ASEAN Hive Community Challenge #78: I joined a Portrait + Black and White Photography Workshop in Cebu, Philippines

Hi, ASEAN Hive Community. It is my first time to join a challenge here and I am excited to join the black-and-white photography for this week. I'll be sharing with you some photos I took in the Philippines.

Back in Cebu, Philippines when my DSLR camera was new, I still have my Nikon D5100. Having this camera, I was searching for different photography workshops in Cebu to learn more about using a DSLR camera.

This is not a point-and-shoot camera, so I have to understand photography terms like Aperture, F-stop, Exposure, ISO speed, etc. Using a DSLR camera is so technical and I need to learn how to take care of the camera.

I was searching on Facebook if there were photography workshops available around. I was searching for groups, maybe a community of professional and hobbyist photographers who can share their insights about photography.

I just bought a new lens, it was the 50 mm 1.8G Nikon lens which I got from a photography store in Cebu.

With the 50 mm lens, this is good to use for portrait photography. Somehow, I found a free photography workshop in Cebu that will talk about portrait + black and white photography.

Also, as a photographer, we should take advantage of the use of bokeh for a nice background. Here, I wrote an article previously: Tutorial: Bokeh in Different Shapes using 50 mm Lens with my Nikon D5100

Here is the setting I used for these photos:

F-stop f/1.8
Exposure time 1/200 sec
ISO speed ISO-200
Exposure bias +2 step
Focal length 50mm
Max aperture 1.6

If you can see the blurry background, that is a bokeh.

Bokeh has nice effects on trees/leaves and lights.

Here is the photographer who started this photography workshop. He explained to us how he likes black and white for portrait photography. To be honest, at first, I didn't like portrait photography because I prefer landscape photography, I love to travel.

But I wanted to start a wedding photography business so learning portrait + black and white photography is really necessary.

Because of portrait photography and as a photographer, I need to learn how to pose in front of the camera. Here's a photo below where I was pretending to be a model. Hahaha!

Here's a previous article of the photo above: PhotoFeed Contest - Portrait Photography Round 25: My Self-Timed Portrait

Here are some wedding photographs I got paid for. Because of my photography gigs, I was able to save money so that I could travel to different countries while I also maintained my Virtual Assistant job.

Related Articles:

• Monomad Challenge: Random People in Colon Street, Cebu City
  

• Monomad Challenge: The Beautiful Bride

I hope you enjoyed some of my photos for this week's challenge. Check out the contest here.

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