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 :)