even though Detroit eventually hang on... The final result of the series, Detroit winning it in 3 games, does not do justice to the way the games where played, and I know I'll be back next year to watch the Shock try to repeat, see how Candace Parker does in her second season and if the likes of Becky Hammon or Diana Taurasi can lead their team to the top. Congratulations ladies and thanks for the emotions !

Daiba / Tokyo Bay (Panoramics)

I got a few more panoramics that I did some time ago to put up... Here are two of them shot in Tokyo when I had the chance to go visit a friend there, back in 2005. We spent 3 weeks mostly in Tokyo, at his place, except for a few days in Kyoto, and went on for a few day trips away from Tokyo with the Shinkansen (the japanese high speed train). Took a bunch of pictures, some of them worth a look, so I'll probably post them someday.

Daiba By Night

The first one is a view of Daiba, with the Rainbow Bridge that connects it to Tokyo on the right. Daiba, a man made island built in the Tokyo Bay, is like a mini seaside resort, with beaches, bars and restaurants, a shopping center, a big ferris wheel and the huge convention center building. We only spent a day there, skating and walking around but it seemed like it would definitely be a nice place to hang out.

Tokyo Bay By Night, From The Rainbow Bridge

The second one is a 180° (or so) view of the Tokyo Bay, shot from that same bridge but on the other side... We decided to walk back from Daiba to Tokyo (it's only a 30 minutes walk) and the view is beautiful. On the left of the picture, you can spot the Tokyo Tower, which is a replica of Paris' Eiffel Tower, only a few meters taller !

Quality on both of those pictures is pretty disappointing, but that's what setting a 2003 camera (a coolpix 4300 to be exact) to 400iso will do for you :(. Concerning the panoramics, I'm too lazy to go get the .psd file and tell you for sure, but it's probably like 5 or 6 pictures stitched together with Hugin, with all the masks and the blending edited on photoshop. I guess that's a good thing I can't really tell from the panoramic how much pictures I used ;)
Just like the previous post, I can't wait to go back there with my new DSLR to take better pictures !

Georgia Dome, Atlanta (Panoramic)

Finally, my first meaningful post ! Guess what ? I couldn't find the time to look for that particular picture I was referring to earlier, but I had some other files on my computer, so let's put those up first !

[2004.09.19] Rams @ Falcons

If I remember correctly, this is the first ever panoramic image I did. It was shot at the Georgia Dome, during the Rams vs. Falcons NFL Game, in September of 2004, and it consists of 5 pictures. Back then I didn't know much about photography, let alone panoramic images, so I used my friend's all-automatic, 3-MP (yeah... 3-MP!! remember it was shot in 2004) point and shoot camera, without a tripod, without locking exposure or anything. Given the circumstances, I think the result is OK but I had to start all over with the stitching 3 times, first trying to use the software bundled with the camera (forget about it), then trying to do it all in photoshop (I gave up pretty quickly :p), before I finally found out about Hugin, an open-source GUI for Panorama tools... Thank god ! I stitched with Hugin, then exported to psd with masks, and then I had to redo all the masks because that's the one area where hugin and other tools can't be trusted (even with still images, there are issues to address, so forget about pictures with moving people and objects).

This was my first try, so I'm pretty happy about how it turned out, but I definitely need to go back and shoot some more, now that I have a decent DSLR to work with (more on that later) and a little bit more experience !