My girlfriend had her graduation pictorial yesterday, I took it upon myself to bring my camera and try asking the studio if I could shoot some outtakes. I wasn’t expecting them to agree, but they did – of course with the requirement that you don’t use a flash, hook up to any of their equipment, and don’t get in the way of their job; basically you have to be invisible. Here were some of the outtakes of that session.

100% magnification of the original was way soft because of how far I was. Using a fixed 50mm, I had to crop the picture to get the compostion you see – I actually have her whole body… right down to her legs and shorts (and a whole lot of headroom above). I guess I could’ve bought my 28-135mm, but I was already on ISO 800 on f1.8, I doubt zooming in with the other lens would’ve helped my shutter speeds at all. I guess now I really am starting to appreciate people’s need for premium L lenses.

Still, in fairness, with the amazing technology that is “Photoshop” (hahaha) – I was able to somewhat salvage what were mostly dark, really soft shots.

Backstory

This was a rare occasion to get a picture of her because she’s doesn’t really like having her picture taken – just like me. We don’t really like being subjects in photographs¹ unless it’s a group shot. Actually, for people who know me, I’m probably more flexible in that respect.

She showed up like she would during a normal day in UP. We all know how UP, with the exception of few colleges/departments/orgs, isn’t succeptible to the whole peer-pressure/social-climbing culture of the more private colleges² – ergo the students rarely go to ridiculous lengths to look good at school. So there she was, wearing shorts and a shirt – with no make-up. I swear, I’m probably more vain than her when it comes to events like these; just like how all my skills with driving directions went to Pia, Cris’ share of vanity as it were – was offset to her siblings.

So I decided to bring my camera along just in case because… well, why the fuck not? At least now I have pictures of her which I didn’t have to leech of the internet!³