Short breaks and the sea never fails to amaze me every time.

Yes, another uber long break. The existence of facebook kinda made this blog a little neglected. And as we get older, do we tend to keep things more to ourselves or the privatization of the being starts to take place when we form new relationships?

Then again, Facebook came in. I’m still in the process of finishing my Japan photos. just a few more days left!

It was on my mind. I was more comfortable with water than air. Water calms me somehow. Then, why not try some water stuff?

After looking through my colleague’s photos taken from their dive in Sipadan, I was quite attracted to the concept of clear sea water. Beautiful crystal clear sea water glistering in the sun. The beauty of that clear sea water never occurred to me, as I would have taken the sea for granted as mere body of water. An understatement, on my part.

I couldn’t let it go to let myself think that the sea is just a body of water. Sea water. There are other stuff out there that I haven’t seen…

Off I go on a  open water diving course with Gill Divers to clear up that hazy part on the sea. They say they breathe better underwater! It’s true!

16 metres under the sea. I was breathing through the regulator. The meaning of a breath changed underwater. Soon, I was looking at cute Nemos with their anemone home, waving to fishes swimming by, “flying” over large boulders, in and out of rifts. Out of the blue, in the tinted blue atmosphere, a sea turtle was munching on some coral!  Awesome creatures hidden under the veil of a water body.

Would be looking forward to signing up for my Advanced course soon. Maybe, work my way up to Divemaster.

2 forms of masters by 30. That’s it!

Grat to this newly wed couple Eric and Qian Qian! This is my first wedding assignment, so was a kinda still experimenting stuff. The event was held at the pool side area of the Goodwood Park Hotel. Lovely place for great night mood + background lights shoots. The little trick I learnt from MJ who was always shooting in dark places with lighted backgrounds.

The trick to his setting is getting the flash powerright. Another thing to keep note is the distance between the flash and the subject. I am a sucker for landscape shots. I rarely take portrait shots unless the area caters for it. Plus my lens is suited for such events, even though the bokeh isn’t enough to give that certain feeling of uniqueness. 24-105mm is suited just right for the place under the tent.

Angles angles angles! Things to improve would be to move around more. Get the sequence of events right, look around for a good angle to grab a shot.

One of the only few portrait shots I took that day. I just don’t like portrait shots. Unless, it’s have aligning lines to accommodate the composition of the photo. Or a really close up shot.

The secret to light up the background is no other than jacking up the ISO. how much? That’s for you to find out. The flash has to be set to rear sync which means the flash will fire at the last few microseconds of the exposure. The rest is just trail and error.

One disadvantage of this setting is motion blurness. You need the subject to be very still. You’ll need to find a pair of steady hands too.

Some things I feel that I need to improve on is the interaction with the people to get the shoots at the right moment. Adjustments to the settings to cater for fast moving action. Would need to save a setting for the people’s shoot + one fast shutter + higher intensity flash to compensate for motion shots.

Don’t mind me, I hate giving waiters the camera to take photos. All these while, I have yet to find a waiter that knows how to compose and zoom in nicely to accommodate everyone. As a safeguard, I will always ask them to take a lot of shots, so I can QC the best one out. And photoshop the hell out of it.

Cheers to the newly wed! And don’t come looking for me to ask when is it my turn!

The full album is over at my Flickr!

What’s the feeling that you feel that you still can try to experience new things?

Totally, epic and full of win! Shall go try more new stuff!

Pretty much earlier that day, I tried something out of the box with Brown Brothers Cienna Wine with Royce Nama Chocolate to end off a leisure swim. Fantastic afternoon ^^

Recently, while engaging in various multitasking tasks in starcraft 2, I was taken aback how much have I slowed down in terms of planning ahead. In relation to the usual daily stuff, my ability to plan ahead has been dwindling. At the same time, I feel that I’m too contented. Stagnant, would be a more appropriate word. The daily work routine, isn’t much of a large stimulant. The years of crazy playing might have interested the level for me to be stimulated to be happy, or enjoying myself. Games shouldn’t be a chore to play. They have to be stimulative. The need to travel. Explore. Discover. Stagnant = death to the mind. Need to feel the rush!

?Or perhaps, It’s time to take a break from gaming. And to look forward to a more rewarding stimulating experience with what you can create or discover by more physical interactions with your environment, as compared to just staring at a screen and click click click. Like what i do at work. Click click click.

It’s been a long while since my last BBQ at ECP again. This time it was a little gathering of the advanced imaging department. My first gathering with them. So have to go mingle around a little ^^

The biggest group of clubbers in one gathering lol! It’s been like 4 weeks since I started learning MRI. These guys have been guiding the really slow me through the steep learning curve of MRI. Kudos to them! It’s a mix of CT and MRI people here

My shifu and shimu! All the constant nagging from them, really really help to keep everything in order when i’m scanning XD

HB getting drunk on lemon tea…

Took me like 5mins to clean off all the oily finger stains on the screen >.< They were tap tap radiation-ing!

2 pretty mentors nagging at me everyday XD

JJ happy with what he won from the Bingo game =P

After these few weeks of training, MRI is so totally worlds apart from X-ray. I can only understand what is each scanning sequence used for by the 3rd week. X-ray was just place, turn here and there, poke here and there. And take a shot.

MRI needs to be ventured into with a 3 dimensional sense, 10000 different parameters to check through before each scan. A slight movement could blur the whole 3min scan for each sequence. So, time management of the sequences + planning of scanning planes + potential of patient to keep still + organising of patient arrival to make sure the scanner is been used at all times. And all potential safety hazards like ferrous metals that can become flying projectiles, like my pen…. Or even a gas tank can fly.

Lots to consider! and lots more to learn!