Photography | Voices from within

10Oct/094

Canon PhotoMarathon Singapore 2009

I was one of the 1000 participants in the Canon PhotoMarathon Singapore 2009 leg today. Registration started as early as 7AM and I was lucky to be there early for everything (registration and photos submission) as the queue was just crazy.

At 9AM sharp, the first theme was projected on every screen in the convention hall. There were altogether three themes and contestants were given three hours to go out and get their best shot back for uploading.

The first theme was... Togetherness.
Fuhh.. what a tough theme, I thought. I was so energetic at the beginning of the competition. We walked so much till we were too tired to move when the second theme was announced. First theme was basically a failure haha. Both of us came up with some ideas but the weather did not allow us to explore too much out. It started to rain right after we stepped out of the Suntec Convention Centre.

Departed from the Suntec Convention Centre to search for subjects for the first theme

Just outside the Suntec Convention Hall exit. Hmmm.. what to shoot?

Straying at Little India

At Little India

A bunch of carrots. Togetherness? Did not submit this as I thought it wasn't appropriate.

I ended up submitting this, a photo which I did not take during the course of the competition. This was what we had for breakfast. Togetherness - toast must come with soft-boiled egg? Lame, but I could not pick any suitable ones :D Pass!

The queue during the first session's photo submission

Second theme was.. Motion. Ha! Easy piece of cake! Here are some of the shots taken.

Guess "who" was the chosen one?

And, the final theme was.. Energy. We took our time out at the food court after the last theme was revealed.

My coffee, his tea

We rushed to the Carrefour nearby after tea. And er, coffee. I wanted to shoot a fridge full of 100 plus haha. Shortly after we arrived at the soft drinks section, many other contestants arrived as well. Were they having the same thought? Hehe. Anyway, there wasn't a fridge full of 100 plus waiting for me to shoot.

Milo - source of energy?

This was the chosen shot

After that, we walked around Suntec City for some more shots before returning to the Convention Centre.

In front of Suntec Tower Two (yes, the one on the right!) and Tower One (not sure about the other one on the left)

In the Convention Hall after the final submission

Overall, it was a very fun and interesting outing, although exhaustively tiring. The event was very well-organised by Canon. There was no disruption to the procedures at all. Although the queue was amazingly long in the first photo submission session, things were improved during the second and final sessions. Kudos to Canon! For me, I guess the best lesson learned was my familiarity with the few areas near Suntec City! Haha. It is mainly because we had to walk to-and-fro the same places over and over again. I have also learned from the various products of professional photographers there. They produced fabulous shots; very good techniques and some were very meaningful shots.

Thank you, PhotoMarathon Singapore 2009

Filed under: Photography, Singapore 4 Comments

6Oct/094

Mid-autumn weekend

It's yet another homecoming weekend. Mom stuffed us full two days in a row, dinner on Saturday and lunch on Sunday. Check out the food..

There's my favorite arrowhead with minced pork! Yummy!

On Sunday, I went shopping with Mom at Mid Valley as I wanted to get a dress for a dinner. After going in and out of Metrojaya and a few boutiques, I finally settled with a dress from The Mod House. I find that they have a very nice collection, one that kind of suit my style. Simple and presentable. Hehe, I'm not one who should talk about fashion here. Next up, I thought it was time to go.. until I passed by Key Color. Tripod! I ended up spending another RM 120 on a tripod. After exiting Mid Valley, I told myself that's the end of my spending on D-zai. Save, save, save!

In the night, KC and I attended Allan's housewarming party. It was great to be able to have a short meet-up with my fellow ex-colleagues; PC and Mike (the upgraded men) with their wives, Sharon, KY, Linda, Lisa and Andrew. I thought I would not be able to meet Hiew Ming but we bumped into her as we left Allan's house later. She was... hmmm... 2 hours late? Hehe.
Gosh! Allan's house was so pretty. Very well architectured :-)
There goes my mind, wandering in the wilderness.. dreaming of my own future house.

Allan's house from outside the balcony

Our next destination was.. Putrajaya! I brought my new tripod and wireless remote control with me to test them out. We stopped at the Putrajaya bridge and some government offices. There was quite a number of people at the Putrajaya bridge, mostly couples enjoying the lake view at night.

Filed under: Events/Vacations, Friends, Photography 4 Comments

27Sep/090

Orchard Road Walkabout

My photography journey continues :-)

In front of Singapore Art Museum

Dinner at MOF - Ministry of Food

Unagi and Chicken Teriyaki Sandwich

Macha Latte hehe

Salmon and tuna sushi

Kani xxx Salad

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26Sep/090

F1 craze

People everywhere! The MRTs, buses and city were all crowded with people. I could hardly grab a pole or hold the handgrip in the MRT when I made my way to City Hall after work. This must be an event that should not be missed, I thought. The real race will be on Sunday while yesterday's highlight was F1 practice sessions 1 and 2, and the Porsche Carrera Cup Asia practice session.

I am glad that I was part of the magic although I am no F1 fan. The night was simply spectacular and I enjoyed every bit of it. We took almost 700 shots in the span of 3 hours! After reviewing the photos, I found that half of them are failed shots and some shots I thought were good did not turn out that well once loaded into my notebook.

Here goes :-)

My pass

On the way to the show..

Notice the fence? This is one of my mistake, still wondering how to overcome this to take a better shot.

Ferrari fan!

Monkey caught doing naughty things

Tired..

Bye bye, F1 Singapore!

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24Sep/090

I am an Amateur!

I finally attended the Nikon D5000 Workshop yesterday evening (after anticipating this for more than one week)!

It is not a photography class, but rather a get-to-know-your-D5000 workshop. The workshop was conducted by Mr. Steven Yee. Overall, his class was very informative and he is one funny guy hehe. I must say that I understand my camera better now :-) For a start, I really did not know that there is a distance limit to a camera's built-in flash and D-zai is capable of illuminating up to the focal length of 18mm. Now I know why do people buy flashes. *blushes*

On a side note, I felt a bit funny when I first stepped into the class. It was like... eh, I'm a student again! Hehe, it was fun though. Almost everyone there was new to the hobby and the D5000 was our very first DSLR. The funniest moment was when Steven lauded, "Ladies and gentlemen, now get your cameras out and remove your lenses". Everyone did exactly just that; opened our bags, carried our babies out and detached our lenses. Steven then switched on the fluorescent light above him and instructed us to see through our lenses. He taught us how to check for unusual objects on our lenses, such as fungus.

Here are some shots taken during the class. They are shots taken randomly when requested by the instructor, hence, not much preparation and composition involved.

Some great shots hung in the classroom. Of all the pictures, I particularly liked the one in the center bottom position, the one with monks as the subject. There is light shining behind the monk who is standing in the middle.

"Ladies and gentlemen, set your ISO at 200 and focus on me!" (starts flapping his arms)

"Now, set your ISO at 1600 and focus on me!" (okay, this one didn't turn out good). Steven wanted to show us that you can achieve better quality by tuning your ISO when shooting moving objects. The higher the ISO, the faster the shutter speed.