First post-exam weekend

This is an exciting time. It is my first weekend of freedom. I feel like i should put up a flag and sing the national anthem, haha. But instead, i had a few glasses of Riesling, nicely chilled in the fridge and found some outdoor tasks to keep myself busy since i am alone at home.

On Saturday (which was yesterday), i visited the Auckland zoo.  I tried visiting around 3 weeks ago and had to return home disappointed because i could not find a parking. The carpark was full by 11am and all the nearby street parkings were full too. I know it sounds ridiculous, but that's Auckland.  So this time, i have learnt my lesson. I woke up early, had a quick breakfast and arrived at the zoo entrance by 10am. The carpark was already half full by then. Shocking. I spent a solid 4 hours there. The weather was glorious. Perhaps a bit too warm. Some of the animals like the lions, the Serval cats and Lemurs were all in hiding in the shades. But still i had a really enjoyable time and got a lot of nice photos.  Things i have found most challenging were shooting through the enclosures' glass. The sunlight on the glass causes glare and led to some ugly flares on the photos. Some people said wrapping a black cloth around the lens will solve the problem but i did not have a cloth with me then. Shooting photos of caged birds was also tough because the cages for birds were all made of closely placed wires. Despite my very wide aperture of f2.8, my depth of field was still not shallow enough to throw the cage into blur. So i ended up taking very minimal photos of birds. Here are some of the shots.

Sunday morning, woke up at 8am and found myself fully awake and unable to sleep (8am was the usual time i start studying when i had exam). I watched a bit of TV. Q&A with various talks about the recent Pike river mine tragedy was the only show on TV. Ate breakfast at home and headed down to Queen street early for the parade. Queen street was absolutely packed with people.  It was extremely difficult to find a good spot to snap photos. So i went "downstream" and ended up on Albert street (the end of the parade), managed to find a decent spot there. I was very trigger happy, snapped around 250 photos. I was mainly photographing the crowd and the people in parade costumes, not so much the balloons etc.  In a way, i am testing my own skills in people photojournalism.  My conclusion from today is it is very tough. It has made me realised hard hard wedding photographers have to work. Half a day of shooting in  the sun really drains your energy away. when you get home, you have another half a day of photoshop editing to do.  I use to complain about how wedding photographers overcharge their client.  I don't think that anymore now.

Anyway, here are some of the shots from the parade. Lots of kids around.

Back alive

So blogging has become a trend. Quite a few of my friends are blogger. It seems fun. But following the trend is not the reason why i have decided to join the blogging community.  My primary intention is to use this blog as a tool to share my photography. This can also be my little outlet to vent my emotions.

Why now, you may ask.  The past 3 years of my life were dedicated to studying. I had exams after exams as part of my 5 years training in Pathology. After all the hardwork, i have finally completed my training and cleared the exams.  Hence the title "back alive" for this post.  When you have dedicated all your time and energy to hardcore exam preparation, practically quarantining yourself at home 24/7 and removing yourself from any form of social activities, you don't feel alive as i believe human beings thrive on people-to-people interactions. It is actually a weird feeling, now that i can be normal again. I still hesitate for a few seconds before i switch on the TV.  I have been telling my peers it is like a tough pregnancy. You have morning sickness for he first 3 months and lower back pain in the later part of the pregnancy. You want the pregnancy to end soon but when it is finally over, a sense of emptiness hits you.  I am still adjusting to that. But the joy that comes with the achievement is certainly sinking in slowly.

So what have i been doing since?  I have been eating out a lot, sleeping more and taking lots of photos.  My wife is out of the country.  I really want to share the joy with her, i guess i just have to wait a while longer.  I had a nice japanese dinner at a local japanese restaurant with some friends the other night.  I must say i was pretty impressed with the food. I am sure i will go back again.

The beef Tataki was absolutely beautiful. The thickness of the meet was spot on (i have tried some thick horrible ones). I feel like going back already.