Exactly a week ago, me and munz decided to take up an offer by Canon Marketing Malaysia to attend an event for photographers where Simon Yam (yup, Canon's ambassador) would be there in person for a quick question and answer session with everyone as well as provide a couple of photo opportunities for the attendees. This was then followed with a free movie screening of "Echoes of the Rainbow" which helped Simon win the award for Best Actor in the 29th Hong Kong Film Awards.







The event was held in Pavillion, so by the time me and munz battled through the Monday evening traffic, we arrived there slightly late where we saw Simon entering the Gold Class Lounge at GSC Pavillion. There he was speaking to a couple of reporters while a huge crowd of 200+ photographers filled up the main hallway before entering the cinema.



Whilst the rest were waiting at the main area where Simon would be speaking, I tried to enter into the Gold Class Lounge but didn't manage to get past the guards!

So I decided to take a couple of shots of the folks I know who was there.


Yup that is camera shy Xavier in the photo above


A shot of Jason, he tried to get me into the Gold Class Lounge to get up close to Simon but the guards wouldn't let me


Jason and Mun Tzin

Once Simon left the Gold Class lounge, I managed to sneak in near the door to capture a couple of shots.







By the time he arrived at the main hall, there were so many photographers there that I could hardly get a glimpse of him so I ended up chatting with Jason. Most of the time I didn't know what he said because he was answering questions in Mandarin as well as Cantonese, so me being a "banana", I was just "lepaking" in front of the air con vent because it was getting a little hot in the hallway.



I even took a couple of shots of the people surrounding him trying to get photos of Simon.





After he has completed his Q&A session and adjourned out, everyone was ushered into the cinema to catch the show where they even provided free popcorn and a tin of coke. Not too shabby at all.

 

Overall I thought the movie was actually quite good. It was a proper serious type of show which depicted life in Hong Kong in the late 60's for a shoemaker and trying to make ends meet to send his two sons to school. The movie talks about how the sons went through life, private school (yes, the parents worked very hard to pay for their school tuition), bribing police officers with moon cakes and facing harassment all around.

My rating for the show is a good 3.5/5 stars!

p.s. Check out Jason's blog post as well with his up close and personal shots with Simon.

It's not very often that I receive emails such as this but this time I received it from within my organization which I think also makes a bit of sense. Why do I say that is because there seems to be a trend going now (from my personal observation) that the younger generation seem to want more for less. Heck, I even admit it that I definitely fall into that category and have wayward dreams of having it all whilst floating on cloud 9, but only to fall back onto the hard floor of reality.

(Image source)

I am digressing. The fact of the matter is, Bill Gates went to a high school and gave this piece of advice to them. Frankly, I am not too sure whether it is authentic or whether he actually said those words but hey, it made sense to me. The comments in red are by me.

Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!

Rule 2: The world doesn't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both. (I guess this advice was given before a mobile phone was created?)

Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity. (The same should be for serving food, cleaning toilets, sweeping the roads)

Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time..

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life.. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs..(reminds me of Friends, haha!)

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.
These rules definitely are not easy to swallow but so is medicine and it's intention is to heal you. The same goes for advice, either we take it with open minds and a willing heart or we can shun away from it, there is no right or wrong in that.

As I mentioned in my previous post, me and the RedNinja team were invited by Canon Malaysia to speak at the recent DCIM show over at Midvalley. Grace, Jon and I had different slots throughout Saturday and Sunday. Here are some of the photos that we took of each other during the talk.

Jon started his talk and shared his photos and videos, which were absolutely amazing! Jon's topic was on "Wedding Photography" and he also covered a bit about RedNinja.tv as well.



Some familiar faces in the crowd, Paul Kong and Ben Lim.



Jon gave out a number of cards as well which had his photos printed on. The participants were happy with them!



Kurt (a.k.a Orionmystery) who was speaking next also listened in on Jon's talk.



I saw Visithra there as well.



As well as Nick Leong!



I have to thank Jon for taking these photos as well while I was speaking. My topic was on "Experience with EOS". Now that isn't really an easy task to talk about especially since I have only used the system for a little over a month and covered two weddings with it and two portrait shoots.



The magic mouse (my impulse buy on Friday) was very useful for me, I managed to use it to control my slides.





I returned back to Midvalley again on Sunday to provide support to Grace who also presented on "Wedding Photography".



Alex was there as well to help out and support her.



Here is a shot of our schedule that was set up at the EOS Interactive Booth.



Overall I thought DCIM was great! Plenty of bargains (I ended up buying two Sandisk 16Gb CF cards at RM209 each at the Sandisk booth) and plenty of interesting talks and information as well as meeting new people and catching up with old friends.There were some other bargains there such as the WD Live TV was only selling for RM399 instead of the usual RM499 and their WD Essential 1TB hard disk was going for RM289. What a bargain!

Also I was finally given a live demo of how Drobo actually works, it does look impressive and it is definitely something that I would love to get but the prices here are very expensive at RM1699 for the most basic Drobo storage with no hard disks! Definitely a lot to pay but I guess you are paying for the technology as well as having a safe feeling that your photos are protected!

A copy of my talk in PDF form can be downloaded here.

Now the title of this post says it all, instead of finding ways to always treat ourselves and making ourselves feel good by buying that really nice new gadget (hides in shame as I have been lusting for the iPad), lets do something different for a change, lets make that difference in someone's life.

So, do you know of someone who would love to have their photo taken? It could be an engaged friend who wants amazing wedding portraits but cannot afford it. Or it could be the family living next door that has been contributing so much to society but just never had their family photograph taken. Or it could be a friend living with a terminal illness.

It’s up to you.

Tell me their story.

Contest Details:
1. Nominate a friend and write an email to (grace.tan [at] stories.my) explaining why this person / family / couple deserves a free shoot. It is up to you to be as creative as possible with your entries! Please attach a photo of your friend. If you don’t have a photo, you can create any kind of graphic with images or text and send it to me. The photo can be a web resolution photo. Please include the contact information of your friend (eg. phone number or email).

2. Every week, selected images and stories will be uploaded onto the Facebook Stories page. Invite your friends to ‘like’ your story.

3. The contest will end by 31 May 2010.

4. Judges from Stories.my will select the top 2 stories with consideration of the public votes. However, the number of ‘likes’ may not necessarily influence the final decision of the judges, who will decide based on story idea. Your nominated friend will win a 1 hour photography session with Stories.my. He/she will get all the photos on CD (printable up to 4R size) and one 15″ x 10″ matte photo print. Shoots are to happen within the month of June or July 2010 within the Klang valley.

Looking forward to hearing your stories!

For more information about the contest, head over to the following links below :)

• http://stories.my/help-your-friend-win-a-free-portrait-shoot/


• http://www.facebook.com/photo_comments.php?id=119085758107815&

Yes thats right. I will be speaking at the Canon EOS Interactive booth this coming Saturday at the DCIM Show from 3.15pm to 4.15pm at Midvalley Exhibition Center at the Midvalley Megamall. What will I be speaking on? Well, I will be speaking on the subject, "Experience with EOS" which is quite a big twist for me, mainly because I used to be a Nikon user (you probably could have judged that from my previous postings).

It will be an interesting time for me and the rest of the RedNinja.tv squad as well. Jon Low (speaking on Saturday from 2.15pm to 3.15pm) and Grace Tan (speaking on Sunday, 2.45pm - 3.45pm) will be there as well speaking at the EOS Interactive booth and both of them will have separate topics as well.

Admission is absolutely free and there are limited seats only. Do join us for our talks and stay back after that and have a chat, catch up and have a nice cup of coffee (I hope there are free coffees there :P).

I had been to last year's DCIM show and it was quite interesting and the size of the event completely blew my mind away. Mainly because I didn't expect so many booths about and the prices of some of the camera accessories there were quite cheap. I hope to be able to get some bargains there this weekend.

This time based on the floor plan, it looks to be bigger than last years event!

Catch you all there this weekend!

 

I have been trying to get as much rest as I can most weekends but after yesterday's shoot, I was completely worned out. Grace suggested I try using a more comfortable pair of shoes to shoot a wedding, preferably something which has a thick sole. If it were up to me, I would shoot with my pair of crocs all the time because I love how thick it is.

Anyway, after church this morning, I decided to eat lunch together with munz at Sanbanto. I got this idea after Jon went there for dinner yesterday and checked-in there via Foursquare. So being the usual curious person and when there is the word "pork" in the title of the name, I headed over there to have a go at their fare. First impressions was that the restaurant really did look more of a deli than a restaurant. About slightly more than half of the place is filled up with the kitchen, sales counter and the large freezer.

Sanbanto Premium Pork is located on the same row as KTZ in SS2, facing "Wai Sek Kai".

Sadly there wasn't any place available but the owner (I think she is the owner), helped us by opening up a new table closer to the door. Feeling extremely hungry we decided to take it and after a while when another group left the restaurant, we moved over to a proper table. Both of us decided to try out the Sanbanto Bacon n Cheese burger and ordered ourselves iced cappuccino.



While waiting for our food, munz was playing her new golden half camera with a flash. Actually I think I took more photos with it and I can't wait to develop the film to see the results.By the time I finished convincing her and after 4 frames from the camera, our food arrived.



The burger was rather good, not great but definitely good. Maybe its because I always had this feeling that a good cheese burger should always be beef and not pork but the bacon was good. How it can be even better is that if they made it with crispy bacon instead of the softer pan fried type. The crunchiness would definitely be a good option mixed with a large helping of mushrooms.



The burger came with a nice side salad which was well seasoned and not the usual junk that other places serves. I completely gobbled that down.



The ice cappuccino was "so-so" and I was annoyed that it didn't come served with a spoon to stir it especially when there is a large layer of sugar at the bottom. Anyway the price of the burger and drinks were not too bad and I would definitely return back to the restaurant to try out their other pork food such as the pork belly salad, yumz!

By the way, I took these photos using my iPhone, totally love the effect.

Have a great remaining weekend and do spend time with your mums today!

• I'm at My Home. http://4sq.com/aavq41 #


• I just became the mayor of SS22/34 on @foursquare! http://4sq.com/bQbZA4 #


• I'm at SS22/34 (SS22/34, Damansara Jaya). http://4sq.com/bQbZA4 #


• I'm at Starbucks Coffee (Borders, The Curve, G116, 6 Jalan PJU 7/3, 6 Jalan PJU 7/3, Mutiara Damansara, Petaling Jaya) #


• I'm at Starbucks Coffee (Centrepoint Bandar Utama, G109 & G110, Lebuh Bandar Utama, Petaling Jaya). http://4sq.com/6n23FS #


• Congratulations! Me n @munz r so happy for u :) RT @andychin: We are engaged!! ;) @shar0nt #


• @hafizismail especially at the prices they charge right? Rats running all around but we still like the food :P in reply to hafizismail #


• Super stuffed from having dinner with @munz n friends. Dinner at Pantai Seafood was quite nice, good selection folks #fb #


• Please don't say my name http://pleasedontsaymyname.org/overview.html #


• @munz like that also can hehehe in reply to munz #


• @dinghyd nopes, here in Cyberjaya. What's up? in reply to dinghyd #


• @CincauHangus use the 20sen coin test :) in reply to CincauHangus #


• @annarina Wah so nice, I also want to drink and eat there :P But sick now with the flu in reply to annarina #


• @CincauHangus If u can see the words at the ring of the coin, then its time to change :) in reply to CincauHangus #


• Hate this flu, praying that it will go away b4 this Saturday's shoot #fb #


• @TheBackpackr Ouch thats painful. I hope nothing important was lost in reply to TheBackpackr #


• @WarrenTan Woah didn't know u play bgames as well, my fav r Settlers, Power Grid, TTR, Acquire as well. Memoir 44 is only 2 players :P in reply to WarrenTan #


• Wow just amazing! RT @benlimphoto: i just found this amazing vid on the ipad again http://bit.ly/985X50 #


• @hueyyoong What happened? Something so serious happened? in reply to hueyyoong #


• Ahhhh videos are taking so long. Wished I had Unifi 20mbps at my house now #fb #


• @jonlow Are you at Starbucks Centerpoint? in reply to jonlow #


• @jonlow playing with the ipad so close to my house!!! :P I also want to play in reply to jonlow #


• @ShaolinTiger usually the one who is more female will be the star, that was the case when I shot the wedding ;) in reply to ShaolinTiger #


• I Like 21 as well :P RT @annarina: LOL! Signs you're a real photographer ;p http://bit.ly/2PY9G8 LOVE number 18 :D #


• Just sent my camera in to have it checked for focusing issues n get it calibrated with the lens. Hope I get it back b4 Saturday #


• @qippy @visithra I totall agree, the mosque looks beautiful and the kid's face n expression was priceless! :) #


• RT @peterMtan: if anyone says "You're expensive", take it as a compliment ;) Just sayin' #


• Isnt that in October? 101010 :P RT @glennguan: T minus 24hours... May 6th - Bigger, better, faster! Ten ten ten.... :D #


• Just bought this new drink at the shop downstairs. So cool! Kacang merah soya bean http://twitpic.com/1l5qlf #


• Ok, the red bean flavoured soya drink is that fantastic. A little too sweet for my own taste #


• How is the KL traffic near KLCC? I am about to head towards KLCC soon from Cyberjaya #


• RT @eyerizzz: Er. Patrick Dempsey in Transformers 3? Plus John Malkovich and Francse McDormand? What's Michael Bay up2? http://bit.ly/dAKbyg #


• @dannyfoo I work a 9x5 job on my off days :P @wikilee @Shootdiva @jennysunphoto @starwing in reply to dannyfoo #


• Tired frm carrying the big rock on ur finger :P RT @shar0nT: suddenly overwhelm with tiredness! off to bed....zzzzZZzz.. #


• Did you all know that World Refugee Day in 2010 is on the 20th of June? Mark it down :) http://bit.ly/bH6HUM #fb #


• 40 questions I ask myself before hitting the shutter release button! http://bit.ly/atpqnC #


• Tempted to eat supper now :( RT @potatoe: http://twitpic.com/1la7jc - why limit your imagination? ha ha #


• Bobby and Rennie: A quick shoot http://su.pr/2lwdRe #


• Totally agree with that! RT @warbaby: Ohh this is a cool shot! #aidsaware http://bit.ly/cVOO5N #fb #


• @jontjin Yo, welcome onboard with Twitter! :P #


• @nikicheong Get a MacBook Pro n d iPad like what @ShaolinTiger said hehe. Get the kit which turns ur iPad into a netbook http://is.gd/bX5e1 in reply to nikicheong #


• @mikefoong Are u gonna cut up your sim card for d iPad like this? http://bit.ly/9Uzj5p #


• Woah check this out! http://www.thedriver.tv/ #


• @benlimphoto Ben, I found out by reading their website n applied via their online tool. All done via site @goldfries @CanonCameraMsia in reply to benlimphoto #


• @goldfries @benlimphoto Btw I am alrdy a CPS member, just no card yet @CanonCameraMsia in reply to goldfries #


• Wah, same here! RT @nicklwc: Ip Man 2 tonight! :D #


• @nicklwc Yeah 8.40pm show tonight! in reply to nicklwc #


• @goldfries @benlimphoto Er Ben, I think I am in the same situation as u. My fix was a simple fix, calibration only @CanonCameraMsia #


• 27" iMac? woah large! RT @nikicheong: OMG. http://twitpic.com/1lqcwh #


• 30 more minutes before the last teleconference of the day, woohoo! #


• @ShaolinTiger Its dinner time already :) in reply to ShaolinTiger #


• @serpentinegal @davidclicks We can all go to Jalan Alor n eat the frog porridge there. Absolutely delicious! in reply to serpentinegal #


• @davidclicks @serpentinegal we will stuff the frog leg into your mouth :P in reply to davidclicks #


• Hrm, singapore getting the iPad in July. I wonder when Malaysia will get it..... #


• Wahhhh d shake looked delicious! I want a peanut butter shake RT @hueyyoong: Are u still hungry now? :P @yoononn http://twitpic.com/1lrt0f #


• I just finished packing :) RT @StoriesMY: Packing for our shoot tomorrow. Have to drive from PJ-Balakong-Klang-PJ! What a distance! #


• @eeyern iPad landing officially in SG in July. R u gonna line up for it? :P #


• @eeyern jealous!!!! Hahhaha probably have to wait till September for malaysia's one :P in reply to eeyern #


• @hueyyoong @seteoh @yoononn well all that is making hungry now. Tempted 2 grab a sundae at McD's #


• Woohoo beautiful machine! RT @nikicheong: Woot! Twittering from my brand new iMac 27". :D #


• @kennethtanphoto Wah flying again, where to now tailo? in reply to kennethtanphoto #


• @benlimphoto Hope you had a good shoot today :) in reply to benlimphoto #


• @fks123 So fast? Brought in frm US or its launched there? Lowyat also got a lot :P in reply to fks123 #

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I have to personally thank Nick for asking me to tag along with him during his portrait shoot with Bobby and Rennie. Nick was one of the participants of the recently held got Mojo? Camp organized by the crazy folks over at RedNinja (me included!) and I thought I could help him out and also offer to carry the reflector for him. He was also in the group that I was leading during the individual and group challenges.

The shoot was held at Pavillion, right at the heart of KL itself but it was early in the morning. Traffic heading there was pretty smooth and I was pleasantly surprised that the guards didn't chase us away.

Here are some of the photos I took including some of the behind the scenes shots.





I managed to catch this moment when they were playing whilst Nick was packing up his stuff.







After staying under the hot sun and making everyone walk about from end to end, we all decided to head to Starbucks for a quick drink.











Bobby seems a little intrigued with Nick's flash. Nick told him that he was a flasher!



Here are some of the behind the scenes photos.



I find Bobby's expression priceless when Nick was trying to explain the pose.



Nick was really trying hard to blend in together with the taxi stand.







I was literally behind the scene for this shot. Funnily, the couple in front wasn't Bobby and Rennie, they were just coming out of the toilet! Imagine their surprise when they saw Nick and Hsien Ming right in front of them like that. LOL.





Actually, this was the start of my labour day last Saturday. It's Thursday everyone, have a great weekend ahead!