Under Construction: Creative Photo Shoot

If you have followed my blog, you would know that I just bought a condo unit and is undergoing renovation. So I decided not to waste the construction settings and got Melody to come in for a shoot.



I instructed Melody to inform the MUA that I wanted to make her up until I could not recognise her. Well, it didn't go to that extent, but that's quite fine.




The place was very dusty, no thanks to cement powder and debris. I left everything as is without moving much, basically working around with what the location presented.




Like every fashion/creative shoot, the resultant feel can only be brought out after processing the images.




More photos at my facebook page, http://facebook.com/chesterphoto or Flickr, http://flickr.com/chestertan

Mayenne Revisited

On the third day of New Year, I spent some quality time with Mayenne. She has developed this routine where she would want me to play certain games with her, like the ball, the piano. And there are some routine that I am "banned", like sleeping time. We are still trying to coax her to brush her teeth willingly, and our hope now banks on Special Agent OSO. She has an affinity with this stuffed bear and she would demand to watch the cartoon episodes whenever the TV is on. (thank goodness for Hubstation). Hopefully, the constant playback of that brush-teeth episode ("Never Say No To Brushing Again") will make her enjoy brushing teeth. We still couldn't figure out half of what she's blabbering, but most of the time, she would give simple commands, like "chan(ge) xxx", "dis one", and her favourite "no way no way!" She's obsessed with numbers and would proudly read out the floor numbers displayed on the HDB lifts. She could narrate all the way to 100, only when she is patient enough. Most of the time, she would stop before 50 and jump straight to 100. Sometimes she mixes up with the consonants, saying "sherpal" for "special", or "munber" for "number", or emphasizing on the wrong letters, like "grinnnn" for "green".

It's no longer easy to coax her for a photo, for she's so much more active than during the first 2 years. And when she's in the mood, I usually don't have my DSLR. Seriously, you can't get good shots of active kids with compact cams. Shutter and focus response is too laggy, and shutter speed is slow to achieve sharp images - unless you are at outdoors. So here are some precious photographic moments of Mayenne in recent months.

On 4 Oct 2009









On 23 Jan 2010



And her attempt at the real upright piano, 3 Feb 2010

The Seed Of Love

For my latest photostory, Ashlyn approached me months before her big wedding day. Tapping my specialisation in photostory, she requested me to create a video that will express her appreciation to the man that she loves.

The photo session took place in December 2009, and was broadcast during their wedding reception on 6 Feb 2010.

For weeks after the shoot, I had no idea how to start creating the photostory. I had the script, I had the photos, but I need the soundtrack. Then ...

I was stuck on a photo montage project, until I got inspiration from one of my compositions and decided to use it as the soundtrack. #fb 10:48 PM Dec 31st, 2009 from yoono

The answer is "Shyanne", a track from my Piano Spa 4 album. The music seems very apt because it doesn't sound too depressing or too cheerful. A nice fit to the whole story, about reflection of the past, drawing an understated emotion which builds after the chorus, into the climax, before echoing into the coda. The music ends in an open unresolved chord, signifying a journey that does not end.

The original idea was to get Ashlyn to narrate the text, but during the draft, I inserted the text and showed to her. She liked it that way. For that, I had to make the montage move slower so that the viewer can read the text and absorb the images.

Tweets: 2010 Oscar Nominees

Oscar Nominees announced. http://bit.ly/bvggeq 17 minutes ago from yoono

Avatar got 9 nominations! District 9 got 4! Inglorious Basterds got 8. The Hurt Locker got 8 too, never caught that movie yet. 11 minutes ago from yoono

Sherlock Holmes nominated for Art Direction and Music. I knew that movie's soundtrack is cool! LOVE THAT LEITMOTIF!! 10 minutes ago from yoono

Transformers ROTF only got 1 nomination for Sound Mixing. None for visual effects? Guess the action's too fast to catch the details. 9 minutes ago from yoono

Kudos to District 9 for being recognised with groundbreaking film-making. Nom. for film edit, visual, adapted screenplay, and BEST PICTURE! 7 minutes ago from yoono

Certainly hope Meryl Streep wins the Best Actress for "Julie & Julia". 5 minutes ago from yoono

Apologies for over-tweeting, but it feels good to know that the films I thoroughly enjoyed are nominated for Oscars. http://bit.ly/9mjatE 3 minutes ago from yoono

Where Blog?

Jan 2010 is a really bad month for me. I checked my archives and found that this month has the lowest number of entries since I started blogging - only 2. Comparatively, I tweeted no less than 20 posts for the past 7 days.

Lemme take this chance to summarise some snippets of what I missed blogged for the entire month of January.

2010 sets to be an exciting year for techies. Here's why.

1. Mobile: Google Android continues expansion plans with Nexus One, albeit hiccups. It's a start of an eternal battle for a piece of the market pie. I also noticed the trend that more youths in Singapore are using Blackberry phones because it has its own strong networking platform, which means you get to access to all the facebook, instant messaging, twitter, with real-time push notifications via your BB. My E72 doesn't have that icon notification when I have updates, so I had to check once a while, but Symbians or Windows Mobile-based devices have more design variety. Feliza (meetlilprincess) asked me which one should she buy, and my summarised response to her in twitter:

@felizaong BB provides the best integrated experience but bulky. iPhone has the most apps. Symbian or WM has most variety of phones. 11:46 AM Jan 24th from Gravity in reply to felizaong

So if you are not that hard-up for keeping in touch constantly online and need the casual checks (like me), a Nokia will do fantastic, certainly does well in the battery life area. BB may be an overkill unless you are a full-time (or extremely avid) blogger. For iPhone, get it if you are a fan or want to be "in". The only real technical advantage I hear of iPhone users are its nifty interactive interface. Other than that, camera is poor, battery life is poor, keyboard needs getting used to, no multi-tasking, rather big... the list goes on.

2. Imaging: More hybrid digicams with interchangeable lenses, with HD video recording. Apart from the micro four-thirds system, in which 4 models were released by Panasonic and Olympus last year, Ricoh announced the GXR, where the lens and the sensor is attached to the "body". This concept means that you can have different lenses with different sensors but operating on a same "body" of processor and LCD monitor.

Then this month, the Samsung NX10 is finally announced. Similar in concept to the micro four-thirds, the NX10 has a sensor size of the cropped DSLR, while keeping the entire system compact. Not forgetting, these models can record video, and mostly in HD.

So the $3650 question: which system should I get? If I were a casual shooter and wanted something more advanced to allow me to snap DSLR-like images with better controls in depth of field, I would go for the compact lens systems, albeit costlier. If I were a casual shooter and wanted a pocketable camera, I would get a very good compact digicam, like the Canon S90, that allows me to shoot low light scenes and fast. If I do not bother about the bulk issue, then nothing beats having a DSLR.

3. Computing: Return of the Tablets (thanks to Windows 7 and the Apple iPad). Years back, I already dreamt about a powerful touch-screen smartphone that can be detached from the main body and still functionable. Lenovo IdeaPad U1 is close to what I desire, but it's a laptop. Still, it demonstrates the possibility of a modular computing device. As for iPad, well, seriously, anything that Apple builds will be embraced by Apple fans. Afterall, there is no substitute. It's not as if there are a dozen other brands of Tablet PCs to choose from. I never like to go into the argument about Apple vs. non-Apple devices, and the truth is that owning an Apple device transcends logic and rationality. Most important thing is to get the device that suits your lifestyle.


OK, aside from tech stuff. Shopping-lovers would be elated to know that so many new malls have sprung up for the past months. I happened to go on course at 111 Somerset (building names are getting so boring). So it was the first time I visited 313@Somerset. I quite like the mall design, and nowadays the underground shopping area is as big (some even bigger) than the above ground spaces.

And then I realised that Orchard Central is possibly the cheapest car park around the Somerset area: $1 for first hour and $0.80 every half hour. That's even cheaper than the open space URA car park!

To end this post, here's a quote I posted on Twitter a week back.

Many people are so used to communicating via social media that they forget people can be instantly reached via mobile phone. 10:17 AM Jan 23rd from Gravity