I have moved the blog to the root of this site… so it can now be reached at http://vubui.com (no more /blog).

Lan and I are ditching our annoying splash pages and the “portfolio” and I will just be using the “portfolio” category on The Bui Brothers Blog for our portfolio stuff.

I am also going to start videoblogging again. The new blog is perfect for it… and I’ve recently gotten back into it. I’ve got a bunch of stuff queued up and ready to go.  Go time is now.

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Lan and I hung out in the RVIP Lounge at the LA Film Festival this past Saturday with Hayden Black, Kestrin Pantera, Jonathan Grubb, Batgirl (the dog) and a few other cool people.

We didn’t really spend much time at the festival, and it was the day before it ended… but we did walk past the big Hellboy II premiere party as they were still setting up.  Very fancy…

Here are a few shots from the day, I actually didn’t shoot that much.

After recently “topping off” the construction site for the $548 million, 460,000 square foot New Hospital Building… the giant crane used during construction was disassembled and trucked away this weekend. The building is set to open in 2010 and has been under construction for about 3 years already.

Lan and I were asked to come to the construction site to take photos and shoot some video while the crane was disassembled.  After recent crane tragedies and scandals, it was great to see that this one was safely disassembled and transported away without a hitch.  We shot the video in time lapse… my favorite part is when the clouds roll through towards the end… I think we might see more time lapse videos from The Bui Brothers… coming soon in HD.

It really was quite a sight to behold… especially from the awesome vantage point atop an adjacent CHLA building… from the helipad.

We actually learned a few things about the crane and its operation… some things we were curious about (nope, there’s no restroom, just a bucket!)… and some things we hadn’t even thought to ask (the crane is built where an elevator shaft will be… so it is able to work from the middle of the building then be removed without affecting what can be built since the elevator won’t even be put in for 6 months or more).

See Lan’s blog for some shots from the day… when he posts them.

I just called 911 for the first time in my life about a half hour ago.  I need to wake up in 3 hours to go shoot some crazy crane move at CHLA… but I thought I’d jot this down really quickly first.

I was coming down the 22 East… passing the 5… when I noticed a newer silver BMW 7-series swerving back and forth between the carpool and fast lanes.  I thought it might be someone just taking the turns a little tightly… or being a jackass… but after we passed Main St. I figured that he/she (after this I’m gonna just refer to this loser as a “he) was drunk.  The driver started to slow down… and I wasn’t going to pass him for fear of being rear-ended… he’d gone from 75 to about 45 in a short amount of time… and I wasn’t going to risk him ramping back up behind me.

As we approached Tustin, it seemed like he was moving towards the exit… but a little too slowly… the nice new BMW smashed right through a large road sign - the kind held up by a wooden 4×4 - and then swerved back on the freeway and kept driving.  It was at this point - maybe 2 minutes after I first noticed the car - that I called 911.  I gave the officer the info on what I had witnessed, told him that there was probably a large sign sitting as a hazard in the road on the Tustin exit, and gave him the color make and model of the car as well as the license plate, lastly mentioning that the car looked pretty beat up by the sign and had the front bumper hanging off the side.  By the end of the call we were on the 55 South passing the 5, I had my flashers on behind him because he was driving about 30 mph.

As we approached MdFadden, it looked like he was finally going to exit… but as we started to get off he must have suddenly realized it wasn’t his exit (SOME of his brain cells were still functioning) and he swerved back towards the freeway, over the curb, and back into the traffic lanes… and since I wasn’t about to pull any death-defying (or death-inviting) moves of my own… he lost me and I drove home.

I do wonder if CHP responded and went after him… or if he made it home.  Neither would surprise me.  There is also the chance that he got into a larger accident… he was totally out of it and nearly crashed multiple times during the 5 minutes I was tailing him.

I hope that’s not the case.  I’d like to think he’s in the back of a cruiser right now… and once he gets out he’ll pay some hefty fees to get his smashed car out of impound.  I doubt he’ll learn his lesson, but it’s the best I can hope for (unless I want to hope that he just wrecked his finely tuned German automobile on the side of the road… but that wouldn’t be nice to wish on his friends and family).

When Mark and Candice Brooke contacted Lan and I about shooting a promo video for their photography website we were totally stoked. Their photography is top notch and they are definitely a force to be reckoned with amongst the wedding photographers we know.

Part of our video called for some unique shots of them that we were going to incorporate into the intro… a way to quickly and without words show their personality and fun demeanor. Luckily we all chose an awesome spot to shoot the video… so we decided to do the photos right there as well.

Here are a few of my favorites from the shoot… you can see the rest when you watch their video (which Lan did an amazing editing job on) here!

Well, the concert went off without MUCH of a hitch. We ended up starting almost a half hour late due to audio issues, but once we got started the show was awesome… and both the live and the internet viewers had a blast. After the show we went out to the back balcony (Keats’ place is awesome!) and had snacks, pizza and conversation. All in all… awesome night.

I shot a few photos outside… love the metal siding background thing. Unfortunately it was only about 5′ tall so I had to sit people down… but it worked out. I’ll post more shots to Flickr tomorrow or so.

Most of the people who know me probably also know Paul Dateh. Most people who know me also know that I am gifted with musical talent. Er… yeah. Talent.

Paul Dateh, on the other hand, is blessed with ACTUAL musical talent. That’s why one of his You Tube videos has had over a million and a half views. That’s why he’s being suddenly flown all over creation to play. He is recording a new album, which is coming out this year. And he’s funny.

And you get to see him. Free. From the comfort of your own home. In your underwear or even naked, if you so choose.

Tonight, May 25th, 2008… at 5PM Pacific time, Paul and guitarist Ken Belcher will be playing an intimate set, in front of a small live audience, that will be broadcast live over the internets. Yes, you read correctly, the internets.

Go to live.pauldateh.com to check it out. You’ll be able to chat live with other viewers and also ask questions or make comments that Paul will be addressing during breaks between some of the songs. Ask him some cool things… like “why is the sky?” or “where do babies go in the night?” Questions of meaning. Questions of substance. Questions whose answers will validate your very existence.

So set an alarm, invite some friends over, and when 5 o’clock shows up, bask in the glory that is music.

Here’s an amazing animated promo that Paul made. Cutting edge graphics are the name of the game, folks.

I am not a designer.

The being said, I’m actually pretty proud of myself for putting together the page for the new Shootsac promotion. Lan and I did the video (Lan’s post work on this one was AWESOME) and I put together the page with a good deal of input and advice from Keats. It’s done in a very old way (tables and crappy html code), but I did everything on the page except design the logo (made the poster, buttons, etc…) I’ve checked it in multiple browsers and everything seems ok with it, so the fact that it looks decent is all that matters.

This may seem like a pretty inconsequential thing… but I have a long history (8 years or so) of making really crappy looking websites and pages. This is the first time EVER that I have put together something that doesn’t look like it was done by a five year old, or maybe a monkey.

To top it all off it’s also a GREAT promotion. Spend $75 at the Shootsac store during the month of May and be entered to win the lens of your choice up to $1800 on Adorama. The odds of winning are actually quite high compared to most contests or promotions you will find out there, so it’s pretty exciting. Check it out.

I received my new Alien Bees ABR800 ringflash last Wednesday… and have anxiously waited to have time to try it out. Finally yesterday I came over to Lan and Bonny’s garage… set up some lights… and did a quick shoot. So far I really like it. I do need to make sure to not overuse it… but when you have something new that’s inevitable. All the shots below are with the ringflash and 2 strobes behind and to the left and right of Bonny… at about a 45 degree angle or so. It took some time to get it right, and I was adjusting throughout… but I’m pretty happy with the way they are turning out.

One thing I didn’t realize that I’m going to have to rectify is that I definitely need an ND filter… many of the shots were done with the ringflash set to minimum power (1/32). Some were still too bright, at ISO 100 f/16. It definitely reminded me that I need to clean my sensor, though. Damn that thing’s dirty… shooting wide open all the time I tend to forget that.

After seeing everyone else do it… I thought I’d go ahead and try Tweetcloud, which makes a word cloud of your most used words through your Twitter posts. I have no idea how accurate this is… “going”, “know”, “think” and “vegan” are supposedly my most used words (minus the stop list, which removes the most common English words like “the” and “and”, etc.

Try it!

Eddie Grey is an awesome personal trainer out of Studio 1 on 1 in Venice. Keats, Lan and I shot promotional photos of him on Thursday, and here are some of my favorites.

As it turns out, the body builder types we see gracing the covers of insecurity-inducing magazines at the checkout stand typically go through quite a bit for a couple weeks before a photo shoot… Eddie educated me a little bit on this. No amount of carb dropping or forced dehydration, however, can fake what’s not there… Eddie is the MAN and he is in SHAPE.

You can also see Lan’s images here.

We went to San Luis Obispo yesterday to help a friend and aspiring wedding photographer, Bonnie Tsang, who was shooting her second wedding. We went mostly as support and to do a little second shooting… but we also took the opportunity to shoot a little video that we’ll be putting out in the next few weeks.

I’ll probably post a few shots from the wedding one of these days, but here are a few shots that Lan and I did in another room during the reception when everyone was pretty much stuffing their faces… typically not the best time for photographs.

This one is good for all my non-photographer friends who just like to take photos and maybe do some simple edits to them. I assume most of the photographers I know actually own a copy of Photoshop…Adobe has just released a beta of Photoshop Express… which is basically a scaled down FREE version of Photoshop that you can actually use on the web. There are no layers or filters or complex brushes… but the truth is that for 99% of the photos that are posted on the web you really don’t need any of that. It’s more than enough to take your decent photos and make them look great.

That being said there’s still a pretty impressive list of adjustments and tools for an online application.

The Touchup feature works really simply… you choose the size of the spot you want, click the area in the image you want to touch up, then a red circle comes up which you can move to find the spot you want to use to blend into.

There are also liquify-type effects that you can use… for entertainment purposes only, of course.

I’m not going to do an in-depth feature review… but this is definitely a great tool for amateurs or those who just want to perform basic edits before posting their photos online or having them printed. Check it out.

Kate and I were surprised to receive a strange looking 5 dollar bill as change at Rite Aid today. I guess it isn’t taking long to get the new bills into circulation.

I understand the need for better and more technologically advanced anti-counterfeit measures… but it seems as though our paper currency is looking more and more like what I expect to see in Singapore or Vietnam. At least they are retaining the same size for now, but the big purplish 5 on the back is just weird.

I am deathly ill.

Ok that might be a slight exaggeration… but it does feel that way. I haven’t felt this sick since I had malaria… and that’s saying a lot.

Anyhow… besides the sickness it led to, WPPI was awesome. Shootsac did very well (which was the only true goal I had for the trip) and I met lots of great people. Ally Stepp was one of our volunteers and she turned out to be very cool. Lee was of course fun and great. Hanging out with Orbie Pullen, Rebecca Meredith and Aaron Dieppa was one of the highlights of the trip (oh and thanks to Orbie for teaching me to play craps). I met some great people at Becker’s party and tons more at the booth itself. Too bad I can’t remember half of them, but luckily I got business cards!

The craziest thing from the trip besides the blackout was that it was snowing on the drive to Vegas. Actually… snowing is an understatement… it was practically a mini-blizzard. I haven’t seen snow come down like that since I was but a wee lad in upstate New York. Crazy.

I didn’t really have much time to shoot anything while we were in Vegas outside of the video we did at Becker’s party… but I did snap off a few stills while we were testing the the new Arri fresnels I bought (they were brand new and I had only turned them on once) while we were still in our room the night before the big event (see below). I love these lights! I chose a 650W and two 300W. I got barndoors for each of them, a couple scrims and filters… and a really nice softbox that works perfectly with the 650W. You’ll get to see some examples of our final lighting setup on the B School Blog soon.

Lee Keller, Ally Stepp, Bonny Pierzina:

Ally Stepp and Lan Bui:

The drive home was uneventful and a little sad… there has been months of buildup to this event… I literally did nothing more than prepare for it for the week and a half preceding it… and then suddenly it was over. Keats had warned me it would be this way, but I didn’t believe her. It’s not that I don’t have anything to do… there’s lots to do with Shootsac, there’s lots to do on The Bui Brothers side of things… and I even have some Vu Bui photo shoots coming up. But I feel a bit lethargic despite all that… then again being deathly ill may have something to do with it.

Ok, so I’m not very good about keeping up with blogging. I have never been much of a blogger, I always figured that no one really cared much for what I had to say unless it was something really important. Considering, though, that I have very low readership here… I guess I might as well just start saying whatever the heck I want to, and maybe I’ll even start posting videos again. Maybe.

Anyhow, Lan and I have been working on a project with wedding photographer [b]ecker, we shoot daily videos for the [b]school blog, they teach new and experienced wedding photographers tips and tricks to help out their business. We actually had a great shoot yesterday, which included a visit from Jasmine Star. She’s very sweet, and if you check out her blog you’ll see she’s also a great photographer.

Working on the [b]school project has exposed me to lots of information and people in the photography world. It’s an invaluable experience. If you are interested in starting a photography business or even if you already have, you will love the free tips and info you can get on the video blog. The videos will be posted daily until WPPI in March, at which time we’ll be launching the main site. Check it out!

It’s been a while since I’ve really written anything here, just a few video and photo posts, but I’d like to record a little about The Winnies.

Irina Slutsky came up with the concept and started planning The Winnies, and she brought Lan, Bonny and I on as organizers to handle the logistics and website. Truthfully Lan handled almost ALL of the website and did an awesome job with it. Anyhow, between the four of us we organized what I believe to be a successful event. People had fun (the open bar didn’t hurt), they loved the red carpet photo booth we had set up, and the best part was that people actually showed up. By the hundreds.

Luis took the “official” photos… about 1,500 of them… and they’re all available here on Flickr. Here are just a few of my MANY favorites…

The Organizers:

Team Noodle Scar:

Jumping With Annie:

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WTF?

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Na was my favorite fruit during my stay in Vietnam in 2006. Friggin’ delicious.If only I could have some Na during the next two months, veganism wouldn’t seem so daunting.

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Lan, Bonny, Paul Dateh and I went to see Battlestar Gallactica Razor last night… and while waiting Paul and I walked over to the New Zealand Naturals ice cream store, where they take regular ice cream and put it through a machine that sorta turns it into soft-serve.

Jay and Ryanne are East Coast transplants documenting the green and geek communities in the SF Bay Area. Both are ex-television producers and editors who were born anew into the videoblogging world in 2004. Ryanne is the Co-Author of Secrets of Videoblogging; Jay is the Co-Author of Extreme Tech: Videoblogging. Both are the Co-Founders of NODE101 an open source collaborative effort to teach videoblogging around the world.

They are, to me, a representation of what is great about new media. They met through videoblogging, and are two of the biggest new media evangelists I know. They contacted Lan and I, wanting photos that can capture their personalities… taken by someone who they can be comfortable around. Here is a preview… just a few selections I made while browsing through them. I’ll be posting the rest to flickr when they’re done.

See Lan’s previews HERE.

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I have a bunch of video from my Vietnam trip in 2006 that I have still not gotten through, but here is the first of what will end up being maybe 12 or so videos.Here’s how they eat avocado in Vietnam… or at least one of the ways. Avocado is so cheap in the area that my grandfather lives that we get them for free from other people’s trees, most of them actually go rotten. Not quite the same as California, that’s for sure.

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I visited White Castle in Queens, NY with Action Girl… it was not good.

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This is a song, by Bui Sauce, to everyone in the world except the 15 people who watched us film Noodle Scar live… which includes everyone we know except Rox and Shane.Noodle Scar