Month: January 2009

Categories
Memorable Events Photography

Captured Moments of My Sister’s Wedding in Hong Kong (2008.12.28)

A Sample from My Personal Collection of My Sister's Wedding

Fortunately I was not the main wedding photographer.  What hard work it was!  With no control over light quality, background, and where everybody stands, I did the best I could.  And I did the best I could with my first dSLR camera that was less than 2 months old and my non-existing knowledge of Photoshop.  At times I am amused by the faith my little sister has in me.  I love my little sis.  I have been practicing hard, for this very moment.

Can’t wait to see the result?  Click here but please do come back.

I have been resisting to ‘photoshop’ my pictures for a long time until now.  Simply because I’d like to show the world what I can possibly do with my camera and my camera only.  Here is an analogy for you.  Showing you what could have done with my camera (to the point of no cropping) is like performing my music live to you.  The artwork is not perfect, it has its flaws, but (I hope) it has its charm, a sense of genuineness.

Most professionals do some forms of post production work on their photos.  Competitions allow that too.  Hence to me, admiring a moderately or heavily ‘photoshopped’ picture is like listening to a music album.  Perfectly finished and generally accepted.  Some cross the line and they have become more like a digital art to me.  No disrespect to those who are skilled in post production work, I personally enjoy playing my music live.  I.e. my photos as they are being shot (or could have been shot).  Having said that, after ‘photoshopped’ this little photo collection of mine, I do enjoy admiring the end result of this twenty odd pictures, out of 500.

It is surreal to think that my little sister is now married.  It seems like yesterday when I changed her diapers, when I was 4.  Now, here are the rest of my photo collection.

Related Link: Personal Photo Collection of My Sister’s Wedding (HK), What a Fruitful Year that Ends with a Bang: My Sister’s Wedding

Categories
Reflection

A New Theme for the New Year – Follow It Through!

A Volcano in Bandung, Straight from my Nikon D700

Following my annual tradition in determining a new theme for a new year – pretty much like how a Pope is chosen – a few ideas have been going round my head for days and I have been waiting for an answer [from above].  As though I saw fumata bianca raising up from my ears, one day I woke up with such clarity of this-is-it.  Avid readers have witnessed how such a simple concept called theme has shaped my life in a sustained manner over the years.  I welcome my friends’ questions such as “Does it really work?” and “How does it work?” and I would like to briefly share my thoughts with you.

One, unlike New Year Resolution that often revolves around things that I should not do and things that I set out to do, a theme captures the essence and the internal driving force and reasoning on what I aspire to achieve, which gives me a much stronger willpower in battling with the daily little decisions.  And two, annual themes are aggregative in nature.  A theme is supposed to make me a better person and after one long year of practice, it should become my way of life.  Sure, there are occasions when I need to take out an old theme from the closet, blow off the dust, and give it a new look.  Every year, I have dreamed of a new theme since 1996.  Some themes are public, some are not.

This year, I pick the theme “Follow It Through!”.  Last year’s theme “Do It!” has done wonder.  It prompted me to start doing so many different things and has kept my life very exciting albeit chaotic.  But it has its shortcomings.  Quick wins and low hanging fruits are favored over longer term activities that require sustained effort and resources and interest.

Sustained interest is hard.

So what kind of ”˜projects’ fall under the umbrella of “Follow It Through!”?  Quite a lot as it turns out to be.  I want to continue to head towards a healthier lifestyle.  Already abstained from alcohol for close to one full year, I want to substantially reduce the intake of meat (especially red meat) and unhealthy ingredients.  And I want to resume my regular exercise ritual.  I want to look healthy, feel healthy, and be healthy.  Why stop at body health?  This year, I have resumed my spiritual ritual and have started to attend Mass regularly.  Weekly close encounter with God seems like something mandatorily non-negotiable.  Besides, I begin to derive new meanings to my reinvigorated faith.

My friends ask what our band will do next.  Good question.  We finally played a live gig.  That is “Do It!”.  Now, we need a series of next steps.  That is hard work.  Cynthia and I have passed our level 2 Spanish test with ”˜flying colors’ as informed by the school (more update to come!) and we intend to continue to level 3 and 4 in the year 2009.  That too is hard work.  Our home is long overdue for stage 2 of renovation.  I think Cynthia would jump in tears of joy when she reads this.  It is high time we execute what we have been talking for years, what I have been sitting on for years.  That is very hard work.

Many ideas have been floating in the air for far too long.  I see fumata bianca.  It is less sexy than “Do It”.  But it is time to “Follow It Through!”.

PS. A picture taken during my trip to Bandung at one of the volcanoes.  It is straight from my camera as I prefer to do without post production if possible.  Strangely, the color looks a lot more vibrant before I convert the image into JPG that is what you see here.

Categories
Drama Movie Reviews

Rachel Getting Married – Intense Family Drama

Rachel Getting Married

Cynthia raised a good point.  Had the character Kym not played by Anne Hathaway, would we feel annoyed by how self-centered the character is?  It is hard not to love Anne, even in her state of depression with cigarettes after cigarettes in her hand and bruises on her face.  A Global Globe award nominee for best actress and more, I am much impressed by the sheer number of actors and actress on screen giving us the audience a convincing performance of them having known each other for years and in Rachel’s wedding, they meet and have a good time.

A very good time indeed.  Jokes are made, live music is performed, songs are sung, poems are read – it is watched like a real wedding, with friends taking photos and videos, with the wedding couple and the helpers busy attending to the crowd.  Camera angles at times are switched to the lower quality hand held camcorders taken from the wedding guests.  The conversation seems spontaneous; the responses seems genuine; friends finishing each other’s sentences. How did they do that?!  We are not talking about a few actors exchanging lines with one another.  We are talking about a long table full of people.  We are talking a tent full of people.  Such realism, such joy to watch.

In parallel with the happy scenes is the intense family drama between Kym and her sister Rachel (who are getting married) and their divorced parents.  Character development?  Checked.  Genuine emotion?  Checked (Cynthia teared).  I think most of us have our own share of untold family drama behind closed doors.  Hence, we shall be able to relate, one way or another.

“Rachel Getting Married” has the great music, great script, and great acting performance to go for, something to ponder after the film.  TK felt nausea in the initial part of the 2 hours show because the camera moves too much.  He joked that both Cynthia and I are seasoned computer gamers so we didn’t feel a thing.  All I can say is … the Spanish horror movie [●REC] is ten times worse in terms of camera shake.  I personally feel that the mild hand held simulated effect used in “Rachel Getting Married” has it own charm in bring out the theme of it-is-what-it-is.

How in the world do we get to watch Anne Hathaway in “Passengers (2007)”, “Rachel Getting Married (2008)”, and “Bride Wars (2009”) here in Singapore almost at the same time?  The Movie Review Squad is giving “Passengers” a miss.  But we are keen to check out “Bride Wars”.  The pairing of Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway is too good to be missed.

Categories
Reflection

In Search for Styles – Of Photography, Oil Painting, Music Creation, and Writing

Nikon SB900 on Stand

What’s wrong with this picture?  I will tell you in a moment. 

Recently, I have become serious on photography.  As I put a pause on the sound of the shutter (too many photos to be processed), I reflect upon my different channels in expressing art.  Amazed by the similarities and differences, I have been working on this (series of) article(s) for a while for sharing.  Let’s see if this self reflection is inspiring or just a crazy man’s thought.

You would have thought if an artist has a certain style on one form of art, it would be consistent to other forms of art of his.  Yes?  Not quite so for me.  In fact, quite far off.

The music I create is dark.  Those find it hard to relate the feeling within find my songs depressing.  Those who connect would dive with me into this pool of abstract emotion.  However, when I write (since early teens), now blog, I tend to be positive and enthusiastic on what I observe.  And these two mature decades long hobbies of mine have been stabilised into a certain comfortable style.  The journey of exploration is overtaken by the journey of art mastery.

Oil Painting, on the other hand, is a new hobby of mine.  Unlike photography that the ‘machine’ captures the color of each pixel through the lens, to paint is to observe and replicate each pixel through naked eyes, pay attention to how light from different objects affect each other, and to put the colors onto the canvas.  It is a long process to create one picture.  Both hobbies require an artist to compose the picture, the mode of color replication triggers a discussion on tools versus techniques.

Photography is an odd hobby.  I could hypothetically pass my camera to a novice, tell him or her on what to shoot in what setting, and then here comes a reasonably beautiful picture.  If you spend a weekend reading the manual, you can probably start to operate on your new camera quite immediately.

You can’t do the same for a guitar, or a piano.  Learn to play a simple song takes weeks if not months.  It would literally take years for me to play Moonlight Sonata.  Not to state the obvious, I am sure you can extrapolate this theory to oil painting and writing.

I love taking picture on happy moments, beautiful scenery.  And if I was to apply my music style to photography, I would probably capture the moment of pain, lost, and despair.  I would probably head to Israel right now.

It is the same me.  But the style can be so different on different channels.  Why?

Maybe deep inside we are all multi-facet, having layers of personalities, and rings of memory like a tree trunk.  I think we humans enjoy to express ourselves, with the words we say and the things we do.  Who knows what kind of photographer or painter I would become?  What I know though is that it is such a joy to express art in different forms, different styles.  There can be synergy amongst different art channels.  You will see.

Answer to the question at the top: I have managed to find a way to mount my Nikon SB-900 flash gun onto a music mic stand and triggered that remotely through my Nikon D700 mounted on tripod.  I doubt if it is at all a common practice.  It is really cool because (1) I don’t need to spend money to buy another tripod for my flash gun (that is the usual way) and (2) I can hang my flash gun way above my head, way above where the maximum height as provided by the tripod with virtually any degree of freedom.

Categories
Book Reviews Non-Fiction

LES50NS – Doing Business Globally – An Inspiring Read from the World’s Top Business Leaders

Lessons Learned - Straight Talk from the World's Top Business Leaders - Doing Business Globally

For most of us, being able to listen to the wisdom of the world’s top business leaders – however concise it is – is a rare opportunity.  While many business books today may quote and extract what some of these successful people have to say and expand the ideas within the scope of the titles, it is less common to read books focused on business leaders revealing their personal lessons learned to the readers.  I did not expect myself to finish this little booklet in one setting but I did.  I simply could not put down “Doing Business Globally” (96 pages) and was drawn to what each of the 14 world leaders has to say.

All 14 lessons derived from Fifty Lesson‘s video library of interviews are full of impact and are memorable.  It is because they are personal and the real life stories drawn from doing business in China, India, Afghanistan, Australia, Malaysia, Africa, and etc. have much to learn from all of us.  Some of the lessons have left a deeper impression to me and to name a few, I enjoy reading the materials provided by:

  • Jimmy Wales – Founder, Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation
  • Michael Dell – Founder, CEO, and Chairman, Dell
  • Bryan Sanderson – Former Chairman, Standard Chartered
  • Neville Isdell – Chairman, Board of Directors, and CEO, The Coca-Cola Company

Each lesson is about 500 to just over 1,000 word count, which in my opinion is the right length in today’s popular digital media world.  The topics covered in “Doing Business Globally” include branding and time to market in a globalized local environment, integrating a global organization with varied cultural background, doing business in countries that value relationship more than contractual obligation, fostering a global online community, and more.

This book is an admirable effort by the Fifty Lessons team.  Check out their website address at the end of this post.  “Doing Business Globally” is one of their 11-book series.  And it is one book that deserves to be read multiple times.  These are valuable lessons learned by world’s successful business leaders.  It is worth the effort to internalize them and put them to work in your curent or your future roles.

External Website: Fifty Lessons

Categories
J Pop Music Reviews

Mika Nakashima – I Don’t Know, I Don’t Know, I *Know* “Voice” is My Favorite of Hers So Far

Voice by Mika Nakashima

Having followed Mika’s music career since her debut album “True” – and I just realize that I have all 6 of her albums! – “Voice” has got to be the most appealing, most infectious of all.  To be honest, I was surprised because although from time to time there are great music albums in the market that delight, rarely are there albums that I would put on repeat for a relatively long period of time (yes, if there is no time factor, I often hold back my opinion until the initial excitement subsides).

I wonder what Mika Nakashima fans like about her.  Maybe her look or her voice (both I am OK with, not too excited about).  Her music style is mostly pop, recently into rock with “The End”.  What I in particularly like about Mika is her ability to sing some uniquely out of the world kind of music scale, kind of timing, that is so unheard of.  The beginning of the 8th track “It’s Too Late” is a good example.  Is this style called club jazz?  Maybe.  It doesn’t appear often.  But when it does, it tickles in a good way.

To tell the truth, I can hardly remember what her first 3 albums sound like.  Except, they are pleasant to listen to, with unique style.  Her venture into rock genre collaborated with other Japanese musicians in her 4th album “The End”, to me, is refreshingly new.  Although I like it a lot, the chart didn’t agree with me.  Came the 5th one “Yes” that is back to her old style.  I am OK with that, and the chart wasn’t that happy with it neither.  Her only two albums that did not manage to reach #1.

“Voice” is back to #1 and I can understand why.  It has a health dose of pop and synthetic rock.  There is one track mostly with just her and the piano (final track) and another one with the acoustic guitar (middle track).  It also has a health dose of rock music that unlike “The End”, the music does not overpower her voice.  In nearly all the tracks, there are tunes that are mind sticking, making the album sounds interesting.  True to her nature as shown in her previous albums, “Voice” is fun to listen to.  My favorite track?  The all English number “I Don’t Know” (hence the title of this review).

My CD comes with a DVD too and it has 6 music videos.  More like 5 and a half as the last song is like a short promotional track.  It has a mellow version of “SAKURA ～花霞～” instead of the Daishi Dance version in the album.  If you are a Mika fan, you really ought to get this one.

Categories
My Hobbies Photography

Testing My New Tripod System in Wee Hours, One Friendly Police Officer Stopped Me and She Asked …

Raffle Statue at Night

“I see that you are taking pictures of A LOT OF buildings, what are you shooting exactly?” a young female police officer stopped me at two in the morning, right next to the Parliament House.

Good question.  What was I doing by the Singapore River in the wee hours of the Boxing Day.

I needed to test out my new tripod system before heading to Hong Kong later in the late afternoon.  The answer is as simple as that.  And I have always been wanted to shoot the beautiful night scene of the Singapore River.  So I chose the wee hours, after attended the evening Christmas Mass. 

Bizarre things do happen in the wee hours of 12 to 3.  A band was playing in one of the pubs and as the party has ended, the crowd started to disperse.  One group – 3 Indian men 2 Chinese ladies – walked passed me, looked at my camera, and one of them asked, “It’s so dark, what do you see?”  Like magic (due to 30 seconds long exposure), first was the sound of the shutter, then came the image.  And they looked at the picture and gasped.  All of a sudden, all the guys were very animated.  One guy told me that he has the D90.  Yes, it is a good camera, I assured him.  He pointed at mine and said, “Yours is much better!”  And I reassured him that a D90 is a good camera.  We chatted and chatted and how a group of 5 managed to squeeze inside a BMW Convertible, I have no clue.  But they waved at me like good old friends do, breath of the alcohol still lingered in the air, and with a touch of the gas petal, the sport car vanished into the dark.

And that was the closest I get next to a BMW Convertible that opened its roof just moment ago.

How I love to be a – quote unquote – photographer.  People are super friendly with me.  Even though … I am a …

I don’t even know what I am anymore.

Note: All pictures shown here are mostly straight from the camera, with some very minor touch-ups – including the 7 dust spots I have discovered on my image sensor.  Thanks to Nikon Service Centre, they are now gone.

As I walked along the river, admiring the beautiful serenity dotted with couples having their own romantic moments, I heard someone said, “Adíos!”.  Spanish?!  Filipino perhaps.  From the band I reckon.

Someone was sleeping on the street with his bicycle next to him.  He must have woken up by the shutter sound of my camera.  He paced around waiting for me to go away.  I stuck around waiting for him to go away.  Reluctantly, he cycled off and that was when I was stopped by two police officers.  I reassured her that I was not taking any picture of the government buildings (common security measure even in the US of A).

Moving away from the quietness of Boat Quay, I was drawn by the light and the sound of Clark Quay.  3am in the morning, people were still doing reverse bungee.  I could hear their screaming across the river.  Some time ago someone raised a concern over such entertainment in Clark Quay.  Too much noise in the wee hours.

I climbed up an overhead bridge and took some pictures of the traffic on the street.  One white lady screamed just another flights of stairs behind me saying something like she wanted to die.  I turned around, saw her in the middle section of the bridge with one leg over the railing.  Her lover (I supposed) pleaded her to stop killing herself.  I saw the hesitant in her so I did not want to get involved.  They went on and on over I love you I love you not with drinks in their hands while I went on and on shooting for that one perfect traffic shot.  There were cars that braked hard right before my eyes (people who think that I was the traffic police with a speed camera?).  There were cars that shot past me with such ferocity.  Yes, that grey Nissan GT-R.  I nearly got your number plate.

I love my new tripod system.  Unlike cameras and lenses that the heavier the gears are, the higher the quality, but rather like the bicycles for the professionals, losing the weight without compromising the performance cost a lot, a lot of money.  I have previously carried a tripod for my entire trip to Italy in 2000.  Anything heavy I just wouldn’t use (unless it is the case of heavy weight that implies good quality).  That much I know about myself.

Night time photography can be a lonely activity.  Each shoot took a minute or more to complete – mount the camera, adjust the tripod head, compose the picture, determine the settings, close the viewfinder blind, use a 10 seconds timer release, wait for 15-30 seconds or more for the picture to be properly exposed, and if the result can be improved, restart the whole process again.  If that is not tedious enough, at times I have to wait for the people to move away, pray that people will not move into the picture (anything can happen during the 30 seconds exposure plus 10 seconds timer release).  I have to observe the wind speed over the river, and the movement of the cloud.

It is all about patience and perseverance.  And this is my passion.  Above all, I love taking pictures in this beautiful country that I call home.

~ Dec 26, 2008

Yes, I’m Singaporean! Blog Contest
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Categories
Drama Movie Reviews

The Duchess – Every Decision Has Its Consequence

The Duchess

When I saw the DVD of “The Duchess” selling in HMV Hong Kong, I was wondering how I could possibly miss a movie by Keira Knightley on a big screen in Singapore.  We thought we did.  So, Cynthia and I watched it on our way back from Hong Kong, inside the cabin of our favorite airline, SIA.  Then we realized that “The Duchess” is now showing here exclusively in GV.

Some titles do take long to arrive.

I seldom read reviews by others – no disrespect to other reviewers – because I wish to form my own view.  I do however check the aggregated score from time to time.  And I welcome controversy views.  Hence, I do pay attention to movies that are both loved and hated by many.

Since “The Duchess” is based on true (or historical) events, I think it is rather pointless to comment too much on the storyline.  Or how the story could have ended in a better way.  It is what it is: a series of scandals that involved the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, Charles Grey (2nd Earl Grey) the would-be Prime Minister of UK, and more.  I wish to say that “The Duchess” is about one lady’s strength amidst the harsh reality of needing to produce a male heir, a non-existence love relationship, trapped within her own home, and more.  But true story being as such, there is – in my opinion – no satisfactory triumph.

So I gave it some thoughts and to me, the take home message is that Every Decision has its Consequence.  And working within this theme, I think “The Duchess” really shine in portraying how Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire (played by Knightley) lived through the decisions made in such a male dominating environment more than 200 hundred years ago.

How civilization has advanced since then.  It was procreation in the most contractual form.  A man’s lifelong quest to foster male heirs and a woman’s lifelong commitment to care for her children.  And in the mist of all these chaotic lust filled desire from the both sexes, how less complicated it would be if they had the various means of contraception in our today’s world.

The choice of Keira Knightley is good and she works well in a costume drama setting.  What lovely accent she has.  In “The Duchess”, she plays an innocent young girl, a mother, a wife to a man doesn’t know love, a lover, a friend betrayed, and more.  If you stop and think, it is a pretty wide spectrum of emotion.  She has done well, in my book.  In contrary, Ralph Fiennes’s acting as the Duke is mostly being the same sternness and loveless towards his wife – as demanded by the plot.  However, his performance is equally as good to watch.

“The Duchess” reminds me of “The Other Boleyn Girl” at times.  Perhaps this one track desire to have a male heir.  I am rather happy to live in 2009 in this part of the world where having a child – be it as a boy or a girl – is a blessing from the above.

Categories
Travel Blog

Final Leg of Our SG-Bandung-SG-Hong Kong-SG Holiday

My Family and I at a Gardan in Hong Kong

Blue sky came with a price.  As the blanket of thick cloud finally got lifted in our last few days of stay in Hong Kong, the temperature dropped dramatically.  This morning, I was greeted by a cool chilly temperature of 11-degree Celsius.  I kept sneezing not used to the cold weather.  Tonight, as I am typing this blog entry, my nose doesn’t stop running either.  Gosh, I miss the heat of Singapore.

There are good and bad being cut off from the news.  Someone at the dinning table started a conversation, “So you heard the news about that London Eye in Singapore?”  “The Singapore Flyer you meant,” I interjected.  “Yes, have you been up?”  “Yes, once.”  Someone else cut in, “There was a recent power failure.”  OK, I have vaguely heard this news before I left for Hong Kong.

“People were stuck for 6 hours!”

“6 hours?” exclaimed I.  “Do you know what was the first thing people did when they were rescued by the ropes?”  “I have no clue.”  “They dashed to the toilets.”  “How do you know?” I asked.  “It was all over the news!”

Here in Hong Kong?  I wonder if they have seen the video of the guy getting pounded by the tiger from the Singapore Zoo.

“I am surprised that Singapore has power failure,” another someone chipped in.  I too am surprised.  “Do you know what caused the power failure?” it was my turn to inquire.  Everyone at the dining table shook their heads.  And like all good gossips in Hong Kong, the topic switched from Singapore’s “London Eye” to local economy in just a heartbeat.

Hong Kong doesn’t change much.  Still full of people, still very vibrant.  The food is so fresh and good, so value for money.  When visitors see rounds of dessert as well as plates of fruit served at the end of a Chinese meal, their eyes beamed out rays of delight and they asked, “It is free?”  Yes, when you dine in Hong Kong, in such a competitive service oriented environment, the restaurants want you to be happy and come back to them.  Besides, what good is a Chinese meal without the dessert and the fruit?  I wish Singaporeans demand the same level of freshness and food quality, as well as the same level of service quality.  I wonder why we don’t.  Are we happy being charged for every single item in life?

What we do demand, I think, is our constant up-to-date dosage of high quality Hollywood entertainment.  This could explain why Singapore has more varieties in movie titles.  And some of the titles come out much faster in Singapore too compares to Hong Kong.  In addition, if I am not wrong, Singapore has some of the best cinema systems (at least our Cathay Cineplexes do).

When I first touched down in Hong Kong, my brother-in-law Benny told me that in every corner, you can see someone carrying a dSLR camera.  How can that be?  At times I feel uneasy carrying my rather gigantic dSLR camera around in Singapore.  I walk into a mall in Hong Kong and I can see a dozen of people shooting pictures with their dSLR cameras (yes, inside a mall).  I visited a garden with my parents today (see picture above) and I saw two groups of people.  The Nikonians who carried a D200 and above with jaw dropping lenses.  I have not seen what appeared like a 200-400mm or a super long telephoto lens in real life and I saw one guy carrying one like a hand held bazooka.  It is freaking long, take my words.  I think he must have shot all that he can in that garden with his other lenses and was aiming for some out-of-the-world-no-one-else-but-he-can kind of shots.

Another group was the non-Nikonians who appeared to carry much smaller camera bodies.  No conclusion drawn.  Just my observation.

Inside the MRT, I saw a couple carrying the exact camera as mine with a huge tripod.  I feel so at home in Hong Kong carrying my mini-bazooka even with my rather gigantic flash gun attached.  For a brief moment, I was one of them.

Some names in Hong Kong tickle us.  Cynthia found the name “Po Hon Building” funny because in her language, pohon means tree.  I spotted the road name “Average Road” and we both had a good laugh.  There is a GP called “Porky Chan”.  Hmmm.  We have yet to meet someone named Porky in our lives.  And one day I was inside a mini-van and saw the road sign “Opposite Sea”.  I asked my mom where “Opposite Sea” is and she looked at me in puzzlement.  Maybe it is as simple as somewhere facing the opposite sea?

Time flies when you are having fun seems to have some truth in it.  And so we have come to the final leg of our Singapore-Bandung-Singapore-Hong Kong-Singapore trip.  I ponder where we will visit next.