Paul Obuna

Howdy its been a while since I last posted any thing up in here thought I would change that being another year. So far its been pretty quite have had a chance to shoot more which is a plus on my books.. Its been a good 2 months already I’ve been blessed to visit some parts of this beautiful country of ours and taken up some interesting assignments.

Below are randomly picked images for the couple of months in between since my last post.

Have a cold one!!

The wildlife and fauna with thin this country is simply amazing..

This is Kenya!!!

Flowers in Kenya

Been to a couple of weddings

I know am pretty!!

Beauty and the Beast

more pictures to come in the next post..

There is a group of highly talented and totally awesome photographers and videographers  by the name OneTouch and I’m highly privileged to be a part of this team.

We have this on-going theme and vision of showcasing the beauty of Kenya hence the handle #shootingkenya and #OneTouchLive. These week the plan was to shoot the sunrise from Uhuru Park, the Ngong Wind Farm your guessed it Ngong and Sunset at Lake Magadi.

On the material day I work up at 4:30am was ready to be picked up by @profkatts and @nkatetei.  at 5:15am Optimus was at my gate we made our way to South C to pick up @sirnare @MemyKenya and @Amungathegreat. God must have been listening to our prayers since it was a cloudless morning the moon was still glowing up above.

We were at Uhuru Park at around 6:05 where the OneTouch fam (@Shaydest, @dipwiz, @jaydabliu, @truthslinger, @Nyingez, @SunnylikeNjeri, @stevekitots, @kevjapicha, @mwarv,@skubi and @joemakeni follow them on twitter)had already gathered Cameras, Lens, Phones and Tripods taking aim towards the direction of the sun.

At approximately 6:20am the amber glows of the sun and within no time the sun in all its glory and majesty appeared… You may need a moment or two to take it all in…

Next stop was Ngong Hills at the Ngong Wind Farm it was a bit windy and cold you have to see these monsters up close these machines rotate to follow the wind as they generate clean energy we need more of that I think to save the hole up top Ozone something right..

What transpired after the wind farm has been given a name ‘Chaipati’ which is becoming a tradition of sorts 35 Chapatis and 17 cups of tea the Cook/Chef had to chomoka from the kitchen to see who was eating the chapos faster than he was cooking them..

Another stop at Corner Baridi absorbing the view some photo bombing and lots of banter we proceeded to Olepolos only to fine it closed bummer only for us to discover another joint across the hill called Kitalu a fairly new place. The chaps were passing by to do a bit of work at the site but were kind enough to slaughter the goat below for our indulgence… Indulge we did to a point where we lost track of time.

Magadi being 60km away we had to literally race against time to capture the sunset. It was like an episode of the Amazing race. Upon reaching Magadi there was little time to setup the sun was almost setting and this massive cloud was shielding the sun from us. We had to make do with what was available and had our 10mins before the sun disappeared.

Last words it was a day well spent with great people, lots of laughter, lots of images and lots of learning. Take time to follow the OneTouch team on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and on their individual blogs/sites.

Two weeks ago I had the opportunity to take pictures of some pretty awesome eleven month old twins Jeremy and Jayden along with their mum Reggie the extended clan a couple of cousins, aunts and Grandma.

Location Westland’s… There should be a rule about women and giving directions I will leave it at that J I got to the right court but wrong door number rang the door the lady assumed I was a Jehovah’s Witness or a salesman of sorts.

After numerous calls I ended up at the right location did my set up and waited for the fun to begin. Lesson learned from this shoot have fun and be patient with kids

Below are some of the images of the fun we had during our informal shoot.

PS: My fascination with black and white keeps growing everyday… Hopefully I will get a soul daring enough to quench this craving

The last two Saturdays I have been in a wedding line up and a guest/paparazzi at two weddings. On the 21^st my boy Moses was finally tying the knot after keeping us waiting for ages (pun intended) and on the 28^th my homeboy Macharia was pulling the same stunt.

Both occasion were held within the church compound service and reception at Parkland Baptist and NPC Karen respectively.

Moses and Harriet

Mr & Mrs Omukambi

Since I was in the wedding line up I could not manage to take shots but since I carry my camera everywhere I handed it over to my side kick one Sejo put it on Full Auto, which he had a blast with and nice images to boot. I also managed a few shots of Harriet and the bridal party during the photo session at land mark images shared below.

Mrs Omukambi

Macharia and Nancy

Mr & Mrs Macharia

Mr & Mrs Macharia

The days started on a low (it was not a very good day for science – Dexter) I woke up much later than I had anticipated why is that important you may ask? A good pal of mine Macharia my neighbour in my old hood  since we were born was getting married I was meant to go take a few shots of the grooms men before they left for church…. let’s just say me waking up late messed a few things that morning we shall leave it at that..

Moving on, I reached the reception at around 2pm the Bride and Groom had gone for their photo session chilled a bit for them to come back hand a blast after that. Met so many old faces it was like a Jeri re-union

For more wedding photos go to my weddings Page and have a look

Been Away for a while 3 weeks infact I was away on leave handling some personal issues that came up. Issues have somewhat been sorted am now back full swing.

It feels good to be back in the thick of things life has to go on and steadily we are moving on to bigger and better hopefully..

During my time away I managed to capture a couple of frames while at Aberdares below are some of the images taken during my brief haitus
While at aberdares

Have a fab week ahead

My journey with Baibey continued our companionship ever growing, more often than not any activity that presented an opportunity to freeze a few frames we would be there faithfully clicking away.

My Sensei gave me some assignments to try out on my own the only catch being I use Manual Mode. Shutter speed, Aperture and ISO were still proving to be a challenge especially in dark places but after lots of trials and a lot more atrocious shots I began getting ‘better’ results and understanding these three terms.

The discovery that I could use my two old gifted lenses (35-70mm and 70-300mm) on all the other modes opened up new learning experiences.  At the beginning I had tried mounting these lenses but kept getting this FEEEE error on the display so I had given up. With the help of my Sensei I was shown how to hack (Just in case you need to know for old AF lens turn the Aperture ring to the highest stop in my case F22 and Wallahhh!!)

Bringing Baibey with me on occasions has been a blessing in disguise I mean no queuing at the stadium when going to watch Harambee stars playing getting vantage positions to view proceedings.

A colleague of mine hooked me up with a complementary ticket to go see Hugh Masekela (Being me I could not pass up a freebie) this provided a chance to capture images of my First Concert and it was quite a big deal for me…

I loved Hugh’s the facial expressions as he was performing you will notice this was my main focus.  You will notice the images are a bit soft I was using a slow shutter speed kit lens limitations now I know better still saving up for a fast one. I enjoyed the music so much that at times I forgot to capture images and took to the floor (This guy is a performer and a half worth every bit of my free complementary). Enjoy….

The Ignition

During Jayden’s (son to a friend of mine) birthday bash I brought my trusty N6006 along and snapped away. During my snapperazzi moments guys would ask to see the photos I had taken of them while at the bash explaining why I was shooting film in a digital world  was considered Oldskool at some point it began to bother me and it’s out of this bother that the Ignition was born…

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Some more googling and a dozen other photog sites and blogs the search of a digital SLR was born having been ‘using’ (Keyword) a Nikon for the past 5months the learning curve has not been as steep. A choice was to be made and there was only one outcome TeamNikon.

The choices were narrowed down to these three i.e. Nikon D90, D300 and D7000 cost and functionality were largely the determining factor and how much coins would be available. It was later unanimously agreed that the D90 ticked all the available boxes. This was the easy part now the hard part was to collect enough coins to acquire this new toy…

The Flame

By luck or chance I managed to gather some major coins and it by coincidence, one of my in-laws was visiting the Diaspora and the acquisition was finally made. After an anxious wait December 12 2010 Baibey was finally delivered safely into my hands in +254 02.

With the arrival on Baibey the trusty N6006’s thunder was irretrievably stolen his outings and usage nearly none existent but i have a feeling that it is like the proverbial phoenix you never bet against its return though on a limited capacity or occasional play even the substitutes get their minutes of playtime right? It will have always a space in my bag am sure at some point it will come in handy.

Keeping the fire Burning

With the arrival of Baibey there was a need to seek out a sensei who would share with me wisdom/expertise some of the secrets of this beast in my hands. I have had the privilege of having relations both far and near of career photographers. Thanks to Charles -Shutterspeed and Wagema I began understanding more about the technical stuff that the D90 is made up of and what it could do.

The intention to get Baibey in December was so that I would have enough skills to be able to take photos of the real baby (referred from here onwards as Aaron Toto Handsome) by the time he was born around February.

The skills came in drops due to work engagements and Mama Toto Handsome being expectant practice was largely limited. I did a lot of reading trying to master shutter speed, aperture and ISO I soldiered on grabbing moments whenever possible.

Slowly I stumbled upon good shots and those not so good. I played around with settings the entire Auto range (Dumb Mode) always twisting that knob to achieve what i thought at that time was near perfect images. It was not easy but somehow through Gods grace I soldiered on.

On the 28^th day of February 2011 Toto Handsome was born coming in at 3.8kgs quite the bouncing baby boy and my soon to be guinea pig. It was a joyous occasion 1 year 4months down the line I am still in awe of the miracle uncovering in front of my eyes daily.

Since then the images kept rolling (more than 25000 images already) there is a famous photographer who said that your first 10000 images are probably the worst you will have taken I am assuming with that my quota of bad images is over **just a thought** Along the way I managed to discover Adobe Lightroom which is like super cool software for post-production processing (basically editing images) in ways I only saw in other peoples works.

I have come a long way and the images I’ve taken or continue to take suggest that there has been steady progress/growth with a little help from Lightroom I am enjoying this I wish I had picked up the camera much earlier than I did.

I have had the pleasure of poxing myself to shoot Film and Digital at several of my friends weddings**not as the main snapperazzi or second shooter but as a guest**, Nature, Travel, Street, Abstract, Studio without lights, Night, you name it here are some of all that combined.

It’s been a worthwhile adventure since then Baibey and I have been inseparable we have ventured to various places in this great country of ours to the Coast (Kilifi, Malindi) Nyanza (Kisumu) Western (Emuhaya) Rift Valley (Kajiado, Nakuru, Naivasha) and we have met lots of very nice people along the way. We intend to go for more adventures the more the exotic/remote the locations the better (Northern Frontier Added to Wish List).

Sainara.. till nextweek