Pre Chinese New Year update

It's the eve of Chinese New Year, and it's been raining almost this whole week. Kinda dampens the mood abit regarding going outdoors to shoot, but not to worry. There's still plenty left to talk about :)

The 4 us (my 2 cousins and bro) paid an unexpected visit to Sarawak Club to have lunch. Its unexpected because it was raining on a Friday afternoon, and the whole of the city is all jammed up. After looking through the menu and ordering, we unfortunately had to wait about 30 mins for the food to arrive. Talk about the level of service from a premier club in Kuching ! :(

In any case, the food was pleasantly tasteful. This kailan dish is stirfried with oyster sauce and topped with fried onions.

Lemon chicken. The chicken pieces are coated in a crispy flour batter, then deep fried and mixed with some thick lemon sauce. Yummy.

One of Kuching's signature dishes, midin (a jungle herb) stirfried with belachan (spicy prawn paste), which gives a pungent, salty aroma. Thumbs up from me.

The restaurant made us wait again for their last dish - assam fish. The fish fillets are stirfried with assam paste, onions and chillies. Don't worry, it only has a mild hint of spiciness for those who're concerned.

The whole lunch cost the four of us RM 50. Okay, at this point, I can confidently say that there are other restaurant outlets in Kuching which can offer you the same good food at cheaper prices, but Sarawak Club is reputable for the consistent standards of its culinary products.

I also managed to organise my first photo shoot in Kuching (after some coercing and persuasion). Model Mayhem is just so much easier = = ""

As much as I have to say how the model and her flawless make up skills make up for a fair share of the image content, a proper understanding of lighting and posing techniques are also important for outdoor shooting.

The extremely soft lighting is attributed to the cloudy weather, which essentially forms a huge softbox that reduces the contrast between the highlights and shadows. The white painted surfaces of the venue also played a large part in reflecting natural light back onto the model and essentially reducing the intensity of the shadows on all parts of her body and face. There are several such venues in Kuching, and I intend to scout them and examine their possibilites for future shoots.

Other than a 100mm equivalent lens and a tiny ounce of fill flash, I used nothing else for this shoot. All of these images are pretty much straight from the camera, which showcases the awesome capacity of the Olympus Fourthirds sensor and Truepic processor in rendering true to life skin tones.

Thats about it for now folks. Do have a very joyous and prosperous Chinese New Year.

新年快乐 :)