Pete's Photography: May 2009

Jennifer @ Putrajaya

Jennifer, my uni mate, we used to play volleyball together. This is our 1st event after a long long time. However, this time we play photography, and she plays the role of model and driver, while I play the role of photographer. Lol. She picked me up at 4pm, and we went to Putrajaya. Putrajaya is a BIG MAZE for both of us. Luckily there's a lot of sign board.

We started off in Presint 2, a very nice areas with lots of unique buildings and lamp posts. It was quite hot at that moment, we took a few shots, hide then continue then hide and etc. We took a few snaps until sun set, then we went to Alamanda to eat our dinner. After that we went to one of the bridge, we manage to take a few snaps until the police came and chase us away for parking in yellow line. =)

It was getting late and we went home. Thanks to Jennifer for letting me photographing her and driving me all the way to Putrajaya. I hope she's not disappointed with the photos. haha.

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(thought want to try something different =D)

Manfrotto Lightstand

Today I got my very 1st light stand. Manfrotto 026 Lite Tite Swivel and Umbrella Adapter with 052B stand.

The adapter is for light weight purposes and I've yet to get any information about its capacity but it will not have any problems holding an SB900 with umbrella.

As for Manfrotto 052B, maximum height of 2.5 meters, can support max weight of 5kg. It can support as much weight as my tripod, however it is so light! Putting up a flash with umbrella at 2.5meters height during windy day without sandbags is not recommended.

Finally our next contender, weighting 215g, 512kcal, 50.5g carbohidrates, 26.3g protein, 23.9g fats and 2.7g salts.. the O' Mighty Big MAC! :D

I made a home delivery by calling a very easy to memorized number 1-300-13-1300! And I decided to shoot it while testing out my light stand.

The Curve, Fashion Week

Fashion week, organized by The Curve, Mutiara Damansara on 14th to 17th May 2009.

I saw this notice from local photography forum, www.photokaki.com on Friday 15th May. What caught my attention was Malaysian Dream Girl, Grand Finale at 7pm on 15th May. I immediately look at my desktop's clock and amazingly it was 7pm too! It looks like I'll missed a great event because by the time I reached The Curve it will 9pm. So, I decided to go on Saturday just for the fashion show, but I got lazy and ended up in Starbucks next to my apartment drinking Mocha while online.

Then, I planned again to go on Sunday, invited my friend to join me along. I was suppose to go there at 2pm to shoot fashion show, while my friend will meet me there about 3++pm, but I ended up reacing The Curve at 3.30pm, after I woke up at 1pm. When I reached there, I saw a lot of photographers taking photos, some standing on their own ladders, some sitting infront of the runway, and some even standing just at the edge of the runway, like transparant (hokkien says "jiak po leh tua") shooting up with their various mobile camera like trying to captured "something". Then, an Indian photographer standing next to me shouted "Oi, Lu orang tengok perempuan ka???" (I'm guessing he meant "Oi, you people trying to PEEP ka???) Finally he got the security guard to back them off - for a while.

I've got a few shots that I like a lot, but then I decided to delete it after seeing few heads blocking the view. Which is a dissapointment. I managed to shoot 1.5 sessions, 3.30-4pm, then 5-6pm. Most of the shots was taken at ISO800 without flash, spot metering, aperture priority and continuous auto focusing.

Between the break, Lepiak and I went to Pho Hoa Noodle Soup, eating its tasty beef stew with Vietnamese Drip Coffee with Milk and Ice. Its a wonderful meal.

By the way I noticed All IT Hypermarket, in Ikano Power Centre (known as Ikea) sells the cheapest Sandisk memory card, even cheaper than Lowyatt Plaza. Sandisk Extreme IV, 4gb CF card, 300x /45mbps (read/write) costing RM199, while cheapest rate in Lowyatt was RM260.

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More fashion photos, visit: The Curve Fashion

MC.Net @ KL

Mc.net, expanding, growing, spreading till KL! I believe that it is the 1st ever KL photo session and gathering for Mc.net members and it is 100% Mirians gathering! Wow... all Mirians. Those attended were Shutter Hero & the gang, Pei & the gang and Me & gang (This HUGE gathering can legally occupy 75% of A taxi) :)

This is the 1st time I met up with them and we gathered near Pasar Seni LRT station @ 1100hrs, before heading towards Central Market(I thought Central Market was a fish market... but its NOT! It aircond and selling lots of art stuffs) for lunch. We had a lot of chit chats during lunchtime at Old Town Kopitiam, and Shutterhero lives up to his nick. He's a film user, taught me a lot about film that I never know.. which I think I still have lots of things to learn from him. We've been talking about cameras and photography (hope Pei isnt bored with us.. haha.) and he showed me a different perspective of shooting a photograph which all this while I never tried coz I thought it is bored and obviously Shutterhero changed my view on that. Shutterhero likes to shoot symmectrical portraits with symmectrical background. He did a very good jobs in making the photography interesting.

After lunch Shutterhero brought us to checkout KL 2009 Portraiture Photo Awards exhibition. Its a great exhibition, where a lot of photos really amazed me, I've even seen one of photos that got into the exhibition that was shot by polariod and this proves 1 thing - you dont need great cameras to shoot great photos.

After visiting the exhibition, we walked to Station Kuala Lumpur, one of the heritage buildings. It was very hot and humid day, and we decided to have another cup of tea before shooting.

We started shooting at the centre platform between two railways. To me, Pei is very comfortable with us.. and I must add this comment - Pei is TALL! haha... (nearly forgotten to add tat comment). After that we went outside the buildings, took a few snaps and it started raining, and, we headed back for another cup of tea. Before that, I manage to get 2 shots from the subway passage crossing railways and streets doing wireless shooting and I've another I.V.C.H.F.S.

We then continuing with KTM office and mosque areas. We ended up around 6pm. We are all exhausted especially Pei, to walk such a long distance with high heels isn't pleasant. Thanks to her, I'm able to meet up with ShutterHero and practicing photography.

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Photo Marathon Finale

Sunday- our 3rd and final shooting marathon day. Everyday, from Friday, we set out in the morning.. shoot shoot shoot till late evening. I then do post processing till 2am - 3am, took some sleep and continuing my endurance test the following day. My body was tired, my arms was sore, I even felt the pain in my hand which I believe is what they called repetitive strain injury.

We were exhausted, and I managed to pass some of my former flu virus to a friend. He's in a worst condition than I am. At the edge of giving up our Sunday's shooting, something stroke us and motivates us. A friend sent me his motocross panning shots and posted in his blog. I too wanted that kind of photos in my collection. So, the next morning, I rang my marathon friend and we went for the motocross challenge. We reached there a bit late, at about 11am, and we only manage to shoot a few laps of motocross racing. Then, we met up with mysterious Pantene gal, who as usual, pro for avoiding shots.

Anyway, after the motocross shooting, we went to Imperial Mall for a lunch with another photographer friend, and we waited for our next fashion photoshoot. The fashion show ended at 3pm, and we loiter in Imperial Hotel's Coffee House for a tea time before heading to Luak Bay for a few snaps...

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**will upload more fashion show soon

The "Picnigraphy"

It was Labour Day - the day we initiated a shooting come picnic concept. The concept was simple. We went out early, shoot, break, shoot, break ... and so on. So, we picked somewhere not too far and not too closed to our city. We started driving at 11++am, packed ourselves with foods and drinks, and proceed with our journey.

We planned to go to two places, the beach and the cliff. We started scouting the cliff, took some snaps and we moved on to the beach. However the beach was not as what we have expected. It was very windy, very cloudy, and high tide. I don't know about others, but I was having problems trying to get satisfied shots of Carol at that time.

At about 4++pm we went to the cliff, explore some of the places, and tried to go to the beach below the cliff. Unfortunately, the was high tide and our access was restricted. So, we walked back to the cliff and decided to shoot at the edge of it. To our surprise we bump into Terrick who happens to be our one of a kind intelligent voice command human flash stand that holds 2 flashes at a time. (haha. Thanks Terrick!!!)

The cliff is high, the wind was strong and having Carol to stand at the edge and pose was very dangerous. Although she was engulfed by fear, but she still braced herself for the sake of having good photography.

After that, we happily headed back to the city around 6.45pm, knowing that we've accomplished our top priority mission - to have fun.

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