Shutter Box Philippines :: Digital Photography and A Whole Lot More

The Palm Beach Post 3rd Annual Focus on Nature Photography Contest received over 3,000 entries from amateur photographers in the USA and Ruel Tafalla, a Filipino, emerged as the 1st place winner in the Oceans Category.

Ruel Tafalla’s winning photo “Start of a new day“, shown above, was taken at the Boynton Inlet last May 27, 2007 at around 6:30 am.

During the shoot it was a bit cold and windy, and my camera was constantly sprayed with saltwater. Sunrise was at 6:20 but it was cloudy so I just shot the rocks and ocean with an ND filter mounted to slow down the shutter speed.

Ruel used his Canon EOS 5D with a Canon 16.35 f/2.8L lens with and ND filter. Settings used was f/22 at seconds exposure.

Ruel will receive a cash prize and a one-day group nature photography session with The Post’s deputy director of photography John J. Lopinot for bagging the 1st place in the Ocena category.

Why do I like Photography? Because I can’t Draw

Ruel has been living in Indonesia from 1997 to early 2007 and works as a semiconductor equipment engineer. He has been shooting since 1999 as a hobby. Ruel recently moved to South Florida, USA to pursue further studies.

I like to shoot landscapes, nature and infrared. I also like to shoot sports. But I changed to Canon EOS 5D from a Canon EOS 1D MKII N so no more sports shooting for me for the mean time.

Check out the special presentation on the winners, including audio commentary by the photographers and the contest’s head judge.

You can also see more of Ruel’s wonderful photography works at www.pbase.com/ruel and www.flickr.com/photos/ruel_photo or you may want to drop by his blog at www.rueltafalla.blogspot.com.

Congrats Ruel!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 25th, 2007 at 2:12 pm and is filed under Contests, Photographer in Spotlight, Photographers in the News, Photography Contests, Photography Organizations, Proudly Pinoy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.