My Pictures made it in the Manila Bulletin

Ivy P. Goze who writes for the Moms and Babies section of the Manila Bulletin called my wife for more information about Waldorf/Steiner Education. She wanted to feature the two schools that offer this system of education in Manila.

My wife and I were more than willing to give information, our daughter being a product of one school and us being members of the foundation that put up the other school. (For a full version of the article get a copy of the Manila Bulletin May 25, 2008 issue and look at page J9 Moms and Babies section. The online version isn't complete yet as of this writing.)

They used a panoramic picture of one of the Kolisko School classrooms as headline picture. One that I stitched together using AutoStitch, a very handy and versatile software.

This was one of the first pictures I took when I first came across AutoStitch, who would have thought MB would use it as headline picture for the article. Then again we were lucky to get coverage on an entire page.



We call this the green room, which the grade school use. The walls are a blend of different shades of green painted one on top of the other in lemniscape stokes before the previous coat dries up. Others would call the painting system - lazure.

Another picture MB used was one that I took during one of the summer workshops entitled "Is Math All About Numbers?"



This picture shows that a child has first to experience balance before tackling math. After all, one of the basic principles of mathematics is equality.

My math teacher told me once that math is a universal language because anywhere you go the principles of mathematics holds, like 1+1 is always 2. If only the principle of equality holds beyond mathematics we would have a much better world to live in.

I'll hold the principle of equality in my little world, since little things go a long way.

Who would have thought that my pictures would be published in an article, and that the article would come out today on my birthday May 25, also the day of our movie fundraiser for the Kolisko School.

Everything is alright in the universe, so I'll keep on taking pictures and writing blogs.


Arns Jara

http://koliskoschool.blogspot.com/
http://koliskofoundation.blogspot.com/
http://arnsjara.multiply.com/journal
www.whywaldorfworks.org

My First Panoramic Pics

The passion for panoramic pictures started when I was asked by a friend to take a full picture of the school we put up but somehow I couldn't fit the whole building into the frame even if I stood at the furthest corner of the lot.

Wishing I had a panoramic shot led me into searching for the easiest system of creating panoramic pictures from digital photos. I use an amateurish Sony Cyber-shot and use my finger as rotation point since I haven't bothered buying a tripod yet.

The pictures came out well, considering I have been taking pictures less than month.


The wonders of Auotstitch:

This is a panorama from 3 shots off the far corner of the Kolisko School in E. Rodriguez near Tomas Morato in Quezon City.

Two panoramic pics from the back of the school.
Three photos per panoramic pic.
You really need a steady hand if you don't have a tripod.

Then I tried taking pics inside the class rooms.
I've been wanting to capture the full effect of the rooms as one walks in.
Both rooms were labors of love, parents pitching in to lazure paint the walls.

You can really see the need of a tripod for this panoramic pic.
Not too steady a hand leads to a difficulty in cropping after the stitch.

But I think I did the rooms justice and captured their beauty.

Shortly after I took these pics, a friend took me and my wife to Kusina Salud in San Pablo, Laguna. The food was great and I had a massage too. But what caught my fancy were the rooms in the old house they converted into a mini museum.

I love old houses and salas with high ceilings and big windows.
Reminds me of that old Ilocano song:
Manang Biday, ilukat mo man
Ta bentana ikalumbabam
Ta kitaem toy kinayawan
Ay matayakon no dinak kaasian

This is an open room between the sala and the bedroom.
Probably a second receiving area or a comedor before the renovation.
All those frames contains pics of birds in the Philippines.
Amazing to see all these pics and not one of them is a maya, tagak or uwak.

This used to be a bedroom now they use it as a spa room.
I didn't do the room much justice.
Not seen on the left is the door to the wash room.
And the leveling is real bad. Really need a tripod.

The very next day I visited UP Diliman with my daughter. She wanted to go to a park and I wanted to make panoramic pics with more than three photographs stitched together.

This is the sunken garden.
I took eight (8) different shots and stitch them together.
The garden is still beautiful on a weekend.
Although lighting is very varied in a 180 degree shot without a tripod.
Leaves a lot of room for improvement.


This is the lagoon between Palma Hall and Melchor Hall.
A combination of five (5) pictures in approximately 130 degree angle.
During the dry season people actually gather here to have a picnic.
In the wet season, you barely see the walkway.

That's all for now. Next projects would be night shots, elevated shots, and I'll try again to capture vertical panoramas, I totally screwed the last one.

Visit my other blogs.

http://koliskofoundation.blogspot.com/
http://koliskoschool.blogspot.com/