Time does fly....

Time does fly and it slip through the gap between my finggers. Weeks and weeks had past, and my "to-do" list kept delaying. Am I such a busy person that I had no time for me to do my things? Or I just pretend to be a busy person....

I think I need a vacation. Too many questions remain unanswered. I need to break out from my normal routine and be together with my love ones, hiding in a place where no one knows who am I with no annoying phone calls from the client who requests to remove a column section in a middle of an 29 storeys apartment. What the heck.

Or I just need to change my work and forget about that silly request.

Hmm....

Well, where is my resignation letter?

My In Laws

They are my in-laws. They came all the way from Johor to pay us a sort visit during the long holiday last week.

My wife brought them to Ikea on Sunday and I was baby sitting my son. That was my first ever time that our baby was left to me in house and he was away from his mother for quite a long period. I thought it would be a disaster to me but to my surprise, this little monster was so tame that he slept through all the way until my wife came back.

As expected, my mother in law was so worried and felt guilty to leave me at home taking care of my son. She was relief to see us "in one piece". LOL

Hey, I can be a pretty well baby sitter one ! LOL

Anyway, here is a photo of my little monster at his 4th month in age.
And I think he was rapping when I took this photo. LOL

Yo man ~~ Check it out ~~

LOL

In the hood

Update !
My surprise in the box doesn't work. LOL

Never mind, To Be Continued.... *Evil grin !*

________________


In the hood < -- That is the title of a photography competition from a local photography forum that I use to hang in, you know, like log into that forum and starting to talk cork some sort, making new friends etc etc.

"In the hood", OMG, I really can't understand what is this about "In the hood" ! Being very poor in English language, I started scratching my head. This is too abstract for me to understand the meaning of the title and not to mention trying to portray the message of "In the Hood" from a picture!

Again, my aim is that my submission would be able to stand out from the normal ground. So I turned to my good friends for help: Uncle Google and Aunty Wiki ! LOL. Oh, by the way, I would like to introduce a new good friend of mine that I met recently: Cousin Flickr. LOL. Just type "In the hood" in the search box and my good friends will tell me all about "In the Hood". However the returned result was rather disappointing. What I got was straight to the point of "in the hood" thingy which is so cliché (oh, I spell it correctly this time ! LOL).

Well, why not start from the simplest one? Let's do "In the hood" then. One very famous photo that has this "in the hood" element is the in-famous "The Afghan Girl" photo that was featured in the front page of The Discovery magazine once upon a time. I said to myself, why not I also make a photo like that? Well, as usual, I don't have pretty hot model for the shoot, hence I called my all time favourite supermodel to become my model. Then I set up my "mini studio" with my DIY soft boxes, position the model and shoot and I got this:


I used the same set up for my purple colour back ground by using my cheap gels just like what I did for my Purple Royalty photo, one DIY big softbox to camera right, trying to create window lighting effect and the purple gelled softbox also from camera right so to create a feel of window light falls onto the "purple wall", so to create the sense of having a same light source from camera right ......

*buakkkkk......* Ok, I hear someone is puking.

No way ! I didn't submit this photo! I bet the judge will laugh till he drops from his chair by looking at this photo. LOL. So not to caused someone admitting to hospital because of office accident, I googled again, and this time I asked my new friend Cousin Flickr to help. Still I couldn't find something that inspire me for the title "In the Hood".

Then I came across this idea of shooting a box to show what is inside of the box. With long exposure couple with test flash method, I got this:

Nah, this is too normal, nothing interesting to see, and I don't think this is a good photo too.

After spending some time playing with my spectacle's box, hey, I could just extend this idea of "what's in the box" by showing one fella holding this box with an open hood with a shocked faced to see there is something surprise in the box ! Hey, "In the hood" ! LOL. To add more dramatic, a flash in the box that shine his face to give a feel of "look ma, I found a treasure" thingy. Hence, again, with no hot model to work with, I called my favourite supermodel to come into my mini studio and we started to work out my idea.

First, a try shot of course with a small box.

Nope, the box is too small and it can't even hide my flash from being noticed. Then, I saw there is a bigger box from of Tai Tong in my room, and test shot again.

Ok, a bit better. But the flash still visible. So, the solution is simple, just swivel the flash into vertical position and test shot again.

Hey, much better with unexpected that the box is illuminated ! This could give a feel of treasure glowing from the box ! So, after some test post and test shots, adding another flash so to light up the hood of the box to separate it from dark surrounding, I finally settle with this photo:

I was happy, and went to sleep and planned to submit this photo to the judging panel in the next day. But I couldn't sleep well. Something is missing in this picture, and I thought of it for the whole night. Then I figured out: why not add some key light instead pitch dark background?

Hence, after a long boring hours in the office, and after spending some time with my little monster and after putting him to sleep, I came back to my drawing board, and replan the shoot again. For starter, the pose of my model must be determined first.

This pose looks ok. Let's put in a key light from my back and see if this photo look better or not. So, I turned off the flash in the box and test shot.

This key light is good enough to separate me from the dark background. Great. But I think white colour for the key light is damn boring. Why not I gel it blue and see if this could put in some dramatic feel or not.


Hmm... a little bit mystery. I like it. But then I think I need more separate of me from the dark background. So, I add another flash pointed to the wall....

Not bad to me. So, to combine all the flash light into works and I got this:

Pretty good, eh ? But wait, something came into my mind again. Why not red gelled the background flash ? Well, no harm trying, right ?


Fuh ! I like it ! Mind the out of focus for this photo, you know lar, self timer what. So, I quickly changed one better cloth and reshoot again. Sure need to change cloth lar, so I look more leng chai a bit mar. LOL

And here it is, my submission photo for the competition titled as "In the Hood". I titled my submission as "Surprise in the hood". :p

So, what is my chances of getting notice by the judge ? Hmm... I would say 50-50 lar. But if I submit the first photo of this post (the Afgan Boy Wanabe), I am sure my submission will be get noticed one, and then the judge will laugh till he roll on the floor for many many rounds one. LOL.

I think the result will be out soon. Let's wait and see. :p

Azuan's Engagement Shots at Taman Pertanian, Shah Alam

Azuan's engagement photo shoots, part 2.
Venue: Taman Pertanian, Shah Alam.

I didn't know there is such a agricultural park in Shah Alam. Quite a nice place to visit. We spend some nice hours there. The weather was nice at the beginning but it turned out not to our favour later in the evening. However, bad weather mean good time for strobing ! :p

Congratulations to Azuan and Jiji!

Too bad my Malay is not good. If I could include some love sajak into these photos, then these photos will be more meaningful as the collection for the couple.

Azuan and Jiji's engagement photos at KTM, KL.

Azuan's Engagement Shots at KTM Station, KL

Many thanks to Azrin for his invitation to ask me to assist him to shoot his brother, Azuan's pre-wedding photo shoot. This was my very first pre-wedding photo shooting. To be frank, I was super nervous not to perform well, but working with Azuan and his then fiance was such a fun.

I must appoligized to Azuan for not able to attend his wedding launch during 3rd Jan 2009. I do wish them all the best and may God bless them forever. :D

Oh, of course, not to forget many thanks to Azuan for the lovely launch too ! :D


Indeed it was delicious ! :D

Lazy afternoon drink...

Anything Purple

Update!
Yup, as expected, my submission is not been selected as top 5. Well, never mind lar. And the selected top 5 ones are, well, no comment. A loser cannot comment on the winners photos one, right ? So, be it lar.

Ok, the next title is out. Let me get busy again. :p
__________

Anything Purple.

That's the title of a competition from a local photography forum. Quite a challenging one for me. To submit a photo that need to be stand out from the normal group to capture the eye of the judge is kinda hard for this kind of title. I do participate in this photo competition organise by that forum for quite a while. Although I never win, but my photos did get into selected top 5 for voting. Top 5 ler, not bad, huh? <-- this is what I said shiok sendiri. LOL

Purple is one colour that is rarely used by me, and I don't like purple. I couldn't find much thing around me with purple colour.

Try to be different is one of my goal to get noticed by the judges. So, I googled about purple. (Google is our friend, no? LOL) And I found this:

Purple is royalty. A mysterious color, purple is associated with both nobility and spirituality. The opposites of hot red and cool blue combine to create this intriguing color. - Source

Interesting.

Royalty. One thing flash into my mind would be the stamp from England that has the head of the Queen one. I would position the stamp at top left corner on a purple colour paper and left quite a large number of space to the whole screen to portray royalty of the Queen. But where to find a Queen head stamp? That stupid burglar who took away my camera also took my stamp albums! So, no stamp. How?

Money would be nice. Our money has the portrait of our first King, Tuanku Abdul Rahman. But photographing a money note may illegal. So, money note is a no-no. Then that left my final choice, the playing cards.

My next problem is I don't have a purple colour paper ! I am lazy to get out and buy one. LOL

So, what should I do ? Ok, back to basic: purple is a mixture colour of red and blue. Hey, I have red colour gel and blue colour gel ! So, I can make my own purple colour background by mixing these two colours !

So, I wrap one of my flash with blue colour tanglong paper and wrap another flash with red colour tanglong paper. Test shot !


Err... I thought I'm getting a purple colour on the white board. Look like the flash power are so strong that the colour gel lost its effect. Ok then, reduce my flash level, wrap my flash head with more layers of colour gel and test shot again !


Well, I would say OK only to get what I want. At least there is some purple colour mixing somewhere in the middle. Then I bang my head saying :"How stupid I am! Why I need two flash to mix the colour? Why not one with two gels ??" So, I took down one flash, and cover the flash head with my gels. Test shot again !

Yeah, I see purple !
Ok, I got the colour, but the flash coverage is so limited. So, I get my DIY small softbox, cover the soft box with the same colour gels, pointed the flash+softbox+colour gels to a white card board, and test shot again:


Wo-ho ! I got PURE purple ! LOL
Ok, background is set, and where is my subject, the Royalty ? I use playing cards. You know, those cards that magicians use one, to tipu tipu people say he can make the card disappear and then can find the cards in the cleavage of his hot lady assistant? There are Kings and Queens and Princes in that card, right ? So, I position the card in such the way to leave much spaces as what my initial plan and I got this:

Yup, that's my submitted photo. I quote: He who rule by love, not by force. And my title of this photo is "The Purple Royalty". Oh, I put the card further away from my purple geled flash+soft box so that the purple colour didn't hit the card, and I gridded another flash pointed onto the card.

So, how's the chance my photo being noticed? I say very slim. LOL. Well, I don't expect much from local judges one, cause I know lar how they judge. They say: different from "normal" one, no good. LOL

Anyway, I always enjoy on the process of creating things out. Along the process, I discover quite a lot of things that I never thought of before that. Getting the result of what I wanted is an added bonus to me. So, let see if my photo are the selected 5 or not. :p