Think again...

Singapore, a boring country to live in? Think again...

2006-02-26T23:19:00.000+08:00

Sunset @ Lower Pierce Reservoir. 25th Feb 2006 1700hr-1930hr.

完美的瑕疵

2006-01-26T02:15:00.000+08:00

去旧迎新之季，翻箱倒柜一番，终于可松一口气了！

近来咱们猪头帮为了咱们猫头猪的终身大事可说是费劲心思，用尽了棉力，想方设法劝服她换个较客观角度看待婚姻。读了那只猫写的文章，似乎让我感觉到她对婚姻的若失及对前途的茫然。矛盾中带于期盼，我想这该就是她现在的心情吧！

这篇<<完美的瑕疵>>，希望或多或少能够减轻猫头猪对婚姻的困惑...

<<完美的瑕疵>>

婚姻，是两个不完美的人结合创造出的完美。完美于否不在于外表，只因它无需彼此看着对方，而是彼此往同一方向看。

现实生活中，完美的人不复存在，童话般爱情故事也只能活在各自的想象空间里。讨人喜欢的优点并非人人有，但瑕疵这东西肯定人人都有。如何能让瑕疵现漏出它完美一面，就要看我们用什么心态来面对它。它先决条件在于包容，包容出自于内心，而内心宽度就是它关健所在。

每当我们对别人的行为感到生气反感时，我们其实无形中在看着内心镜子中丑陋的自己。所以要接受别人的瑕疵就得先承认自己的不完美。

猫头猪，说到此，该说的我们都说了，不该说的我们也说了。选择在于你自己，无论进展如何，别忘记我们这班在背后默默(才怪!)支持你的“猪”朋狗友们。

年关将至，在我们迎春接福当而，请别忘记身旁所须我们关心的人。

爱无崖

2005-10-31T08:25:00.000+08:00

爱无须理由，不必拥有。满足取决于知晓你爱的他过得比你好，得到你无法给予的幸福、快乐。

一天无意中听到我母亲哭着在病床旁，我父亲临终前轻声安抚地对自己说，“到此地步，你走得比我早也好，这样你就不用承受一个人的孤单，我也可以为你照料一切。”

这句话让我刻骨铭心。让我见证了婚姻的誓言，感应了爱的真谛，体会了什么叫至死不予、一辈子的爱。这就是我想说的──天有时而爱无崖。

昨天刚出席一位朋友母亲的葬礼。这篇文章为她而写。最后我想对她说的是；这条是每个人总有一天要走的路，毕竟只有活着的人才会痛苦。阴后有晴，请结哀顺变，照顾好自己和家人。

热浪摄影

2005-10-02T03:39:00.000+08:00

第一次尝试摄影。三个我在热浪岛拍的潜水过程与大家分享。
类似BLAIR WITCH PROJECT ，看了头晕目眩可别怪我！

用潜水盒内装PANASONIC LUMIX DMC-F1拍的。

热浪疯情

2005-09-27T19:44:00.000+08:00

二十四个小时车乘来回，换来一身酸痛和麻痹僵硬的屁股。不过，望着让人眼前一亮如画般风景，再长的车乘也都值得！

三天两夜住宿LAGUNA REDANG 套房，大自然近在几尺。这就是我所向往的度假圣地！

三次潜水次数，换来熟龙虾般肤色的我，脸皮开始脱落。不过看着一套让人叹为观止的照片，龙虾肤色也罢！

忧伤的美

2005-09-21T01:00:00.000+08:00

忧伤，每个人都无法避免的困惑。原因很多时后缠绕着我们的至亲至爱，丧失亲人、爱人离去、痛失友情、等等。

忧伤跟情感有着无法摆托的相互关系。如果没情感，忧伤何在？难到忧伤是我们拥有情感所须付出的代以价吗？

我的答案是一个很肯定的是，并且这代价一点也不高。多愁善感的我亲身体会忧伤困扰无数，每当面对人生最低潮时我就会抱着平伏伤痛的情绪对自己说，“如果我并非人而是其它动物，或许我会好过点吧！经过这次人生的最低潮阶下来就只能涨潮！”

忧伤过程，长短因人而异。有人用一辈子，有人一辈子难忘。与其让它成为生命里的包覆，为何不化悲伤为力量，让无可避免的它，使自己变得更坚强，并且加倍珍稀自己所还拥有的呢？

我想这算是一种忧伤的美吧！

今天刚接获朋友亲人病逝的消息，这篇文章为他而写。希望他的忧伤会象一粒飘浮在空中的泡沫气球，纪短暂也会随着时间而成熟。

月圆人团圆

2005-09-12T20:13:00.000+08:00

月圆人团圆
圆月高高挂
人庆月圆好
团聚在月圆
圆饼庆圆月

献给与我庆中秋班损友们(以下)。

月圆人团圆
圆月见猪头
人猪月圆逢
团猪如月圆
圆猪赏圆月

失眠夜

2005-09-10T04:09:00.000+08:00

嗨！又一睡不着的夜！我想是因为连续赶了两个夜工至七点后才睡，顿时间还没适应过来的原故吧！

愣着窗外星空想睡又睡不着，电视又没什么好片。想工作但是面对着作不完的工作，想了又想还是饶了自己吧！今天是星期五喔！

听着光良唱的歌─童话．．．我愿变成童话里你爱的那个天使，张开双手变成翅膀守护你．．．

心血来潮，创作了三张黑白海报，打算送给我那位新婚朋友。

Sebastian & Joycelyn, 祝福你们，希望你们用一生一起写你们的结局。

风の元素

2005-09-08T22:20:00.000+08:00

辽望无际的海洋，一览无疑的沙滩
风，它带来了浪，吹走了沙

完美无瑕的蓝天，清澈见底的海水
风，它带来了温暖，造就了生命

天的色彩，浪的旋律，沙的节奏
带来回忆，卷走思念，释放了我

闭上眼睛，用心感应━风的元素

一张我前往曼谷在飞机上拍的，献给月底随我到热浪岛班朋友们。照片没经过上色，是我在飞机上看到的景观。

沉静的夜

2005-09-06T21:01:00.000+08:00

沉静的夜，不时会让我想起人存活在这个世上的真正意义。
有人为他人而活，也有人为自己而活。

为他人而活的人，总是叫人难以取舍。往往必须付出比别人多的耐性和毅力改变别人对他们的想法。不过，时间会随着他们的付出，让他们获得相对的回应，并且受人敬佩。

为自己而活的人，往往麻目的追求物制上的享受，提高生活的素质，常常忽略默默在身旁为他们而活的人。一去不复返的时光渐渐随着他们的麻目流逝，渐渐的把他们给遗忘。

无论你是属于哪一种类型，希望你多用心来感应你周遭的人、事、物。
生命的意义不井如此，应倘开胸怀迎接人生尚未发觉的美好，感应被你忽略或将要被你忽略的人。

希望每个人都能找到为自己而活，和值得自己为他而活的人。

沉静的夜总是特别的漫长。肃静的周围仿佛奏起它另类的音符。
心随着夜沉了。这就是我．．．我，沉静的夜。我，离不开的夜。

这张照片是我去年在澳门乘坐摇晃的小巴，在快速公路上行驶所拍的。
献给扶养我长大已故父亲。一个为我而活的人，一个我忽略过的人。

爱的定意

2005-09-02T22:20:00.000+08:00

近来，读了朋友写的网络短篇文章，让我不竟问到：“爱，到底有没有定意？”

文章描述她感情上的波折，也同时描述她对爱的定意的模糊观点。其中描述到，“叶子的离开，是因为风的追求，还是树的不挽留？”我认为这一切都不重要，重要的是跟随自己的信念，追求自己的梦想。收拾起记忆的包袱，放开过去，展望未来。悔恨，人人都有。从挫折中学习是必然，从失败中爬起来是必需。爱不应该有所保留，付出而不期待任何回报才是爱的真正定意。

生命就不井井那几十个光年，给别人一个机会，也给自己一次机会，别等到失去了才感到挽惜。

爱如果没定意，情又为何物呢？

朋友，这张照片献给你。希望你的感情道路象这束独立的花，绽放光芒。

Life Voyage

2005-08-27T20:01:00.000+08:00

My heartfelt congratulations to Sebastian and Joycelyn.

Yet again...

2005-08-27T00:29:00.000+08:00

Yet again...after shooting more than 10 wedding assignments, I still enjoy it as much as my first. The enjoyment of being involved in once-in-a-lifetime happy occasions and the enjoyment of picturing down pieces of wonderful memories.

Among the types of photography assigment I have done so far - product, model, event, corporate function; wedding is still my favourite.

Still remember the anxiety before my first wedding assignment. The anxiety arising from the pressure to deliver what the couple expects of me, the anxiety from fear of equipment failure and the anxiety from worry of knowledge incompetency. All thrown to the back of my head when the moment arrives, after realizing the couple is more anxious than myself.

This time round I did it free-of-charge for a friend whom I have known for 10 years, except of course the lunch I had on his account in their newly furbished love-nest.

Now, allow me to introduce...

SEBASTIAN & JOYCELYN

Click HERE to view more, but first drop me an email(in my profile) to add you into my permit list.

Romance Singapore

2005-08-23T21:28:00.000+08:00

A month long campaign starting this friday.

祝,有情人終成眷属

Cluster

2005-08-22T23:46:00.000+08:00

clus·ter
n.
A group of the same or similar elements gathered or occurring closely together; a bunch: “She held out her hand, a small tight cluster of fingers” (Anne Tyler).
Linguistics. Two or more successive consonants in a word, as cl and st in the word cluster.

An Item

2005-08-22T23:26:00.000+08:00

What makes a couple an item? Ingredients of love perhaps?

Ingredients of Love

a teaspoon of care
a slice of concern
a pinch of thought
a hand-full of time
stir well with a cup of well-mix understanding + forgiveness

Love Is In The Air

2005-08-22T20:03:00.000+08:00

LOVE

A deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness.
A feeling of intense desire and attraction toward a person with whom one is disposed to make a pair; the emotion of sex and romance.
A love affair.
An intense emotional attachment, as for a pet or treasured object.
A person who is the object of deep or intense affection or attraction; beloved. Often used as a term of endearment.
An expression of one's affection: Send him my love.

A strong predilection or enthusiasm: a love of language.
The object of such an enthusiasm: The outdoors is her greatest love.

"Specially delicated for Mr Poh and Mrs Poh-to-be."

Looking Back...

2005-08-20T00:13:00.000+08:00

Looking back...years back when I started my hobby in photography, there's a website I frequent - www.photosig.com; an inspiring site which kindled my interest to explore photography in greater depth. Click on the Photosig URL on the right to access. Visit the site with caution, not because of its adult content but because of the saying - Photography, one of the quickest way to financial ruin. ;)

With my first digital camera Olympus C730UZ on hand - a birthday gift from my elder sis and brother-in-law, I started roaming streets capture pictures of sceneries, people, plants, insects; basically anything that was of interest to me.

Posted a number of images on Photosig, mostly far from interesting and technically flawed. Extracted few decent ones, this one is my all-time favourite.

A long exposure abstract shot underneath the bridge next to Esplanade on a cloudy night. Heard someone won top prize in a photography competition last year using a similar shot. Should have participated it myself!

Some of the comments I gathered for the above shot in Photosig.

"Hello Jason, I think this is a very interesting photo. The colors seem to add a lot to the shapes, and the less noticed curved shapes seem to blend toward the more vivid colors. The sky showing through brings everything together. I would say it`s a pretty good effort, regards" - Jim

"A very enjoyable abstract. Very powerful in composition and so simplistic yet rich in interest. One for the wall. Regards" - Toby

"Very original image! Very nice work! This definitely works as an abstract, that's for sure! I like the tonality that you have applied overall as well. I'm not really sure what I could say exactly that would explain why I'm not giving you a perfect rating; there's just something slightly too dark about it all, but there's nothing that you could really change too much on the other hand either. (I hope that makes sense...) keep up the good work! Thanks for sharing." - Kevin

The memory card supported by Olympus C730UZ is XD or Smartmedia. A 256MB Olympus XD card which supports the panorama feature of the camera cost a whopping $300(almost half the price of the camera) at that time. Unable to afford it, I have to settle for the cheaper alternative without the panorama feature - Smartmedia. Smartmedia cards comes in the size of 8, 16, 32, 64 and 128MB maximum. Why only 128MB maximum? Design flaw. The thickness of the filmsy material restricts it to no more than 128MB.

In Yahoo Auction(SG), I came across a guy selling a panorama-enabled OEM Smartmedia card. Curious on how he did that, I start searching the internet for information on how to enable the "hidden" feature. After nights of research, the so-call hidden feature can actually be revealed by corrupting the card's partition table and reformat it using a specific model of Zio! card reader and downloaded software - by tricking the camera to recognise the card as Olympus-made by changing a value in the partition table.

Holding a note scribbled with the model number and component code of the chipset in the reader, I went hunting for it. After 2 days of search, my effort paid off. Found it in one of the shop in Sim Lim Square. Bought the last piece @ the price of $48 and anxiously rush home to try it out.

All hooked up with driver installed under Win98, next is the moment of truth. By clicking on the program's "Corrupt Partition" button, either I save myself $200 or $100 down the drain. No risk no gain, I pressed the button without much delibration.

Viola! I have with me a self-made panorama-enabled Smartmedia card. Some of the shots using my DIY panorama Smartmedia cards.

Taken along the pavement opposite Boat Quay, I named the above shot "Colors of the Night".

More shots extracted from my photo archive in Photosig, all shot using my departed trusty old friend Olympus C730UZ.

Top last 2 images were captured in Sentosa, shot using special effect filters attached to the front of the camera lens. One filter system I still have it with me over the years is the Cokin Filter System.

Hoya Prism 3 Pass and Star-Cross filters were used to achieve the above cloning and star effects.

So long my friend...Olympus C730UZ.

What are the must have filters?

1) Ultra-violet filter(multicoated) - protects your camera/lenses front lens element from fingerprints, dust and scratches. Cheaper to replace this piece of glass than your camera lens. Multicoating is to prevent flare from external light source bouncing off the filter creating overexposed area, works just like the multicoating on spectacles.

2) Circular Polarizer - held at an angle of 90 degrees from the ray of the sun, it intensifies the blue sky and greeneries. Making nature scenery more saturated in colour and improves the contrast. Another usefulness of it is to cut reflection from glasses or any surface that reflects light. One good example of this usage is to shoot someone wearing spectacles. Circular polarizers are required for auto focus cameras for the focus and exposure modes of the camera to operate correctly. Linear polarizers work well on all other cameras. Take note that polarizer removes 1.5 to 2 stops of light.

Top the chart in filter manufacturing is no other but B+W. Accept no substitution especially for Canon L lenses! ;)

Acquaintances

2005-08-16T22:21:00.000+08:00

To my left is Dr H. Rahmat Shah and to my right is Mr Abdul Rahim. They are from Honorary Consul General of Turkey and Indonesia to Singapore respectively. Dr Rahmat is an avid photographer who had shot for Miss World Pageants. Nice and friendly men, ambassadors indeed!

My First Published Work

2005-08-14T21:11:00.000+08:00

Featured in current issue of Wine and Dine(Aug/Sept) - IndoChine SummerFeast. A charity fine-dining gala dinner attended by the rich and famous. Amongst the attendees are prince/princess, ministers, celebrities, ambassadors and CEO of MNCs. Dim place with colourful disco lightings, spent alot of time compensating the colour and adjusting the strength of my flash lumination intensity to achieve the desired result. Here are the collages I created for IndoChine.

Singapore Celebrates 40th Years of Independence

2005-08-14T05:24:00.000+08:00

My...another attempt in shooting fireworks.

Shooting fireworks holding a 2kg camera in one hand and cable release in another, maintaining it without the slightest handshake for continuous shots of two seconds shuttle speed curtain is no joke. Saving my back carrying a tripod? Not exactly. Had actually lent my dear friend Estee my travel tripod together with my one and only tripod head for her two months Euro trip.

Out of 30shots only manage to salvage 2 decent ones, not after much post processing.

Once a colleauge asked me, "What should your camera settings be to shoot fireworks?" Well, here's my personal recommendation.

Camera Mode: Manual
Aperture: f10
Shuttle Speed: 2 seconds min.(cable release trigger preferably)
Focus: Manual, set to maximum focus(infinity)
ISO: 100/200
Other: Tripod is a must!

Took the opportunity to shoot this moonlight cityscape shot.

This is the first time Singapore celebrates her National Day at decentralised locations - Jurong East, Marina Bay, Padang, Tampinese and Yishun.

Here are the shots I managed to capture standing on the concrete barrier along Benjamin Shears bridge highway, rubbing shoulders with the eager onlookers next to me.

Trekking

2005-08-14T05:18:00.000+08:00

trek
intr.v. trekked, trek·king, treks
To make a slow or arduous journey.
To journey on foot, especially to hike through mountainous areas.
South African. To travel by ox wagon.

n.
A journey or leg of a journey, especially when slow or difficult.
South African. A journey by ox wagon, especially a migration such as that of the Boers from 1835 to 1837.

trekker n.
Word History: Though now most familiar to English-speakers and others in the title of the Star Trek television shows and movies, the word trek originally referred to a journey by a much slower mode of transportation than a starship. Trek was borrowed into English in South Africa, where the word was used by the Boers for a journey by ox wagon. A seminal event in the history of South Africa was the “Groot Trek” from 1835-1843, in which more than 10,000 Boers, the Voortrekkers, left the Cape Colony and traveled north and northeast because of economic problems, conflict with the Xhosa, and discontent with British colonial authorities, who had forbidden the slave trade and postulated the equality of whites and non-whites. The British, who seized control of South Africa from the Boers at the turn of the 20th century, seized the word trek during the 19th. Trek is recorded earliest in 1822 in the compound trektow, “a rope joining the wagon pole and the yoke to which oxen were fastened.” Trek in this compound is either the noun or the stem of the corresponding verb in Afrikaans, trekken. The earliest recorded use of the noun by itself is found in 1849, where it means “a stage in a journey by ox wagon.”

Stunned

2005-08-14T05:04:00.000+08:00

stun
tr.v. stunned, stun·ning, stuns
To daze or render senseless, by or as if by a blow.
To overwhelm or daze with a loud noise.
To stupefy, as with the emotional impact of an experience; astound.

n.
A blow or shock that stupefies.

Stunned

adj 1: filled with the emotional impact of overwhelming surprise or shock; "an amazed audience gave the magician a standing ovation"; "I stood enthralled, astonished by the vastness and majesty of the cathedral"; "astounded viewers wept at the pictures from the Oklahoma City bombing"; "stood in stunned silence"; "stunned scientists found not one but at least three viruses" 2: knocked unconscious by a heavy blow 3: in a state of mental numbness especially as resulting from shock; "he had a dazed expression on his face"; "lay semiconscious, stunned (or stupefied) by the blow"; "was stupid from fatigue"

Macro

2005-08-14T04:58:00.000+08:00

macro- or macr-pref.
Large: macronucleus.
Long: macrobiotics.
Inclusive: macroinstruction.

[Greek makro-, from makros, large. See mk- in Indo-European Roots.]

mac·ro
adj.
Of great size; large.
Large in scope or extent; large-scale: a macro analysis of many reports.

Coach Carter : "What is your deepest fear?"

2005-05-05T23:17:00.000+08:00

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond imagine. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world that was nothing enlighten about shrinking so that other people wouldn’t feel insecure around you. We were all meant to shine as children do; it is not just in some of us, it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.