DK Photoblog

拜天公

2012-02-01T22:51:00.001+13:00

On the eighth day of every new year (following the chinese calendar), Chinese from the Hokkien group gather to pray to the Emperor of heaven (天公), also known as the Jade emperor of heaven. Food and fruits will be used as offerings. Candles will be burnt, fire cracker will be lit.

My wife is Hokkien. It's a big day for them. It's also quite an ordeal as there are many things that need to be done prior to the prayer. They fold golden paper into certain shapes, resembling gold nuggets. These will be burnt later on. It is believed that once burnt, these will become gold in heaven, to be used by the Jade emperor.

The plate of red stuff is a plate of hard boil eggs boiled in red pigment. Red stained eggs are common food in chinese tradition, used as prayer offering and also eaten during birthdays.

After the prayer, we lit firecrackers.
There was a "secret message" at the end of every bar of firecracker, to be retrieved at the end of the fire action. Ours says "wealth".

Finally, the burning of the paper gold nuggets.

Chinese New Year 2012

2012-02-01T22:04:00.001+13:00

I am happy. People tend to be in better mood when they are on holiday. I got my 3 weeks holiday approved, only after i kicked up a bit of a fuss. Lets not get into that since i am in good mood. It is Chinese new year. It is a big day for celebration for Chinese all around the world. Most of us will travel a thousand mile to be home with family.

My trip home from Auckland wasn't perfect. My flight with Malaysia Airline got delayed almost an hour due to air conditioning system malfunction on the air craft. After touching down at KLIA, i had to wait 45 minutes before i could collect my luggage, again due to baggage delivery malfunction! I haven't lived in Malaysia for the past 10 years and i have forgotten how appalling Malaysian efficiency is. Their so called "Malaysia Boleh" (meaning Malaysia can do) attitude is all talk and nothing more. It seems like anything that falls into the hands of Malaysian government will be ruined in time, sooner or later. I don't think it is their lack of knowledge to run a business that is the problem. I think it is the overly relax attitude to life and the over-inflated self content that is becoming the tripping stone. Anyway, i have digressed. This blog post is not intended for venting my dismay.

Chinese new year celebration starts on New year's Eve, where the whole family (immediate or extended) have a massive feast together at dinner time. Many people stay up for midnight count down and your ears will be deafened by the sound of fire crackers thundering through the night sky. Fire crackers are banned by Malaysian government. But few people follow the law here when it comes to trivial things like that. Once in a while you get a visit from police officer threatening to charge you with illegal use of a banned flammable item. You will quickly learn that there are people who will find ways to evade the charge through various means, bribery being the commonest.


Mum's cooking. The soup in the photo is a classic for any big occasion

Chinese new year is all about family gathering and lots of food. The lots of food is the part i like most. I am blessed with a skinny gene. I can eat a lot and still not worry about excessive weight gain. My female friends get pissed off when i tell them that. We went from door to door visiting relative. It can be quite a tiring task, especially when you have a lot of relatives. On the second day, i drove to my wife's hometown, 90 minutes drive from mine. There was a big crowd there. Lots of happy kids = lots of happy photographs!

Like Xmas, Chinese new year is also a time for exchanging gifts, in a form of hamper

It has been a long day.....

Of course, a true photographer points a camera at just about anything, not just people....

I had a blast this new year. Happy Dragon year to all of you. Til my next blog....take care and have a good one.

Model shoot: Rose Halfpenny

2012-01-12T00:18:00.011+13:00

I like going to the bookstore, flipping through fashion magazine, mostly the girlie sorts. Not because i am extremely metrosexual but because of what i can learn from the work of professional photographers there. There are crap photos, good photos and then there are great photos. You won't get to see the crap photos because they get bin by the editor. Good photos are the one that demonstrate solid technical skills of the photographer, with perfect exposure and good composition. What sets a great photo apart from the good ones is the mood it carries, the message or story it is telling, the emotions it triggers. I love environmental portraits. They usually tell their stories.

I have always wanted to do a model shoot but never really knew how to get started. When i incidentally came across Graham Meadows photography workshop advertisement i got excited. I managed to persuade my friend Peter to come along too. Like me, Peter is a long time trigger happy photography enthusiast. We signed up, paid up and the rest were history.

Our model for the day was Rose Halfpenny, an experienced model in her twenties. She was very good in front of the camera. She told us she races car on the dirt track when she is free. I thought that was pretty cool.

We were hoping to spend half of our workshop outdoor doing shoots with available light. Sadly, it rained the whole day. We ended up staying in the studio doing shoots with different strobes set up. It was still a good experience since i have never really used strobes before.

The photos above were shot with available light through a window. To get this exposure i had to use a fairly slow shutter speed and bump my ISO to 800. I was surprise to see very little noise at such high ISO. I am only using a D90, not a full frame. The window was on Rose's left side. We had a reflector on her right to bounce light onto her right cheek. The effect was quite pleasant i thought.

Then we started using the strobes. Two strobes in front the model, both with soft boxes, one elevated on a light stand, the other at ground level. Such set up lights up the subject's with only shadows behind her as you can see in the next photo.

Props are important in fashion shoots. Graham gave us a big rug. The photo below was shot with us standing at the top of a tall ladder shooting straight down. This was a four lights set up with two extra lights behind the model to give an even lighting.

It was a fun shoot. We may do it again. Time to sign up to Model Mayhem i say.

Birdie

2011-12-31T00:00:00.001+13:00

I was taking a walk at the Auckland Domain the other day and out of no where a few of these birds plunged from the sky and gathered on the grass started looking for food. Their colours were so bright and eye catching. I did a quick lens swap, pulled out my 70-300mm and started following them. I can tell you 70-300mm may sound like a very long lens, but it was still too short for catching Parakeets like these. Even with my crop factor of 1.5. They were shy. I had to get low onto the ground and moved inch by inch commando style to get closer. This was the closest i got to one of them.

Pukekos are easier to get close to. They tend to be less shy. There is a wetland across the road from where i stay. I see Pukekos feeding there everyday.

Auckland Christmas 2011

2011-12-28T01:03:00.002+13:00

It is that time of the year again. It is Christmas. We don't get white christmas in this part of the world. We get a warm summer instead, well....if the rain clouds stay away anyway. The weather on Christmas day has been good this year. Not overly warm but enough sun to keep everyone happy.

I was "lucky" enough to be on call for my department over the christmas weekend. Bummer! I could not leave town. I had to stay close to the hospital at all time, in case my on call phone goes off.

There was really not much happening in Auckland. Half the Auckland population left town to join their family elsewhere. The shops were close. The only restaurants that were open were Asian restaurants. The streets were exceptionally quiet. I had a fairly quiet Christmas this year. As for my on call duty, I only got called once over the weekend for something really trivial, easily sorted. Lucky.

On Christmas eve, I took a walk down Auckland's famous Franklin road in the trendy suburb of Ponsonby. Every year the houses and shops on that road will put up all sorts of fancy christmas lights to transform Franklin road into Ponsonby's very own Disneyland. The few nights leading up to Christmas, Franklin road will be packed with cars trying to get a glimpse at the magical lights. Me and my friend Luke decided to go on foot rather than getting stuck in traffic. Besides, holding a DSLR in one hand while driving won't go down too well anyway. I liked what they have done with the street. The lights were not overdone. They were simple but nice.

Apart from the lack of snow on the street and the absence of Mr Snowman at our doors on Christmas day, there is a sight that is unique to New Zealand....our very own NZ Xmas tree. We call it Pohutukawa tree. Pohutukawas are hardy coastal plant, shrub-like when young but can grow up to 15 meters tall with time. Every December when the weather warms up, the tree blooms with crimson red crown shaped flowers. It is quite a magnificent sight.

Innocent eyes

2011-11-30T20:04:00.001+13:00

Another baby photoshoot. Compared to the last one this is a much more casual and short one. A minishoot if you like. Thank you Victor for the opportunity.

There is something about the eyes of babies. You can almost see what they are thinking. You can sense the fascination the baby is feeling. Through their eyes, they are trying to tell you how excited they are to be part of this whole new world.

Kampung (Village)

2011-11-12T00:22:00.002+13:00

This is the second part to the blog on my recent trip to Malaysia. Apart from my visit to Singapore (See previous blog post), i have also spent a few days in Johor Bahru, my wife's hometown. Johor Bahru forms the border between peninsular Malaysia and Singapore. Other than that it is just another increasingly crowded city with the usual hustle and bustle as well as the industrial growth related environmental pollution. Certainly not that interesting in terms of photography opportunity. To photograph something interesting, i had to go beyond the fringe of the city. While i was in Johor Bahru, i stayed with my in laws, who are asian cuisine foodies. Yell out the name of any random asian dish that pops into your head, they will tell you which cafe to go to get it. Knowing that I love seafood, my father in law (who has apparently gone by the English name Peter during his younger days) decided to drive us to a very small fishing village called Sungai Ringgit. Sungai means "river" in Malay. This place boasts fresh seafood at extra economical prices.

The beginning of lunch service. Crowd started to build up.

With seafood that cheap, even people from Singapore cross the border and come here just for the food.

And that is not limited to the rich and mighty with Porsches.

Spicy chilli crabs.

Half a lobster each, lightly steamed in chinese wine and ginger.

Chinese oyster omelette. Classic.

Pickled mango for dessert?

Or perhaps get a haircut after lunch?

We were all very happy with the food. On our way back to the city, we pulled over at this little fishing village and i took a few shots there.

On another day, we went to another small town about an hour away from the city of Johor Bahru, Pontian. Again, there was a river running through the town. I found a few fishing boats at the river bank. It was just past sunset and the light was fading fast. I wanted to keep my aperture smaller to get most of my objects in focus. With little available light and no tripod, i had to bump the ISO up a bit. Not ideal but i had no choice. I think i would have got a much nicer photo had i arrive at the scene 20 minutes earlier.

Singapore

2011-11-06T23:29:00.002+13:00

At long last it was time for my long overdue annual leave. I spent 3 of the 14 days in Singapore at a Pathology conference. Singapore is a very small country, a city state of 581km2. Despite having limited land, Singapore is a country that has been managed very efficiently since its separation from Malaysia in 1965 and has very quickly become one of the so called "Four asian tigers", alongside with South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong. The population is around 5 million, of which only three million are Singaporean. The rest are all foreigners (mostly Malaysians) whose expertise Singapore sees as valuable. In fact, land in Singapore is getting so scarce that they have been running land reclamation, bumping the country's land area to more than 700KM2.

I stayed at a four star hotel called Grand Park Orchard, and yes you have guessed it, it was on Orchard road, one of the busiest streets in Singapore. The hotel was smack bang in the middle of all action, with two MRT (train) stations within walking distance, i was very happy with the location of the hotel. The staff members were polite and helpful and the room was modern and clean. Even the bar tender who made me my CC & dry was super friendly.

In Singapore, you can see coexistence of sky scrapers and mature trees and lots of rubbish bins and recycle bins. Singapore government has very strict rules when it comes to littering with very heavy fines. Chewing gums are banned in the country.

I found a few swings on Orchard road. I thought that was an interesting concept.

Check out the 7-Eleven at the roadside.

Don't think for a second the weather is always warm and dry......

Like Malaysia, Singapore too is a shopping heaven. All the labels you want.

Not to forget the yummy Asian food. The dumplings in the next photo were totally awesome. Thin soft dumpling skin with moist mince pork filling. Is that yum or what?

After dinner, we took a walk to Marina Bay to look at the magnificent Marina Bay sands hotel.

I found this very interesting water feature. Some call it vortex. My cheeky cousin called it flushing toilet.

Louis Vuitton boutique at the bay.

A clever Water-light show at the bay where images were projected onto a water-mist screen.

The national university hospital looked very new and it was huge.

I had a nice time. Thank you Singapore.

A little boy named Fabian

2011-10-17T22:09:00.002+13:00

Photography is a bit like a big playground. Some like to hop on the swing, while others may prefer the see-saw. But you will never know until you have tried 'em all. When i first picked up a DSLR, i thought landscape photography was my thing. But i've soon changed my mind. I have been trying a bit of everything since, from couple shoot to macro, from chinese wedding to random travel photography. One thing i have always wanted to try is photographing babies. Anne Geddes makes it look easy, but i knew it is anything but easy.

Finally, i have found a willing model. On 7th October 2011, my colleague Daniela and Rupert have become proud parents once again when their little boy Fabian was born. Very handsome little man, good size too at over 4kg.

I got all my gears ready in my bag. Right after lunch, i realised my car battery was flat. "What bad timing", i yelled to myself. But thanks to the guys from AA road rescue, my battery got fixed within 30 mins.

After arriving at the house and having a quick look around the living room, i knew the hardest thing would be getting the right light for the kind of exposure I wanted for the photos. At less than 10 days old, the baby was too young to be brought outdoor. So i had to work with whatever light that came through the windows and that was not ideal due to the shadows from the window beams and the inconsistent strength of the afternoon sunlight. Rupert had a set of 500W spotlight but the tone of those lights was a bit on the warm side. It was a challenge to get the white balance right when I had a combination of natural light and artificial light. In the end, i bounced the spotlight off the ceiling and white curtains and put a big homemade diffuser against the window to soften the sunlight.

But of course, our young model was not always a willing subject. There was a fair bit of crying. But there was no crying baby too hard for an awesome mum like Daniela.

Lesson learnt from this photo shoot:

1) Babies have minds of their own. They don't follow your timetable or plan. Be flexible with time.
2) If you are a pure natural light photographer, you may have problem getting the light your need because most baby-shoots will be indoor. A large reflector is a minimum i think.
3) Always have the mum or dad around. Lets face it, nobody can calm a crying baby down like how a parent can.
4) Bring a macro lens for the detail shots of those cute toes and fingers.
5) A black fabric as backdrop is always a good idea to provide contrast (this will not apply for darker skinned babies).

All Blacks VS Japan

2011-09-19T22:54:00.002+12:00

What was the most embarrassing thing for you? Wardrobe malfunction at the wrong place and wrong time? Walked in on your housemate while he was "occupied"with the girlfriend? For me, it was none of the above. For me, it was the fact that i have lived in New Zealand for a good 10 years and i had never been to a rugby game. All of you must be saying in your head, "Shame on you DK". Rightly so i guess. Rugby is such a big thing in this country. Here in New Zealand, rugby is not just a sport, it is a religion. A religion that people of all ages and races believe in whole heartedly. To be honest, until today i still do not understand half of the game but i decided i must go to a rugby match anyway, especially when the Rugby world cup is here in the country and the All Blacks are playing.

I was after the ABs vs France match at Eden park stadium but the tickets for that game were sold out long before i even thought of buying. So i decided to hit "The Tron" (Hamilton) for the ABs vs Japan match. A friend of mine got the tickets, front row tickets for $160 each. I was thinking we were overcharged for the tickets but the very moment i saw where we were sitting it all became clear. We were at the very first row. $160 suddenly sounded like a bargain.

The stadium was packed. It was a sold out match. Most of the crowd seemed to be wearing black, presumably ABs fans. It was another chilly night in The Tron but the sight of the packed stadium and excited crowd channelled that little bit of warmth to everyone there. At least that was how i felt. I was extremely excited, not just because it was the first time i was at a match, not because i was at the front row but because i had my DSLR with me, ready to capture all the actions through the 70-300mm VR lens. I am not a huge fan of sports photography and certainly have very limited experience in that field of photography. The only sport event i have photographed in the past was Heineken Cup tennis tournament. I was quite happy with the images i have captured from that tennis game, giving me a false sense of confidence with this rugby game. It did not take me long to realise i was wrong. Very wrong.

I am not about to write an full commentary on the whole game. There are plenty of blogs and websites for that. Since this is a photoblog, i will be talking about what i have learnt from my attempt to photograph a rugby game.

The game started with the famous Ka Mate Haka. Then it was all action from there on, and the beginning of my problems. The ABs were wearing black jersies, not the easiest colour for the Auto focus to catch. Then it was the speed of the game. I was sitting at the side of the field and had to lock focus on players sprinting from my right to my left towards the try line. Everything happened so fast, i found myself too slow with tracking the players. I started with a single AF point mode but soon decided i could not cope because i was too slow in tracking players manually. I then switched to the Auto-area AF mode. The result was slightly better. However, when it came to massive tackles where players threw themselves onto each other, locking focus on the right person became a bit of a hit and miss story with Auto-area AF mode.

Another problem was the light. I did not have a pro lens with f2.8 aperture. My 70-300mm comes with a variable aperture of f4.5-5.6, not exactly a very bright lens. I cranked my ISO up to 1600 but still struggled with getting enough light to my sensor. I was reluctant to bump my ISO any higher due to noise. I had to compensate with lowing my shutter speed and that certainly compromised the sharpness of some of the shots. That frustrated me a little. Later on i was advised that i would have been better off dialing the ISO up and clean up the noise in post-processing. Lesson learnt.

Here are a few of my shots. Most of these have been cleaned up a little bit with Photoshop.

Ka Mate Haka

And of course we can't forget about the loyal fans.......

Beer & Waffle

2011-09-12T23:27:00.002+12:00

Another warm day in Auckland. It made spring felt like summer. Warm sunny weather always makes me crave for cold beer. Hui and i headed down to Mission Bay, a place we haven't been for a while. There is this Belgium bar called De Fontein. Apart from a variety of Belgium beer, they also serve some awesome mussels. You have a choice of grilled and steamed. Yum....

Nikon P300 + 40% sepia tone processing

Nikon P300 + 20% monochrome tone processing

Steamed mussels with Lobster Bisque brandy broth

Nikon P300 + green tint

Rugby world cup Part 2

2011-09-12T23:09:00.004+12:00

SATURDAY

10.9.2011, second day of RWC. Things have quiet down a little, but there was still a small crowd at Queen's wharf. Since we have missed out on Friday, Hui and I have decided to have a nosey at Queen's wharf and see what is the fuss all about.

It was a warm sunny day. First thing that caught our eyes were a big white Rugby ball and a huge screen broadcasting live games. Then i saw the CLOUD. To me it was just a white enclosed corridor with lots of mega screens in it with a few bars serving cold beers. It certainly did not look like something that costs more than 9 million dollars.

After a night of shooting fireworks with my DSLR last night i got a bit tired and lazy of lugging a big old camera around town. So i brought my relatively new Nikon P300 point and shoot with me for a change. It is pretty small, about the same size as a Canon S95, also cladded in black plastic. The two major differences between the two cameras are the smaller CMOS censor in my P300 vs Canon S95's larger CCD sensor. CCD sensor drains the camera battery like there is no tomorrow, leading to a poor battery life. The battery life in my P300 is much better thanks to the more energy efficient CMOS censor. The downside is the smaller size of CMOS censor costs the Nikon some points when it comes to depth of field and image noise. Another difference is the maximum aperture, f1.8 in the Nikon and only f2.0 in the Canon.

Here are some photos taken at Queen's wharf, using the Nikon P300.

Giant Rugby ball

Some of the photos here are straight out from camera while others have had some minor curves adjustment done to them in Aperture 3. Considering the P300 is a sub NZ$400 point and shoot camera, i reckon the images are pretty good.

Rugby World Cup weekend Part 1

2011-09-12T22:41:00.003+12:00

The seventh Rugby world cup is here. This time, this international event is hosted by nobody but the most rugby-crazed nation, New Zealand. The last time New Zealand hosted the Rugby world cup, they won the tournament. Is that a sign or what?

When China hosted the Olympics, they built the "Bird nest". What have we built in NZ as the RWC host? We have The Cloud. The Cloud is a purpose built temporary structure that can home 6000 people. It is shaped like a twisted corridor, white in colour, hence resembling a long white cloud. After all New Zealand is supposed to be the land of long white cloud. Sadly, once you start googling The Cloud, you will find all kind of sick comments on this 9.8million structure. Some said it looks like a piece of used condom. Some say it looks like a giant tape worm. I prefer to stick to a piece of fluffy white cloud. What's in the Cloud? There are numerous large screen TV broadcasting all 48 games LIVE. And of course what is a rugby game without a bottle of cold beer? There are plenty of temporary bars selling beverages of your choice.

Outside the Cloud, there are more big screens for people who can't fit in the Cloud. And there is also the home coming Giant Rugby ball. I did not know this until now but apparently this giant ball is quite famous and is very well-travelled. It has been sent to places like Paris, Tokyo, London and Sydney since 2007. The ball is 25meters long and can accommodate 220 people at any one time. Once you are inside, you will be treated to a 10 minutes audiovisual show promoting New Zealand's clean and exciting face of tourism. Admission is free during the RWC.

FRIDAY

RWC 2011 opening falls on the 9 September 2011, a Friday. The opening act starts at 7:30pm and the kick off at around 8pm. I did not go to the games but i tried to get to the Cloud. I said i have "tried". That basically means i didn't make it. I worked 'til 5pm on that Friday. By then the Queen's wharf and the Cloud was already packed to its maximum capacity. In fact it was so packed that the authority had to fence off the whole place and refuse further entries. Thousands of rugby fans flooded Quay street. I was carrying my Nikon DSLR and a tripod. I didn't think setting up my tripod in the middle of a fully packed street was a wise idea. Why carry a tripod then you may ask. Fireworks! Not just a few seconds of it. We are talking at least 3.5 tonnes of fireworks set up at several spots in the CBD, including skytower and on a few barges on the harbour. I have never photographed fireworks before but i do know it is not an easy job.

By the time my wife and i got ready and had dinner it was just after 7pm. Most of the good fireworks viewing spots were already packed with people. I tried getting to Parnell Rose garden but that area was so crowded that i could not find a parking. After 15 mins driving in circle i gave up. When i was turning back heading back home, i drove past a very small but slightly elevated park land at the end of Parnell. This was purely by chance. When i was driving pass i saw a few people standing there staring at the sky tower in the distance. That became our fireworks viewing spot for the night. It was a cold night. While i was setting up my tripod, Hui got two cups of coffee.

Crowding building up closer to 8pm.

The fireworks started right on time. It started with small dull sparks but slowly built up in momentum and climaxed with a few big blasts over the harbour. Sadly, from where i were i could not see the ones from the barges clearly. It was a very still night with not much wind. Without the wind, the smokes lingered in the sky after each blast, making everything a bit hazy. Not ideal really. There were a few trees in front of the park, obstructing the view.

You can see the hazziness created by the smoke.

LESSON LEARNT

1. Scout for venue early and pick a spot with unobstructed view of the firework. Be there early.
2. The presence of water will enhance the vibrance of the colour of the photo (reflection of the firework can be very attractive).
3. Bringing tripod is a good move.
4. Bring cable release or remote. If you don't have any, use timer mode to open your shutter. This can be tricky due to the timing of the firework.
5. Best aperture is between f8-f16. For my photos above i used f11.
6. Overly slow shutter speed may not be the best idea. Fireworks can often be brighter than you think. You will end up with an overexposed photo if you open your shutter for too long. I have done mine with around 10 seconds.
7. Turn the auto focus off and focus manually.
8. Wear something warm if you are heading out on a cold night.
9. Have lots of fun!

WaterMan

2011-08-23T22:12:00.003+12:00

We have all heard "It's a bird, it's a plane, it's...Superman". If i am a superhero, people will go, "it's a fish, it's a Merman, it's .... Waterman". It sounds almost like i am dreaming of becoming Aqua-man. It is not like that. Let me explain.

I have been rather pre-occupied the past few months. A lot has happened during this time. I have sold my house in Hillsborough, but that was not an easy job. The house market in Auckland has been so sluggish, the house took a while to sell. And just when i thought it was finally done, a pipe in the automatic dishwasher broke and apparently that happened just prior to the settlement date, at least according to the real estate agent anyway. The outcome? Major flood in the house. It was a two stories dwelling with the kitchen on the top level and a guest bedroom directly underneath. I moved out from the house almost a week prior to the settlement date and had no idea what was going on in that house since then. According to the realtor, the water leaked everywhere, soaking through carpets, ripping right through the floor and through the ceiling and made a mess in the downstair bedroom. Luckily i had house insurance covering all the water damage. All i had to do in the end was to buy the new owner a new dishwasher.

My wife and i are now renting in Remuera, one of the top surburbs in Auckland. We are still thinking of moving to Australia in the future, hence the decision of not buying a house for now. We spent a few days unpacking and settling into our new nest and were feeling quite happy with the location of place. There is a little creek running along the side of the road with a small bush and wetland next to it. There are always ducks and Pokekos at the water edge. Remuera township is just a nice 15 mins walk away where you get a few nice cafes. Best of all, my workplace is only an easy 5 mins drive or 30 mins walk away. We are paying $550 per week, which is pretty reasonable for a big-gish three bedroom in a top Auckland surburb. Well, at least that was what we thought until a series of "water-accidents" happened.

In the 3rd week in our new rental home, one night just before bedtime, i was feeling hungry. I went to the kitchen for a piece of toast, only to see water running from the kitchen ceiling into the pantry and streaming onto the kitchen floor. It was close to midnight, too late to ring anyone. So i placed several buckets around the kitchen to collect the dripping water and cleared out the whole pantry. It was a frustrating situation considering we have just spent days unpacking. We subsequently found out it was a bathroom pipe that has burst in the neighbour's house upstairs. It took them close to two weeks to fix the problem.

Sounds pretty trivial and uninteresting so far? There is more. It was a Wednesday, 3rd August 2011. A rainy Wednesday night to be exact. New Zealand is generally a very wet country with high rainfall during this time of the year. It rained straight through the night that Wednesday. There is only one off street car park at our house. That means one of our cars would need to go on the street. And as you know, the lady always gets the pick. My wife gets the nice carport while i parked on the street. The rain poured heavily on the roof and the tiles on the courtyard, making a hypnotising drumming noise. I slept soundly that night until a frantic siren from the street woke me. I looked at the clock, it was almost six in the morning. It was still very dark outside. The rain has faded into a light intermittent drizzle but it was freezing on the street. I contemplated for a while and decided i should go have a look on the street, especially after my recent experience of having my car stolen. Once i stepped out the door, even before i managed to locate the source of the siren, i knew what was wrong. The answer was right in front of me. The siren was not from a car crash and there was no dodgy character on the street to suggest a theft. What i did see was a tarmac cladded road that has been transformed into a river. The overnight rain has turned the benign little creek across the road into a furious river spilling muddy water onto the road, causing a flood. I had a Subaru Legacy, boasting 240 horse power from a 3000cc natural aspirated boxer six. Sounds like a beast of a car. But surrounded by the water, this lion of a car looked like a helpless pussy cat trapped on a driftwood floating in the middle of the sea. The water soaked up half of the wheel, beyond the level of the lower border of the door. I knew that meant bad news. I went back in, hopped out of my PJ and into my shorts and a pair of slipper. Ignoring the cold, i stepped into the water and waddled carefully towards my car, being a bit wary of what i could be stepping on in the muddy water. I opened my car door and saw water pooling in the footwell of the driver seat. I knew i had to do something to "save my car". I started the engine and with a slight gurgle, the engine fired up. I drove slowly down the road and parked my car at the end of the road, where the it was dry. That was pretty much the end of life for my car. She did not survive the water damage. After a careful examination by the panel beater and insurance assessor, it was thought the water damage was too extensive and has affected the cables and possibly the car's computer (ECU). The worse thing was that the water from the creek came from the sea. Salt water translates into corrosion and rust in the future.

I bid my car farewell and could not stopped pondering my recent run of bad luck. The interesting thing was every time something bad happened to me it had something to do with water. I have had various theories offered by colleagues and friends. Some said i must be a Merman in my last life. Some said i must have angered the sea god. Some said i may be a descendant of Poseidon. I couldn't decide. Is Merman better or does the son of Poseidon sound more cool? After a quick google i found out that the Greek god of the sea Poseidon was a bit of a player who has fathered countless children with different woman. According Greek Mythology, one of his sons is a Merman and his name was Triton.

Anyway, i thought i'd share some photos of the flood. They were taken one hour after i have found my car in the water. By that time the rain has stopped and the water was starting to recede. These were taken in semi darkness with my Nikon P300 point and shoot camera. I did not want to use my D90 DSLR, in case i drop it into the muddy water on the road. I thought that was a fairly reasonable concern considering my recent luck with water.

Portland road flood August 2011

Moral of the story? Show some respect for water. They can be gentle and pleasant most of the time but not all the time. I now keep two pairs of gum boots at home so that i don't have to get stranded at home when the road gets flooded.

Aussie getaway Part II

2011-04-14T19:58:00.002+12:00

Australia trip Autumn 2011
Chapter 2: Sunny Sydney

After Melbourne, we took a flight to Sydney. We flew with budget airline Tiger airway. Tiger airway is well known for their cancelled or late flights. To our surprise, our flight was on time. The waiting terminal was small and crowded. They seem to have too few boarding gates for the number of flights they have planned. Things got a bit messy with several groups of people on different flights waiting at the same gate. But apart from that things went according to plan.

The flight took about 1.5 hour. I vividly remember the air hostess dressed in a tight white shirt, black pants and a thick belt with tiger skin print on it. She yelled at passengers who have failed to have their window blinds fully open during take off. The tiger print belt and tight shirt all sounded pretty sexy but somehow it did not really work for her. She was quite a big lady too.

We have lots of friends in Sydney, who offered their homes as free accomodation. We stayed with a friend who owns a city fringe apartment at Waterloo, a surburb that is a 20 minutes bus ride from city.

The first place we visited was the iconic opera house, a must see when you visit Sydney. From Waterloo, we took a bus to Circular Quay, which is right next to the Opera house. Sydney was a lot warmer than gloomy Melbourne. The sun was up high, warming up the harbour right from the early morning.

Everyone was feeling warm and happy. A treat after few days of cold wind in Melbourne. Happy people make good models......

My brother in law and his girlfriend went for a thrilling jet boat ride at Sydney harbour. They came back all drenched.

Very quickly came lunch time. We met up with a friend who brought us Yum Cha. The local always knows best where to go for good food.

The next day, we took a ferry to Sydney's Taronga zoo. The zoo has been operating for years, since 1916. It is built on 21 hectres of land. It is located in a surburb called Mosman. You can drive there if you want to but we thought ferry was a good idea because it gave us an opportunity to have a nice view of the city and opera house while on the ferry, as you can see in the following photo.

The ferry made a quick stop at Fort Denison, a fort built on a small island, just north of the Sydney harbour. It was first built as a penal site to house convicts. Armed with canons, it was also used as a defense facility, against foreign vessels. Today, it is merely a tourist attraction and a cafe.

Toranga zoo in my opinion was smaller than i expected. It certainly felt much smaller than Auckland zoo, which i like a lot. The weather on that day was extremely warm. We were dehydrated and exhausted by the end of the visit. Highlight of the zoo trip must be seeing Koalas and the seal show.

The next day we, we spent our day at Rocks. The market was on and buzzing with people. We had morning tea at a french cafe called La Renaissance, tasting different cakes and tartlets.

La Renaissance has a neat little backyard where you can sit quietly, away from the buzzing crowd from the market. I got a cup of Mocha and a serving of Le Roi Soleil, a rich tartlet infused with Mango and garnished with golden chocolate chips, absolutely yummy.

Le Roi Soleil

I found an interesting item at the market. Have a look at the photo below and guess what it is.

If you have guessed kangaroo's testicles you are right. They bring good luck apparently. None of us bought any.

For the photo above i was trying to boost the melancholic feeling that autumn brings. I added a hue/saturation layer, switched on the colorize mode and turns on a yellow hue. I then adjust the opacity of the layer to achieve the tone i wanted. Lastly, i added another layer, this time a level layer. A little tweak of levels gave the photo more definition.

For the photo above, i deliberately over expose the photo a little bit. I then added a gradient map layer, followed by a generous tweak of level adjustment to turn the trees and birds to ink black. Here i have actually added another duplicate layer and i have done a gentle Gaussian blur on it. If you want to create a very dreamy feel you can to be more aggressive with the blurring. But i have chosen to go gentle on it.

I have enjoyed my vacation. It is always hard to get back to work after such a nice holiday. I hope you have enjoyed my photo journey with me. Stay tuned for more of my future blog.

Australian getaway Part I

2011-04-14T18:22:00.004+12:00

Aussie trip Autumn 2011
Chapter 1: In love with Melbourne all over again.

Australia is only separated from New Zealand by a ditch, a 1338 miles wide ditch to be exact. That is not exactly that far considering there are plenty of budget airline deals around. I visit Australia fairly frequently, mostly for medical conferences. I have seen most parts of Australia. But this continent that is all so familiar to me is foreign to some people, including my in laws. So this autumn, my wife and i have decided to bring them on an Aussie trip. We only had about 10 days to play with, not exactly adequate to tour the whole Australia. So we limited our trip to Sydney and Melbourne. We have family and friends in both cities, which translated to free accommodation. Lucky.

Our first stop was Melbourne, a city i was once very fond of. I wanted the convenience of living in the city, so that we could explore every inch of this amazing city. We stayed in a serviced apartment in Carlton for the first half of our Melbourne tour. Carlton is one of Melbourne's many inner surburbs. It is north of the CBD and is particularly well known for Lygon street, a street packed full of Italian restaurants and cafes. So much so that it has earned its nick name of "Little Italy".

We ate our first breakfast at Brunetti's cafe on Faraday street. I remember many years ago, that cafe was only a small shop. It has now expanded into a big space spanning across the space of three shop lots. The pastries and cakes you will find at the cafe are absolutely yummy. It is always packed with hungry people.

There were so many choices, we stood at the counter for a good 15 minutes trying to decide what to have. In the end we got some Macarons, a Pistachio Tartlet and a Tiramisu. They were divine.

Having fed ourselves, we took a walk to the nearby Melbourne museum and exhibition hall. The international flower show was on. But seeing that we had a lot to cover, we decided not to go in.

Exhibition building. That was me attempting to capture the movement of people walking up and down. Doing this without a tripod was not easy. This is the best shot i got.

Playing with my shutter speed once again at IMAX theater beside the museum

There were a lot of bike exchange shed around the city.

We then took a city circle tram straight down Swanston street to Federation square. City circle trams run every 10 minutes around the rim of the CBD. It is free for all. Awesome. Federation square is a very unusual looking piece of architecture. The premier Jeff Kennett wanted the best design for this project and announced a design competition in 1997 in search for the most suitable architect. The winner was Lab architecture studio, directed by Donald Bates. The project was then carried out with participation by a local architect, Bates Smart. Despite the controversy, Fed square remains as one of the most popular tourist hot spots in Melbourne city. It is an interesting sight when you step back and look at how the contemporary design of the Federation square coexists with the ancient St Paul cathedral in the background.

The sky was looking a bit gloomy that morning and we had Royal botanical garden and St Kilda beach on our itinerary. So we only stayed for a short while at Fed square. We then met up with my wife's aunt, who lives in Melbourne. We took a short walk to the Shrine of Remembrance and Royal botanical garden, which were practically next to the Fed square.

The Royal botanical garden is huge. Some 38 hectares of land irrigated by the Yarra river, landscaped and planted with 10,000 different species of plants, native and non-native. The only problem was that a lot of the flowering plants were not in flowering season. Still, it was a nice walk with some photography opportunities as you will see in the following photos.

Then, we conveniently hop on to Tram 16 and headed down Swanston street again towards the other direction. It was a Sunday. Every Sunday, there is the St Kilda Esplanade market along the beach. We had a nice walk along the strip and was grateful that the weather turned out okay, though a bit windy. Despite the cold wind, we could not resist the Gelato temptation at 7 Apples and had a cup of Gelato each.

The next morning, we checked out of our Carlton apartments, hauled our luggages to Melbourne central train station for a train ride to Camberwell, where my wife's aunt lives. Before going onto the train, we fed ourselves at a French Creperies cafe called Roule Galette. It was tucked away quietly at the end of Scott alley, 241 Flinders lane. We had a total of 5-6 crepes to share, two of which were flambe. Yes i said Flambe. First time i had Flambe crepe, kind of weird. Can't say i like them that much. Despite the burning, the residual taste of the liquor was still a bit too strong for breakfast. But the cafe host, who was as French as French could be told me that was normal for a French man. In fact he insisted on pouring us two glasses of cider, which turned out to be pretty nice. Alcoholic beverages at 9am in the morning, not something i do too often.

With a stomach full of Creperies and the smell of caramalised Cognac lingering in our mouths, we took a train from Melbourne central station, heading down the Lilydale / Belgrave line. The journey took around 40 minutes. We hopped off at the Surrey Hills stop and took a short bus trip to aunt's house. It was an old villa, beautifully renovated and well kept. Camberwell has become an expensive area to buy into. A house with land like that and with a bit of the yesteryear charm will easily cost upwards of 1.5 million in today's market. We spent a couple of hours settling in and then took a bus to Chadstone shopping mall. It was a humungous by New Zealand's standard. Mainly because New Zealand is so much behind economically that we hardly see something that big. In this multi-storey mall you will find everything from middle class labels to the most expensive boutiques displaying high fashion couture. We did some window shopping and left pretty much empty handed because most things were too pricey there.

The next highlight of our Melbourne trip was heading up to the Dandenongs. The Dandenong ranges, or just the Dandenongs as the locals call it, is a set of mountain ranges with Mount Dandenong peaking at the height of 633 meters, not super high. It is around 30km east of Melbourne city. To get there without a car, we took a train down the Lilydale line again and hopped off at the Upper Ferntree gally station. That is the gate way to the hills. From there we took a bus up the mountain. The first stop we took was a small town called Sassafras, where the famous Miss Marples cafe was situated. There was a long queue at the cafe. We waited for a good 30 minutes before we got a table. The menu was less than extensive but some of the food was great. I had a beef cottage pie, which i thought was just very average but their fish and chips, waffle and last but not least scones were great. We had a walk about at Sassafras, exploring the various shops, including lollies shop and a shop full of teapots.

After a stroll at Sassafras, we took a bus to Sky high Observatory on Observatory road. There, we got a unobstructed view of Melbourne city. Well, when i said unobstructed i meant no physical mass obstructing our views. There was however, smog enveloping the sky scrapers, smog that spelled air pollution. Because the smog made the city scape so unattractive, i played around with my photo a little bit in Photoshop and came out with this film grained version (see the following photo).

Before we knew, our visit to the observatory turned into a mini photoshoot, with a few willing models (my brother in law and his girlfriend).

After the obsevatory, we headed to our last stop of our Dandenong trip, the William Pickett sanctuary. It was basically a little reserve decorated with sculptures of the aboriginal people, hidden away between native bushes. The entry is free but if you are rushing for time, i would say this sanctuary is probably something you can skip.

That concluded our visit to Melbourne. Have to say i am loving Melbourne all over again.
Next stop, Sunny Sydney.

Lazy weekend

2011-03-20T21:58:00.001+13:00

It was my wife's birthday last week. We thought of going away from Auckland for the weekend but convincing people to scrap the two nights minimum stay rule and renting out their holiday homes has proven to be a difficult task. In the end, we settled for a 1/2 day trip to Kumeu.

Kumeu is a small town 25 kilometers Northwest of Auckland city. It was quite an easy drive on State highway 16. Took us less than 40 mins by car.

Kumeu is well known for the wineries. The one we went to is called Soljans winery. It is a family run business that has been around for ages,established in the 1930's i think. Their cafe is supposed to be one of the top 20 restaurants in Auckland. So i went there with certain expectations.

We started off with their freshly baked bread, which we have totally enjoyed. The bread was warm and soft. It went really well with the chef's daily spread that came with the bread.

Hui got a glass of Gewurtz which she thought was quite good. My empty stomach doesn't usually agree with any form of alcohol. So i decided to skip the wine and got a cup of coffee instead.

Sadly, my praises for the food end there. Hui got a Croatian seared Lignja. It was basically seared squid coated lightly with bread crumbs served with salad. We thought the squid should have been seared without the bread crumbs. Because it was pan-seared rather than deep fried, the crumbs soaked up quite a bit of moisture and have made the squid a bit too soft and chewy.

I got a Mushroom a la greque. I got it because i love hashcakes. But my hashcake was soggy. I couldn't figure what happened but i suspect it was left standing for too long before serving. The poor hashcake must have soaked up too much paprika oil or the moisture from their redwine infusion while left standing.

So, basically we were happy with half the food but the other half has left us a little disappointed. I must say the service was pretty good though. Will we go back there again? Probably not. Aucklanders are blessed because Matakana (North of Auckland) and Kumeu (Northwest) are all saturated with numerous quality wineries. There are always better choices and definitely better hashcakes!

Downunder

2011-03-12T01:00:00.001+13:00

As a member of the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia, i attend the Update conference every year. The conference is held in Australia, usually in Sydney. This year the meeting was in Melbourne. And this year, it was a little bit more than just a conference for me. This year, i was there to attend a small ceremony where i have officially become a fellow of the college. Oh, we got a certificate at the end of the ceremony too. Though i must say the college was being very cheap, giving out a certificate without a cover or a case of some sort. I had to stuff it in my hand carry bag and ended up tearing it a little bit after my 3.5 hour flight.

The best part of conferences like that is i get to fly for free, as all our expenses are reimbursed under medical education claim, with a limit of course (otherwise i will be flying to Hawaii every 6 months!). My trip there this time was not without a few hiccups. Firstly my flight got delayed for two hours, which means i touched down at Melbourne at 11pm. Then i realised i have booked into the wrong hotel. Apparently there were two Medina executive apartments, one at each end of Flinders street. I was supposed to stay at the Medina at the Northbank instead of the one on Southbank. Anyway, at midnight, i walked the entire length of Flinders street and finally reached my hotel just after midnight. Luckily, the apartment was very nice. I could see the iconic building of Federation square from my balcony.

Due to the fact that i got the wrong hotel, i had a fair distance to travel to my conference venue the next morning. It would have taken me 25-30 mins on foot. I chose to take a tram. As usual, i carried my DSLR with me wherever i go. I walked pass this lane with cool Graffiti on my way to the tram stop.

On Sunday, i got a little fed up with the very facts packed talks. So, i decided to flag some of the talks and went wondering in the CBD of Melbourne. Melbourne streets are busier than ever, packed with people, cars and all kinds of street performers. On the same street (Bourke street), i have seen a few but two of the performances caught my eyes. First act was by a group of Italian men, playing their music. The music had a heavy Latin swing to it. The band actually attracted lots of attention.

The second act was a man who painted himself gray to look like a statue. But instead of standing still like just another boring statue wannabe, he created another three statue who looked like him. It was kind of freaky seeing four faces in stone-form, especially when one of them could move.

Of course, Melbourne is not all pretty and civilised. Here's a dodgy one.....

Chinese new year with family

2011-02-05T13:35:00.008+13:00

It is that time of the year again, a time for family members to gather, a time to celebrate, a time to rejoice. It is the year of rabbit this year. This year, i have the luxury of being on holiday for two months. Sadly, my wife's leave application got turned down, hence my Chinese new year celebration in Auckland instead of Malaysia. On the better side of things,my folks and sister flew to Auckland for the new year gathering. Their trip was fairly short, which limited our choices when it came to planning our out-of-Auckland trip. In the end we spent most of our time together exploring Auckland. We spent a sunny afternoon at Cornwall park. Then on the following day we took a ferry to Waiheke island and spent a night there.

Cornwall park is one of the many parks in Auckland city. Together with the neighbouring park One tree hill, Cornwall park is the biggest parkland in central Auckland. Here, you will find an interesting landscape formed by many hills and terraces, a result of volcanic activity in the distant past. One tree hill, the neighbouring park is centered on an inactive volcanic cone. Built around this cone, was ancient Maori fortresses from the pre-European era. They said the domain was called One tree hill because there used to be a tree standing solo on the hill top. Unfortunately, that tree has suffered from some kind of disease and had to be removed. All we are left with now is a monument on the hill top. Nevertheless, Cornwall park and One tree hill domain are still an excellent place to have a stroll, jog or summer barbeque. Speaking of the latter, there are dedicated areas with permanent built in BBQ facilities for everyone. There are extensive walkways and walking paths running between the mature oak and Kauri trees. There is even a Cornwall restaurant in the middle of the park, a popular venue for weddings.

Here is a shot of my sister sitting on the floating roots of a tree.

Mum and dad seemed to have a good time walking around the park. Here is a shot i took of mum, with my camera close to the ground. It was difficult to get the subject in focus when i couldn't actually see through my view finder. The live view mode on my D90 has never been working that well for me somehow. I prefer using the viewfinder but i was reluctant to get dirty lying with my tummy down on the tarmac. In the end, i think i got the effect i wanted.

The following photo is one with my sister trying out her photography skill with her iphone. Hers is a 3Gs, not the one with the 5 megapixel chip that you will find in iphone 4, which is the one i'd much prefer. I am amazed by the picture quality an iphone 4 can produce. I have been wanting to get a pocket camera that i can bring to dinner parties. Sometimes, lugging a big DSLR to a dinner party is just not very "cool". I was eyeing on the Canon S95. Lately, i have been thinking maybe i should wait until my current cellphone (a Nokia) goes kaput and needs replacing, then i will get an iPhone 4 or iPhone 5 if they have one by then. It just makes more sense to me that way, since i carry my cellphone everywhere i go anyway. Why bother filling up another one of your pocket with another chunk of electronic device when the one that you use as a phone is perfectly capable of producing nice photos. Afterall you are not doing a proper photoshoot for fashion magazine at a dinner party. The 5 megapixel lens with a large aperture of f2.5 should do the job most of the time.

We spent 15 minutes observing the cows at Cornwall park. My sister lives in Australia. They don't get to see cows or sheeps unless they travelled far out from the city. Who would have thought you can see so many cows grazing the parkland in the middle of Auckland. That is exactly what i love about Auckland. It's a big little city. It is big enough for most things but small enough to blend rural into your buzy urban city life. Fantastic if you ask me.

We spent a day on Waiheke island. We departed from the Auckland main ferry terminal at the viaduct. The ferry to Waiheke departs from pier 2.

My sister on the ferry.

The place we stayed in was Anzac villa. Here are some photos taken at the property.

The villa is quite an old premise but fairly well maintained. You will find many little decorative details in the house, which add a personal touch to the villa. I have found the villa quite "funky". Most importantly, it is very clean. The kitchen is well equiped with oven , cooktops, microwave, kettle and all kinds kitchen utensils. The island's biggest supermarket, the Woolworth is within walking distance from the villa. We bought fresh pasta and cooked up a simple but delicious dinner and had the dinner at the villa's front porch, by the water. To top it off, the villa comes with a courtesy vehicle for us to use. In our case, it was a spacious Toyota Estima, a seven seater people carrier. I understand the owner also has a big bad Landrover that he sometimes uses as the courtesy vehicle.

Complimentary tea and coffee.


Waterfront is right at our doorstep at Anzac villa.

Waiheke island is famous for two things. Wineries and beaches. Our Waiheke experience would not be complete without a visit at one of the wineries. Choosing winery to visit is not as easy as i thought. There are more than 30 different wineries on the island. I have been to Mudbrick winery some time ago and liked the mediterranean feel it has and its beautiful Lavender garden. But i thought i'd try somewhere else. So i did some googling and found Te Whau. We had lunch at Te Whau winery. Te Whau is a smallish vineyeard but it's restauarnt is award winning and has been crowned the best Auckland rural fine dining restaurant. Sure enough, the food was absolutely amazing. So was the service. We started off with a basket of bread to share. The we had a main course each. We had pan fried salmon with king prawn and Vietnamese salad, eye fillet with potatoe tart, pan fried snapper fillet with tomaoe fondue and twice cooked duck.

We had an enjoyable and relaxing time on the island. I liked the villa we stayed in. One thing i will advice you not to do though is visiing a garden called Te Whau garden. It was a total waste of money and time if you ask me. It is basically a private residence with a big compound with partial landscape and partial wetland and flax bush. The garden has been advertised as a sculpture garden, but there were hardly any sculptures worth looking at. Entrance fee was $10 per adult. We only spent 20mins there and left disappointed. If you like garden, the are many much nicer gardens around Auckland, most of which are free for everyone to visit. I highly recommend the Auckland botanica garden in Manurewa (Hills rd).

For those of you planning to visit Waiheke, i recommend two things. One, stay at Anzac villa. Two, having lunch at Te Whau winery. Check out their websites. Here's the website address.

http://www.tewhau.co.nz/
http://www.anzacvilla.com

Don't like the past week

2011-01-31T01:05:00.002+13:00

I haven't blogged for quite a few days. Not because i am lazy but because i have been as sick as a dog the past few days. There must a potent virus around that gives people the mother of all runny nose and nausea. Nausea and vomiting have never been my symptoms when i get flu. I absolutely hate the experience of waking up at night and retching in front of the toilet with nothing but gastric acid being expelled.

To top it off, the super bad rain last week has flooded my balcony and caused some unsightly water damage to one of my walls at home. Then came tropical cyclone Wilma, bringing lots of rain again. Everytime it rains my heart pounds 10 times faster. I worry a lot about my house as it doesn't seem to tolerate high rain falls well. Blame the poor building standard in New Zealand.

Then my precious boy racer car WRX got stolen yesterday morning. That was when cyclone Wilma visited our neighbourhood. I parked my car on street. My street is supposed to be a rather safe street. I have made a police report pronto but have not heard anything about my car so far. According to statistics only 30% of stolen cars in New Zealand get recovered eventually (wrecked or not). Now, I am car-less and mega pissed off.

My mood is much better today though. Although i still have to put up with my niggly cough, i did something cool today. I have done a 1/2 day photoshoot for my friend, Kait and Luke, lovely couple. I will need some time sorting out some editing and will make a full post on the shoot. So stay tuned and watch the space. Meanwhile, here are a few photos from the shoot, just to tease you for now.

A dog, a cat and a skater

2011-01-19T19:32:00.007+13:00

The weather has been less than predictable the past few days. Summer is supposed to be dry and warm, but it has been raining on and off recently. This annoys me because it means i have to stay at home.

The rain has decided to stay away today. I spent a while trimming down my Lavender which has grown rapidly into a wild bush, rather unpleasant to sight. It looks heaps better now. I have kept most of the Lavender flowers i have removed and stuck them upright into two ceramic vases at my door step. Now when i enter my house i will be greeted with a light and somewhat "Tuscan" scent. These photos of the Lavender were taken with a Nikon 35mm f1.8. One of my other new purchase. I have decided my 50mm f1.8's focal length is a bit too long for most of my shots.

I went for a walk at the park (Onehunga lagoon). There is a skate park there. Most of the time it is quiet and unoccupied. I guess not many people know about its existence. But this time, there was a group of skateboarders training. I managed to take a few snaps of one of them in action with my new Nikon 70-300mm f4.5-5.6 VR (except the wide angle shot of the skate park, which was taken with Tokina 11-16mm).

Onehunga lagoon is a good place to photograph dogs. There are always people walking their dogs. There are also a lot of birds in the park due to the wetland of the lagoon. There are two tide gates. When the tide is low, the waterbed get exposed and that is the feeding time for seabirds. There was a nice Labrador playing fetch with his owner. I got a few shots of him in the shallow water. These were also shot with the same 70-300mm lens.

On my way back home i saw my neighbours cat resting on his driveway. Out came my 70-300mm again. I love photographing cats. There are so much details to their face. The stripes, the long whiskers, the emerald or blue eyes can look amazing when you get your photo right. If the cat has decided not to run away from you when you approach, it will usually stay at the same spot calmly for a while for you to do your thing. Whereas a dog can be more curious and playful with strangers and tend to come up to you.

ATP world tour Heineken Open

2011-01-16T18:22:00.003+13:00

So i was sitting on the couch at home, watching tele in the morning and found out Heineken open was on. I was feeling bored at home. I flick on my IPAD and did a quick search and found out tickets for the quarter finals were still available. I have never been to a tennis game before but have always wanted to. I came very close to going to Australian open three years ago but my holiday in Melbourne was short and it was a scorching 42 degrees in Melbourne, way too hot even for a Malaysian.

So i hopped into my good old WRX and raced down to ticketek counter and managed to get a good seat at Redwood grand stand of the ASB tennis center. I have recently purchased a new Nikon lens which i was very keen to bring out for a test run. It is a Nikon 70-300mm f4.5-5.6 VR. Before this i have been using the cheapskate 70-300mm f4-5.6G (No VR). This new lens with the VR is significantly heavier and a lot better built than the budget lens. I thought the results were pretty good. It was a very sunny day, so i must say i didn't really have to use much of the VR since i had my shuter speed beyond 1000 most of the time. One of these days i will try shooting the same object with both lens and show you the difference. Here are a few of my favourite shots from the tournament.

David Ferrer resting at the stand after winning his quarter final match.

He is a tall tall man.

Halfway through holiday

2011-01-16T18:02:00.002+13:00

Time flies. Half of my two-month holiday is over. I got back from Malaysia almost a week ago. I departed at Singapore's Changi airport. I took a super early flight flying at 8:50am, meaning i had to check in by 6:50am. I stayed a night in Johor Bahru the day before and had the opportunity to walk around the older part of town for a bit. The few photos you will see here were taken at a street called Culture street (Tan Hiok Nee street). There, you will find old buildings with a very vintage feel. We found this cafe with pretty cool decor and display inside. The weird thing is you will find a crappy stairway at the back of the cafe that will lead you into a tiny hair salon upstairs, tucked away quietly. If i hadn't been led there i would have never thought i can get a haircut there.

My last dinner in Malaysia was a sumptuous seafood feast at a local restaurant called "Three stories" (San Lou). It has a semi open air foodcourt style setting, doesn't look like much on first impression but their killer secret is their food, not so much their presentation. It is always packed full of hungry people, mostly from Singapore. We had stir fried fish head, chilli crab, deep fried squid, and stir fried rice noodle. Unfortunately i did not bring my camera along to the dinner, so no pictures of the yummy food to show.

Arrived at Auckland at midnight. Haven't had much sleep on the plane. An Indian woman kept hassling me to swap seat with random members of her very extensive family. Somehow her family members were all allocated seats far away from each other and she was not very happy. The thing is i always request for an aisle seat so i can stretch my legs a little and it will be easier to get to the toilet. She wanted me to swap with her daughter (a rather uncomfortable middle seat). The annoying part was she made the demand in a rather impolite manner. She sat down beside me and pointed towards her daughter's middle seat and said "Can you go sit there" (in a rather stern tone). She sounded like a grumpy headmistress ordering her student around. I wasn't very pleased. So naturally i said no. But she was persistent. Five minutes later she hassled me again to swap with another daughter of hers, this time my aisle seat for another aisle seat further back in the cabin. I thought if i said no, there would a good chance she would make my next 10 hours on the plane a bit unpleasant. So i agreed. There was no thank you or any sign of appreciation after the swap. Don't you just hate it when people have no understanding of good manners?

It's good to be back. Back to a place where cars actually stop at a zebra crossing, back in a place where people understand what a queue is, back in a place where freedom of speech and basic human right means something.

Vegetables garden

2011-01-03T23:38:00.002+13:00

My house in my home town Batu Pahat is located in the hilly fringe of the town where the population is fairly low. It's a quiet place at the bottom of a rain forest. Some of the forest areas have been converted into vegetable farm by local farmers. It has been that way for years. I can literally see the farmers from my balcony. Sometimes i can smell the fertilisers they use (not very pleasant at times considering they use a lot of "organic" fertilisers if you know what i mean).

I have never been onto the compound of the vege farm although i am aware that people from my neighbourhood often go up there for evening walks and pick up a few free cabbages, chillies etc on their way out. Today i have decided to follow my mum up there for a visit. And of course, i went with my DSLR. The sky was totally overcast and i feared it was going to rain and that the rain will drench my camera. So i brought along two of my cheapest lenses and carried them in a Lowepro camera bag for partial water resistent. We also had an umbrella handy.

We met some farmers up there and i politely asked permission for a few portraits but they turned my offer down without hesitation, saying that they are shy. In the end i took a couple of shots of them with my tele-lens anyway.

You will be surprise how many people around us are camera shy. According to a survery done by Fujifilm in 2006, 73% of women and 50% of men are uneasy in front of a camera. The body weight of the subjects, the messy hair and the clothes they are wearing are apparently the commonest reasons for the camera-shyness.

Anyway, i took a few landscape shots of the farm but the sky looked super gloomy, not very ideal for landscapes. On my way out, i saw a few crows on the lamp post. It was almost like they were talking to each other. The original photo of the birds were nothing exciting due to the dull sky. So i converted the photo into a mono using gradient map, followed by a quick level-adjustment and finally a hue/saturation layer with the colour set to a sepia tone to create a better tonal range.

Red hot chilli

Lady's finger

Mum's birthday

2011-01-01T05:21:00.001+13:00

Mum turns 61 yesterday. Happy birthday mum!

We had a small family gathering at a popular local chinese restaurant. We had so much food, at the end of the dinner i could barely move. We had Lobster, Blue cod, Abalone, goose feet, Sea cucumber stuffed with shell fish, roast duck crispy yam cake, shark fins soup and dessert soup.

We even have a birthday cake.

Here are some photos. The lighting was not great, i had to do bounce flash with my flashgun.

A chinese wedding

2010-12-30T19:00:00.013+13:00

As i have mentioned in one of my previous blogs, i have recently attended a wedding and i am now posting the blog of that event as i have promised before.

Raymond, the groom, has been my friend since we were 13 year old. There were several others in our gang and we were all notoriously known for our mischievous but witty traits. If you are a follower of Taiwanese TV drama or Japanese manga, we were a little bit like the F4 (okay, we did not beat people up, we did not drive convertible sport cars to school and not all of us had the looks to match but you get my point). After high school, we went separate ways to pursue higher educations. Most of us were world apart but somehow managed to remain close. Friendship is a funny thing.

When i heard Raymond is getting married i was very happy for him. He has been a good friend, very much like a brother i've never had. He is also a charming lad who mingled very well with the ladies. My dad used to call him Romeo. I knew he will find a girl who has a good heart just like him. When i heard he got engaged to Jiin Ee, i knew the day has come. Jiin Ee went to the same high school as the rest of us. I remember her as a sweet girl who was soft spoken and yet very confident in whatever she did. She had very good grades in school too.

I have never photographed a wedding before but have always wanted to do so. There is something about wedding photography that mesmerises me. You can imagine the excitement i felt when i knew i finally have my chance of photographing a wedding. Photographing the wedding of my close friend? That's just the icing on the cake.

This was a church wedding with Chinese customary details. A strictly traditional Chinese wedding is more tedious. In a traditional Chinese wedding, the bride has to wash her hair in Pomelo water, apparently to cleanse her of any evil energy (i find it a bit derogatory to infer that there is evilness in women). The bride will then have to be dressed in red and wear a rather elaborated hat called the Phoenix crown. Chinese weddings have evolved over the years. Nobody bother with the tedious details above anymore. But all following events are still part of a Chinese customary wedding.

The bride waits at her house while the groom gathers his entourage. The latter usually includes the groom's brothers and close friends. The entourage of boys drive to the bride's house early in the morning to "obtain" the bride. We are not talking about a simple pick-up-and-go task here. It is more like a military siege operation to extract a target (which in this case is the bride). Like any "extraction operation" this is not easy. The bride is kept within the "fortress" guarded by an army of girls, the equivalent of the groom's entourage. The get to the bride, the groom and his friends are required to perform and complete certain tasks or tricks at the girls' demand. These usually include doing push ups, singing, drinking some secret cocktail (usually very horrible to drink due to the content). Last but not least, the girls always demand Ang Pau (red packets filled with money) as ransom.

Once the extraction business has been completed, there will be a tea ceremony at the bride's house where the newly wed serve Chinese tea to the elders from the bride's family. The couple will then return to the groom's house for another tea ceremony, this time involving the elders from the groom's family.

Finally, the dinner banquet on wedding night. This is a big feast, easily with more than 300 attendants.

Here are some photos i have taken at the wedding.

Tang Yuan: Traditional Chinese dumplings served in sweet ginger soup.

Chinese bun for breakfast.

Gotta feed the lads before the hard work begins

Chinese love red and gold as colours. It's suppose to bring good luck.

Suit up.

The groom arrived at the bride's house.

The groom's entourage followed closely behind but we found ourselves locked out.

We were forced to do some push ups but with a twist. We were required to eat a plate of groundnuts while doing push ups.

After giving up the last lot of ransom....

And performing a very girly dance...

Raymond finally got his bride.

A brief tea ceremony at the bride's house.

And we were off to the church.

The church ceremony is over. Time to head over to the groom's house.

Another Chinese tea ceremony at the groom's house. The newly wed received red packets in return.

The tea ceremony ended in the early afternoon. We had a break and some rest. There was a small dinner banquet at a local hotel which we all attended. I did not have my camera handy that night, hence no photos to share.

Hope you like all my photos. I intend to shoot more weddings if my day job does not get too taxing in the coming year. So do follow this blog closely.

Melaka Part 2

2010-12-25T16:27:00.001+13:00

Here comes the part 2, the part without the awful rain, the part with the sunshine (okay i admit there wasn't much of that either, the sky was overcast). Anyway, i got to where i wanted to be. After the rain, all the tourists were out on the streets again. The Dutch village was absolutely packed full of people. Finding parking nearby was impossible. So dad had to stop by the road and wait in the car, while me and my mum left for the photoshoot.

Melaka was founded by a Malay-Hindu prince from the Srivijaya empire. His name was Parameswara. Srivijaya was once a strong empire centered at Palembang of Sumatra. The 1000 year old empire was attacked and destroyed by the rise of a new empire, the Majapahit empire led by a man called Singhasari. The Srivijayans fled to Singapore and stayed for a couple of generations until their old nemesis from Majapahit empire came chasing again. The Srivijayan prince of that time Parameswara eventually fled to Melaka. Back then, Melaka was a small fishing village. Parameswara was sitting under a tree one day and witnessed a fight between a dog and a tiny mousedeer (locals call mousedeer a Sang Kancil). The mousedeer defeated the dog. Parameswara took it as a sign, an omen perhaps that Melaka was special. He started building his empire again and eventually turned Melaka into one of the busiest port of the region. One thing i must point out though. I have read somewhere that the so called ferocious dog that fought and was defeated by the mousedeer was actually a Chihuahua! I doubt the Chihuahua was any bigger than the mousedeer. Hell, i actually think Chihuahua looks more like a mouse deer than a dog anyway. Maybe the prince had a few too many Sauvignon Blanc the night before and has mistaken the second mousedeer for Paris Hilton's Tinker Bell. Let's face it, back in the old days they probably did not have a morning hang over pill, haha. I apologise for making fun of history. But i just can't help it when i read about the Chihuahua.

Back to the photos that i have shot...

The famous Mousedeer that fought the Chihuahua. I wish it had been a Rottweiler, not a Chihuahua.

Tan Beng Swee clocktower.

Stadthuys, meaning Town Hall in Dutch.

Rickshaw (becak) men at work.

Christ Church, Melaka.

Melaka was ruled by the Portuguese from 1511 to 1641. In 1641, they were defeated by the Dutch, who ruled Melaka from 1641 to 1798. The British took over after that. Not much of the Portuguese buildings are left these days. The picture below shows where the old Portuguese wall was.

I was please i had a willing model for the photoshoot. Here are a few photos of mum...

I left Melaka, feeling tired after a day of running around and driving. But i felt satisfied. I can now cross one tourist spot off my list. I can say i have visited Melaka as a tourist, with a full set of awesome photos as proof. Til the next time my friends, cheerios and Merry X'mas.

Melaka Part 1

2010-12-25T15:19:00.000+13:00

I was born and raised in Malaysia. The funny thing is when you grow up in a country, there is a fair chance you have toured half way around the world but have not thoroughly explored your own country. I have only been to a hand full of tourist spots in Malaysia. Yes, shame on me. I am a busy man. For me, holidays are rather hard to come by. So now that i have over 3 weeks of holiday at home, i have decided i should venture out a little from Johor (the area i am living in). When tourists talk about Malaysia, they often talk about the world renowned diving paradise Sipadan, breathstaking view at Tioman island and Redang island, land of mouthwatering food Penang, and the monsterous sky scrapers from the Malaysian capital city Kuala Lumpur. But they also talk about the famous historic city of Melaka (also spelled as Malacca). Melaka is a small state, 148Km from Kuala Lumpur and 95Km from Batu Pahat (where i live). More than 50% of its population is Malay, around 30% chinese (including the Babas and Nyonyas), with the rest comprising Indians and people of Portuguese and Dutch ancestry.

The main attractions of Melaka include the Stadthuys, St John's hill, Christ church of Melaka and Melaka maritime museum. I particularly like the red buildings left over by the Dutch. I have always wanted to photograph them as i think they look pretty.

So i was all excited and geared up with my Nikon D90 heading towards the area. There was a bad traffic jam on the way. A short journey from the town center to the Dutch village turned into a 30 mins "snail race". I didn't waste time. I got the car window down and started snapping candid pass by shots of some old buildings. Here's what i got....

This is how a traditional Baba & Nyonya house will look like.

A drive by shot of a small lane.

An old window.

Yes a window again. I have a thing for window...

Just when we were getting close, guess what..........it started pouring down. I couldn't believe my luck. Maybe it was a sign that i should wait for the evening sun (photographers call it the golden hour for photoshoots). So we had no choice but to detour to a nearby shopping mall Jaya Jusco to wait the rain out. It gave mum opportunity to pick up some imported Kim Chi too. Apparently you can't get quality Kim Chi like that in Batu Pahat. Mum and dad are totally hooked to Kim Chi these days. While i was entering the mall's carpark, i noted an interesting sighting. There were "No parking" signs along the entire stretch of the road we were travelling on and it was interesting to know how well Malaysians follow the rules. See the following photo. I thought it was hilarious and disappointing at the same time.

Please don't insist on Malaysia boleh. I am telling you TAK BOLEH PARKING!!

The shopping mall was decorated for X'mas with a gigantic snowman greeting us at the main entrance. I did not think much of the snowman initially until i stepped closer and read the sign. Have a look at the first photo below without looking at the second. Can you spot anything unusual? Now look at the close up photo (second photo below).

The giant snowman was made of recycle bottles. How cool.

I did not give up on my photoshoot plan. I loitered at the mall for an hour and a half, the rain stopped. See part two of this blog.

Happy birthday dad!

2010-12-23T03:42:00.000+13:00

My dad turns 62 today. Like me, dad loves good food. I guess i got it from him. There is a saying that says "the easiest way to get to a man's heart is to get to his stomach first". I think there is a lot of truth in that saying. So, as our little celebration, mum cooked a very traditional Malaysian lunch, Nasi Lemak served with Ayam goreng (fried chicken).

Nasi Lemak is a traditional dish sold widely in many parts of south east Asia such as Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei. The rice is soaked and cooked in coconut cream / coconut fat (hence the name Nasi Lemak, which literally means fatty rice in Malay). Some people add Pandan leaves (screwpine leaves) in the mix to add an extra fragrance. My mum usually throws in a few slices of ginger to give that extra kick.

The rice is then served with a variety of side dishes including fried chicken, beef Rendang, spicy sambal squid, hard boiled egg, roasted peanutes and deep fried Anchovies (ikan billis). Nasi Lemak is often sold at the road-side hawker stalls, wrapped in a large sheet of banana leaf.

I have included a few photos, taken just before i devoured everything on the table.

Fried Anchovies and roasted peanuts.

Spicy sambal squid.

Mum preparing the frangrant rice.

Nasi Lemak lunch, served!

Mum and dad digging in.

As delicious as the nasi Lemak is on its own, a special birthday lunch can never be complete without dessert. For dessert, mum has prepared another traditional chinese dessert called "Tang Yuan" (sweet dumpling soup). Basically, little balls of flour is rolled into balls with their cores containing crush sweetened peanuts. These are then cooked in boiling water spiced with ginger and with sugar added into it. The word "Yuan" means round. Chinese believes eating this will give one a "rounded" or complete year ahead.

Tang Yuan

Yummmm....just looking at these photos makes me hungry again.

Santa says Hohoho!

2010-12-20T06:32:00.000+13:00

It is still my first week in Malaysia and i have been extremely busy with various social engagements the past few days. I have been part of a two-days wedding event (Raymond's wedding) and have volunteered to be a backup photographer. I will be posting another blog in the next few days detailing that wedding (with extensive photos coverage of course).

I was hanging out with a few friends few hours ago. It was at a little pre-xmas party at Stephen's house. Stephen has been my friend for a long time and i have only just found out that he has moved to a new residential area. His new house was super awesome, in a safe and secured neighbourhood with a fairly decent piece of land.

There was carolling at Stephen's house but i missed the most part of it because i was busy running through and editing some 400 photos i shot at Ray's wedding. But i was pleased i have not missed the food and the beer.

Here are some of the snap shots i took....

Going home

2010-12-17T15:09:00.001+13:00

I have just realised i have not had a real holiday in the past 3 years. All the so called "breaks from work" i had in the past three years were strictly speaking study breaks. To me those were hardly holiday break at all. But now i can finally have my well deserved holiday. I have officially signed the contract with Auckland district health board last week, taking up a Anatomical pathologist consultant position at Labplus, one of the biggest and busiest regional lab in the country. I will not start until mid February 2011. Not only i can have a guilt free holiday now, i also get to spend half of it at home with my folks in Malaysia. It's a nice feeling. To top it off, one of my best friends is getting married. I will have the opportunity to photograph at least part of his wedding. How exciting.

Here are a few shots taken prior to my departure at Auckland airport. Must say the kiwis have done a good job renovating and airport. It looks nice.

Here i come Malaysia...!

This is a shot taken while i was waiting for my luggage at Changi airport.

I wish i had my tripod.

Chicken curry

2010-12-12T21:57:00.002+13:00

Although this blog focuses more on my passion for photography, i would also like to talk about my other passion....passion for food.

I have recently attended a dinner party organised for my office. I brought along a pot of home made chicken curry and i have received requests from a few colleagues to give out my recipe. It is very simple.

Ingredient:
Chicken thigh or drums, NOT chicken breast. Preferably keep the bone and skin on but trim away the excess fat. I like to chop my chicken into 4X3 inches pieces.
Potatoes, skin off and diced into 2 inches cubes.
Curry powder, available at most indian or asian groceries. Somewhere between 1/2 - 3/4 coffee cup of powder.
About 2 table spoons full of tumeric powder if you have (optional).
Dry chilli if you want extra kick.
Two sticks of lemon grass, fresh or frozen doesn't matter.
Two sticks of Cinnamon.
A few Anise stars.
1/2 a chopped onion.
Curry leaves optional.
One whole can of Coconut cream.
Salt.

Cooking:
Pan sear the chicken to brown the skin. Put aside.
Then sear the potatoes in the pan then put aside.
Then put Cinnamon stick, lemon grass, Anise star and onion into the pan and heat them just briefly.
Pour the spices above, chicken and potatoes all into a big pot of boiling water. The water in the pot should be just enough to submerge your meat and potatoes, not too much more than that.
After your water has reached a steady boiling state, turn the fire down to low-medium, let it "slow cook" for somewhere between 40-50mins (depending on how much chicken and potatoes you are cooking). After this time, check your potatoes and chicken with a chopstick or fork. They all should be fairly soft by now.

Add in the whole can of coconut cream and stir. Add salt (you will usually need quite a bit of salt to balance the curry spice). The coconut will equalise the temperature a bit, so you will need to boil a while longer to bring the content up to a boil again. Stir a few times and check the meat. Turn off the heat once the meat is starting to fall off the bone easily.

Optional: Sometimes i add in a handful of Mustard seeds just prior to turning off the fire, to add a little bit of crunch to the dish.

Malaysian Chicken Curry, served!

End of an era

2010-12-12T02:19:00.003+13:00

It is the end of an era for me this week....my last week as a registrar. After this week, i will no longer be doing the boring jobs the superiors hate doing. After this week i will no longer have someone telling me off because i have one minor spelling mistake in my histology report. After this week i will no longer be getting crappy registrar wages. The end of this week marks a new beginning, a future to look forward to but at the same time it also marks the end of a journey which i have shared with a few very close colleagues of mine. With the never ending fellowship exams in the past three years, life has been a battlefield. I would not have survived if i have fought the battle alone. I am blessed to have supportive colleagues fighting the same battle with me. They are not just colleague, they are close friends, comrades, brothers and sisters. Sadly, one of them is leaving. Heinrich is heading to Australia for his fellowship. It is hard to say goodbye to somebody you have been spending almost every Saturdays of the past three years with.

We went out for a farewell dinner at Thai house, Ponsonby. The food was yummy. I brought along a bottle of Bandit (a red wine i got from Ascension Winery, Matakana). It was divine.

After dinner we took a short detour to Western Park on Ponsonby road. Every year, the local Telco Telecom sets up a giant Xmas tree at the park. This year, the xmas tree is as big as ever and there is a stage at the bottom of the tree with giant bean bags for people to sit. Viewing the brightly lid xmas tree from afar was nice, but admiring the view from underneath the tree while snuggling into a giant bean bag was something else. We stayed for a little while and had to leave because it was a bit chilly and none of us was adequately dressed for the weather.

The photo above was shot while i sat under the tree. Very cool view.

There were phone booths around the giant xmas tree. Here's Heinrich in one of them. Goodbye Heinrich. We will miss you.

Gentle beast

2010-12-06T17:58:00.002+13:00

It's my last week as a registrar. I am "secretly" feeling anxious. I am 32 year old this year. I have spent 6 years in Medical school, two years as an intern (they call it house surgeon in NZ eventhough we don't cut people up with scalpel like Dr McSteamy and McDreamy do in Grey's anatomy) and 5 years training in pathology. In other words, i have spent more than a third of my years alive achieving what i have now. And now i feel like i have gone back in time to be an intern all over again. I need to pick up new responsibilities, make decisions without people babysitting me. And this time, if i mess up and make the wrong call, it's all on me. You can understand where my anxiety is coming from. That said, it is a very exciting time. At least i don't have to deal with exams anymore.

So i was driving home from work. In front of me was a Ferrari. I don't know much about Ferraris apart from the fact that they are fast and pricey. I think it was a F430. If i am right, this beast must have something like 500 horsepower and will go from 0-100km/hr in 4 seconds. I took this shot with my crappy Nokia just before the light turned green. I was expecting 430 angry italian stallions to disappear in front of my eyes, leaving my poor WRX with a plume of dust to chase. I was wrong! The car turned slowly onto the motorway and then moved along the slow lane at the speed of 70km/hr. I tailed the car for a while and gave up in the end. I overtook it and through the speckless driver's window i saw an old man in some fancy suit. He must be in his early 60s.

The moral of the story is, when you are privileged enough to own a Ferrari, you can drive as slow as you want, whenever you want, anywhere you want and don't have to give a toss about what people think. You certainly don't have to entertain a chinese boy racer in a WRX trying to race you at the lights :)

Endless summer

2010-12-04T02:20:00.002+13:00

It's my birthday. I am turning 32. I know 32 is not a big number but somehow i just feel that much older. I spent the whole morning cleaning the house. It has been a mess for a long time and i was so busy "unwinding" from all the exam stress i couldn't be bothered doing house chores until now. I vacuumed the carpet, threw out all my study notes and did some laundry. Went out to the mall and grabbed a copy of the New Zealand D-Photo magazine, Dec/Jan 2011 issue. I brought it to a nearby homestead/cafe by a park, sat on the sunny veranda and read it while i drank a glass of hot sugarless soy latte with a perfect layer of foam on top. In this issue of D-Photo, they did a side by side review of Canon 60D, Nikon D3100 and Sony A55 SLT. The Canon scored 92%, Sony 90% and Nikon 88%. I was quite surprised that Nikon lost the show down to Sony. Then again lets not forget Nikon gets all their sensors from Sony. I thought it was a bit unfair to throw the 60D into the game sine 60D is a much bigger and serious camera weighing 200g more than the other two in this comparo and costs almost $700 more than the A55 and D3100. The D3100 was let down by the poor performance of its kit lens.

I must say the Sony A55 is a very interesting gear with a bag full of fancy features. Sweep panorama mode and GPS geotagging are two of the most useful features. I have to constantly fight the urge to buy this little piece of art. One day i may cave.

There is a photography gear fest in Auckland tomorrow. I will TRY to go if i can wake up. It will be a struggle i tell you.
Took a walk in my neighbourhood in the afternoon and got excited when i saw the evening sun shining through the clouds in the slightly overcast sky. Got my camera out and took a few shots and here's what i got.

The first photo is my favourite. How did i do it.... Everything can be done with photoshop. First i adjusted the levels to make the shadows darker and the midtone also darker. I thought the clouds weren't standing out enough, so i applied a gradient filter on them. Then i played with the colour balance.

Some Hydrangeas, flowering gloriously under the summer sun.

Treated a few friends to dinner at one of the top ten japanese restaurants in Auckland, Sakebar on Manukau road, Epsom. I love the atmosphere there. Very authentic japanese, very cosy. Their food is great too.

First post-exam weekend

2010-11-29T01:44:00.000+13:00

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

2010-11-29T00:56:00.000+13:00

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.