As promised, here are photos of the Mount Pinatubo’s crater lake. Look at the color of the water. I didn’t change it, that’s how it looked when I saw it. Imagine seeing this kind of scenery after hiking for more than an hour and sore legs?

The lighting was already a bit too harsh for my liking, by the way, and I had to use my gradual Neutral Density filter, otherwise the sky would have been way over-exposed. I was hoping we could arrive much earlier to catch the soft early morning light. Next time, hopefully.

These two photos are almost straight out of the camera. I could have burned some parts of the sky and the mountain during post processing, but not now. They still look pretty, I think.

OK .. not so old. I found this photo when going through my archive just now. It was taken in February 2008 when a group of us went to climb Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines. OK, I am exaggerating. We just hiked, not climbed, but tired enough. This was after the hike and we were already on the way back to Manila,  but still not that far from Mt. Pinatubo. I went there again two months later with another group, but didn’t hike all the way to the crater as I wanted to shoot something else. So, gang … identify yourself.

I will post photo of the crater in the next post. Going to sleep now.

“A snapshot steals life that it cannot return. A long exposure creates a form that never existed.” ~ Dieter Appelt

One of my favorite photography quotes is about long exposure. People can argue whether or not they will call an image taken at a very slow shutter speed (long exposure) as photo or as an art, especially when it creates effect that you will never see in the reality. I will call it a hybrid between photography and art. I guess that’s an easy way out, but it’s true that you can still see element of photography in it and at the same time, you can also see the element of art in it. Unlike a painting. Look at it and you can immediately tell that it’s not a photo.

You achieve this by combining both the photography techniques and the thought process of how you would like the image to be the moment you click the shutter button. You can choose to use fast shutter speed to freeze the water movement or you can create the sense of the water moving by using a slow shutter speed. The choice is yours.

The image of water stream above was taken in Mount Pinatubo, Philippines in 2008.

Have you voted today? Have you heard about Singapore Blog Awards 2010? I am one of the Top 10 Finalists for the Best Photography Blog category. If you like this blog and you have a moment to spare, I would appreciate if you could vote for me.

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• You can vote everyday even for the same blog. One vote per day per category. So, keep voting please if you can. Thank You! 
• They have prepared some prizes for the voters too : http://sgblogawards.omy.sg/about/prize.html.