It’s funny that the first day when i got back to work, my boss said. “wow you seems more tired then the way you look before the holiday!”  Well.. kinda..

Anyway, so i’ve went to Guangzhou (hence the above picture)
and also Hong Kong of course.
was able to do some street photo in HK, so was happy about that!

Well.. Holiday is over… now get back to work!!!

So, basically i took 3 of these clip, took the hook out and thread it with a cable velcro tie.

and of course, you can mount three 2 liters one.  (click here for full size)

The other day, I was walking around XingGuang (the Shanghai Camera Mall, Yes a WHOLE BUILDING selling photography related stuff!!)  

I came across a little rather useless thing, which is a reflector that mount in front of the camera lens, to act as a “Ring-flash” that’s selling for 20 Chinese Yuan (about 3USD??)
But suddenly this strike me, I can make use of this thing. and solve the beauty Dish problem.

So.. BEHOLD!!! the UmbrellaDish!!!

TATA!

The construct is rather simple,

it consist of a Umbrella flash mount (with slight modification, adding an L-bar so that the flash is mounted sideway. )

This close up image should be rather self explanatory  (I Hope)

And This is how the Flash got mounted like this.

the “Reflector” is hold together by some elastic rubber band with some clip for now. but planning to sew some actual elastic on later (those for clothing or pants) 

Will post more after refining the design, and some test shots later.

If you don’t know what Help Portrait is:
Basically it is a world wide movement started by Jeremy Cowart, a Seattle based photographer.  On Dec 4, Photographers (no matter you are Hobbyist, Amateurs, Professional, etc)  will go out and help people to take portrait, for those who never got a chance to have their portrait taken.
It’s not about us, our pictures, or our portfolio. but is about sharing with others, other people who needs, and with other photographers. So in other word, the portraits will not be post, but only send back to the “model”. Only thing that will be post is the picture that we took WITH them. to tell a story.

如果你不知道HELP-PORTAIT是什么：
基本上Help-Portrait是一个由西雅图一名叫Jeremy Cowart的摄影师发起的运动。
在今年12月4日, 摄影师们（无论摄影对你来说是兴趣，业余，专业）都纷纷出来， 帮一些有需要的人事， 一些从来没有机会拍专业人像的人， 去拍一次“专业水准”的人像照。
这个活动不是为了我们（摄影师们）， 也不是为了我们的照片，更加不是为了我们的作品集。
而是为了分享， 跟有需要的人分享， 跟其他摄影师分享。
所以换句话来说， 那些拍到的人像照， 是不会贴到任何地方。 所有拍得的人像照只会被打印出来， 发还给“模特”们。
我们贴出来的， 只会是我们跟他们一起拍的照片， 去讲这一个故事。

This year, we will be working with New Citizen Life Center (Minhang) at  182 Lincang Rd. Fenfa School, Minhang District, and Help take photo for the Migrant Families
今年， 我们会跟 新市民生活馆（闵行）【上海闵行区临沧路182号奋发学校】 合作, 为流动人口家庭拍他们的人像照/全家福

the time will be starting at 11am(setup), families will be start arriving at 12:30. and shoot till we got everyone covered
时间方面我们会在上午11点开始准备， 预计那些家庭会在大概12：30开始到达。 然后我们会一直拍到拍完为止。

If you are interested in joining/helping, please come to our flickr group to signup.
如果你有兴趣参加/帮忙， 请到我们FLICKR上面的贴报名。

also please sign up on the Help Portrait community site, so you can be officially count as one of us
还有, 请同时到HELP-PORTAIT的社区网站上报名， 让你成为全世界的H-P活动的一分子！

below are a few memorable moment from last year (taken by JC)
以下是一些去年的回忆(谢谢JC帮我们拍下来）

So Everyone! what else are you waiting for!?
Come join us on Dec 4, 2010.
所以各位！
还等什么啊！？ 快快来报名吧！

We found our way in, realize this stand alone “lonely” old building right next the metro.

We start taking picture around there, saw some butterfly in the field. lot of really really fresh veggie.

when we are just about to leave, we bump into this older gentlemen who just coming back home.. to this old old house.

We start talking to each other, found out that he’s been living in this area for almost 60 years.
And he is living with his granddaughter and the families.

We can tell he love his granddaughter while he talks.
So we decided to help him and his granddaughter to take a picture. (later on we plan to process it, print it, and delivery it next time when we go there.)

Then he start showing us around.
In the morning he works in his little “hair salon” (well.. a place to cut hair basically)

and in the afternoon, he comes back home and work with his wife in the field.
He brought us to see his wife.

well.. even tho they are 60 and 66 yrs old,
You can tell from the first look that his wife used to be a beauty.
anyway. another picture moment, (most likely will print this too)

and finally, he show us around the area.

it was interesting meeting some local there.

I suppose there are some good thing and bad thing that such a huge event had brought us.

Read on to see a video of Poor Haibao got beatup
Well.. first thing to notice, for those who travel.. are the flight ticket price.

Price drop is obvious, example Ticket from Shanghai to Shenzhen (city next to hong kong, has direct coach bus to HK) Price went from 900-1200 RMB during EXPO, and down to 480-630 RMB now.  I suppose this is a good thing that got restored by expo.

2nd thing i noticed today is the air quality,  (well, it could be a coincident. but who knows…. they did it in Beijing Olympic)

Suddenly today it is all foggy (or i should say Smoggy)
well.. hopefully it is just today, I missed the Blue sky during Expo days

Well.. Expo is not all bad stuff, look at the transportation system that was built for expo, those are going to stay, and it really helps us who don’t drive, to get around the city.

anyway.. it is only the first day, we will have to wait a bit longer see what has change and what will stay.

before ending,
Here’s a quite funny scene that i saw yesterday on my way home.
one of the mall is taking down the expo deco.
and what happened? poor Haibao got beatup by the construction workers.

I didn’t have my camera that time, so i have to use the crappy cellphone to take this… but i guess you can see (and hear) what happens to our blue jelly friend.

cheers! everyone!

So as i said last time, I will post a few more strobist style pics that I took during the US trip.
So here we go!

Took this with the little G11 again. (actually all with G11, as that’s the only digital camera I brought with me. the film stuff is not out yet. Need to finish my rolls. )

We were at the National Museum of Natural History in DC.
and while everyone is shooting at the same angle with either on camera flash or natural light (there aren’t much natural light)
I look around, saw there is a second floor there.
So I snap the RF-602 receiver on my 430EX, Crank it up to full power, zoom it to 70mm and put a 1/2 CTO gel on it (actually it was always on the flash).
Hand it to my wife and ask if she can take the elevator up to 2nd floor, stand at the balcony and point it at the big elephant there.

Took a few test shot (like Zack said, You have to start somewhere!), ask her to move to the other balcony. and bam!
This is what i got!  it is pretty much straight out of the camera. Only thing i did was turn it a little warmer in Lightroom.
Strobist info: 430EX at FULL power with 1/2CTO gel bare at camera right (on 2nd floor handheld by my wife) Shot with Canon G11, 1/200sec, F/2.8, ISO-400

Next one is also taken in National Museum of Natural History.

Walked into the Dino-bone room, and saw this T-Rex above me beside the short stair.
This time i got no “assistant” since she was checking out the sea-life there.

so i mount the 430EX on the RF-602, then put it on a tiny little table-top tripod. and place it at the bottom of the stairs pointing upward. the flash is completely bare.

I figure I wanna kill the room light anyway. so i just set it to 1/4 power. and going to play with shutter/aperture to get the shot i want.
again, did a few test shot, and end up at 1/160s, F/3.5 at ISO-400.
a little bit of “black” tuning in Lightroom and that’s it.

and Last one i took it at the Veterans Memorial (again, in DC)

So the tour took us there to check out the Memorials, and gave us good 1 hrs to walk around there.

after a few classic shot in front of the reflection pool. I head over to the Veterans Memorial. (didn’t feel like running up to check out Abraham. Since it was packed with people there)

Mount the RF602+430EX on an umbrella swivels. then put it on a “Mini Superclamp” (got this in Shanghai before the trip. seems pretty good, going to post a picture and description next time)
Set the 430EX to 80mm, at that time, the sun is still pretty bright, so i didn’t  put any color balancing gel on.
clamp the setup on the pole around the area, about 3-oclock location of the statue.
First i was using full power, but the test shot tells me that it was too strong.
so i tone it down to 1/2 power.  set my camera to ISO200, f/5.6, 1/400s shutter and got this shots.
again. little bit of black tuning, and also i tone down the saturation a little. that’s it. all in Lightroom

anyway.. that’s it for now.

That is why i am away online for so many days.

of course. the picture from the film camera won’t be availiable any time soon. but most of the G11 pic are processed. and alot of them are strobed!

on the final day, the cloud got heavy with the blue sky behind, was at a service stop waiting. so i got got my gear out and took this.

Strobist info. G11 with ND setting on, ISO80, 1/400 sec, f5.6.
Flash triggered with RF-602, one flash 430EX at 1/2 power at a very obvious location. then the sun is behind me behind the cloud.

More pic to come…