vendredi, août 31, 2007 It was a long day that started at 745am for me. Sending my mother, collecting my lens, lunch and shopping for plastic containers at vivo, coaching, trip to church to drop things off, decal pickup at Dempsey (just cos I was 200m away), class in uni, helping rie pack, then dinner/supper finally at 130am.   velocity | keys | yellow clementi flats   works ahead | objects in the rearview mirror may appear closer than they are photos at thesavi's, jalan kayu  I've never HEARD of Sinalco before, much less drunk it! Rie assures me it's in the same genre as Kickapoo, and I agree! It's a good drink.   this is not a restaurant | prata+beer=bad idea Libellés : photography [Long day] |
jeudi, août 30, 2007     Playing with the aperture setting on my 28-90mm, and really challenging my hand's steadiness as I go for the long shots!  I liked the colours, so I took a picture. Libellés : photography [Esplanade Street] |
 I've just invested in a beautiful 50mm lens ($135 from MS Color in AMK, which is $15 more than the unofficial price guide on clubsnap.org, but oh well...), and I am LOVING the photographs that I'm able to take. I'm a massive fan of the shallow depth of field photos, like the Starbucks cup on the left, and the 50mm lens allows me to take more shots like that at night since it's faster (and thus allows me to open apertures BIG and WIDE to let more light in.)I tested it yesterday night at Vivocity with Rie, then at home while I was idly waiting for my room to clean itself (it didn't), and then at my church carpark (gorgeous bokeh!) and then on my Starbucks cup (Saher would have a fit.) Unfortunately, it didn't perform very well tonight when Dom and I headed to Punggol Park to try some long-exposure shots on the tripod. I thought the stuff he shot was not too bad, but he's super fussy about his shots, which I really don't get because it just takes all the fun out of taking photos (and life in general.) Oh well. Different attitudes towards life, I suppose. I never think I'm an optimist until I meet people who are discontent at their lot in life. There's always space to move forward, of course, but like Rie and I just discussed on the way home yesterday night, a lot of Singaporeans are like Dom: very goal-driven, never taking time to enjoy the process of it all. There is beauty in the process, and learning takes place in waiting. Just ask Beckett's Didi and Gogo (Waiting for Godot.) There's an inspirational story floating somewhere out in the ocean of the Internet that's of a man who was given a ball of string that represented his life. If he wanted his life to go quicker, he could pull on it and his life would fast-forward. Of course, he fast-forwarded through many unpleasant situations in his life, but he came to the end of his life faster too. Needless to say, he regretted every pull of the string because he missed out on so much. The process is painful because we dull creatures cannot experience pleasure without knowing the pain. In the same way, the goal is made much more beautiful because so much more went into it. Art and beauty is truth; we may not arrive at truth without first being tested and purified/cured through fire. (I did not intend to write so much; this was supposed to be a banal post about my lovely 50mm lens.) And now, as they say - on with the show! photos with the 50mm lens (vivocity with rie)   vivocity: toothache alert! corduroy chocolate | vivocity's water art fountains are beautiful   Forever 21 @ Vivocity: you put your right hand in, you put your left hand out... photos with the 50mm lens (church and home)   bokeh in basement church carpark (2210hrs) | laundry hanging (1430hrs) photos with dom's 10-20mm (wide angle) at punggol park (0030hrs)   pavement lights at 0030hrs; no mosquitos!   dom mucking about with the tripod (again) | our possessions on a lonely bench lousy photo with the 50mm lens at punggol park (0030hrs)  <<夜思>>, or <<近水楼台先得月>> since this photo was taken by the water, and if I may mix my chinese 成语. I feel smart. :-) The lens just couldn't focus, and I didn't know why until Dom told me it was due to the low levels of light. Apparently the lens needs light to autofocus. So frustrating. :-( Definitely needs a tripod, which I will bring for Mich's Esplanade gig this Saturday. Libellés : issues, personal, photography, singapore, thinking [50mm: fun fun fun!] |
lundi, août 27, 2007  "Life is not worth living! Padme has left me, Obi-Wan has betrayed me, and the damn laundry isn't drying because of the humidity! I can't take it anymore! I must end this!""Anakin! The Dark Side is not the smurf-answer!" Libellés : humour, photography [Anakin and Holy Smurf] |
samedi, août 25, 2007 Singapore River: A Photo Study Not really a full photo study because I am still learning how to use the camera, but strangely enough, the calculations and adjustments are rather intuitive for me; I'm hoping to make my calculations even faster once I've learned to set-up the camera properly.  no pictures please! | accounting for capitalism   Paparazzi begone! | Fullerton palms   Maybank | Fullerton Bus Stop   Water under the bridge | Nicoll Highway Bridge   Nicoll Highway Bridge | Squint   Nicoll Highway Bridge | Mucking with the tripod  U-turn before you enter the CBD and lose your soul  Goodnight at 2am Libellés : photography [Singapore River: A Photo Study] |
vendredi, août 24, 2007 Putting pen to paper and biting a knuckle      Continuing on with the exploration of my hand-me-down camera, I strangely managed to coax a reluctant flash into working properly again. Dominic had it for two full days and was unable to make it "talk" to his brand new Canon 400D, but after a few minutes of sweet talking, hard presses and soft caresses, the no-name 3rd party brand flash is working perfectly with my Canon 300D, and all is well in the world!Meaning to get a kick-ass, store-all camera bag from Cathay Photo (or somewhere), I took back the telephoto lens from Dominic, and was all prepared to head out tomorrow with EVERYTHING, so that I could get a bag which would fit everything. But lo and behold, the wonderful, fantastic, gorgeously generous person called Lijie contacted me via MSN to answer my photography question, which resulted in an impromptu one hour lesson on APERTURES, and ended with me making plans to borrow one of his lenses and a bag from him. It was midway through my third "OMG my head is going to explode" feeling that I decided that pen and paper was still the way to go, which resulted in me scribbling furiously as Lijie merrily typed away for this course on his computer at home. Of course, this resulted in a massively long MSN chat session which I forgot to save (stupid! stupid! stupid!) but now I know about Primes, Chromatic Abberations, and the fact that I am still amused by the fact that Lijie and I can communicate with programming shortforms like "bokeh!=f-stop". (It wasn't that exactly, but the programming sign was!) I'm not sure if I'll ever get to the point where I'm turning my camera to manual (I probably will get there just to challenge myself), but for now, I'm not above just setting the camera to photograph at "AUTO" and taking it from there. I'm just excited about the process of acquisition, experimentation and hobbying. Libellés : personal, photography [Putting pen to paper and biting a knuckle] |
mercredi, août 22, 2007 Some pretty pictures of my garden So apparently, my brother has a whole shitload of camera stuff which I overlooked when messing around with them about two years ago. Taking out the telephoto lens and playing with it for a bit yielded some really gorgeous photos - and I was just trying to make the camera work!      Libellés : art, personal, photography [Some pretty pictures of my garden] |
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