From Russia with Thirst....

I didn't notice the cup I use to quench my thirst came all the way from the north, and it's a place where I couldn't link this cup to. I didn't notice the words "Made in Russia" until I bottom up my water in front of my computer monitor just a couple days ago !

Apart from 2 cups where I bought from Ikea that are made from Russia, I don't think I could find any other thing that come from this northern country. The watch I bought for my brother from Harbin, China about 10 years ago was made in USSR (WOW ! That's cool !) but I doubt it's a genuine one. Well, I was in China, and I have thousand of reason to doubt it although I was just km away from the border of Russia.

Anyway, it's really a rare occasion where I could get a product from Russia so easily. How on earth I could relate glass making with Russia ??? Why not from China ?? LOL. Well, could it because of Ikea, Russia is just like China to us ?

Maybe.

My First Time.....

Do you still remember your first porn movie ?
Do you still remember how you react to your first porn movie ???

I couldn't remember mine. LOL.
It could be a Taiwanese, or maybe a Jap porn.
And I probably acted like this during my first porn movie :


LOL.

Yes, I camwhore again ! LOL

That would be my submission to the alphanatics.com's October photo competition. Too bad because of my "special member status", I couldn't submit mine.

Three flashes were used in this shot: one just beside the laptop pointing on my face, try to mimic the laptop's monitor lighting hitting me. Another one from camera right, high up aiming at the wall just to give some touch on the wall, giving a sense of dimly lit room. Another one was actually redundant: it was a F42 with red gel shooting into the space behind me, just to add some colour, which in fact is redundant in my final shot.

Anyway, here are my test shots in stop-motion format.

Nothing fancy though, only made up of 30+ pics for this stop motion movie. :D

A Family Portrait

One kid, a father, a mother, a camera with self timer, one flash with shoot through umbrella = self made family portrait. As easy as that.

Oh, one very important element of doing this kind of shiok sendiri photographs is have fun ! Having a photo with my love ones should be fun to do so.


I enjoyed the shooting very much. I bet my little rascal enjoyed it too, so did my wife. :D

I am officially turn 33

I turned 33 some days ago. So, by the time of this post being published, I'm officially turn 33 and how many days already.

What I did during my birthday ? I camwhore ! LOL

I had a bad hair day, again. Could be my gene problem, although I had gone to a nice saloon and pay extra expensive for my hair cut, I still look dumb. *duh* Well, in order making myself suffering not to accept the fact that I have bad hair, why not just accept it with open heart. Who cares I have bad hair ? No one really care anyway.

Time does fly like jet plane. I still think I'm just late 20s. LOL. Not until I took out the calculator and do some calculations. I rubbed my eyes for 2 or 3 times couldn't believe myself I've touch 30s ! LOL

Many thanks to all of you who left the wishing message on my FB wall. I'm really touched. :D

My birthday wish ? Hope all of you happy and well. :D
My birthday present ? Economy bad lar, makan oso got problem oledi liao, no more toys for 33 uncle liao ! LOL

Anyway, wish myself a belated Happy Birthday.

And thanks to my parent who had brought me to life to this world, and had taken care of me for the past 30+ years.

Oh, in case you wish to know how to light myself up like the above one, I did it with one flash bounce from reflective umbrella place behind the camera to act like a diffused on-axis light. ;)

In search of Gods...

I realised that I didn't finished my Bali posts ! My bad, I should finished it pretty quickly, but I think I was lazy. :p Lesson learned, never leave the job un-done. LOL

Where was I... Oh, the 2nd day of the assignment :"In Search of Gods"


The 2nd day of the assignment was what I call "In search of Gods". Bali is a land of Gods, where the Balinese worship the Hindu gods, but with a strong element of local culture and tradition. I kept reminding myself that I was in a land of Hindu Gods, but I couldn't find a typical Hindu temple in Bali. You know, the Kuil as I usually see here in Malaysia. What I see was the temples of its kind. Balinese could worship the Gods in any form: water, stone, trees etc etc...


We started our search in the Titra Empul temple, which is a very historical temple that build by an ancient Balinese king. I was told that this temple has been there for 800 years. It houses a secret pool where the devotees would come to purify themselves by bathing through the never stop flow of holy spring water. It would bring luck and good will once bath in these spring water.

To complete the whole "praying process", one should start bathing from the first spring all the way to the last one....

I see happiness when a family really enjoying themselves bathing through the chilling spring water....

It's a holy place. The locals would come early in the morning to do their prayers since not much people is around, the devotees would spend time "meditating" under the water.

Very serene, very nice, right ? Nice weather, nice environment, chilling natural spring water, beautiful people etc etc. Did I mention that it was a fashion trend for young Balinese girl wearing a see through Kebaya? Imagine that, a young girl with wet look see through Kebaya praying in the pool........

*ahem*

The serene atmosphere didn't last long, when tourist and school children started to swamp the pool. The school children basically changed the pool from a holy place to a playing ground !!!

We better called it a day before the condition was out of control. LOL

This is the offering. It basically representing the Gods. They have a special way of praying the Gods where they swing the hand in the way of sending the offering to the heaven. Imagine a curvy young Balinese girl doing the hand swinging... sexy, right ? *ahem* :P

How can people hate such a nice place ??

To be continue....

My other Bali posts.

He just left us like that.....

It was a nice Wednesday morning. It was the first working day after my long Raya holidays. On that day, I received a call from a friend of mine informing me about a shocking news: a friend of ours had just passed away without any sign of illness.

It was a shocking news! He was such a young guy! Worse, he was expecting his first born in 2 months time !!

He had gone without leaving any words to us. Although I don't really get to know him in person, but we do chat quite closely on a forum we hang out. He always called me sifu, where I always share my opinion about his photographic work. He was a few net friend I met that really could take harsh criticism without hard feelings.

I knew him through his nickname in the forum. He nicked himself as Ryzan76. I regretted never meet him in person when he was in KL couple of times. He was a Sabahan.

Rest in peace, my friend. May you find peace by His side. We will sure remember you. Condolences to his family.

His works : http://www.flickr.com/photos/ryzan76

During Hari Raya.....

I basically do nothing. LOL

Of course I spend most of my time with my wife and my son, enjoying the cool nice rainy weather. Some how I manage to squeeze a small little time for me to do some car shots. Not hot car for sure, but my trusty Sentra which has been serving me well for about 4 years.

I always wanted to do a proper car shot of my trusty Sentra. Although I've done once, which was about 4 years ago, when it just came out from the show room, and we went all the way to Putrajaya to take some car portrait. I wanted to do another round of it since it's big possibility this car wouldn't be under my care in the near future. Well, something big is going to happen to my life starting next year. Something that change my life in total complete......

Rainy days during the Raya holidays is a curse for a car shooting. I would like to do a outdoor shots ! Or even a night shots with some light painting design. Rain had stopped me from getting out of my apartment. I have no choice, but to do it in the car park of the apartment I am staying lor.

It's a 4 days Raya holidays. And most of the Muslims take a 1-week long holiday. Hence, the car park was almost empty. Empty car-park is what I wanted, so no in-coming car would kacau me from doing my shots. Just to secure that no one would knock down my flash stand, I had my wife and my son doing the guarding thing. LOL. What they need to do is just wondering around the car park and hint me if there is any in-coming car. Oh, btw, the car park is kinda windy though. Very nice for a small walk.

After setting up my lightings, I faced one problem: the radio trigger isn't that good as I expected. If there is a huge obstruction in between, the flash wouldn't trigger as well. Worst to the optical trigger one !! The flash just won't fire ! This has limit me to only using one flash to work with then.

My idea is about to appreciate the car as an transportation mean for a normal man like me: family man, with a job living in a city with bad public transportation. Car park is my choice of venue because it's the place where the car would "rest" after a "whole day ride". :p

Hence, I frame my car like this lar :


Simple. My caption was:"It may not be the hottest car in town, but it's the car that moves me around. It had moved me from north to south, from east to west, and making sure that I'd come back home safe and sound, in one piece."

Okok, I admit, I submitted the pic for the Strobist Boot Camp Assignment. :P

Anyway, chances of my pic getting strobist attention is super low, after browsing through the submissions from all over the world ! LOL.

Well, if I never submit, I am definitely NOT been notice, right ? At least, I guest, strobist would glance through my pic for at least one time, right ? LOL