Banda 96, is one of the 2 pioneer band in Bacoor.


D’ Original Band was formed in honor of the late Prof. Hilarion F. Rubio, a native of Digman, Bacoor, Cavite.

Family Band (as I heard) is the newest band in town.

Banda 1 of Gov. P.F. Espiritu, one of the 4 bands coming from Barangay Panapaan.

Banda 8, another band coming from Bgy. Panapaan.

San Lorenzo Ruiz Band from Barangay Aniban, Bacoor.

St. Michael’s Band also from Panapaan.

The pioneer band from Panapaan, Bacoor, the El Gobernador Band.

Now the bands from the neighboring municipalities:

Banda 74 from Kawit, Cavite.

Banda San Roque of Silang, Cavite.

Banda Sta. Monica of Tanza, Cavite.

Banda 93 of Silang Cavite.

And the Rosarian Band from Rosario, Cavite.

The best Marching Band was judged after the parade together with the best Marching Majorette, Best Drum Major & Baton Twirling Contest. The contest were only opened to the 5 guest bands, Bacoor’s Town Mayor, Hon. Edwin “Strike” Revilla was there to witness the activity & award the winners with prizes.

For those who asked on how I did the “painting” look on the photos, blame the LucisArt@trade; Photoshop plug-in for that.

Like what I’ve mentioned in my first post about infrared photography, the key is to shoot raw (NEF), this way, there’s more room for post-processing.

I opened the same photo that I used on that post & processed it in a different manner. For the recap, here’s the EXIF info:

Capture Mode: RAW
White Balance: 3000°K (Fluorescent +3)
Aperture: f8
Shutter Speed: 1 Sec.

Now the juicy part, I mean the post processing, first, Perform the Auto-Levels (SHIFT+CTRL+L for windows).

Notice the change of color hue from the reddish cast into a purplish image, step 2 requires duplicating the layer (Layers –> Duplicate Layers). Make sure that you selected the uppermost layer & you are now ready to perform step no. 3 which is Inverting the Color (CTL+I).

The Background Layer must remain in a purple cast while the top most layer must have the greenish look.

Step 4 is Blending the 2 layers, the blend mode of the top layer must be set to Color & that’s it. You can do some more adjustments like sharpening, etc. I prefer adding some Gaussian Blur & Noise to the image to enhance its look.

Finally, the finished product.

I believe that there’s no “perfect” post-processing style, I just think that this is better than the monochrome look that I used to doing.

As you may recall, my set-up was a little crude, I was using a tripod then, I decided to purchase (1) a 6′ light stand, a shoot through umbrella & a umbrella adapter with hot-shoe connection.


The current set-up has given me extra flexibility, the extra height of the stand & the diffusing capability of the umbrella to soften the shadow.

I did some test shot using the current set-up & I’m quite satisfied with it’s result.

This shot of the bear was taken without the help of the shoot through umbrella. Notice the shadow of the right side?

As you can see the on the next photo, the shadow is more detailed, which is not good in shooting still life or even in portraiture.

So what else is missing?

1. Another speedlight (flash), probably an SB800 or SB600
2. Another light stand
3. Another umbrella or a soft box
4. Umbrella adapter

Good thing that I can take advantage of Nikon’s Creative Lighting System (CLS), this makes the flash (IR/RF) commander optional.

Taken using a Hoya R72 Infrared filter attached to the lens of my camera, I took this photo yesterday around noon when the sun is at it’s mightiest. This is just another variant of infrared photography, primarily purple cast. I experimented on the channel mixer playing on the blue & red channel.

Although I prefer the black & white infrared, this is just another option that you might try.

A blessed week to all.

This photo was taken last March in Tarlac, around noon & that explains why the sky was not that blue. A Circular Polarizing Filter (CPL) could have done the job for me but unfortunately I don’t have one. Although I believe that having taken this the right way (with the CPL attached to my lens) is the best way to do it, it’s good to know that this can be corrected using Photoshop. I found this tutorial from Ken Rockwell about Polarizer & tried it. It’s really simple.

1. Open the photo that you want to edit
2. Create a new layer (Layer –> New –> Layer), Name it as GRAD & set mode as Soft Light
3. Select the GRADIENT TOOL from the tools palette (or just hit ‘G’), make sure of the following:
   • Be sure you have the default foreground and background colors, black and white, if you are not sure, press ‘D’ to set the colors to default.
   • Make sure that the “Linear” option is selected.
   • That the “background to transparent” grad is selected.
4. Click, hold & drag until you reach the horizon
5. Select the background layer (where the photo is)
6. Click on the black & white button on the lower part of the Layers Palette & select the “Selective Color” option on the drop-down list
7. Change the colors option to Cyans: adjust the Cyan level to 100 & Magenta level to 100
8. Now, change the color option to Blues: adjust the Cyan level to 100 & Magenta level to 100
9. Click OK.

That’s it! You can play along with the selective color to fit yout taste, by doing that, I was able to achieve a bluer sky.

Like what I said before (and earlier) capturing it the right way is still the best option, photoshop is available just to enhance what is already a beautiful photo.

For my post-processing style, I don’t just use the black & white conversion feature of the Photoshop, I put extra effort (& labor) to fit my own taste & this is what I’m sharing right now.

I make sure that I start with a good photograph, right composition & proper exposure is the key. I picked this photo of a smiling kid & will try to convert it into black & white.

The first thing that I did is to convert the picture into monochrome using Channel Mixer [Image --> Adjustments --> Channel Mixer], then I clicked on the Monochrome box located on the lower left portion of the pop-up window. Then, I adjusted the Red, Blue & Green channels to fit my taste [For this project Red = +20, Blue = +60 & Green = +20), once satisfied, just click OK for the changes to take effect.

The next step is to duplicate the layer [Layer --> Duplicate Layer], once the layer has been duplicated, change the Blending Mode to Overlay, notice that the photo will lighten a little bit. It’s now time to apply some filter.

On the menu, click on Filter –> Blur –> Gaussian Blur, I normally apply a filter radius ranging from 10 to 20 pixels, on this project, I opted to have it at 15 pixels.

Next on the filters list is the Noise [Filter --> Noise --> Add Noise] for the grainy effect on the finished product. I don’t want the noise to be overpowering so I just set it at 7.

After that, I just merged the layers [ctrl+Shift+E], resized the photo & that’s basically it.

Just remember that while photoshop is there to help us enhance our photos, what really matters is how we take the pictures, our skill is still the most important thing to develop.