8. February 2018 22:03
by Rene Pallesen
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What I especially remember from my last trip to Laos was the kids. One of my most cherished photos is one of two little girls holding a bouquet of flowers that I took 20 years ago (it is on this blog if you look for it through the search function).
The children are still there. They are still very shy, dirty and smiling.





They make up their own games such as these kids at a school playing marbles with tamarind seeds.



These kids were playing a game where the kid under the table had to poke the feet of the kids above the table.

And some things never change, kids teasing each other.


The girls in the school yard 'hang out'.

Visiting a local school was great for our kids to get a glimpse of how other kids live.



Along the road we stopped and a family was outside with the mother breastfeeding her son in their outdoor living room. This is where everything happened such as the cooking, washing, feeding etc.


The chicken were running around freely

Here is a rare shot that Kim took with my camera in it.

It is a very family oriented life they live


Sunday night Kim and I was looking after Ethan and Kayla while Chong and KC went out for dinner.
Kims
dad and Dylan popped over for a couple of hours (Kims dad wanted to see
Aiden ;-)) and after dinner and after Aiden was asleep I set up the
studio to take some portraits of the kids. Main purpose was to
experiment a little to improve my photography skills...especially my study of shadows (It is easy to light, but harder to create meaningful shadows).
Lately I
have been doing more photography using all my flashes with wireless
triggers to get interesting angles and effects. A couple of days ago I
bought a couple of pieces of fabric in different colours (blue and red)
to use as backgrounds and the following photos are a result of Sunday
nights photoshoot.
I used one flash camera right in a 60*60 softbox, Hair light behind
camera left snooted. In retrospect I should have taken my 3rd flash and
used this to light the coloured backdrops to create better seperation...the highlights above are done in Post processing.
27. September 2010 12:21
by Rene Pallesen
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I had a bit of fun on the weekend and spent a little time using photoshop doing something different for a self portrait. Just a bit of fun for a Facebook profile photo.
It took me about 5 minutes to take the photo and about 25-45 in photoshop to modify the image.

After taking the image I modified the background, de-saturated the colours, saturated the green colours, added the cat-eye contact lenses and extended the canine teeth slightly...done! Not perfect, but good enough for what I wanted to try and accomplish.
19. September 2010 10:31
by Rene Pallesen
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This week there was a big low pressure system of the coast of Tasmania resulting in 18 meter waves there. It was predicted that some of this swell would hit Sydney this weekend resulting in 3-4 meter waves on south facing beaches. This Saturday morning I went down to Maroubra to have a look...The waves weren't as big as I had expected, but there were lots of surfers there and I did manage to take a couple of reasonable photos (I may try again tomorrow).



I am sure that there were a lot of professional/semi professional surfers out there, but unfortunately I would not be able to recognise anyone. Some of the photos I took with my 28-200mm lens which is super sharp. I also took some with an old 500mm mirror lens...it is reasonable ok...but almost impossible to keep in focus.
10. September 2010 11:05
by Rene Pallesen
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Some people have said that Aiden looks like me (mostly) and some says that he looks more like Kim.
Here is a photo of Kim and I with Aiden as well as my mum holding me after I was born (I think):

I REST MY CASE!!!!!