Marina’s Bloggariffic

I was viewing the photoclicks competition page and saw the finalists from the Boon Lay CC category.

I must say that I’m very impressed by the way that the photographers captured their images - it was unique, something that I would not have thought of myself.

I was there, on Sunday to participate, just for the fun of it. I signed up for it months ago as I was a photovideoi member. Besides, Boon Lay was rather near where I lived.

The editor for magazine, John Cosgrove was there, to conduct a quick workshop. It was the same person who conducted the macro workshop that I attended in February.

He ended the workshop and started the competition. The theme was, “Life in the HDB block”. The 100 participants and I went off to shoot pictures in the heartlands.

It was a rather warm day and soon I was perspiring and fidgeting and began pawing at things.

I took shots of the housing blocks from different angles. I climbed up the flight of stairs to see view from the top. I sat on the ground to see view from the bottom.

After a few hours, I couldnt concentrate in the heat and decided to just walk casually around the neighbourhood. I stumbled upon a rather pretty farm and stood there admiring. Its rural-ish charms reminded me much of my old house before our relocation.

I saw a farmer watering the vegetables and I shouted out to him

me : Nice vegetables uncle!

farmer : Haha! Yes! But its not mine. This is shared with other residents here

me : What beautiful plants

An auntie comes near us pushing her groceries

me : Isnt this such a lovely farm?

auntie : Yes. Too bad we will be leaving next year

me : What? Why?

auntie : We are being relocated. These houses here are over 40 years.

me : Really? Doesnt look it though.

auntie : I hope that our new place will have good amenities.

—

I walked around and saw other photographers taking their pictures. I smiled and said hellos and observed them deep in concentration. I saw a rather familliar face.

Me : Hey, havent I seen you before? You were at the macro workshop

He : I dont remember. I go to too many shoots. Do you always go photographing solo?

Me : Yeah, I dont have much friends who like photography.

He : Maybe you can join my friends and I on our shoots.

Me : Sounds great :)

In time it was time to return to the community center to submit our shots. There were a multitude of people there queing up already.

The results were announced soonafter. I saw and admired the lovely pictures by the top 10 finalists. Mr Familliar was one of them - He was very talented.

This is my submission, it wasnt in the top 10 but I’m still pleased with it.

Hopefully there will be another one next year. It was a lot of fun! (apart from the heat) Will you join me if there will be one the next time?

What can I say? Terengganu is one of the most beautiful beaches that I’ve seen. Wonderful coastline and soft powdery sands. Simply breathtaking. Two days isnt enough time to experience the things that I would have liked to see and do.

Terengganu is located on the east cost of peninsula Malaysia and it overlooks the South China Sea.

We left on Thursday night and took the overnight coach to get there. Dont the reason why, but all overnight coaches are freezing cold! I could still feel the bite even in my jacket. Luckily for me, I packed my body towel along to wrap myself in.

The next day, tired and groggy, we stopped at Kemaman for morning prayers and breakfast. Loads of food to eat! Younger bro and sis each had Nasi Lemak (Coconut rice) each. Mum and Dad had Roti Canai while I had a plate of Kuih (cakes) and my favourite Teh Halia (ginger tea)

Teh halia!


Roti Canai is similar Roti Prata, best eaten hot and with curry. Their version is a little spicier though. But still delicious!

It was a hearty breakfast. Bro and Dad had second helpings even till everyone was full. We spent $18 Ringgit for a family of 5. That was so awesome. :)

Unlike Singapore, there were plenty of animals roaming around. Like sheeps and cows and there were plenty of cats there. I had a ball of a time playing with them.

Err .. hello, what happened to you?

Later we stopped by a batik factory and saw beautiful batiks being made. Batik is made of a silk cloth, where the beautiful pattern are usually handmade.

Hot wax is put into the tool called chenang while the artist draws pattern on the cloth

The pattern are traced in wax and then coloured with cloth dye.

This is a tool where you dip in wax and then pressed on the silk. Another type of batik.

Mum choosing some batiks for us. I’m going to look like a SIA girl! Haha!

Man with glass crafting demonstration near the batik demonstration

We then went to Pasar Besar Kedai Payang (translated to Big Market Shop Payang). It was such a kaleidescope of colours. And in the morning, with a bustling of activities of people buying their daily needs.

There were loads of things being sold there, from fresh vegetables being heaped like hills, to cakes, to fresh flowers. There were many things as far as the eye can see.

Turtle eggs that can be eaten. It has a slightly bitter taste.

Colourful keropoks made of different type of seafood

Terengganu is famous for turtles and seafood. Keropok, a type of food made of fish paste is also a famous snack here. Mum decided to buy some turtle eggs and keropok while I observed around. Even though I was malay, the natives here has a different way of talking. They tend to speak their words with an additional ‘g’

“Saya nak makang”
“Satu, dua, tiga, engpat, lima, enam, tujuh, lapang”

It took me a while to get used to the way they talk.

We had lunch together. My parents had baked fish each and dare I say that it was truely one of the best ones that I’ve eaten so far. It may be a simple dish, but it really tasted so good.

Yummy!

Bro couldnt understand this cute little boy who asked him, “Have you paid for your drinks?” Children here are so cute I swear. They are always playing and smiling

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At length in the evening, we reached our hotel - the Awana Kijal hotel. By then we were too tired to do anything. I would have liked to do a bit of water sports (there’s kayaking here! Jet skiing! Catamaran!) or simple things like seeing the fireflies. Unfortunately it was too late to do any thing because it was already 5pm and bookings will be closed by then.

Thats the thing about group tours that I really dont like. That we have to comply to do things that is in the schedule. Oh well. Maybe we’ll go there again the next time, but we’ll do it free and easy :)

The hotel was pretty nice and had a lovely view of the sea when we opened the curtains.

Can you imagine waking up to this?

I persuaded my (already tired) family to see the sea. “If not now, when?” We were tired from the long journey but it was such a treat to see the wondrous sight. And we viewed the cultural show which was going on, on the way back to the hotel.

My beautiful mum by the sea

My dad walking along the sandy beach. The white thing is whole sea shells.

Diana admiring the sea

A scene from the cultural show - This guy is very handsome!

—

We had to leave the next day (Bwaaah! Thats not even one day we spent there!) We spent time on the bus again, stopping now and then to eat. We must have eaten lots!

Sis loved eating Sata. boneless fish marinated in spices, wrapped in banana leaves and grilled over charcoal fire. My parents bought lemang, bamboo stuffed with rice and cooked over coals for several hours. While I had keropok lekor, delicious fish sausages that is eaten with chili sauces.

Sata is made of marinated fish paste and wrapped in banana leaves and then grilled. Really delicious when eaten hot

Lemang - rice stuffed in bamboo and cooked over an open fire

Keropok Lekor, made of fish paste. Can be eaten as it is like this

But I prefer it fried and crispy

Sigh. There really is something special about eating authentic food.

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Would love to visit again. Truely is paradise on earth.

I am now officially poor.

Now that I’ve made my payments for my examination, I’ve hardly anything left in the bank. But its alright, since its not for frivolous expenses like the makeover session I had with Juli and Geri.

By right, the end date to make the payments was on last Saturday, 8th of April. However, I stalled and procrastinated and by the time I reached the post office, it was already closed.

I really had a most upsetting weekend and all I could think about was how I wont be taking my examinations this year and how careless and what a blockhead I was.

But I decided to call up the ministry of education anyways. I didnt have anything else to lose. They actually said that they still accepted payments with today being the absolute last day.

My heart leaped! Hope! Joy! Revelation! Penance!

I’ll still be poor for a few months. Oh well, at least I’ll have no money problems since I dont have any money to speak of :-P

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A couple of pictures I’d like to share with everyone. Shuqun, the school where I worked at had some guests from Hong Kong :) They about 100 of these students, and they came over to experience what life would be like if they were students in Singapore.

They toured around the different places in Singapore like Bugis, Serangoon, to experience the culture and experienced different things. They even spent the night over at some shuqun student’s houses.

I think thats a splendid idea as this shows how people live. Its not superficial and its real. The right way to experience culture. (Do you hear that Ministry of Tourism?!)

Soft toys being sold. Money collected will be for the needy and poor students of Shuqun.

And my disciple Jean and me. Is it so wrong to want to take a huge bite out of my arm? ROFL!

Time to do a little bit of reading. Till the next time :)

As a kid, I enjoyed making model of things. I remember persuading my grandmother to buy the little plastic set of toys that I could assemble myself. I remember that new sets would come every friday fortnight and I’d bug her to get them for me. I made miniature furniture like tables and pastry carts, wardrobes and at the end of the day, I’d be lost in my world of imagination, with the house that I built.

To a lesser extent, I dont see much toy shops selling these type of toys anymore. (Legos dont count because they are above 3 dollars) Most toys nowadays are already premade - all you got to do was to take it out of its plastic cover. Personally for me, the fun is I dont think there’s much fun in that as there wasnt any sense of challenge and achievement.

I guess that was why I enjoyed doing the little experiment with the pictures of the scenes from work place. I stumbled across an article on tomorrow about tilt shift lens effect. This effect gives the illusion of miniatures and I was extremely amazed at how it turned out.

Doesnt these look just like miniature toys? Its so charmingly cute and toy-like. I know I WOULD play with these toys for hours!

Click on the pictures to see a bigger version

Originals

I left the house screaming at about 7.45am this morning. I was supposed to be at the Canon DMH Building in Bugis by 8.30 and it took about an hour train journey from home to there. I quickly took one gulp of ovaltine and one bite on the fried egg sandwich and quickly fled out of the house.

I was hurrying to attend the “Nature’s little gems” workshop which was organized by PhotovideoI. I’ve been a member for this group for quite a while and have been to one of their activity last year.

I reached the destination at about 8.40 and thankfully, I wasnt so late. In fact, there were a number people who were still queueing up to register for the workshop. I quickly made friends with the man in front of me. Ram was his name and he tells me that he was interested in photography for about a year and enjoyed nature photography the best. He showed me some of his magnificent pictures of different animals and I was impressed by the hummingbird picture that he took. It takes a lot of patience to snap a picture like that.

Soon-after, the editor of photoi, John Cosgrove announced that we were about to departure and are welcome to borrow the cameras and lenses. Ram quickly borrowed the Canon 5D camera.

The Canon EOS 5D camera was way superior to my Canon EOS350D. At the super high res of 12.8 megapixel and a super fast multi-burst image capability (that means that you can take many shots back to back in just a click) it was superb. I expecially liked that fact that the body now has an adjustable dial that changes the ISO and arpeture immediately. Something that I didnt like about my camera. I had to fiddle with alot of buttons to change it. Not good when you want to take shots in an instant.

And then Ram took out his super sweet Canon lens. (I think its the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS USM Lens) and attached it to the 5D and quickly handed it to me.

Ram: Take that picture of those sparrows there.

Me: Where?

Ram: There! (points to the fence about 5 meters away)

I quickly aimed and shot a picture of the sparrows. And oh my gosh. The image quality was breathtaking. Is amazing what the right equipment can do to your pictures. (I wish I had the picture, Ram deleted it at the end of the workshop to save space on his CF card :P)

Me : Oh my gosh. I love your lens. I wont be able to sleep tonight. I’ll just think about the lens, all the time. How much is it?

Ram : I paid $2,600 for this.

Me : Ah? *Gulps* Thats like two months pay for me

Ram : Its a good investment for beautiful pictures.

Me : Yes, but I dont have an engineer’s pay :P

Ram : I guess you just have to starve yourself then

Me : I guess I do :P

We reached Alexandra Hospital Nature Trail a few minutes later and we began our shot. I was close to being intimidated! There were so many professional equiptment all around that even with my robust camera, I felt so small. Many had their own telephoto lens and were happily snapping far shots of moving butterflies and other creatures.

I couldnt do a macro shot with mylens without going to the subject really closely. Forget about butterflies. Do you think they would want to pose willingly and sit quietly when I ask it to?

So I shot the to the best of my abilities, mostly of things that didnt move too much.

What do you think of them? I got lucky with the butterfly shot as it landed quite close to me. I stood still and waited and moved slowly to snap a picture without scaring it away. Very cool. My first butterfly shot!

We also found some interesting creatures like this HUGE caterpillar and HUGE spider which I wouldnt have noticed if I just walked there on my own. These animals really blend well with the environment.

I had the good chance to try out a telephoto 100 lens that allowed wonderful macro shots. Unfortunately it weighed about 2 kilograms. I wasnt able to hold it for a very long time without my arm straining. After a few seconds, focusing on the caterpillar, the lens drooped little by little.

“Thats why we carry tripods”, chuckled a man beside me, looking at my antics.

We wrapped up the photoshoot at about 11 and printed our best work and we compared our photo with the others. There were so many beautiful shots from different angles. I really enjoyed looking at them.

John took a look at the picture that I printed out and said that it was good. (shocking) He also said that different people have a different story to tell and if a picture makes you stop to look at it then, its a battle won.

So, does my pictures make you stop? ;)

*Next months photoshoot would be “Food Shots” - Come and join me! I’d love to go for the next one :)

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By the way, did anyone try out the new KFC Lava-chicken? I kind of like the chicken though the sauce which accompanied it was something I really had to get used to. What on earth *is* in that thing? It says “sweet and sour sauce” but I dont taste any resemblance. I cant find the words to even describe the taste. It was a really interesting experience.

At least it didnt taste as bad as the Masala chicken that KFC introduced some months back. Oy, that was disgusting. I could hardly get it down my throat. Dont anyone at KFC ever do research to see if it would be palatable for some testers before launching it to the public? I think that the Masala Chicken was the worst food that KFC has ever thought up of.

Ohh .. and dont get me started on wasabi mayo crabsticks sandwiches that delifrance had some weeks back. Whoever thought that dousing sandwiches in wasabi was a good idea should be tied to a chair and force fed these same sandwiches. For goodness sakes. A little is nice, but too much is an overkill.

O well. I’ll stop complaining for now :P And speaking of disgusting food … Enjoy!

Ted says : Sometimes things never go the way you like it. We all fail. But its not failing that hurts. What hurts is that you didnt do your best.

Have the discipline to do little things you dont like and you can spend your life doing the big things that you do like.

—

Err .. thank you for that Ted. I’ll try to remember that.

Anyway, I’ve got a new toy a work and I’m a little excited about it. The new stock of digital cameras arrived and I asked Gavin, who was keeping most of them for one to play with.

Previously, I’ve been complaining about how the school has been using backdated cameras.

The Sony Mavica

I dont know anyone who uses this anymore. Its so old school. It deserves a museum on its own. In a world full of SD-Cards, CF-Cards and Memory sticks, the sony mavica camera uses a floppy disk! And 1.3 megapixels. Amazing.

And now, behold, the beautiful Canon Digital Ixus 750

Sexiliciously sleek and slim with an alluring champange gold body. And so small. Its much smaller than my palm even. I’m amazed that at a resolution of 7.1 megapixel, the body was so small.

It took a while for me to get used to a point and click camera after my regular use of my regular EOS 350 DSLR, also by Canon. But I’m quite surprised that the Ixus still has a few features that I never thought a point an click would have like ISO settings, and White balance and I saw some nifty features like the photo stitch, which I really liked. (Panoramic pictures! Awesome!)

The Ixus isnt as good as my EOS 350. The startup time isnt as fast, and each shot takes a split second to do (instead of multi-burst) The colour sometimes isnt so true to the real thing too. But its like comparing apples to oranges. The Ixus is most definitely useful for travelling around and those situations when you just dont want to carry a huge camera around.

Beautiful camera. I like it alot.

Colour may not be true

Sharp images using macro view

Focus on an object and blur the background like a slr :)

May not be good for quick moving subjects

But overall, is an awesome camera - so now Imma gonna kidnap this camera for a while ;)