Will you?

if I were to wear a YOG shirt and ride my bike on the lane…

Soft and delicate…

I’ve never really felt Singapore’s beaches were worth treasuring, as there is nothing much there anyway, given all the land reclamation going on. But when i heard of the oil spill which left the East Coast and Changi beach covered in oily sludge, I suddenly had the urge to visit all the other beaches before they are affected too. They have never meant so much to me before..

Being a major petroleum refinery, Singapore is highly susceptible to oil spills. The beaches are lifeless enough without all the sludge, and all it takes is a couple of oil spills to finish them off.

Pointing and shooting

Shooting with my E72 never fails to surprise.. Being “free-and-easy” encourages me to walk more, and explore more angles. There is no pressure to create good pictures, but when I make a pic i like, the sense of satisfaction is just as strong.

Colour on the E72 is rather poor though.. and lacks the punch and contrast of a proper camera. But with some processing, I doubt anyone would notice it.

Merry Xmas to all

Christmas (and New Year) may be holidays, but I don’t really look forward to them most of the time. They signal the imminent end of school holidays, and reminds me that it’s time to tidy up my stuff and prepare for another semester of mugging.

To my dear friends who celebrate Christmas, happy (belated) Christmas Day!

Special thanks to you for making this Christmas a different one =)

乱走

Somehow this year’s orchard walkabout pic is also in duo-tone. I guess I’m not someone attracted to the glitters and colours of Christmas decorations…

Wednesday…

Bottled water

Power of motion

I'd like to visit beaches with much larger waves than these.

It's that time of the day again

The bad thing about an 8-5 job is the monotony of life. Everyday is essentially the same thing all over again. I look forward to evenings, not only because of beautiful sunsets, but because it is the moment I can come out to play - jog, swim, cycle, or just walk around feeling the breeze.

And now I shall get back to work again.

This is the closest thing to crazy i've ever did

It's nauseating to hand over large stacks of cash. Almost fainted when I saw my bank balance after the purchase. Felt real sick. It's buyer's remorse at the max. This baby had BETTER be REAL GOOD.

Else this shall be one of my last posts...

A day through my window

What happens when I mentioned that I have nothing on tdy? A pail, rag and bottle-o-detergent appeared in front of me, together with an order - clean all the windows.

我不入地狱，谁入地狱？Started cleaning from 1030.. continued after lunch... till 3+. As the windows are tinted, I got a good gauge of how the sky will appear through an ND filter. And I saw a great ray-of-light phenomenon spread across the whole west coast. Camera out, naturally =)

As I continued to clean another set of windows with my Nikon within grasp, it started to rain... while the sun was still strong. My instincts (or experience, or science knowledge) told me a rainbow should be appearing anytime soon. The good thing about a window cleaner is that u get to pay attention to anything happening outside, every minute (duh). Lo and behold - a full arc appeared, so close I thought I could spot the pot of gold at the base of the arc.
I couldn't take the whole arc due to stupid HDB obstructions in front... the rain grew heavier, but I snapped on, risking my gear (or perhaps hoping to damage it so i could get a new one XD).

Rain gone, rainbow's gone, 2 more sets of windows to clean. Its already 5+ (trust me, cleaning windows manually is no mean feat). The sun was out strong, and birds began to sing. Looking out of the window (where else can I look...) I spotted birds of breeds less seen. Perhaps because I was already at the window so long, they thought I was part of the scenery. I was lucky to be this close, since 200mm is my longest telephoto available.
Finally finished all windows by 1830, and stopped to admire the scenery before me. It is interesting how good it looks when the grills are open. As the sun sets, I was treated to a red glow from the only energy source in this universe.
Did the calendar mentioned that tdy is a 吉日 for window cleaning?

With my BENRO and my NIKON and mEEeeEE

好久好久没有独自户外拍摄了。 今天心血来潮，带着为自己新买的圣诞礼物 - Benro 三脚架，到裕华园做红外线拍摄。如果没记错的话，我应该有7-8年没到裕华园了。公园里宁静的湖水，再配上细心栽种的树木，使这里成为红外拍摄的最佳地点。

单独拍摄，感觉好像在旅行。自由自在，毫无干涉地欣赏公园里的美景，也可算是人生一大乐趣。没有人在身边，就不用浪费精力做无益的交谈，不用浪费时间等别人拍照，思想也不会因别人的照片而受干扰。在这种情况下，一个人的想象力才能得到充分的发挥。大多数有名的山水摄影师，不就都是单独拍摄的吗？

当然，单独拍摄也使我感到蛮寂寞的。夕阳西下后，孤零零地回家时，我突然想找个人陪伴。咳！人生本来就矛盾。

-----------

Omg... that took me 40 mins to write.

Through thick and thin

Such is the value of love

Am I going emo again? Maybe... but one thing is for sure - I've settled upon a favourite black and white conversion process. Be prepared to see more BnW pictures in the future. To me, monochrome removes the distraction of colour, forcing the viewer to focus on the mood. This in turn makes it more engaging.

Emotions gone wild

This is a scary and dangerous thing, as we tend to commit mistakes in such situations. It isn't exactly healthy too. I'm saying this because i just witnessed a wild party during the SPH Txy internal camp. People just went mad, fueled by music and occasional SIA planes flying over. Studious looking people can gyrate so hard as if to shake their pants off, girls screaming non stop as if they have whistles built into their throats, boys behaving like girls and vice versa...

Ok, I admit this is just a very moderate campfire party night. I know there are much much worse cases. But the thing i couldn't understand is, how come people can get so high? Is our society getting so stressed people must resort to such activities to let lose? Or issit because we are born at a time where upholding our moral values is no longer as important?

Grey days

Yet another RANT

I've finally come to the last wedding pictures for this "season". As usual, I'll do a de-brief of things I learnt.

Where I failed:

• Too tight crops of subjects. I was a little too desperate to capture certain expressions, so much so that I zoomed right into their faces. Not only does it look weird to have 6mpx worth of a face, the picture also fails to tell a story. Why did this person laugh? Why the funny expression? An excuse I can come up with is that with a small and dark viewfinder, I tend to zoom in more closely to look at the expressions. Crap, another excuse for a d300.
• Too much tilt shots. This is getting out of hand. An occasional tilt adds life to the set, but overdoing it resulted in a hap-hazard presentation. Stupid. In my tries for the perfect tilt, I screwed up many shots that would otherwise be ok. In addition, having too much tilt shots also shows that i lack maturity and proper composition skills.
• Poor focus. Can't be helped, I'll get the solution should a new wedding assignment draws near.
• Not observant of light. Mounting a flash results in being totally insensitive to light. I should also learn to add more direction to where my flash is bounced, but have to watch where I blast it at.
• Bias towards family members. I shot so many pictures of my relatives I find them sick. Should have paid more attention to other people. I still lack professionalism.
• Lazy. Somewhere into the dinner, I felt tired and began to think I've got enough shots. But the truth is, the later into the night, the livelier the crowd becomes, and the more opportunities there are. Haiz.

Where I improved:

• Expression. Of course as I mentioned I get too tight expressions, but having expressions is still better than none at all. At least there is a little more variety compared to previous weddings.
• Exposure. Although I have no fast lens and hot bodies, I do have a good flash, helping me nail the exposure for the bread and butter group shots. I need to develop a way to flash without getting reflections from glasses though. An option would be off hand lighting, which is cumbersome.
• Workflow. I learnt to be more organized in picking out the better pictures and developing them, saving time (as if i'm in a hurry...lol)

Enough said. To the average joe, my pics might look ok, even great. But I know where I stand - NOOB

Very Bo liao

Nothing better to do. Dragged my reluctant brother along to catch a sunrise at punggol, at 6am. The problem is... there wasn't anything spectacular. Colours weren't great, so i figured it would look better in monochrome.

Patience is key to nailing nature shots, and i guess i'll have to try again next time.