Lionel & Gek's Wedding

Last weekend I had the pleasure of helping Lionel and Gek Sim on their wedding day shooting photos for them and helping them run stuff during the dinner banquet. Believe me, it was extremely tiring, waking up at 5.30am and then heading over to the bride's house and only to sleep at 2.00am the following morning.

I took this shot at the church hoping to capture in the best man holding the rings as well.

After the vows were done and the rings were placed, I caught them holding hands while they were listening to the reverend preaching.

This was shot at the bride's house just before the tea pouring ceremony started.

Managed to catch this shot of the bride's gown in the reflection in the mirror.

View of the flowers in the main church hall with the cross in the background.

Considering this to be my first wedding shoot, I really did learn quite a bit from the professional photographer and his two assistants. Watching them shoot and learning their style of communication, it was like a wealth of information for me.

More to come, especially since I shot like over 800+ shots that day.

Bye Bye Modem

After 4 years of serving me faithfully, my ADSL modem went kaput on me. To be honest, last night, I made a call to Streamyx's customer service and spoke to their technician on why wasn't my modem being able to pick up a line. He did some checks and said that they would send a technician over.
Being extremely skeptical, I thought that I might as well fix the problem myself when just a hour ago, I got a call from my dad at home telling me that a TM Net technician is at the house ready to check my phone line and modem.

So after some checks, my guess was just as correct. The modem is dead! Anyway its a bout time we changed the modem as well as change the line splitter. Kudos to Streamyx for quick service. Now if only they might just increase the bandwidth and uncap those lines.

Patience with photography

As many might have known, I've recently taken interests in the area of photography and have invested in this new hobby of mine considerably. Definitely not an easy hobby because at some points I do demand a lot from myself especially in the photos I take.

On Saturday, I had the wonderful opportunity to join a group of photography enthusiasts at Batu Caves. I didn't have much time as I had to head towards my colleague's birthday party at 12pm so here I was at 9.50am walking about the courtyard at the bottom of the 100+ steps leading up to the caves.

By the time the group arrived, it was already 10.30am and I had only an hour to browse through the place. Thanks to that I kind of rushed through many areas and walked up the steps fairly quickly together with Kaz and Visithra while Vignes and Nagen was slowly taking their time learning about cameras and shooting about.

I guess every bit of myself wanted to take my own sweet time taking shots of the surrounding area and I am trying my best to take shost in JPEG so that I don't have to rely on post-processing to alter my shots. It is definitely a discipline I need to follow in order to up my game. I know Sze Yoong has been hounding me for a date to take her products as well so I definitely need to make time for that.

To sum it all up, Saturday was a busy day for me. Shooting at Batu Caves in the morning, rushing over to New Life church to shoot my colleague's surprise birthday party where I met some photo enthusiasts as well (unfortunately they were from the light side) and finally at night, shooting my good friend's stag night at The Curve.

Another week to go and Lionel's wedding is coming up where I managed to squeeze my way in to help them take photos as well. For free of course but I definitely hope to make a good impression as well as perhaps get some tips from their own professional photographer whom they hired (someone who used to work at Photoz).

Everything

Something to watch.



Cheers

Complete Worn Out

It's rather rare that I would usually talk about what I did over the weekend. Well, I am going to do just that. Saturday was supposed to be jam packed (schedule wise) for me as I had my company's futsal tournament in the morning and then a model photoshoot from 3.00pm till 10.00pm. A few days before that, I got a sms telling me that the photoshoot has been postponed.

So on Saturday morning as I was all blurry eyed and sleepy, munZ came over in the morning and surprised me with two hash browns and a cup of coffee from McDonalds, sort of like a good luck breakfast. Driving all the way to Endah Parade (near Bukit Jalil), I finally reached the tournament venue only to be told that the Shell team had been drawn against the Petronas and Synergy Drive teams.

Horror to horrors came true, we were drawn up against strong teams and guess what? We got our butt beaten the hell up. At least we managed to draw against Synergy drive but we have been shooting blanks all this while. We lost 2-0 to Averis and lost 7-2 to Petronas who then went on to win the tournament.

By the time I got back home in time for lunch with munZ and hoping to get some DVD's, I was completely wiped out. A quick rest at home and then I headed to out State PJ where I had to drop munZ of at her grandma's place while I decided to drop by this camera shop which is rather popular called J-One at Amcorp mall. There I spent a good amount of time chit chatting with Jason who is the owner and talking to him and getting price quotations from him.

J-One is located at the bottom floor of the mall, I seriously thought it would be located upstairs so I went everywhere except the ground floor. By the time I found it, there was a customer over there buying the new Nikon D40x and I just went about browsing (tempting myself with the Lowepro Slingshot 200AW and the Manfrotto tripod). Prices were very reasonable and Jason was extremely friendly. I also met two other customers there and started chatting with one of them who swears by Pentax cameras (Malaysia has been dominated by Nikon and Canon).

After leaving the mall, I thought of heading out to Putrajaya/Cyberjaya to take some night shots of the surrounding area but I was totally disappointed by the way how my pictures turned out. I guess I don't have the flair for night landscape shots. Definitely have lots to learn and practice! I definitely won't give up that easily.

Senget shot of the bridge

I think the toughest part about trying to get these shots was that my dad's tripod didn't work too well and I couldn't extend it any higher so some of the images had to have some sort of foreground. Also, walking around lugging all my equipment was not easy since I am a law abiding citizen and all of the proper parking allocations were so far away!

View of the administrative row at night

For now, I shall just relax before writing out what happened on Sunday. It was equally tiring!

Check out more of the Putrajaya photos on my Flickr set here.

1957 Album

After just celebrating our nation's 50th year of independence a week ago, I chanced upon a photo album which contains pictures taken in the year 1957. That means photos taken without the use of DSLRs and everything is in black and white.


Looking through some of these photos really makes me feel that the nation has grown so much and yet the troubles we face right now, thanks to certain individuals, just makes the whole idea of a huge celebration going up in flames.

Image by Tan Swee Lian

There is much bickering in this land and with an ever increasing population who has access to knowledge and a generation that may not necessarily be blinded by false pretense and lies, there is also much to look forward to.

How so can we as citizens of this country attempt to make this country one that is just, fair, technologically advanced and achieve our dream to be a developed nation by the year 2020? Do we still maintain our own pride of "Malaysia Boleh" when that might just be a phrase which has no actual weight in our everyday lives. Or perhaps we are just waiting for this country to fall down flat on its face and then we stand by and say the ever common phrase, "Didn't I tell you so?".

Who knows but do check out the Flickr 1957 Photo Album to browse through this blast from the past.

Image Source: Flickr

Marketing Gimmick?

I was at Lowyat over the Merdeka weekend browsing through some camera shops as well as trying to find a good deal on DVD+R discs when I chanced upon this store which thought that their marketing gimmick might just attract more customers.


Well, judge this for yourself. Personally, I think this photo eventually made me never want to bring my business to this store again. If you are so curious as to guess which store this is, just look around Lowyat and you will find it yourself. Don't worry, its not hard to find. Just look for the most empty looking store.

Also, their lenses there aren't cheap but they do have a fair range and selection of Tamron and Sigma lenses. If you were in the area looking to buy a camera especially in the DSLR range, I would recommend you either head over to Sungai Wang and look for this store called Boeing. Else, take a drive to Pudu Plaza and search for YL Camera.

Starbucks Revamped?

My favourite shop has been changed, my usual coffee fix and free wi-fi service has been removed completely. Now the place has become the haven of what used to be a haunt of many things you want forgotten.

I know this image is probably doctored or photoshopped but what if it were true?? I guess I have to stick to my Nescafe 3-in-1 then.

When all planning fails

Trying to surprise someone on their actual birthday is never an easy thing to do without any proper prior planning. Even if it is just to go over to their house and surprise the birthday girl with a nice piece of ice cream cake from Baskins at night.

The rain was really pouring last night and after crawling home from Cyberjaya and getting stuck numerous times on the LDP thanks to heavy traffic and rain, I finally reached home and prepared to head out to surprise the birthday girl.

There we were, all gathering at our meeting point at Centrepoint Bandar Utama and then we get a call.

"I can't get her to stay at home"

"Why not?"

"I told her that I didn't allow her to go out but she insisted"

"Oh darn it, looks like we can't surprise her after all"

"Guys, tonight's plan is canceled, let's have dinner instead"

So here we were sitting at Cagayan's (a nice Filipino restaurant) eating pork like nobody's business (ok, I am rather pork deprived in Cyberjaya). Well I guess pretty much that Jon went back home and ate the ice cream cake.

Birthday plan surprise, postponed till Wednesday.

p.s. Eventually we found out that the birthday girl went out on a date. I guess we could have been mean and crashed in on her birthday date but we are gentle souls after all.