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My Wedding 21st March 2009

The Gown

Cameron Highlands

Steamboat


Cafe


Tea Hills


Cloud forest


Raju's strawberries


Butterfly park


Wild orchid


Rafflesia


Lakehouse


Inside the Lakehouse

Hong Kong

Sunset over Hong Kong
No touch up. Just timing and framing to catch this boat, the Luna Aqua, passing by the Avenue of Stars on Kowloon.



Star Ferry
The famous old ferries that ply between Kowloon and Hong Kong island.


Link to large

The view from Victoria Peak at night
Learning points: A panorama of 2 shots, I used a bean bag to keep the camera steady on a binocular post meant for tourists on top of The Peak's viewing gallery. Made sure to use only ISO100 for noise, the live view to ensure focus, and to review to ensure sharpness.



O'Brien St

The distinctive taxis of HK, which were ubiquitous. Taken from a 2nd story pedestrian walkway, the 'bean bag' I mentioned earlier is actually rice in a ziplock bag which I brought from home - a useful tip I read. Worked like a charm and I didn't need a tripod at all.

Brother's Commissioning

On December 13th 2008. my brother was commissioned as an officer of the Singapore Armed Forces. I was there with my parents to catch the ceremony. I'm pretty proud of the shot from a timing and post-production angle. He was at the corner of his formation, so I knew there was an opportunity for a good shot in the march-past. As the earlier contingents marched past, I searched through my lens for a good angle and moment, and found that when they came nearer to my side of the stadium, they did two 90-degree turns, and decided that this was the shot I wanted. I took a few test shots to test the settings, and pictured the shot in my mind. I would only have one chance to catch the moment, and when it came, I snatched it. First time I felt like a proper photographer.

Although I got the moment, the photo was not quite as good. My brother appeared lost amongst all his platoon mates. At post-production, I did slight cropping, and used a mask in photoshop to create a depth map. Using lens blur, I simulated a greater DOF than the f5.6 I had. The slight change in crop and increased DOF provided a better point-of-focus, and I had the shot I wanted.



For this shot, taken at the parade square with hundreds of people running around, I knelt down to take a low-angle shot of him against the Tower, isolating him from the crowd.

Lizard on Rusty Pole

Reprocessed shot from an earlier post.

Original:

http://chris-sees.blogspot.com/2008/09/drain-on-rainy-day.html

Halloween @ ACM

These photos were taken on Halloween, at the Asian Civilisations Museum. Took me a while to post, but here they are.



I never had the guts to ask people in public to pose for my pictures, but such was the atmosphere of Halloween, with people in their costumes, that the moment I lifted up my camera, people actually started posing for the camera without me asking. First time I felt like a photographer. :)



For this shot, I asked "can I take your picture?", and totally in character, she paused in her tracks and dead-panned her zombie look to me.



A bunch of Japanese kids were running around and they were camera whores, posing for me. I got down low and caught this pretty purple witch.



As part of the festivities, a talk was conducted by Singapore Paranormal Investigators. This shot is of the crowd and it seems to capture a certain tension and atmosphere in the air.



There were many great costumes around that night, some spooky, but all-together fun.

Postscript: I shot all these shots with the 50mm, set to 1/50 at 1.8, the supposed slowest one should set for handheld shots. While some shots were blur (mostly the fast moving children), most turned out well.