Empa-photography

About Us Hope Despair Articles Gallery Links Improvements

When you do nothing, you feel overwhelmed and powerless.
But when you get involved, you feel the sense of hope and accomplishment that comes
from knowing you are working to make things better.--Pauline R. Kezer

Photography's Power to Trap a Moment

Share your experience

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Interacting with the children at Fei Yue

I have never had so much fun doing CIP before. It wasn't the usual boring CIP activities which I had participated in the past. Today was different. Somehow I couldn't quite put it into words. It's just that having taught the children what we learnt from Photographic Society, i suddenly felt that photography has a new meaning to me.

It is not just a form of expression for the individual but it is capable of bringing joy to people as well. Initially before going to Fei Yue I think I was going to teach them anything interesting at all. Besides, it feel so interesting when our instructor taught us these photographic skills in the classroom. But the children's response took me by surprise. They were not only eager to learn, they were enthusiastic in participating as well. For example, when we were introducing the different modes available on the compact camera, many of them started to ask questions like, "Where? What does it do? How do I use it?"

These questions prompted us to teach more than what we have prepared. We enjoyed ourselves even more during the games session where we drew pictures that were taken with the different modes and asked them to identify which mode was used to take that picture. During this game session, I could clearly see the beauty of a child's innocence. Although they got the answers wrong several times, they refused to give up but tried again and again. I would never have seen this side of them if I were to do the usual things like raising funds.

Another part of our interaction was to allow the children to try out what we have taught them. This picture was taken by one of the children.

This picture was taken by the child when her friend excitedly ran over to her with a camera in her hand and both of them took pictures of each other smiling with the cameras. At that moment I thought to myself, "We should spread the joy of photography."

The only pity was we couldn't spend more time with the children to get to know them better. This visit only allowed us to see the conditions of the place in which they spend most of their time at and their bubbly nature. Given a second chance, I will definitely to this again. This beats taking random pictures just to hone my photographic skills.

Change makers5:28 AM

1 Comments

1 Comments /h4>

Unknown said...

“It is hard to describe my feeling at that moment…when I saw the sweet smiles on the little girl's face… all my stress and unhappiness seemed to disappear suddenly. I have never encountered such emotions before in being a volunteer.”

7:56 AM

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

Friday, August 08, 2008

Playing with dslr & photoshop

Having a dslr is really exciting but it's a pity that I havent found the time to discover more about it. Nevertheless, here are some test shots which I've taken with my dslr.

This was taken at the pasir ris beach. I've been wanting to test the 'depth-of-field' & when i saw this bug on this leaf, i knew it was a perfect opportunity.

It was quite hard to maintain the posture though. I need to ensure that i remain very still to avoid handshake and try not to alert the bug. On some shots it flew while i was taking the shot & it went out of focus.

I have to say that the depth of field did not turn out to be what i want. Perhaps it was the inability of the lens to create the effect i want or perhaps i still need to work on my skills. Anyway it was a good experience :)

The next picture is really interesting. It's photoshoped by my cousin.

The river belongs to Singapore by the way. It looks so blue because it was photoshopped lol.

Looking forward to more interesting pictures like these!

Change makers6:25 AM

0 Comments

0 Comments /h4>

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Photography and sharing

When people think of photojournalism, they think of lengthy articles with one or two pictures that attempt to help the reader understand the article better. However, photojournalism is no longer limited to simle articles on the sufferings of war - ravaged countries or the sufferings of those who face poverty.

Photojournalism has become a popular avenue in which awareness can be raised on certain topics effectively. Although videos provide more information on the event, videos do not have as much of an impact then pictures do. A single picture has the ability to change any person's mindset on a matter depending on how well it is taken.

Nowadays, many picture galleries are being set up online and offline. Examples such as the "Earth from Above" gallery serve to promote the vastness and beauty of the world, instigating people to take effort to protect environments that are in danger of being destroyed.
Here are some examples of pictures taken during our visit to the "Earth from Above" gallery.

Change makers10:38 PM

1 Comments

1 Comments /h4>

DUONG TUAN ANH said...

The idea of using photography to instill emotions to people is very sound and creative. Most of us are usually not exposed to the world of photojournalism due to lack of information. Hence posting it online can indeed increase awareness among our peers.

9:06 PM

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

Friday, June 06, 2008

Protect Mother Earth

世上只有妈妈好，没妈的孩子像根草。如果我们不保护地球，我们可能连根草都没有。

This picture was taken at pasir ris park today. An inspiration came to me when I was listening to the radio just a few days ago. The deejay said the above phrase & immediately I had a mental picture of a blade of grass in focus in mind. Thus when I went to the park today I took some time to take this picture & composed it in a way that it seems this grass is very important.

I believe that photography has the power of leading others' eyes to see the things that you're seeing. In this case, I'm leading people to see the increasing importance of protecting our earth, before we lose some more things that we take for granted today like the grass.

Change makers5:55 AM

0 Comments

0 Comments /h4>

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

Saturday, May 31, 2008

Project on HIV

Our project was about stopping the notion of people ostracizing people who had HIV.The project was basically to educate people the differences about HIV and Aids.One biggest misconception is that many people presume that they are the same thing andthat HIV is spread just by being in contact with HIV patient.

During our research, we decided to narrow down our target group aged (15-25).We did a survey among this age group and from the statistics that we have receivedit was shocking to see that a majority of young teenagers and adults had this misconception.We also found out through our survey tat people were unwillingly to be friends with HIV becausethey were afraid that they would spread this diease to them. Therefore, we decided to narrow down our design problem to that problem.To be able to convey this message effectively.We decided to do a poster concept to educated this age group.

The photo concept is taken withthe imagery being two hands holding each other while one of them is attach with a red ribbonwhich symbolizes that the person has HIV.The purpose of having this image is to be able to convey a simple yet strong message thatthere is nothing wrong having friends that are infected with HIV.We created a tagline: HIV aint a KILLER.to further emphaizes on our message. With the image and tagline in place, we hope to be able to effectively convey this message to our audience .

Pandora is a 1st year student at Temasek Poly majoring in Visual communications.

Change makers6:39 AM

0 Comments

0 Comments /h4>

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

0 Comments /h4> Post a Comment Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

0 Comments /h4>

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]