It has been a hectic day today, firstly getting up at 7.00am which is an insane hour for me as I usually get up later (no I won't tell you what time I normally wake up :P). Anyway it was all for a good cause, one that allowed me to shoot some of my project mates at Shell.

Today was the project team building event and by team I meant two groups of stressed out consultants running around with "markers" shooting each other in the face. Throughout 5 days at work, all the late nights and pent-up stressed is finally released when all of us arrived at the Mudtrekker Paintball centre in Kuang.

Of course before all of that, I had to ask myself, "Where in the world is Kuang???" and me and my extremely large male ego got me totally lost somewhere near the Sungai Buloh Hospital. I got to thank my car mates Joyce, Michelle and Ryan for putting up with my nonsense and rubbish excuses when I kept on insisting that I knew the way. Obviously I was horrifyingly wrong.

Back to the story, we finally made it to the paintball arena and after the usual safety talks and questions, I finally managed to get my gears and was raring to shoot someone. Having played paintball like a gazillion years ago, I completely forgot how fast those friggin balls went and I crouched behind a metal bin like a little girl running away from the monsters under her bed.

The first mission was to plant the flag where there were two flags in the middle of the place and each team had to run to the middle and plant their flags there. Of course at that time everyone was totally new and was rather afraid of getting injured so everyone just camped at their own base. The second game was exactly the same except that we had to switch sides as one side had the higher ground.

So being my male egotistic self, I tried leading the team only to send my good and faithful soldiers to the firing barrage of the opposite team. Yes, the other team won as they reached their flag, quickly planted it up and camped. The third mission was to attack the opposing team, the place was still at the same course but the defenders had the lower ground. Not easy but by the end of that match, I was totally covered in mud as I was lying flat on the ground.

The last game was the most interesting one as it was a last man standing shoot-out and the only way to "kill" an enemy was to give him a headshot. Frankly by that time, each of us only had like 50 pellets to utilize so most of them "died' because they ran out of ammo.

The whole morning was great and fun as it has been a while since I enjoyed myself, shooting colleagues of mine but the best part was to be able to bond and forge stronger friendships and talking loads of crap to my colleagues. It sent a nice warm feeling through my heart.

Anyway I am utterly exhausted as I sit here in Starbucks in the new wing of Sunway Pyramid waiting for a potential client for a meeting. I think I shall eat Tony Roma's tonight, drooling over the onion loaf already.

By the way, I finally stopped procrastinating and bought my Macbook Pro RAM. So now, my MBP runs smoothly on 4Gb on Corsair RAM.



Oooh soooo smooootttthhhhh, I hope I remember to buy more RAM for Ryan later.

Last weekend I had the privilege to shoot Shery Lim who is the author of the recently published book, "There is Hope". "There is Hope" is how Shery wants people out there who are currently battling cancer to know that there is still hope. Meeting her in person was such a joy and a privilege for me and I was truly blessed by both her and her husband who were so hospitable.

A little background on the shoot is that Asian Beacon needed a cover shot for one of their stories and guess who would be on the cover of the next Asian Beacon magazine?



Ms. Shery Lim, author of the book "There is Hope".

Here are some of my favourite shots.





The boxes signifies the size of her cancer over a short period. God is indeed awesome and amazing. Look how small it shrunk into!



Of course I can't resist taking some candid shots.



Portrait shot without the book.

Just like my previous profile shot, all of these were shot with the Nikon D300 using the 85mm f/1.8 lens and utilizing all available lighting within her home in Puchong.

If I am not wrong, Shery's book can be purchased at either MPH or Canaanland. Here is the link to purchase this book via Canaanland's online store. The book costs only RM25.00.

More photos can be found here on my Flickr photostream.

I am currently facing some technical problems at the moment as I try to switch over from a generic based title URL to one that is more Search Engine friendlier one. Because of this, the links to my previous posts are not viewable at the moment until it gets replicated into the database.

Sorry for any inconvenience caused.

Last Saturday I did something which I haven't done in a very long time, I watched two movies in a day. Well this post will be dedicated to the first one I saw on Saturday.



Basically the movie is placed in a completely different timeline as the first movie. In the first movie, the kids grew up and became adults in the magical land of Narnia but when they returned back to the real world, a.k.a London, it was as if not a single second had passed.

Now forward that a couple of years in the real world (a.k.a London nearing the WWII era), the kids have grown up a little (but they are still kids) and they are carrying on their lives as usual in wet London whilst back in the magical land of Narnia, thousands of years have passed since the kings of old (the kids) left the magical kingdom and Aslan is no where to be found.

In this era, the Telmarines have conquered Narnia and strived to wipe out every single creature of the Narnian kingdom and they have thought to have successfully done that. The current king, King Caspian fled his kingdom from his ruthless uncle who wants the throne of Narnia to himself.

In doing so, Caspian managed to receive a magical horn from his mentor (who is a descendent of a Narnian) and when Caspian was being chased by the guards, he blew the horn. By blowing this horn, it triggered the kings of old of Narnia to come forth to save Narnia from impending extinction.



This very action of calling the kings of old brought the kids back from London to the magical land of Narnia but they still remained in their current day form or age. As the story unfolds, the movie proved to be rather interesting and at the same time managed to outgrow the previous one.

Yes, this movie was targetted for kids or youth but I can't help but notice that the plot and the action scenes were slightly improved whilst maintaining the non-bloody violence type scenes/scenarios. You can't expect it to be such like the movie, 300, and yet also maintain the general viewing status right?

Its obvious that the fight scenes were beefed up a bit and together with a tad bit of digital effects, one can expect a high level of cinematography. The one thing which caught my attention the most was that the kids had no qualms about killing their enemies or their fellow men. They shot arrows like nobody's business and they sliced anyone that got in their way. Sounds a little bit like Anakin Skywalker in the making.

Personally I liked the movie and I would give it a 7 star rating. If you haven't catched the movie, I do advise you to have a go at it.

p.s. I never did mention about Aslan that much did I?

Recently at work I have been working on knowledge management which requires me to study a little bit of taxonomy structures and how to implement it within an organization. One of the examples I usually use to explain taxonomy would be to reference it to a scientific classification of animals.

For example, the scientific classification of animals can be split into categories such as Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Infraclass, Order and Suborder.

While searching through Wikipedia, I stumbled across "possums". Possums are quite common in Australia and then introduced to New Zealand. What comes to mind especially when mentioning animals and Australia are dead animals lying by the road shoulders. This is due to the time when I was travelling in Australia, driving between Melbourne City and Mt. Buller, I kept seeing dead kangaroos and koala bears by the road shoulder, apparently they have been hit down by other drivers. No, I didn't hit one down and thank God that I didn't as I do not want a dead animal's carcass lying about in my room.

Anyway if you haven't seen what a possum is, this is how a possum looks like.



A little bit of info about possums is that they are:

Possums are one of the Wellington region's worst pests. Possums pose a serious threat to our native forests and economy.

Threat to our native forests

Possums devastate our native forests by:

• eating the berries and flowers that are food for our native birds


• stripping bark and breaking young shoots


• eating and damaging newly formed buds which prevents new growth


• eating the eggs and chicks of our native birds


• consuming vast quantities of foliage.


• Possums can stop the forest regenerating, cause the canopy to collapse, wipe out rata, fuschia and other species, and systematically strip trees.

Wow I really didn't know they were this much of a pest!

No wonder I got this from my friend who is currently based in New Zealand.



A genuine willy warmer!

In case you do not know what a willy warmer is, it is just fur to keep your willy warm!



Personally, I think its way too small. I can only fit in two fingers into the hole. Since I can't really use it and Malaysia's weather is like 100 degrees celcius here every day of the year, I guess I have to put it to good use.



It will just have to keep my Nikon flash warm especially in those extra cold air-conditioned rooms. Now isn't that just putting it to good use and not wasting it?

Info and image source: http://www.gw.govt.nz/section910.cfm

Something very simple and something I missed since when I was in the UK.

The simple pleasures of life.

I wonder why they never bring it to Malaysia la!

Darn, I am craving for one right now.

I wonder if the cravings will ever stop.

Now, where can I find another one.

I knew I shouldn't have stopped into the shop in Singapore.

Ah, what I would do for another cup of my little indulgence.

Probably nothing because I have my cup of white coffee next to me now.

As the title states very clearly, I am currently in Singapore attending and shooting my uni-mate's wedding. It is a 3 day stint and I am on the very last leg (wedding dinner is tonight). Not that I have been having it easy for the past couple of days, it was extremely exhausting! I will definitely blog more about it later but for the mean time, I am just glad that the hotel has free Wi-fi and I am getting a break in the morning although I still have to prepare an express slideshow for tonight.

The weather here is extremely hot and humid. I crave for air conditioned locations and rooms. Hence I will be bunking up in my room trying to get the slideshow ready for the dinner tonight. Not much of traveling or sight-seeing about Singapore but no worries on that. I need to find a 7-Eleven close by to stock up on some liquid and drinks.

The past two days has been tiring for me but extremely fun. I expect tonight to be equally fun and exciting as well. Weddings are a fun occasion and especially fun when it is a good friend of yours. It was great to meet up with old friends and even see some of my old classmates who are currently based in Singapore.

Alright, my break time is over and it is back to work for me. Until the next post!

The one thing I always admired about my friends is those who are keen businessmen or in this case, a keen businesswoman. Take it from me, I hardly like to take any sort of risk and I always worry too much about the consequences and other areas. But then again, this isn't about who I am but rather about a shoot I did a couple of weeks ago.

Sze is a good friend of mine whom I have known since we were in primary school and when I found out that she was going to start up her own business selling handmade jewelry online, I was in complete respect for her. After hearing the initial news about it, I did blog about it before previously and since then so many things has changed. Welcome to the world of Sze's Accessories.

Now, her online presence is getting stronger, getting first hits on Google and more and more sales are coming in. Why not? Her products are awesome and they are one of a kind! Yes, you heard me, one of a kind as she doesn't make the same one twice!

Anyway since she found out that I do shoot on the side, she asked me if I could do some portrait shots of her for her profile. I was totally excited about it and two weeks ago, I shot her indoors. Lighting was tricky but the condo we were shooting in was excellent. Here are some of my favourite shots.











I like the photo above the most as it has a little bit of reflection as well as there is a natural rim light on both sides. Looking at the hair you can see the rim light there and there is a rim light on the arms as well. See, available lighting can be quite awesome as well!







All shots were shot with available lighting and no flash was used. Because we were shooting indoors so I had to bump my ISO higher than that I can go if I were to shoot outdoors under the sun. It was a fun shoot and I look forward to shooting more profile shots and cover shots.

If you are still looking for a gift to give a loved one, don't forget to head over to Sze's Accessories and choose your perfect gift. I mean, what more could you ask for especially when you have so much to choose from and its definitely one of a kind! Best of all, it is relatively cheap and well priced. People always say that we should practice what you preach, well I will be choosing something from Sze's Accessories to give to MT. As proof I will blog about it and take a picture of the item.

My next profile/cover-shot assignment is in two weeks time and this time for a cover shot of a magazine. This really puts me under pressure as I don't have any studio equipment or special lighting but I shall trust in God and the gifts he has blessed me with.

I will be away this weekend shooting a wedding in Singapore. Really really looking forward to the shoot, hope that there is an internet connection in my hotel room.

I was at someplace really high up. Really really high, I will let these photos do the talking for me.







It was rather difficult to shoot through glass as there were some reflection.

Anyway it has been an exciting and tiring weekend. Time to get back to work again tomorrow and start working hard again!

No, the alien is not CJ7 nor is it really an alien but rather 2,202,060 living organisms residing within the many keys of my trust old keyboard. I say it is old as I bought it since I was in uni which was way back in 2002. That means my keyboard is about 6 years old.

I took an online quiz about the "health status" of my keyboard and here are the results.
2,202,060How Many Germs Live On Your Keyboard?

Definitely not something that I was hoping for but it sort of hit me that I better start cleaning my keyboard real soon. The amount of effort I put into cleaning my PC components aren't really a high on my priority list but after reading about this tragic incident, and watching this amazing series, things just happen.

Anyway here is a picture of my current keyboard.



Of course there will be a close up shot as well.



Anyway I was just kidding about this being my keyboard. Mine is black and the key layout is completely different from what we usually get from Lowyat as mine has the UK layout version.



Notice that the "@" sign and the "" symbols are swapped? Yeah I get confused ALL the time.

Anyway, enough ranting. I need a good nights rest after a long day at work and cell group at church.

Image sources:

• http://www.gottabemobile.com/content/binary/WindowsLiveWriter/584417cc9e9c_12F8E/nasty_keyboard.jpg


• http://bp1.blogger.com/_1tk0c4Dzgbs/RdXUCYXVJsI/AAAAAAAAAl8/mG6iXuvWWzc/s1600-h/dirty+keyboard.jpg


• http://www.goodtyping.com/teclatUK.htm

It is so true that practice makes perfect. I really need to find the time to practice shooting a lot more often. Although I have been shooting during weekends, but that is only a small amount compared to the real amount I should be shooting.

Tomorrow, I shall start bringing my camera about and start shooting a little more. Over the weekend I shot someone's profile photo and I will share them in another post (coming soon) but as I do a lot more post processing, I learned that when the model gets impatient, I get impatient and try to take shots very quickly so that they don't feel too tired. In the end, I ended up with more shots that aren't useable (badly composed, exposed incorrectly and sometimes even blur).

One of the things I do learn from my golf lessons is to actually be a little bit more patient. So I do definitely have to make sure that I be a little more patient with my shot, my composition and the way I position myself so that I get everything right on camera and not have to waste so much time post processing those shots.

Anyway I am just ranting away because I was supposed to bring my camera to the office today to do a little bit of shooting during lunch time but I forgot because I rushed out of the house. Maybe I can bring it to cell group tonight to get a couple of shots of the cell group. Sounds like a plan to me!

Upcoming for the next three weeks will be two wedding shoots and a portraiture shoot. I am so looking forward to all of them especially the one next week where I will be travelling down to Singapore to shoot my uni mate's wedding. But for now, I shall concentrate on the one this weekend at Banker's Club. I will be shooting with Grace of Integricity Visuals and I hope to put in at least 10% of what I learned over at Louis' workshop.

Yes, I am taking baby steps and applying my newly imparted knowledge in every shoot. And to help me improve, I am looking for any couples who would like to have a portraiture shoot. I already have a couple of my friends lined up (see its good to have a friend who is a photographer) who want to have a shoot and it is priced at a very low price. Very very low. Of course this is all subject to a few terms and conditions. If you want to know more, do check out my contact details on my online portfolio.

Until then...

Screamed the title of a superb movie, well not exactly the title but just the subtitle. After watching it last night, I felt that this was one of the better Marvel movies that was showed on the big screen. The awesome portrayal of Tony Stark as the eccentric billionaire played by Robert Downey Jr.



The movie started off with how Tony Stark who was the owner of Stark Industries whose father was one of the creators of the atomic bomb, became who he was. Now manufacturing high tech weaponry for the US government, he later realises that his deeds has returned to haunt him.

After being captured by militants and held in captivity for 3 months, in that period, Tony saw a lot of things that made him change and he returned not as an eccentric billionaire but as a changed man. Well he was still rather eccentric.

The things I love about this movie was the great balance between the action scenes, great special effects and the witty humour (not the same lame type from Spiderman or Fantastic Four). Frankly, among all of the other Marvel movies, this has to be one of my favourite ones. Ironically since Ironman is one of the heroes which doesn't really have any super powers.

Interesting sites:

• Ironman Movie official site


• Ironman Wikipedia write up