He kept me shooting. lol! Thank you.

Check this out! The new app that MJ showed me! Hipstamatic on the apple app store! It takes a photo in 1:1 dimensions, processes it with whatever lenses or films for special effects. And gives very very nice photos with those surreal effects of a lomo camera! The best thing is, there isn’t any distortion from those toy lenses nonsense!

Very much liek a lomo camera, except minus the physical components of lens switching and film changing. All you need is a flick of the finger and voila!

From the basic kit, there is a wide assorted array of lenses, filters and films to choose from! $0.99 for the app. Additional lenses kit cost another $0.99. I think i bought like 3/4 of all the lens available there so far. LOL!

Shall get more to play with! It’s gonna be damn fun when using this for overseas trips. Or emo photos like this.

Does great portrait effects too! /grin I was kinda skeptical of film lomo cameras. Buying and developing films isn’t my cup of tea. But this app changes a lot of things!!

This shot gives a some kind of warm feeling contributed from the warm colors mixed with the golden brown hair. Or mane. LOL! Recently, the company held this family day thingy at some mosquitoes infested jungle in the east side of Singapore. Took my camera out for a chance to grab some great shots =) And using them to connect people!

In such big company events, there are bound to be lots of dslrs floating around, jutting them in your face. It’s like almost everyone in Singapore has a DLSR! Zzz.. Hence, once again, it’s another guys world again. Of course there are still some ladies running around with the bulky black things.

Trying around some weird angles again. Storytelling with room for imagination is what I usually look for when taking photos. When talking to fellow photographers in the company, lenses and camera bodies seems to cover most of the topics we ever talk about. Camera tech isn’t really that interesting to me. I only read them up when I have the gold to buy lenses. Then the rest of the time, I don’t even bother reading them up >.<

Even though someone told me about how the better camera equipment the more pro the photographer in you is.

Looking through flickr explore would be a much better alternative for me….

On a side note, my writing style has deteriorated to semi-pointform and disconnected phrases. Or sentences starting with I. Certainly, there is a need to improve on this and the formal essay paper writing style is simply too “out of place to write here”

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!

While processing more of the Tokyo Spring 2010 photos recently, I became more aware of my style of composition or the objects I take. Me shall highlight a few here. I’m more for shooting horizontal photos. Those vertical compositions are quite narrow for me to be comfortable with. But I have to start somewhere eh?

The one above is one of my classic travel shots. Just sitting on the ground somewhere, just me and the good pair of walking shoes that had travelled with me for almost every trip overseas. Let’s call this the “Walking the World”

Something like that!

Next up, landscape shots. Essential for travel photography, best taken with wide angle lens. Since I haven’t got my hands on one yet. The 24mm of the lens I’m using would do this job fine. Landscape shots tells how magnificent or awesome a place is. I play around with the colours of the photo to give a certain feel that portrays the story of this place. B+W ones have their own appeal. But I mix them around depending on the feel, or it is too gloomy to get a good ambience.

The one-thirds composition is greatly used here for scenery shots.

Shooting structures or places of interest! It’s basically why you are travelling to that place. Hence, let the camera spam! So the same thing for me here, I was trying out some effects to give increase that special feeling of each place. More time is spend on this area to create the correct balance and not to over exaggerate things.

People are what makes up the cities. Most of the time, I travel to big cities. A big major change from my old ODAC days where it’s jungles, animals and bugs and mud and mosses for company. Busy cities are great subjects for cultural diversity. Lots of pictures to take. But, most of the time, I’m quite reluctant to take frontal photos of people. Still working on how to approach people to take their photos. So taking them from the distance now.

Or from the back.

The friends you travel with makes it all even more wonderful! That depends on how playful your group is lol!

From friends, to YOU! Cam whoring with DLSRs is > cam whoring with cameraphones!

Another craze is food photography! It’s customary to take a shot of what you have in front of you when you’re overseas. Well, I know that some are quite offended with this action. Some restaurants don’t allow it. Just be aware of this! Otherwise, it’s great advertisement for the restaurants! They might give you a discount if you blog about them ^^