Tried some panning shots that day.. didn't quite get the ones i wanted but i think this one isn't too bad. Skaters@St. Mary's Cathedral.. (Ilford HP5 ISO400 with a linear polarizer filter)


The Woolworth intersection in downtown Sydney has got people crossing straight across the road and diagonally, as well. I took this during rush hour after work and it was such a busy area with so many ppl walking up and down. and yet, as i set the tripod to shoot, this sea of people parted instinctively around me. Felt like Moses really. It's amazing what you can do with a camera :) (Ilford HP5 ISO400 with a linear polarizer filter)


There seem to be a few things wrong with this shot.. but i don't know why i still like it so much. Maybe it's because it's in black & white or maybe it's because of the slight vignette but somehow, this shot looks like an old photo.. i like that :) (Ilford HP5 ISO400 with a linear polarizer filter)

McDonald's cheese burgers have got to be the saddest burgers in the world..
I'm looking at one now and i can't bring myself to photograph it to show you how sad it looks cos that would look too sad.

Even after i chuck on some extra ketchup and cheese.. it's still a small, sad little reminder of how absolutely daft it is to pay money for this sad sorry little burger... at least i had a coupon :D

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Nuff bout my burger woes. I've recently started shooting film again for my black & white photography classes. Did a roll of Ilford XP2 and recently shot some Ilford HP5 ISO400.. It was the single most frustrating thing ever to move back to film after shooting digital. I didn't realise how reliant I'd been on the fact that i can switch ISO between shots, adjust saturation & contrast settings digitally, PREVIEW, get all your exif data stored immediately (manually logging your aperture, shutter speed, etc. for every shot is very VERY annoying) and have control of your white balance. You suddenly realise that every shot you take is precious, you've got to be more creative to figure out ways of getting the results you want, and you need a load of filters (or some nifty sunglasses or coloured glass to use as fake filters).

Shooting my first roll of Ilford HP5 was such a depressing experience that i was quite reluctant to go develop it myself the next day (tho i'd been looking forward to working in the darkroom for ages). Surprisingly tho, it wasn't as bad as i thought it would be. sure i had only about 8 - 10 usable shots from the 36 exposure roll but when i considered the fact that i usually only get a few good shots out of a digital CF card of 300++ shots, i felt much better. It was also kinda fun to wait and wait and wait to find out how your film turned out. Just the experience of handling your own film from shooting to developing to printing your own photos is really quite cool :D Besides, the grain you get is so lovely it's enough to make bad photos look better (sometimes - p/s: Please click on the photos above to open them in full-view in another window.. seriously, full-view it and check out the nice grainy dotty bits that the film gives, worth a look to compare it with the smoothness of the skater photo "Take|Off" that i shot on digital in my previous post :D ).

Shooting film sort of make me think twice about what i'm shooting, how i'm shooting it and whether or not i really want to shoot it. It's good in a way, you have only that many frames and you try to make all of them count for something..

Labels: Australia, black and white, film, Ilford, photography, skateboarders, street photography, Sydney, urban life

Take Off..
to launch into flight or to run away..

It's interesting how those words can have such conflicting meanings. One moving forward, the other, moving back. Almost every situation in my life has, at some point, required me to face the question of take off - which way to go? Which brings one to the next question of - what next? In 'suspended animation' (my new favourite phrase) after take off, we're often left wondering what comes next. Do we land on both feet or crash and burn? Does this skateboarder nail the landing or wipe out? I suppose that doesn't really matter.. as long as he attempted it anyway..

Taken outside St. Mary's Cathedral, Sydney.

Labels: Australia, black and white, photography, skateboarders, urban life

There's something quite magical about being on a boat.
Something quite adventurous and exciting :)

Taken on a ferry ride from Manly beach to Circular Quay. All of us out on the deck got suitably soaked about 5 minutes after i took this shot. Thankfully my camera was safely in the bag by then! *phew* Before i took this shot, i was drawn to the lovely way the blue blue sky matched up with the blue tops the two were wearing. When i looked through the viewfinder however, i knew it was going to be in black and white..

Been a long day today (and i don't necessarily mean that in a bad way.. went to church saw, had Vietnamese beef noodles (yum!), went to see an amazingly random photography exhibition (you have no idea... O_o"), had a listen to some good music, had a lazy walk along the cliffs at Maroubra Beach, went to uni for a group meeting and stayed there till 10pm... and it's only week two!

This is going to be some semester..

Labels: Australia, black and white, emo, photography, Sydney

My first view of Australia from the sky..

Australia is really big..
really really really big.

And yet, in all it's vastness, it is still incredibly detailed. There seems to be so much to see, so much to do, so much to learn that sometimes it gets a tad bit overwhelming.

I never realised how different things could be after crossing a wee bit of sea to come over here. Took it for granted that since we speak the same language, the people, culture, place and just lifestyle in general would not be that different after all. But things turned out strangely foreign - not foreign in an obvious 'i'm in a different place' sort of way, just in a way that feels as if the same situation has a whole different translation over here than at home. The feeling of not knowing what to expect, what is expected of me and what i should expect is pretty nauseating.

Along with the inflating sense of adventure and curiosity that comes with being in a new environment, i'm also discovering a new sensation - that of realising that i am in fact, very very small. *bleep*

Labels: arrival, earth, emo, photography, self-reflection, sky, Sydney

After a very long blog hiatus, i am back...
as usual, i'm using "blogging" as an excuse to procrastinate doing my work.

Classes just started last week and my head is still reeling from the information overload *eeps*

Over the past few week i've tried to blog so many times but somehow stuff kept coming up (read: i was really lazy..) so instead of actually typing stuffs and blogging, i wrote blog posts in my head.. *sads*

Anyways quick updates:
Grace got a new room, she loves the beach, she's eaten too much BBQ, Sydney harbour lights are very pretty at night, she loves being near big bodies of water, she also likes the blue blue skies, she went to Hillsongs church, rolled on the uni lawn, walked barefoot on the pavement, has a funky artist-architect-philosopher lecturer who always says "far out.." and met some really nice people... oh, and last night she went to see Mardi Gras 2007 *woot*..

Speaking of Mardi Gras... i did the stupidest thing ever *sighs* took my battery out to charge before the parade cause it was flat. I KNEW i was going to forget to put it back so i left a ton load of post-it note reminders all over my room saying "BRING CAMERA BATTERY!!!!". I even repeated that mantra to myself over and over again *sighs* but guess what.. i still forgot to bring it *slaps own forehead*

Thankfully another guy let me shoot a bit with his Sony Alpha but i couldn't figure out how to work the functions *grrrrrr* it took so friggin long to focus that by the time the camera decided to actually release the shot, what i wanted to shoot was gone (i hate it!!! - sorry smashpOp & Albert ;) i know you guys use that one). Oh well.. till i get the piccies from him, you'll have to settle for some short vids i shot with my new Sony Ericsson K610i mobile phone.. (my new gadget toy).

Twas the craziest introduction to Sydney you could get. Sometimes funny, sometimes painful, sometimes political, always outrageous - it was something of a traveling fun fair meets an over-sized lantern festival in a disco.. only very gay and very in your face. Will prob write more on it when i actually got pics to show you :)

These two vids i shot were of a marching (more like dancing) group called "Kylie's Impossible Princesses"... Imagine 3 trucks blasting every campy Kylie Minogue hit ever and tons of half naked (sometimes more than half..) people rocking it out to her hits.. i call them the KYLIE KLAN.. hehe i liked the pink "K" signs too.. they had glitter *whee* enjoy..

Labels: Australia, Mardi Gras 2007, video, Weird stuff