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| Wednesday, 22-Mar-2006 12:00 |
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The Zahin Series
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For Mariam.
We (secretly) named him Yoko Ono before he was born. We thought he'd break the Fab Four apart. But now we cannot imagine life without him. I'm being so corny, yeah, I know.
To the devil Mariam spawned, Amir Zahin: we are so going to corrupt you.
To Mariam and motherhood.
You make it look really easy.
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| Saturday, 11-Mar-2006 15:55 |
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Training Day
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It's that time of the year again.
Smell the gunpowder, embrace the excruciating heat.
Hello steyr no 122, lovely to meet you.
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| Friday, 3-Mar-2006 17:10 |
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What's not to like
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Guns, uniform, sampin. This is a nice formula.
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| Friday, 3-Feb-2006 03:15 |
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Splash!
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There's a secret river in Melawati.
Mariam had been gushing over how cool and self-contained Melawati is. So Aemon brought us there just to further illustrate that very point (show off!). Well lookie here, not only are the parking spaces free, the cendol good and trees tall and green, there's actually even an effin bathing spot there.
There were kids there when we arrived - a real muhibbah group. We got Malays, Chinese, Indians and Indons. They were in their underwears and were diving off this huge rock (which I strangely did not capture). It was fascinating to watch them - specially since there are jagged rocks below. Kept wondering if an accident was going to happen anytime soon. Of course, nothing as exciting as that happened but the kids were such good sports - doing dive after dive, for me!
I didn't get that many good shots and finally the kids got tired of diving. There were some other interesting stuff to capture though.
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| Friday, 30-Dec-2005 00:00 |
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Little heart stealers
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The children of Battagram are from the old world. They are innocent and shy, but agile and unafraid in the mountains. I have seen the most beautiful faces here, bare and devoid of make up. Unfortunately, most of them are ridden with scabbies because of improper sanitation. There is limited chance for education for them, especially the girls.
The children are loyal, giving and fun. But they are also wise beyond their years in some respects. I guess it's because they are forced to undertake difficult tasks at a young age. They are slender and small from the lack of food and proper nutrients.
It is my greatest regret that during the trip I was equipped only with a Casio Exilim Z110. Had I known how beautiful the people and place were I'd have bought or brought along a long zoom camera with excellent colour and exposure handling. It is in fact solely because of that that I recently purchased my S2.
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| Thursday, 29-Dec-2005 00:00 |
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The Butterfly Park
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I'm guessing this is the tiger butterfly. Shot in macro mode.
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Think it's just a dead leaf? Look again :-)
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This is my first (self-assignment) shoot with the Canon S2 IS. Walaupun camera ni claim ada OIS, it doesn't work without flash. I still have to set the ISO to 400 if I don't want to use flash and don't want a blurry image. But a lower ISO works as well with sufficient light. I managed to get the ideal lighting and shooting condition (between 10 and 11am, after the rain). Some of the shots were a whole lot of fun to shoot because with the SuperMacro Mode (which goes up to 0cm!!!), I was able to go so as close to the butterflies as possible to get the clarity of colour and texture. Some are tame (or khayal) that they did not even flutter their wings when the lens was less then 1cm from it.
Butterflies are beautiful but when they start landing on various parts of your body and camera, you tend to freak out a bit. Maybe my perfume smells like honey or some kind of nectar? I don't know what it was but it made me feel like a circus escapee with the 'flies all over me. I noticed none of the Mat and Minah Salleh visitors had a similar problem.
Being there reminded me of a movie my friends and I shot in our beta year, using the Betacam. We had two months to complete the project but in effect, we only had 3 days. No, we didn't wait until the last minute. We initially worked with frogs but they kept dying or getting eaten by the fishies..heheh. It was pretty gross, not to mention difficult.The lecturer told us to work with a new subject and we did, on the metamorphosis of an ugly caterpillar to a hot butterfly. We scored pretty high with the storyline and shots. The final cut and voiceovers were superb, that no one believed that it was done three days before the deadline. I especially loved the theme song we chose (Sugar Ray's Fly! oh yeah spread your wings and fly).
I intend to come back after four months, after I dah khatam the S2 manual and learn more about photography to apply my newly-obtained skills. Hopefully I would have improved a lot by then. I virtually ignored the Rule of 3 (or 4?), discomfort tangents, etc. in these shots, I know.
Criticisms are very much welcome.
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well, nice shots! so, my answer to your question is: Adobe Photoshop. I use adobe photoshop to touch-up my photos. As in January 16th entry, i used Nikon SB-800 speed light to help me with the shots. So i guess i did 'preset the lighting', and photoshop do the rest. 
(but mr owkee dropped by..wowwee!)
