Uploads from DodogoeSLR, with geodata

The Stick

nobody@flickr.com (DodogoeSLR) — Wed, 22 May 2013 19:53:23 -0700

DodogoeSLR posted a photo:

marcuslam.tumblr.com/

Sangeeta and I caught the 7am out of Oakland to San Diego. I thought we were doing the right thing by flying out of OAK and saving a few hundred dollars but literally everyone complained. It went as far as Anisha just flat out telling us the next time we decide to fly out of Oakland and not San Francisco, she’d just pay the difference. Noted.

That said, we did get this great view of Candlestick Park that I never get to see. I’m torn on the new 49ers stadium in Santa Clara. On one hand, it sucks that we lost the 49ers to another city. But on the other hand, those of you who have gone to a 49ers game would know getting in and out of Candlestick is the worst thing ever. Plus we won the 2016 Super Bowl bid and another city is paying for it. I guess I can’t complain too much.

Anyway, I took this with my new little Fujifilm. Pretty cool right?

Taken with a Fujifilm X20

Fujifilm X20

nobody@flickr.com (DodogoeSLR) — Mon, 20 May 2013 19:50:26 -0700

DodogoeSLR posted a photo:

marcuslam.tumblr.com/

This is one pretty amazing little camera. Sangeeta bought this for me for my birthday. I haven’t quite figured out how to work everything just yet and I’m still making mistakes while shooting with it, but it’s definitely packs a pretty powerful punch. I took it with me this weekend to San Diego and it was just nice not carrying around a 7 pound DLSR. That said, I’m still not giving up my DSLR. I’m just going to use this little guy for the random fun stuff where I don’t need $4,000 of camera firepower.

Anyway I'll upload some photos soon from my trip to San Diego taken with this little guy. Hopefully they look as nice on the big screen as they do on the digital display.

By the way, LOVE the new Flickr! And yeah, maybe the prices went up... a lot. But hey, I'll pay to play. I already do that with a shit load of camera gear.

Taken with a Nikon D300 w/ a 50mm f/1.4 Nikkor Lens

Erica

nobody@flickr.com (DodogoeSLR) — Tue, 14 May 2013 23:27:21 -0700

DodogoeSLR posted a photo:

marcuslam.tumblr.com/

Okay this is the last photo from this black and white series. I actually had a lot of fun with this set as I was on a mission to get one black and white photo I liked and I ended up with four.

Erica looks pretty bad ass in this photo which is surprising because normally she’s not bad ass at all. In fact normally she’s pretty happy unless she’s out with me in which case she’s probably angry 18% of the time. I would say that her outfit comes together very differently here even though it’s the same as the previous 3 shots. Something about the sports bra, tank top, leather pants and the flats with the mustache. I actually edited some major claw mark scars on her arms and in hindsight I probably should have kept them there to add to the mood.

Funny side story… as you can tell, we’re on a staircase and yet the photo is body level. I had to stand on my tippy toes at the edge of the staircase leaning backwards with my left hand holding the handrail (and praying it wouldn’t give) with my right hand shooting. She asked, “How the hell are you holding that pose and keeping the camera steady?” Uhh… strong toe muscle bitch.

Natural light for this photo.. nice right?!?

Taken with a Nikon D300 w/ a 24-70 f/2.8 Nikkor Lens

Erica

nobody@flickr.com (DodogoeSLR) — Tue, 07 May 2013 10:26:46 -0700

DodogoeSLR posted a photo:

marcuslam.tumblr.com/

I’m torn between this version of the shot versus the one on my Tumblr. I love the way the light from the strobe hits Erica so much more here but her smile is nicer on the Tumblr version. I struggled with getting the right exposure and mood given how much light was coming from the French doors. Plus Erica kept complaining about how dirty the floor was. She’s such a high maintenance pain in my ass. It’s a love / hate friendship which is why she gets put in the “ex-wife” set.

Over lunch we were arguing over the strategic challenges of me taking photos for her. Erica has her own fashion blog, www.fabuloustuesdays.com, and her primary concern is the outfit. My primary concern is coming out with a really cool photo and I could care less about the outfit (as long as it’s not ugly). So with our different goals, we’re constantly debating photo styles.

So the room where Erica is modeling in is my guest room. It’s this huge room with a bathroom and French doors that I’ve always rented out to my friends who needed a place to stay. After my last roommate moved out and with the wedding coming up, I figured after all these years, I’m going to have the house to myself before Sangeeta moves in. In the last few months Sangeeta has talked about making this room her personal closet, Anisha (soon to be sister in law) has talked about turning the room into her personal San Francisco weekend crash pad and Erica wants me to convert it into a photo studio.

I was thinking man cave.

Taken with a Nikon D300 w/ a 50mm f/1.4 Nikkor Lens
Nikon Speedlight SB900 Direct Right (1/25)

Steamroll

nobody@flickr.com (DodogoeSLR) — Mon, 06 May 2013 11:54:55 -0700

DodogoeSLR posted a photo:

marcuslam.tumblr.com/

I saw a great black and white photo a few weeks back that featured a model in a very simple room with a retro vintage bicycle in the background. It was a simple and elegant photo so I thought I’d give it a shot with Erica to recreate. I didn’t have the exact room setting or the similar bike but I figured I could tweak the photo and make it our version. Turns out, I didn’t have a tall enough model either (or a small enough bike depending on who you ask).

After the very first photo of Erica, I started laughing because I couldn’t believe how tiny she looked next to my bike. I was contemplating switching to the road bike but at this point, I figured this was hilarious as is and there was no going back. She looks absolutely ridiculous here as it looks like she can’t even get over the bike frame. I’m 5’11 so it’s not like I have a particularly huge bike. Anyway after she asked me why I was laughing so hard, I showed her the photo, she started laughing uncontrollably and then we proceeded to have some fun with this.

So in conclusion… what was initially planned to be a retro artistic photo ended up being a ridiculous picture of Erica about to get steamrolled.

Taken with a Nikon D300 w/ a 24-70 f/2.8 Nikkor Lens
Nikon Speedlight SB900 Direct Left (1/25)

Infinity

nobody@flickr.com (DodogoeSLR) — Sun, 05 May 2013 21:08:09 -0700

DodogoeSLR posted a photo:

marcuslam.tumblr.com/

Does anybody else see the infinity sign? I think this is a pretty cool photo. Does anything ever beat window natural light? I edited this entire series black and white so stay tuned for more photos.

I got Erica a couple of really good tickets to the Giants game so she swung by to pick them up and grab some lunch. I wanted to go for ahi tuna tacos but she flat out told me no and then she goes, “actually I really want American food today” on Cinco de Mayo of all days! So, I took her to this popular little mom and pop diner nearby and then headed to Pete’s Coffee for a latte. She ended up grilling me on a bachelor party I went to last week and then I helped shoot for her blog.

When I showed her this photo after I finished the edits, her first response was… “damn, my booty looks ghetto!” If you saw her in real life, you'd notice she literally has no ass.

Taken with a Nikon D300 w/ a 24-70 f/2.8 Nikkor Lens

Erica

nobody@flickr.com (DodogoeSLR) — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 16:24:30 -0700

DodogoeSLR posted a photo:

marcuslam.tumblr.com/

I believe her response to this photo was… “Fuck you asshole, I’m not your retirement plan!”

We'll revisit this the next time she's buying me a sandwich.

So there’s apparently been a bit of a discussion about Erica’s hair. If you’ll notice from previous photos, she chopped it down to shoulder length. I personally think she looks pretty but apparently not everyone’s a fan. I don’t know if this is a proper way to describe her in this photo but I would say the mood is very... retro chic. It’s like seeing a good looking modern car with a bit of a classic touch. But instead of precision engineering towards something that brings joy to peoples' lives, it's an angry high maintenance 5 foot 3, 95lb Asian girl. Yeah, I like that analogy.

Taken with a Nikon D300 w/ a 24-70 f/2.8 Nikkor Lens

Save the Date

nobody@flickr.com (DodogoeSLR) — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 10:30:25 -0700

DodogoeSLR posted a photo:

marcuslam.tumblr.com/

Believe it or not, Sangeeta and I actually used this as our save the date photo. We decided on fridge magnets which we still haven’t mailed out yet. With only a few months to go before the wedding, we might as well send this out with the actual wedding invitation. We had a few designs going around between the two of us. But then the trash talking started as we each ripped each other’s design in half. I believe my exact words were, “I could make a save the date with my BMW better than you can with our photo.” I made a design, sent over a screen shot and her mom really liked it!

My family calls this more of a BMW advertisement than a save the date but they don’t really care. Plus this probably will have longer fridge lasting power than our mug shot.

This photo was actually taken a mile away from Sangeeta’s house. It blows me away because she lives in an actual city with 1 million people and she has these back roads.

Taken with a Nikon D300 w/ a 24-70 f/2.8 Nikkor Lens

It’s warming up

nobody@flickr.com (DodogoeSLR) — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 09:09:30 -0700

DodogoeSLR posted a photo:

marcuslam.tumblr.com/

It’s almost that time of the year when I start my annual bi-monthly weekend migration to Walnut Creek for pool parties, barbeques and cocktails under the sun. As much as I love San Francisco, having a house big enough for a pool would run at least $4 million here and the last time I checked, I don’t have that much in my checking account.

But the best part to these weekend pool parties, Erica bankrolls the whole outing! I keep reminding her that should literally everything go wrong in my life, she’ll be my backup retirement plan.

Taken with a Nikon D300 w/ a 24-70 f/2.8 Nikkor Lens

Mr. Sulu... Warp 3. Engage.

nobody@flickr.com (DodogoeSLR) — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 00:15:15 -0700

DodogoeSLR posted a photo:

marcuslam.tumblr.com/

Sangeeta and I needed to take engagement photos for our wedding website. So I headed over to her place and I was somewhat dressed up. As a photographer, I couldn’t get myself to pay for engagement photos. One, I hate staged and posed photos. It’s too mushy and not us. Two, I shelled out around $4,000 for this setup and I wasn’t about to have someone do what I could do.

We hired a pretty expensive photographer for the wedding though and his work looks amazing! But in the meantime, we needed engagement photos.

So we roped in Anisha, Sangeeta’s little sister, to take the photos. At first, Anisha and I were on the sofa just hanging out and Sangeeta comes in bitching up a storm about how engagement photos are stupid and how we need to just find photos we already have. We called her bluff. She was too lazy to get dressed. After we poked fun of her and her outfits, she settled on her typical Saturday attire!

Anyway here's us looking like us.

Taken with a Nikon D300 w/ a 24-70 f/2.8 Nikkor Lens

Erica

nobody@flickr.com (DodogoeSLR) — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 09:10:30 -0700

DodogoeSLR posted a photo:

marcuslam.tumblr.com/

This photo’s from a few weeks ago but I’m finally done posting from the India trip. When I say finally, I mean done trickling in. It's my goal to publish more photos this year than last (which won't be difficult).

Anyway Erica was in town so we had lunch at this posh brunch spot and went around Pacific Heights in San Francisco to take some photos. She does this fashion blog and I occasionally help shoot. Before I picked her up, I told her to try to dress pretty for a change and she showed up looking like a nerdy tomboy.

That said, she wore some pretty intense shoes. You can see them on my Tumblr here and here.

Taken with a Nikon D300 w/ a 85mm f/1.4 Nikkor Lens

A380

nobody@flickr.com (DodogoeSLR) — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 20:16:38 -0700

DodogoeSLR posted a photo:

marcuslam.tumblr.com/

When I was a kid, I used to travel a ton to Hong Kong and China and I always flew on a United 747 on the top deck. Flying business class was one of the small perks of my dad taking on a 2 year project in Hong Kong. I remember as a kid looking at the plane through the window thinking, “How the hell does this thing fly?” Anyway fast forward 22 years later and I had that same kid on window moment when I first saw an A380 in Dubai International Airport (DBX) a few years back.

I grabbed this picture as we were leaving London Heathrow back to San Francisco International as our India trip came to a conclusion. It was a Singapore Airlines A380 that was waiting for us to pass. I’m a little bummed out that there’s an American 777 behind it but regardless, these things are pretty cool.

Taken with a Nikon D300 w/ a 24-70 f/2.8 Nikkor Lens

Pretty Awesome

nobody@flickr.com (DodogoeSLR) — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 21:29:39 -0700

DodogoeSLR posted a photo:

marcuslam.tumblr.com/

I think this might be the last India photo I upload to Flickr. There’s probably a few more on my Tumblr.

We’re drinking fresh sugar cane juice. India is filled with fresh juice bars that pretty much whatever you feel like having, they’ll make the juice cocktail for you. This place apparently is famous for their fresh sugar cane juice because that they only use each cane once and the ice is filtered. It costs more but it was marginal. Whatever the reason, it was delicious. We came back to this stop 3 or 4 times.

This place is called Kwality Wall's and apparently has been there since 1960. I don't remember exactly where in Mumbai it is I remember it's near the Taj Mahal hotel.

Side note, Sangeeta is looking pretty fobby in this photo!

Taken with a Nikon D300 w/ a 24-70 f/2.8 Nikkor Lens

Antilia

nobody@flickr.com (DodogoeSLR) — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 22:44:18 -0700

DodogoeSLR posted a photo:

marcuslam.tumblr.com/

The house is called Antilla and is named after a mythical island in the Atlantic. “Lost” anyone? Sangeeta and I were shopping a couple blocks away from the house and we ended up walking up to it after we were done. It’s pretty impressive.

This is a (insert pinky into mouth) One Billion Dollar house! I’m not kidding, Wikipedia this place. It’s owned by Mukesh Ambani who is the Chairman and CEO of Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries Limited. This house is ridiculous. The New York Time estimated that it cost $50 - $70 million U.S. Dollars to build but given the land valuation and appreciation, the mark-to-market valuation has it up to U.S. $1 billion.

Rumor has it a few stories are just dedicated to his car collection. Honestly at this point, I’d ditch the cars and just have a helicopter collection. Anyway say what you will about the architecture, this house (can we even still call it a house?) has presence. According to Wikipedia, the house sits on Altamount Road which is the 10th most expensive street in the world.

Taken with a Nikon D300 w/ a 24-70 f/2.8 Nikkor Lens

Kanheri Caves

nobody@flickr.com (DodogoeSLR) — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 22:12:22 -0700

DodogoeSLR posted a photo:

marcuslam.tumblr.com/

Turns out when Indian girls get engaged, they fly to India to do an insane amount of shopping. I learned this the hard way. It got to the point where I was at a store, miserable, arms crossed, angry face and some dude randomly comes up to me and goes “you too huh?” I think we shopped more in those 2 weeks than I’ve shopped all year. Sangeeta on the other hand said that she barely got to shop in comparison to the other girls.

Anyway to make up for the ton of shopping, we did a lot of traveling and one of our stops was Kanheri Caves. We took a road trip out there, got to see the caves, did some exploring, ate lunch at McDonalds and got McAloo Tikki Burgers and had a great day.

The photo on the left (me) was me making fun of myself about my angry face for part of the trip. Sangeeta (on the right) was just being Sungee!

Taken with a Nikon D300 w/ a 24-70 f/2.8 Nikkor Lens

This photo just about sums up my trip to India!

nobody@flickr.com (DodogoeSLR) — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 23:05:29 -0700

DodogoeSLR posted a photo:

marcuslam.tumblr.com/

So there’s me, the photographer, trying to up the ante for my vacation photos with a Nikkor 24-70 f/2.8 lens. There’s Sangeeta who could not have looked more relaxed on the trip while still somehow remaining incredibly high maintenance. That said, who could blame her? We had pretty much everything taken care of for us. And then there’s Anisha, Sangeeta’s little sister, who would make silly faces in the background and go shopping with Sangeeta while I hit the bars.

As part of our few day trip out of Mumbai, we flew to Delhi to do some shopping and check out the Red Fort! Again, same issue in terms of price as the Taj Mahal photo / story. Same solution as well.

Taken with a Nikon D300 w/ a 24-70 f/2.8 Nikkor Lens

Taj Mahal

nobody@flickr.com (DodogoeSLR) — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 19:46:42 -0700

DodogoeSLR posted a photo:

marcuslam.tumblr.com/

Like every obsessive photographer, before every vacation I compile a shot list. This was number one on that list. I wasn’t too sure what it’d be like so I almost went out and bought a tripod. Almost. I have a rule that I never bring tripods on vacation because it’s just too much of a pain in the ass. Anyway I ended up with a clean line of sight as the sun was setting (has to be sunset to get a good reflection) and I managed to hit my shot.

The ticket prices fluctuate dramatically depending on residency. For locals it was only 20 rupees. 1 US Dollar currently buys you 54.32 Indian Rupees so that comes out to 37 cents. For foreigners, it was 750 Rupees! Annoyingly, Sangeeta would buy the local ticket even though she’s a US Citizen and pretend to be a local by talking in a fake local accent. She looked nothing (and I really do mean nothing) like any of the other locals. But to make matters worse, once we were inside, foreigners got to wait in shorter lines because of the price difference and of course Sangeeta would then immediately switch to her normal American accent, have my DSLR around her shoulder and security would let her in no questions asked!

Taken with a Nikon D300 w/ a 24-70 f/2.8 Nikkor Lens

Selfie at the Tomb of I'timād-ud-Daulah

nobody@flickr.com (DodogoeSLR) — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 23:33:02 -0700

DodogoeSLR posted a photo:

marcuslam.tumblr.com/

Not going to lie, we had it pretty good on our trip to India. We had staff at the house that took care of our laundry every day, we had a chef that cooked whatever we wanted to eat and hands down the most amazing thing was that we had a driver. So when we decided to take a mini trip to Agra to see the Taj Mahal, I figured the gravy train would come to a temporary halt.

Turns out, it didn’t. Sangeeta’s uncle had a driver in Delhi take us to Agra and he put us up at the Jaypee Palace. The reason I’ve got such a big ass smile is because I was having a pretty good time. Anyway I haven’t posted a selfie in a while on Flickr so I figure now’s a good of a time as any.

We got to Agra a bit early and we didn’t want to spend all our time at the Taj Mahal so we took a quick pit stop at the Tomb of Itimad-ud-Daulah. I’ve been told normally it’s packed but because we went on a weekday on non-typical foreigner travel times, we were almost the only ones there. It was so nice! Sangeeta took this shot!

Taken with a Nikon D300 w/ a 24-70 f/2.8 Nikkor Lens

Breach Candy Sandwiches

nobody@flickr.com (DodogoeSLR) — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 19:58:18 -0700

DodogoeSLR posted a photo:

marcuslam.tumblr.com/

As a carnivore, I never thought I’d enjoy a vegetarian sandwich but the Breach Candy Sandwiches are nothing short of epic. It was 3 layers of bread, cheese, tomato, green peppers, onion, chutney, butter and some type of spice. Take all of that and Panini it. I don’t think I used “Panini” correctly but whatever.

I’m pretty sure this was local SoBo, South Bombay, food because I literally was the only foreigner inside and hands down the only person rocking a DSLR while wearing shorts and sunnies for miles. Regardless, these were amazing. We stayed pretty close and as a result, I ate here 3 times on my trip!

Taken with a Nikon D300 w/ a 24-70 f/2.8 Nikkor Lens

Rajiv Gandhi Sea Link

nobody@flickr.com (DodogoeSLR) — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 21:15:34 -0700

DodogoeSLR posted a photo:

marcuslam.tumblr.com/

Obviously I wasn’t jogging on the bridge to get the photo. Rahm, our driver, noticed that I was taking photos as we were crossing the bridge and he nicely stopped for me. I know, equally crazy but driving in India is insane. We were staying in SoBo (South Bombay) and we actually took this bridge a ton to go to the Santa Cruz side to go shopping.

That said...Driving in India has to be one of the craziest things I’ve ever witnessed. It took me a couple days just to get the courage to sit shotgun. Drivers use the horn at all times of the day (it’s incredibly noisy) and from what I could correlate between audio and action, I concluded the system follows these rules.

1 Horn = FYI, I’m near by
2 Horns = I’m about to crash into you because you’re driving to slow or because I veered off into your lane and now you need to move.
3 Horns = I’m running the red light
4 Horns = To the guy crossing the street legally, head’s up… I’m running the red light and I’m not going to swerve for you. You need to walk faster.
Solid Horn = to the car in front of me stopped at the red light. I want you to run the red light. Maybe I’ll run it also but I probably won’t.

Taken with a Nikon D300 w/ a 24-70 f/2.8 Nikkor Lens