A week just past

Its interesting that my semester is getting more and more packed as it progresses. It has been a busy week for me.

Thursday: Had dinner at Neil's. The usual food that we have : pasta, some meat and veg.

Friday : Had bible study in the kitchen. My group prepared some pastries. Some batches were burnt, unfortunately.

Saturday: Fotoholics organised a studio session for members (and attracted some new members too). Shayen was quite helpful in explaining some studio techniques. This is called 'loop lighting'.

Added some additional light on the side for some highlights. The skin tones here look more pleasing after I switched to ''portrait mode''.

Stanley lent me his 5Dmk2 and 70-200 /2.8 because my e3 couldn't sync with the studio strobes :(

I find that the image output from the 5D2 offers much more latitude in post processing due to the higher dynamic range and resolution, which is admirable indeed. I pushed this image by 2 stops, and it still looks quite good. I can't get that much latitude with Olympus jpegs.

I did try a shot with the E-3, just for comparison.

I reckon its a very dangerous thing to give newbies an 85 1.2 to play with. At least she's having good fun.

Due to the extremely shallow DOF , its hard to focus with, even with an APS-C sensor.

Rushed back after the studio session to cook for ''Merdeka Night''. Malaysia is celebrating its independence day on 31st August, which is today.

We were pretty glad there was enough food for everyone. There were about 30 of us.

Its ironic that we couldn't find enough Malaysians to attend, so we had to pull in our ex-countrymen from across the causeway ;)

"MERDEKA !!"

"Negaraku.. tanah tumpahnya darah-ku, rakyat hidup..."

Unfortunately, in the light of recent incidents involving a severed cow's head, our independence day doesn't look so rosy this year. Our Malaysian society is treading backwards as the years progress. I do not dare to forsee what our society will look like by the year 2020 if this trend continues.

Todays WTD identifies the main issue beleaguering Malaysian politicis today:

We are so proud to be Malaysians :S

photo walk :25 aug 09

Went to uni early today because Fotoholics was organising a flash workshop. Despite the erratic weather warnings, it was sunny this morning.


Several art installations have been placed around uni in conjunction with the MUD fest.


Before lunchtime, the university is usually quite empty.




This is the newly renovated section of the ERC library. The high ceilings make the space appear quite dramatic.


Lots of skylights permit sunlight to illuminate this large space.


Not far from the large renovation is a small pavilion which carrys somewhat the same concept. The forms are rather striking, I must say.


Students may sit here to have lunch while listening to music playing softly in the background.



The flowers look still, but the wind was blowing vigorously during this time.


I also managed to pay a visit to St Mary's church in North Melbourne. It is no where as large as the catholic church near my place, but it is definitely very old.



I was paying attention to the shadows after the light goes through the rose windows.





Todays' what the duck reflection:

Have you ever experienced a situation where you didn't want to be associated with a job you recently undertook?

I have :)

Fotoholics zoo trip

Fotoholics organised a trip to the zoo today, so being a sunny day, I didn't hesitate to take up this opportunity.

There were heaps of animals today, from the downright beautiful...

... to those which come in cute packages.

Its quite simple being an animal in the zoo really.. just be yourself, and you don't need to think much, such as what this baboon is trying to do.

Sometimes, its good to notice the little things, and the 50-200 gives me that opportunity to do so, with a close focusing distance of 1.2 meters.

The club president was trying to photograph us with his 70-200. I thought he was joking, but he isn't.

We pause for a lunchbreak of hamburgers, sausages and diabetic-inducing soft drinks.

As you can see, the club members are all too happy to finish up the food.

Beware.. here come the fotoholics troopers!

I had the rare opportunity to observe a tiger hunting for its food in its enclosure. It must be wondering - Hey, haven't you seen someone eat before?

The rough textures on an elephant's skin remain awe-inspiring to me.

When the frogs are quiet, you know something's wrong with mother nature.

Two love birds presumably being lovey-dovey with each other.

This gorilla welcomed our party by striking a thoughtful pose.

This baby monkey probably has iron arms to be able to hold on to its mom for that long...

As a tribute to my friend Robin, I tried to close in to the butterflies while using the lens at maximum aperture (His macros are awesome by the way). Although macro purists would critique that I should use a wider depth of field (and macro flashes), I feel this is sufficient, from my personal artistic point of view.

It was very tricky to meter a black butterfly correctly. Fortunately, the butterflies were patient enough with me..

For any people who are interested to join in future fotoholics activities, please feel free to contact me, and I'll gladly inform you all about it.

cheers.