Intro to Improv

I attended a workshop on improvisation called "Intro to Improv" last week.





More incriminating photos later...

First victim of new lens

Welcome back... no I haven't been KO-ed this whole while, but it does feel that way since I have nothing interesting to blog about.

OK to cut to the chase: I just got myself a Canon 100mm Macro lens. So for the next few posts, you'll probably be seeing shots of tiny stuff from around my house :D

OK, my first live subject was this spider which I found just hanging around (more like sitting pretty) on a door at my place of work. Luckily I had this lens with me and my flash while I was covering an event, so... heh heh heh this was my first live subject.



I didn't really get many shots of this fellow, since it was kinda high, and I had to shoot upwards. The good thing was, it was facing down, so I was able to see its "face".



Depth of field for this lens is kinda narrow (most, if not all macro lenses are like this), so in order to get something sharp, you'll have to shoot at f/11 or even f/16. At these apertures, lighting becomes a problem, so you really need a flash or two to help light up your subject. Canon does sell the macro ring light MR-14EX but it costs a BOMB!

OK, Now pokai oledi... :(

Happy Pesta Kaamatan

Yay, the end of May is nigh, that means Pesta Kaamatan is right around the corner!

Wait, as I'm typing this, it's already the 30th day of May, so we actually bumped into and ran over Kaamatan?

FYI, the peoples of Sarawak will have their harvest festival on 1st and 2nd of June, right after Sabah's. So this year, Sabahans will only get Monday off (to replace the holiday falling on Sunday), whereas the Sarawakians only need to return to work on Wedneday, since Monday and Tuesday are holidays for them. Oh well...

Anyway, we had a fun time playing FoF on Jack's computer during the BBQ and then there was the discussion about CSI: Miami's Horatio Caine's shade-wearing skills which ended up with most of us doing this:


(Note: Person in the picture is NOT Horatio Caine)
Anyway, just wanna wish everyone Happy Harvest Festival.

Gothic Lolita outing

Hi ya boys and girls, there was a mini gothic / lolita outing yesterday (Saturday) at 1Borneo, organised by some of the CSP members.

We met up at Dome cafe, and proceeded to several areas around 1Borneo. The order of the day was to eat, drink and be merry in loli heh heh. I'll just let the pictures do the talking:





A failed panning shot:
















The rest of the pictures below were not shot in 1Borneo, but in one of the CSP member's house:



Changed this to sepia and got rid of a few distractions from the background:






And the dog also wanted a piece of the action:




Random pictures will be posted here if I'm not too lazy to process them...
OK, random pictures time:

Nikon T-shirt with Nikon cam:




Will you pet me?

Warehouse shooting

Hello boys and girls, and velkom to another edition of a shooting spree :D

OK lah, I only joined a photoshoot today, no guns involved, only some Canons heh heh...

MSJ photography organised a photoshoot with the theme "Warehouse shoot" where we went and shoot at some warehouses at the KK port area. The shoot was scheduled for 3.30 pm. Anyway, here's some of the shots:

For those who love bokeh:




What the???




What a cute pose...




Somehow the red bricks on the right were kind of distracting, so I converted it into black and white...


and it seemed to turn out better...


Had to do some lightening on the face, because it was kinda in the shadow:


Luckily there were no ants crawling around the fence...






This shot reminds me of the Afghan Girl photo by Steve McCurry:




After that we went off to Jesselton Point to shoot some moar, but by that time everyone was quite tired from all the shooting previously.
And so with this I finish my post:

Crazy hot and cold weather

How's your sweating lately? If you have been melting every time you walk out to your front gate, you're not the only one. The temperature was up to almost 33° Celsius, and this was at night!



On the same day, it started pouring in the afternoon, so I whipped out ye not-so-olde camera and shot the rain coming down off the awning:



The weather is crazy I tell you!

Earth Hour at Nexus Resort Karambunai

Earth hour was two weeks ago, and only know then I'm posting up some shots from that day :P

I was contacted by a representative of this resort to help shoot the activities that they conducted in conjunction with Earth Hour. If you want to know more about Earth Hour, just click here.

Anyway, I managed to get to the place at around 6:40 pm, since Earth Hour starts around 8:30 p.m. For Earth Hour, all participating parties switched off their lights for one hour to use less energy and to give awareness to the coming energy crisis. OK, maybe I'm getting a bit melodramatic here, but just click on the link above, that should set you straight :D

OK, the plan was to have a bonfire on the beach and do some cultural dances around the fire for the guests, and to get the guests involved with the activities, but heaven decided to keep the resort from releasing more CO₂ into the atmosphere by having a super heavy tropical storm greet us before the activities. So all the activities had to be done in the lobby of the resort.

The activities involved cultural dances, notably the Magunatip (I hope the spelling is correct) and a 3 piece live band. It's picture time:

The 3-piece band:


Murut warriors looking for targets:




There were some water droplets in the frame that was caught by my flash in this next picture, because the place was raining cats and dogs and there was quite a strong wind blowing the rain in to the lobby:


Getting the guests involved in the Magunatip:


More guests enjoying the singalong:


All in all it was a sweaty experience, since I had to run around all over the place to shoot.

Oh before I forget, this is how it looked like when the lights went out (shot from a hotel room on the 5th floor):

Bad parking

Don't you just hate it when some drivers parked their car incorrectly? Especially when it comes to parking bay spaces in shopping malls. I'll let the pictures do the talking below:





This was taken a few weeks ago... We had to inch really close to the other vehicle because the rear of our vehicle was sticking out of the parking space...

Anthony Lai obituary

Uncle Anthony (On Tong) passed away on Friday, 27 March 2009 at Damai Specialist Centre at 11.15 a.m. Funeral services will be at 12 noon 30 March 2009 at Fook Lu Siew funeral parlour (room 2D) mile 2 Tuaran Road and thereafter to Tamalang Silou Cemetery, Inanam for burial.

May his soul rest in peace.

CUBE photo contest

I went for the Cube Restaurant and Wine Lounge photo contest last Thursday (19 March).

The Cube restaurant is located in City Mall (for those who don't know, it's at the left hand corner as soon as you turn into City Mall). The interesting thing about this restaurant is that it is a nightmare for photographers!!! (The ceiling is black, and the lighting is kinda dim) OK, just joking lah, it has a cosy atmosphere to kick back and relax.

OK, back to the main story: we were invited to participate in this photo contest by silvertongue I mean Silverhand (actually Julian bugged me into joining). So after work, I rushed home, grabbed a quick shower and my camera gear and headed to Cube.

So I reached there slightly before 6pm, and a few other photographers were already assembled there. The proprietress, Mei was friendly and accommodating to all of us as we shuffled around her restaurant trying to shoot her food :P

We had to shoot the Cube signature dishes as well as the models, because they were wearing some clothes sponsored by... errr... I'll get back to you on that. Heh heh. Moving on...

Edit: The clothes were provided by Samantha, another shop also located in City Mall.



I came to Cube on a previous visit, and noted the lack of a white ceiling (hence the photographer's nightmare) and brought along a little prop to help:

Photo credit to Gerry.

We had to shoot the food and drinks:




The signature dish above, was actually another one ordered by a restaurant patron, but since it looked better than the sample that we had earlier, we shot hers instead LOL.

So after shooing away all the photographers from her dinner, she finally managed to tuck into her food with gusto!

Another Life video

I'm just putting this up so that I can find the videos again. Aspect ratio is a bit off, so just think of it as viewing a 4:3 video on widescreen with stretching :D

Video was shot in the middle of last year, and the premier was in December last year. Movie was made by Shaz (or I usually refer to him as The Director) using a host of local talent. Mostly working on the cheap (or for peanuts) :P

Pictars can be found here

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3