I was taking a stroll at Bonifacio Global City (BGC) and observed how precise its architecture of it – from the buildings and even the sidewalks that have plenty of space for walking but still have space for lamp posts within it. As I was looking up, I loved seeing the windows of the building reflect the sky and its surroundings. This is why I've wanted to capture the building's peak reflecting the sky. I've also wanted to capture "architecture" with height in this photo, which nudged me to capture the lamp post along the building to have that deception of height (making the peak of the building and post meet). That's why I wanted to capture the "peak" of these architectures to demonstrate height!

Since I'm taking pictures outdoors, there's enough sunlight, hence have a low ISO of 50 but still have a clear and grain-free photo! It was challenging taking a picture of this shot as it was too bright. You can even see the sun's light shining on the building's window. Anyway, since there's too much light, I've set the shutter speed to 1/1000s so that less light will reach the sensor and prevent an over-exposed photo. As for the aperture, I didn't want to blur the sky, so I set my aperture to f/1.9 to capture the whole scene and demonstrate the peak. Lastly, my focal length is set on 6.04mm and just zoomed a little to omit unnecessary elements as much as possible. Although you can see that a part of another building can be seen on the lower left, it was not ideal to zoom in more as the composition will not fit the Rule of Thirds and will ruin the demonstration of height since the distance will be adjusted. Overall, I liked how I was able to portray the peak of the lamp post and building, demonstrating the deception of height between the two objects.

The first thing that comes to mind on pattern was something related to patterns of clothes like plaid, polka dots, or stripes. But as I was contemplating on what I'll be using, I saw my closet and was astounded to realize that it has a pattern. The design is like a woven "kawayan" pattern, even imitating the color of it. The interlacing of the "threadlike" part (the rectangular ones) was satisfying to look at. The alternating overlap of the rectangular elements is also evident in this pattern  – having that woven-like pattern to see.

As I wanted to capture the whole thing, I opted to use an aperture of f/1.9 to avoid any blurring of the elements of the pattern. Since I took the picture around afternoon, there was plenty of sunlight in my room, which made it possible to have less grain on the photo with ISO 320 but still maintaining a good lighting.  Since there's no motion in this scene, I've opted to use 1/80s shutter speed. I wanted to avoid a shaky picture, which is why I didn't opt for the slowest shutter speed, which might have ruined the pattern I wanted to capture. Lastly, Lastly, my focal length in this one is 6.04mm, just to zoom a little bit but still be able to capture the whole pattern I want, as the closet has a "curved" door and not a flat one.  Having this focal length also helped me to level the door and make it seem flat (but curved on the outer part of the image). I used this setting to capture the right amount of light to make the pattern visible and balanced.

Living in a city full of light (pollution) is very disheartening and disappointing as you can't even see a single star above the night sky. My honest reaction was, "What now?" as there's nothing to capture. While I was thinking on our balcony and experimenting with ideas for a night shot, I saw the brightly lit buildings in the distance. It was a stark contrast with the dim night sky, thus, I decided to capture that view I had. 

Since the buildings were far, I zoomed the camera, hence the 6.04mm. It was also challenging to adjust the composition as the subject is at a great distance, which needs to be zoomed, hence also affecting the aperture, having f/1.9.  Although it would have been nice to have a deeper depth of field, I think it fits what I wanted to capture in this photo, which is the bright lights of the building that outshine the night sky.  As my main focus is to emphasize the lights, I lowered the ISO to 250, making it less sensitive to the light and enabling it to emphasize the only light source, which is the lights of the building from afar. As for the shutter speed, I've experimented with it and found that 0.4s (4/10) was the best option as there wasn't any motion being captured in the scene. This combination of camera settings was the "best" out of experimenting and trying to prevent the photo from being grainy.

This was the hardest theme for me as there weren't any flowers in our area. Luckily, I was able to find flowers in the open space area in BGC. It was challenging taking a photo of it as the flower was hanging therefore, I needed to balance myself while standing on tiptoes. The weather was kind of windy at that time, so it was hard to take a snap of it and align it with my desired composition. I was really fond of this flower shot compared to my other choices as the color of the flower stood out against the contrasting background of buildings. The flower feels "out-of-place" as it was surrounded by infrastructures, making it a "wild flower" in my eyes.

Knowing that the flower was hanging and hard to reach for executing ideal composition, I decided to zoom the camera having a focal length of 6.04mm. Since the object I'll be capturing is outdoors, I was able to pull off a low ISO, which is ISO 160. This made me avoid a grainy photo since there was enough light. Since no motion needs to be captured in this scene, I used 1/1000s shutter speed so that I could balance the lighting by making less light enter the camera since the shot was taken outdoors. The most challenging part for me is the aperture, as I tried experimenting with its setting, and I didn't like too much blur of the background, which is why I've just set it to f/1.9 to have a bit of depth of field. It was also hard to capture the photo since it was kind of windy outside, making it hard to set the settings while it was moving. Nevertheless, I love how the colors turned out in this photo and didn't need me to do post-processing like cropping or adjusting colors.

I took a lot of options for motion, but this picture of the bucket was my favorite on this "bucket" list (pun intended, haha). I'm fond of water as it's calming to observe the ripples – its ebb and flow.  Seeing this picture made me notice how water in a bucket can represent emotions, specifically the feeling of pressure. Each of us has a "bucket" or limit on how much we can take all at once. Some have a deeper load, and some may have smaller buckets. In the end, no matter how big our buckets are, they can still overflow from too much pressure and load carried. And then everything will spill. I wanted to capture that kind of feeling in this photo; that's why I've decided to emphasize the water spilling over the edge of the bucket.

I was cautious when trying to take this snap as I was avoiding the water splashes that might get to my phone camera. That's why I took a little step back and zoomed my camera in 6.04mm just to be safe. As I wanted to capture the ebb and flow of the water spilling out from the bucket while also having that "flowing motion" feel, I opted to have 1/125s shutter speed – medium-fast speed to capture that certain motion.  Since the lighting in our comfort room is not ideal, my ISO is 1600, having a bit of a grainy feel. This may be due to my aperture being f/1.9 hence, the camera has a larger opening and admits more light, which was helpful in this case since the lighting on that part of our washroom is dim. Having that wider opening of lens opening, as well as high sensitivity to light, helped me to capture the scene in low-light conditions but have a bit of a grainy effect. Nevertheless, the grainy feel did not affect the motion of water that I wanted to capture, which is why I ended up with these camera settings.