Short Talk: Currently addicted towards Facebook's Texas Hold Em' All. Why? Check this out.


In the same day, from $100k, I managed to pull the figure down to $1000. Cool eh? Addictive I must say. :P

I am having another two Continual Assessments this coming Thursday which make it a total of three for this week. The stress, the poker game, the late night streaming of CSIs and Movies!! Arghhh....



You know when you're in this blur state of mind, you tend to wish for someone, a guardian or somewhat to come over and save you from all these stress. Unfortunately, mine hasn't arrived yet. :(

Hmmmmm,


well, at least examination starts on the 12th of November and finished on the 20th, which is way much shorter compared to STPM. Anyhow, stress is building up rapidly if you can see the tremendous amount of stress pimples on my skin. Need a closer look?

Here you go, make sure you don't freak out.



If you do, then Happy Halloween to you! :)

In less than a month's time, that exit sign told me.


The smell of freedom tingles my nose. :P

Short Talk: I have no idea why but tonight I feel like partying!! I'll get the beers, who's getting the chicks? :P

I have a feeling I have gone technical for the past few posts that already bored some of the existing readers. It's like attending physics lessons where on your very first lesson, the lecture explains equations in which your face expression would change from this (^.^) to this (@.@). *boinkers*

Anyways, I went shopping today. Not really shopping shopping but to accompany a friend to shop for his "thang" while I shop for mine although it wasn't part of the plan. Get it? Guess not.

Staying in Jurong West can be quite a b*tch because you would probably need to take an hour's ride to the heart of shopping. We are talking about orchard, marina square, bugis, suntec city and etc etc.



If two girls go on a shopping spree together, I would call that normal.
If two guys go on a shopping spree together, that my friend is somewhere between metrosexual and gay.

Now, what if two guys and a girl go on a shopping spree together?

Threesome would best describe the above situation.  *meAw*
Man, I looked fat in the picture. :(

I'm not a good writer nor a patient one. Hence, in sum, Wern Chiet bought his watch from Suntec City.



From this point, people would bombard me with complaints on why posting so few pictures etc etc. Fine, point taken and hence I shall continue what happened next.

We decided to have tea at Food Republic while enjoying Royce chocolate.


I bought Royce chocolates again and I was the one who ate most of it. Guess I am really fat then. For the very last time, Royce chocolates are orgasmic!

One thing about Food Republics in Singapore, different branches have different themes and setting. In Suntec, I supposed that their theme is Library or something.


I guess they decided to use book as alternative source of heat for "dim sum" steaming. So what are we waiting for, burn some books and start cooking!

Oh yea, how can we forget those random names on the signage?

Unfortunately, I don't have money to dine on the Fortunate book-smoking "dim sum" Restaurant.


This boy reminded me of myself when I was a lot more younger, minus the spectacles.

Stay tuned!

Gonna blog about something soon. Meanwhile, why so serious?


Let's put a smile on that face. :)

Short Talk: Having continual assessment tomorrow for Economics.

For the past few days, I kept thinking of what I should have done to improve my shots in the Canon Photomarathon. I read something from Joe McNally's book in which he mentioned: "When you have a wide angle lens in your hands, feel free to go closer because the outcome can be beyond our expectations." He did mention that we should just stick to one angle in photography but try to experiment with different angles.

I read that way before the competition and I didn't practise it. The "dream" shot would be dramatic if I would just go closer to the subject like let's say an arm's length from his feet. I learnt alot from this mistake of mine and it really shows that 1 metre was the margin of error in that shot. I was 1 metre away from winning the grand prize. But oh well, life goes on.

This was my lab report for today in school:


That my friend, is called perspective drawing. And that took me 2 hours to draw. ARghhH..hH..h..HHh.h...

On a lighter note, I made a beauty dish out of aluminium foil and plastic bottle. Tested it the beauty dish out and found out that it's time to update my gear list. :)


Both the 85mm f/1.8 and 50mm f/1.8 arranged side by side.

And a personal portrait of the 85.. f/1.8.


More to come. Stay tuned!

Short Talk: Currently in a bitchy mode, maybe I am just exhausted. Oh well...

I just came back from Canon Photomarathon Singapore 2008. The whole event lasted for more than 12hours, since 9.00am till 10.00p.m. Apparently, the amount of participant that showed up broke the Singapore Book of Records for the most number of participants in a one-day competition.

So what is a Canon Photomarathon?
Canon Photomarathon is a photo shooting competition organised by Canon which will practically last through the entire day. In each photomarathon, participants are required to complete three(3) assignments with their respective themes. Each assignment has to be completed in a period of time. In my case, we were given an average of 3 hours to complete each assignment, including downloading the pictures at the downloading booth.

Since it's a marathon, you're required to only take 5-10 minutes break in between assignments and after the break, head out and shoot more!!!!!

I was lucky to meet up with Herbert and his gang of friends. I joined the coup so that I wouldn't have to shoot alone. The gang was very accommodating and helpful. Basically, each of us had to come out with our genuine ideas about what to shoot. We will then helped out each other to accomplish one's task.


The Fellowship

Before I forget, the first theme of the day was CHANGE. My submission for the day was this:



In this photo, Herbert (the model) was a smoker and he decided to change his life by trying to quit smoking.

Second theme was DREAM. My submission for this theme was:


In this photo, the ultimate dream of the model (homesick) is to join the Singapore's Air Force one day. Noticed that he was wearing a shower cap and sunnies to represent helmet and shade. By the way, I bought them on the spot for this shot.

I was so close in winning the grand prize for this theme. I will tell you why once the official has uploaded the winning photograph.


One thing Singapore lacks is the freedom of speech. In this photo, although the model(Herbert) is not a fussy person, but he couldn't resist the restriction on freedom of speech. Hence, he took the initiative trying to break the silent memorandum.

Short talk: I just checked my phone bill and I nearly fainted. :S

No, I didn't get a motorcycle license to drive a 450cc bike. Instead, for the first time in my life, I donated 450cc of blood to the sperm blood bank. The satisfaction of the entire process, from registration to body scan to iron content test to the actual blood donation is just priceless.


The author preparing for needle penetration.

The sticker says:" Be nice to me, this is my first donation!".

Well, it may seem scary at first, but the I didn't feel the sting from the needle except when the nurse was injecting pain killer into my blood vessel.



In less than 5 minutes, I filled the whole bag with 450CC of blood. I guess it must be Benny Benassi's Satisfaction that catalyzes the entire process. You know, the sudden rush of blood every time he tries to "push me" and then just "touch me".


Took this picture on the way to the blood donation booth. Pardon the quality, it was taken with my 2.0MP no autofocus iPhone. Fine fine, I enhanced the picture's contrast and saturation with photoshop. :P That's the Quadrangle at NIE- National Institute of Education. Great place for architecture photography.

I tried a new approach in manipulating multiple strobes. I wanted to shoot a product and I felt that it would be kinda dull if I have to just shoot the product alone. Hence, I took three different shots trying to show the usage of the product.


Do click on the photo if you're interested in how the photo was shot and composed.

If you couldn't find suitable photos to manipulate your picture, why don't you shoot them yourself? This was what I did:



3 more days to canon photomarathon!!!!

Stay tuned.

Short talk: I just received the most terrible news of the year from my mom. That is, my house was flooded from last Saturday's torrential downpour. Read about it over here.

Have you heard of the Canon Photomarathon?

"ONE MARATHON, MORE THAN 2,000 PARTICIPANTS
Back for the second year, Canon PhotoMarathon Asia unites all amateur and professional photographers in the region by challenging them to complete a series of photography assignments under the pressure of time.

Your creativity and endurance to complete the marathon will give you a chance to win attractive Canon prizes and/or a Photo Clinic in New Zealand under the lead of a professional photographer. Click your respective countries on the left to learn more!

PHOTO CLINIC IN NEW ZEALAND
Be one of the two winners in your country to be selected for the photo clinic to South Island, New Zealand!

Soak in the natural beauty of South Island while you click away. Experience the Southern Alps while you are at Mount Cook – New Zealand’s highest peak. Or if you have a love for glaciers, be wowed by the Fox Glacier, the longest of the awe-inspiring West Coast glaciers. For a love of tranquility, Milford Sound – nestled in the World Heritage Fiordland National Park and described as one of the Nature Wonders of the World – is not to be missed.

Let professional photographer Triston Yeo help you hone your photography skills at this clinic. And make friends with fellow photographers from the other countries."

Extracted from the website.

I have enrolled myself for the event which is going to take place on this coming Saturday at Suntec City, Singapore. I am excited to join the event as this is my first time joining such big events. Did I mention, the prizes are even more attractive then the whole event itself?!?!?

Imagine taking home a brand spanking new DSLR, ipod nano, manfrotto tripods and many more.

Anyways, I have been very busy with school work, club work, yadda yadda.. you name it. To make matters worse, exams is starting in a month's time. For a moment, it reminded me of STPM, but this time, it's going to be multiple times harder. Questions are not too long but they carry lots of marks.

Months ago, I submitted my photograph for Digital Camera Magazine's Mission. And guess what?! No, I didn't win the grand prize which is the Sandisk Cardreader and CF card. My photograph got selected to feature on the magazine.



It might not sound like a big thing, but it does to me. :) I didn't know anything about it until one of my sister's friend messaged her if she knows a person by the name Patrick Kua, i.e. me. :P

Anyways, here are some shots for the week:



The two pictures above were taken during MSA Mid Autumn Festival.



I wasn't quite satisfied with this shot above because I reckoned that the lighting could be better. But oh well, practice makes perfect. So I would take the photoshoot as a lesson to learn.

On a lighter note, I travelled down to the heart of Singapore on Saturday to pay Kinokuniya at Ngee Ann City a visit. The purpose of the trip is to invest on a very good book by Joe McNally.


The book is freaking good for both photographers and normal readers.

For photographers, the book provides substantial information on the lightning techniques.

For the normal readers, this book comes with dramatic photographs that will sure to amaze you.

That's all for today, I need to get back to making mugs (mugging). :P

Stay tuned!

That's it, you got it right. Nuffnang organized parties coupled with Nokia as their main sponsor never fails to amuse me. I want to be there this time.

And so Halloween? What?! Oh Yeah,


Gimme a candy, trick-or-treat!

I still remembered my first ever Halloween party which i attended, back in high school, which was absolutely a blast. All the scary outfits, food, drinks, treats and all, brings back the old good memories.

And now, as for the main part, how in the World Nokia XpressMusic makes Halloween better?!

This had actually got me thinking for awhile. And after brainstorming and coming out with wacky ideas on how to do it, here my fair share to the question.

As we all know, Nokia XpressMusic Range of phones boasts a huge memory capacity, apart from being able to play any of our favourite songs just from our fingertips.

An added feature would be its bluetooth connectivity, which indeed means that transferring files between phones during the party would be so-super-easy.


Transferring anything would be as easy as 1-2-3!

On that night, I'll download scary tunes and rename them as if they were popular tracks, and my clueless party peeps would be eh, blasting these songs away in the Xpress Music Headphones,

And when they get scared the poop out, I'll know my Nokia Xpress Music Phone has just got the party going even better.


I'll hope to see you guys there. Cheers!

Short Talk: It's already October!! Exams are drawing near!! I am so lazy to study!! ARGH!! Okay, heck it.This is my strobe setup to achieve the three pictures above.

Strobe setup