Even the best of what life offers can only be deservingly appreciated within the company of a harmonious mood.
What sumptous dishes were displayed on our dining table this evening; and what a sad pity the requisite desire to enjoy them was conspiciously absent.
A stony silence hung in the air as we dutifully ploughed through the auspicious menu signifying harmony, good luck and prosperty. Can irony be any more blatant?
This series was taken earlier this week at Pasir Ris beach with my trusty macro lens and the stability of a tripod.
When I first took the camera out for her maiden shoot I had attempted capturing this same shot but I couldn't get enough of the subject in focus. I've finally advanced a little on how to tackle macro shots at this level *waves poms poms*
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Here is a stink bug that was rustling about the bushes suspiciously. I had actually bent down to take a picture of the gravel pathway when my eye caught the tangerine-red shell almost right next to me.
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Finally, this little fellow was resting (or hiding) underneath a leaf. Most butterflies tend to flit annoyingly unpredictably in a way that might be charming if one is not trying to take pictures of them; but this one was kind enough to remain motionless. Maybe it was asleep...
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without lenses. Well, he (or she) is also nothing with a camera body but you know what I'm trying to drive at, right?
So far, I have 3 lenses in my arsenal; admittedly, I only use one of them fairly regularly. Different lenses are designed for specific purposes though they can also do what you want them to do (within their limits) if you're technically competent and resourceful.
The first lens I'm introducing to you is the 18-70mm kit lens; i.e. that's the lens which came bundled with the camera. This is the only zoom lens I have and it's supposed to be fairly good because you can get a pretty wide coverage with it. This is an example of the shot you can take at it's widest (18mm): 
Standing on the same spot but zooming in to the max of the lens (70mm), the shot looks like this: 
The next lens that I own is a 100mm macro lens which specializes in taking close ups. So far, this is my favorite lens and all of the pictures that I have posted have been taken with it. This lens has a fixed focal length, which means you can't zoom; such lenses are known as primes. As you can see, at 100mm, this prime lens focuses much closer on the scene as compared to the kit lens.
Finally, my most recent acquisition is another prime lens. I read that prime lenses, as a general rule, have sharper optics than zoom lenses. With the relatively low price and gushingly high praise this 50mm lens receives, it was a no-brainer to bid for it when someone put it up for sale on the forums. You can see that the coverage is somewhere between the wide shot of the kit lens and the close-up shot of the macro lens.
All of the above shots were taken at ISO 100, aperture size of f8, and shutter speed of 1/500. Don't worry if you haven't the foggiest idea what these figures mean. I'll be helping you to understand them by and by.
I took this pic on the way to work this morning. It's a dual zig-zag ridge along the edge of the parking lot across from Downtown East. I thought it was interesting on its own simply because of the novelty, but also because of the possible inferences one can draw from it.
I'll post my thoughts on it in the comments section; but I'm curious to know what the image says to you first.
It has been a fun month since the acquisition of the camera; lugging it everywhere (as some of you might have noticed) and basically letting it graft into an extension of my vision. I've also been spending a fair amount (ok, a LOT) of time on photography forums just soaking up the sea of information found there, hoping that some will make sense eventually.
And it's all starting to come together. The more pictures I take, the more comfortable I am with manipulating the various controls and the better I am with identifying the needs of each lighting situation. When I first ventured into the realm of manual controls, my shots tended to turn out puzzlingly either pure white or black (grossly overexposed and underexposed respectively). The assurance of automatic settings was difficult to let go of, but I recognized it was a necessary evil to distance myself from the point-and-shoot style of photography in order to improve and hold myself fully responsible for the way my pictures turn out.
With CNY just days away it will be the perfect time to test my fledging skills; hopefully I won't come crawling back to the blog in tears with nothing to show. Stay tuned.
Well, I just couldn't let the opportunity of practicing on a cool (and largely stationary) subject slip away from me. So, I hauled my tripod with me on the way to work this morning and set it up to snap the spider from its top.
When I finally squeezed myself into the vegetation, imagine my surprise to see this is one of those celebrity spiders with the skull on its back. Jackpot, ya? Of course, throughout the 'shoot', I maintained a respectful distance to avoid having it leap onto my face with a blood-curdling screech. 
Notice the difference the time of day makes to the mood of the photograph. The morning sun is known to be the best natural light in which to take pictures in. Also, a tripod make a world of difference in the sharpness of the picture! I hope you like this one.
edit: post title has been changed from 'Insy, Bitsy Spider' to the correct phrase you see above following the admonishment in the comments by the certified teacher : )
I hope none of you are averse to creepy-crawlies like spiders 'cuz there's a big one here for you today!
I was on my way home last evening when I spied this arachnid. One trait of mine that has significantly improved since owning the camera is my ability to spot possible photo ops around me when I'm out and about; conversely, this also implies that I'm now clumsier than ever because I now have a higher tendency to walk straight into lamp posts, prams and people who are SMSing.
This, unfortunately, is only the bottom of the spider because I couldn't get around into the vegetation to shoot it from its top; but what a cool exoskeleton, huh?
Some of you might have seen Yann Arthus-Bernard's photo exhibition along Orchard Road. It's been around for several weeks now and I've been down a few times already. Here are a few pics of it.
The exhibition was extremely meaningful. The photographer is famous for his captures of natural and man-made landscapes from a helicopter; this is known as aerial photography. As you can imagine, most of his images are simply stunning. But more than mere eye-candy, he also uses his images to say something about the environment and man's hand in choking it.
At the end of the day, photography can be a powerful tool to show the world exactly what the world doesn't want to admit about itself.
Not much to update you guys on; I've been busy this week trying to finish up my Romans assignment. Anyway, here is one more pic of Gemma that I've been saving up for a rainy day (literally!). 
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One of most difficult things about taking pictures of cats is that they almost never, and I mean NEVER, stay where you want them to stay. So it was pure amazement that greeted me when I spied Gemma lounging by the window this morning after her breakfast. I abandoned my museli and yoghurt concoction, dashed to my bedroom to retrieve my camera and started snapping away, all the while praying that she would stay very, very still.
The spot by the window affords the best light in the house; that's a good tip I read somewhere. I managed to take exactly 24 pictures before she got up from her morning paper to inform me the photo shoot was done and that I needed to get going to work.
She's so considerate :)
It's been quite a while since I've last posted a real entry. I've been so consumed with learning to use the camera that I've not thought about penning the journey down. Of course, I was hoping that the posted pictures would be an unwritten charter of that exciting endeavor but it's too slow going at the moment.
Well, let's take a detour then, shall we?
*puts camera in bag*
So let's see; where to begin? Ok, this is not really related to the abovementioned camera that I hug to sleep every night but just a little bit of (unecessary?) info about silly 'ole me.
The fact is I'm not very good at multi-tasking. There I've said it. I know that revelation is a shocker to most of you (or is it?).
I recall one incident when I was about, oh, I don't know, maybe 9 or 10. I was about to take a shower. So on the way out of my room I picked up the bag of trash with the very honorable intention of disposing it down the trash chute like a regular, law-abiding citizen should. Whilst strolling to the bathroom, I started humming a tune I found fascinating then. When I arrived at the trash chute, still humming the tune, mind you, I proceeded to take off my t-shirt and promptly threw it down the musty chute where it probably met a disgusting fate some 14 floors down.
Then I nonchalantly turned, still humming the tune at this point, and proceeded to the bathroom, completely oblivious to the crushed spirit of that maligned t-shirt. I closed the door behind me before the what-am-I-doing-in-the bathroom-with-the-trash question hit me. I was bewildered for several heart-stopping moments before I even realized my unfortunate t-shirt was missing. As I slowly comprehended the enormity of my dumbitude (yes, another one of my made up words) I was rife with much embarassment even though no one was physically present to witness it.
And here I am revealing it to all years and years later. Haha, that's one of my many 'duh' moments but it's a keeper.
*removes camera from bag and places it next to me*
The 80's and 90's saw the proliferation of much published opinions on the differences between the male and female brain. I guess the general consensus is that men can't multi-task as keenly as women can. Imagine my relief when I read that! Yay, I'm actually normal in some respects! That's the real shocker, eh?
*huggles camera*
Don't worry though, I promise I won't become too mainstream-lishly normal...
I dragged myself out of bed at the unearthly hour of 0645 today. I figured since I've spent all that good money on the camera I had better invest some quality time with it or it'll become a white elephant (other white elephants I own include shirts I thought were cool when I bought them and this little thing known as my brain).
It was a cool morning with tungsten gray skies. I made my way back to Pasir Ris park through the dreary gloom, hoping the sun would break through the clouds for a ray of cheer. No such luck.
Oh well, I thought, at least I won't get too warm while shooting the bugs.
But it was either I was way too early for the insects to be up, or they were just smart enough not to leave their beds this morning. All I saw were a couple of industrious bees and the occasional buzzing thing that just zipped past me.
So I'll have to come up with another time to practice taking pictures of moving stuff (specifically stuff with wings). I did get some nice flower shots though before the darn battery ran out; that was my fault for not charging it after the last time I took it out on Monday. 
If you thought the pictures looked particularly grainy this time, well, it's not because your monitor is filthy (but I suspect that isn't too far from the truth); first up is that all these pics were cropped; secondly I didn't change an important setting (ISO) from my last shoot which resulted in a film sensitivity that was way WAY in excess of what was required for shots like these!
Live and learn, eh?
Recently, Rui (known interchangably as Joel, Fer-lees, Neo Pet, Tau Pok...etc) issued a challenge to me:
I have a challenge for you, take sumthing [anything like a bird, insect etc] in midflight. MWHAHAHA... now if you could take that wif your camera, i'll say that you have surpassed my expectations ten fold. :)
Of course it has to be in focus and sharp and all. But trust me, not easy. haha... or you could always go snapping Lightning photos wif the weather like this nowadays... it's real fun.
Well, I would like to rise up to the challenge but I have to be patient and not kill myself trying. So far all the pictures that you've seen have been taken on the ultra convenient 'Auto' mode since I still don't understand the delicate dynamics of aperture, ISO and shutter speed settings yet to configure them individually for such difficult shots.
Yet.
So I ask that you, too, bear patiently with me until I have grasped the logic behind the mystery of photography. Hee hee - until then, you'll have to make do with my occasional rant and pics of static objects.