This week has definitely been one of the busiest weeks for me! Shoot, study and work. Work, shoot and study. Study, work and shoot. And to think that I am not even in a photography business yet. I am probably overworked right now, and a little burned out but I guess I will be fine. I have work in about two hours time, but I figured it should not be that bad since there will be three of us working for the PM shift today instead of the usual two. And somehow after donating blood yesterday, ironically, I felt more pumped up than ever! I think I got injected with steroids. Now I cannot wait for work. Darn!

(Wan Ting really has lots of comical expressions up her sleeves!!)

I cannot believe that MSTs are coming so soon! Time is really speeding up and before I know it, it will be the end of 2009! For real?!

Oh, and it was our 11th monthsary yesterday officially. Unofficially, God knows how many years it has been! Hahaha! Both Mrs Marvo and I cannot wait for next year because it will finally be our first real anniversary! How cool. Too cool!

;)

(Girls and their poses. They are definitely more fun to be with, seriously.)

Speaking of poses, the SPMP photoshoot had been one heck of a fun get-together I would say. Being with the models, both guys and gals, was really beneficial actually. Some of them had problems finding the correct poses, and it was during these moments when we discovered Marcus’ newfound talent of doing female poses!!

Like for real!

So without Marcus, it was hard. And different. So much, that when Jamie Victoria Guna had trouble, I had to do a ‘Marcus’ and helped her out. And she said I looked gay! Oh that sucked, please. But I could not have helped without acting gay for you, right Jamie?

;)

(I dare say, this was the best camwhore photo Junice had ever captured. Love the focus on her, and the people in the background!)

It had been raining every day now. Good for the reservoirs right? I shall try not to complain now, and it is definitely better than having a drought.

Well then, I will see you all when I see you all again. Ciao!

Before I begin, I would like to thank Photocritic whose tweet on my ‘PARADE’ photo gave me such a huge boost in both my confidence and view rate on my Flickr account. He is so well-known, he is that influential really! Love him! x)

(Parammmmmzzzzzz :P)

Have I mentioned anything about the Escapade 2009 held at Singapore Polytechnic last Saturday? It was a huge success seriously, though I had to work hard after being assigned by the Media Team to contribute photos from the different segments for their official website Escapade 2009.

It was a challenge really especially since I had nothing much with me except my kit lens and my trusty nifty-fifty. But like always, the latter had always been a saviour during low-light situations. Coupled with the external flash, it worked like magic seriously. Of course, there were moments when I did not include the flash and the photos were much, much better.

Like this shot of Param, definitely.

;)

I just had to help out with Jing Song and Param for the second shift because I could not bear to miss out on the night segments, especially their midnight gig. Great bands with great music, of course it was fun! My heart was busily pounding through my chest though as I leaned so close to the stage, I was sure there were sub-woofers placed just beneath the platform.

Oh yea, they had great models too!

Working from four all the way to eight the next morning was surely tiring but worth it nonetheless. You can see more great shots and even videos on their website so do visit their page!

(Susie Caldwell. She totally has one hand on the SP Most Photogenic trophy already. If you have not heard of the fantasy girl, this is her!)

And I cannot wait to shoot for the SP Most Photogenic roadshow and finals show. Totally have to grab a ticket soon!

<3

I swear this had been the longest time my blog was left abandoned ever since I posted photos of Yin San and my Lubitel which is still in good health but currently on a long hiatus together with my other film cameras, including Denise’s F75. But why so? Ever since school started, work after school hours has consigned me to stay awake during unearthly hours just so that I could finish up on my school work or my daily photo project and that left me pretty dead & unmotivated to update this site here.

You see, I always thought it to be great if I could post a not-that-short entry full of my photos perhaps every two or three days, but even if I had the spare time, I would always end up procrastinating thinking that I should wait a while more so that I could include more content to them. Of course, I never had enough content to include and the lack of spare time totally made it close to impossible.

It has been some time since I last dropped by my friend’s sites too! Gosh, I am so sorry.

:(

(Ready, Get Set…)

A few days ago there was this Waves 14 concert in SP organised by the SDZ team and we were lucky because Ika invited us over but we had to pay for the tickets of course! Benjamin got totally excited by the way because we were sitting at the front row so he could greedily feast his eyes on the unsuspecting female performers. For me though, it was a different story.

Flash photography was not allowed so I had to depend on my fast lens, the 50mm F1.8, as my 18-55mm was close to being useless in this low-light environment, and the quick movements would totally condemn me with a memory card-full of blurred shots. So thank goodness I had this nifty fifty. Without it, I would never have gotten a single decent shot of the dancers on stage!

Sitting right at the front row definitely helped.

(You can lift women instead of weights for your workouts, but just do not give them that constipated, ‘you-are-heavy-OMG’ look!)

And I never knew my Optometry mate, Juanne, was in dance. And Juanne is a pretty nice name too. Juanne eyh? I am pretty certain though there are not as many Juannes out there as compared to all the more common Joannes, so she should be flattered. Like totally. Oh, and I love my name yes yes!!

:)

(My lens is a beau, and so are the both of you. Yeah yeah, whatever! :D)

You know it feels so good to finally write something this time. This entry itself should last long enough for another two or three more days. Then I will create another one, hopefully with more photos of higher quality. Because I love photos and photos will make my time here more worthy. Uh huh.

It will be such a busy week for me. Friday there will be another appointment with the SP Optometry Centre, and on Saturday morning I will have to head down to Republic Poly for the Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon Volunteers’ Briefing before heading back to SP for SP Escapade, an event organised for graduating secondary school students. The event will last until the next morning so I hope I am able to last long enough for work later the same day.

Crap.

And I still need to study! MST is approaching faster than a speeding Usain Bolt!

Oh man, let me finish off Wan Fen’s tutorial for now. I hope I do not fall asleep later.

:(

I do not know what took me so long to post this entry up, since the draft was already created almost four days ago. Actually, there are a couple more things still left outstanding but they seemed destined to be unaccomplished and left for dead.

About iforgothowmanydaysago, San came over to my place for her green packet. She just wanted that and that only. So I made her stay on longer of course because I love hanging around with her so much! She pleaded with me to just let her go because she could not bear to be with me as she feared I would be too much of a temptation for her — she said I looked delicious.

LOL KIDDING!

Hahahaha!

But I really do love hanging around with her — she wrestles, and has the potential to break my strong fingers into pitiful pieces. She is like a guy’s worst nightmare. Like totally.

(Meet my babe, Lubi..)

That is my new-found beauty, Lubitel aka Lubi aka sexybeast. A Russian guy sold it to me through eBay and this metal chick looked so cosmetically-pristine despite its age! She runs on 120mm film but recently I modded her to accept 135mm since I had no 120mm with me but only a Provia 100 which was originally intended for Denise’s F75. Now speaking of Denise, that girl better be glad now that no more fungus is on her lens and her F75 is seriously spanking clean now. She should totally consider leaving this hottie with me for ever and ever and ever and ever and ever.

And ever and ever.

Like seriously.

Really, no kidding.

Anyway, I did a test roll on the Lubi and sent it to Uncle Mike of Triple D to have it cross-processed with sprocket holes! Oh boy, I really hope the photos will turn out fine when I collect it later on! Ohmygodohmygodohmygod, they better be!! I will have to fork out like twelve freaking dollars even if they do not turn out to be like how I wished. And that is so ohmycrap expensive!

Punch.

(The real San..)

I think I will look like Evil San if my Lubi photos turn out to be craptastic, or fantastically crap, or fantacrap, when I collect it from the lab after school. Have I mentioned anywhere that I will still be working part-time with Watsons even when school starts? So this trip to Burlington Squre better be worth it or I will be crying my snot out regretting not buying this month’s train fare concession.

(Oh my gosh, her French Toasts totally rocks!! With the kaya, it was swwwweeeeeett!)

Ever since we first hung out at Raffles City’s Ya Kun Kaya Toast, San and I had totally fell head over heels over their simple but irresistably-yummylicious toasts! Remember my forty-third P365 entry titled ‘BLEED‘? It was taken there just before I gobbled down on those super huge eggs. Actually, I am not so sure what eggs were used but they were amazingly huge, like twins!

San had them and it will be good if she has twins in the future but she mentioned to me that she does not want to be married so now I have no idea where her twins will come from. Hmm..

That ‘TWO THUMBS UP’ shots of San was taken at The Cathay after she spared some of her precious time modelling for me at my place.

And my Lubi is looking so photogenic in it! Awww!

Hugs.

Oh, the both of us are planning to visit all the Ya Kun outlets in Singapore. BUT, I wonder how many are there in total?

Hee.

(San is now officially famous, widely-known amongst my group of international friends! Woah!)

School will start in a few hours time and I am still so wide awake. I think I could be too excited for school to officially begin. San is meeting me at Toa Payoh later on before school so I guess that is double joy for us? Oh man, I better fall to sleep soon before the sun rises!

(But my fan broke down, I have not gotten a replacement yet so now I am too restless to be comforted enough to sleep. Oh, plus the ever-so-irritating mosquitoes, my night-life is a mess right now. Pfft.)

Enjoy your new school semester my friends! <3

This one could be found just outside of my work place, but it took me days for me to finally decide to shoot this one. Saw a girl spending time here a few days back, so I guess I got to try it too.

This was one of those shots taken during my lunch break.

I also received a note from the Postal Office stating that my Russian Lubitel 166B was ready for collection. Like, FINALLY! How can my mom not have heard the mailman? Now I will have to head down to the post office to collect it. I am lazy, but definitely excited at the same time!

:)

(Colourful by billart)

And Yin San will be heading over to my house in about five hours. We are supposed to head out after she visits my mom, but I am still undecided on where to head to. All I know, today will be a fantastic photo-taking day. My Instax 200, Canon 1000D and Nikon F75 will definitely tag along! And tripod too! Hee.

Oh, Happy Seventeenth Birthday to you Justin! May your life be as sexy as Megan Fox from now on. Haa.

:P

These few days, I have been trying hard to convince my Store Manager to max out my working hours as much as possible since these two weeks would be the final few ones before school starts. And once that happens, for sure I will never earn as much as what I am earning now at least until my next semester break. So far, I can safely say I was more or less successful with my persuasions since I reduced this week’s three days of off-duty to just one.

Smart.

But, I saw my roster for this coming week and was in utter dismay as I saw myself being rewarded with two off-days on Tuesday and Wednesday! NOOOOO!!

I will only prefer a day thank you and let that day be Tuesday because something very special is going to happen at my house! Like totally!!

:D:D:D

(Before you ride your bicycle, check the front tyre!!)

And finally, Denise’s Dad’s SLR is with me now! But it uses CR2 batteries and took me quite an effort to find them before Yin San led me to Toa Payoh’s NTUC just before it closed just now. ONE CR2 battery costs SGD6, but I needed TWO so that already robbed me of my SGD12. Freak. But I guess I should just shut up since I needed it quite badly — no power, no show eyh?

Tomorrow, I shall start familiaring myself with the controls before I load it up with my Kodak Elitechrome 100 which will be cross-processed once I am done with all thirty-six exposures. On the other hand, my beautiful Holga 135BC got itself loaded with Denise’s Dad’s roll of negative Kodak Gold 200 film that had actually expired since 2004 — which was a bonus actually since I had never experimented with expired films before. And since this is unlike the positive Elitechrome slide film, no cross-processing will be done later on.

How will these photos turn out? I guess we will just have to wait and see!

(That lump of egg-white looked disturbingly like a soaked-up tissue of Yin San’s snot. HAA!)

Guess who turned up at my workplace??

LIEW YIN SAN!!

Oh my gosh I think I must have had appeared so spastic when she walked into the store with Maggie! It must be weird for her to see myself in rude shock at that moment as I greeted her with my raised eyebrows and gaping mouth. It was really a super pleasant surprise!

How can a super busy girl plan to meet a mega busy boy? Incredible!!

There were not many customers at that time so we managed to snatch a small chat across the counter before she left briefly to send off her departing friend, Naomi. My work ended not long after she arrived so we figured we could do a little meet-up after work — we were fortunate I worked mid-shift! :D

Where did we head to then? YA KUN KAYA TOAST at Raffles City!

(Actually, it had been quite a while since we took a photo together! xD)

To be frank, it was actually my first time eating at YKKT. There, both Yin San and I found out how the name Ya Kun originated from its founder, Ah Koon, translated in Hanyu Pinyin. Interesting eyh?

We had Kaya Toasts, and I thought one of my two half-boiled eggs was a twin since the size of its yolk was actually double than normal. It must be very special so we gobbled it up — Yin San did that through her nose though. HAHAHA!

We went back shortly after before she brought me to NTUC to get those elusive CR2 batteries just before the supermarket closed. Expensive, so it better be worth it uh huh!

I loved it how we did lots of catching up during the ride home. It was so nice to see her again after such a long, long time!

And not to forget,

TEASING HER WAS THE BEST THING I COULD EVER DO TO HER!

:P

Since a week ago, our store had this new Maybelline promoter who would be attached to us until next week for their own product promotion. Her name is Joanne, and I envy her because she is permitted to carry her handphone out to the sales floor even while on duty. What is this? Unjust treatment! Biased! JOANNE! >:(

My colleagues love utilising her when she is free and has no customer to attend to. Now that is wonderful as it will prevent her from sleeping behind those cosmetics shelves when the store gets a bit too quiet. This will also help regulate her blood circulation as standing in that corner without doing anything much can get a bit too tiring and boring for her. We all care for our colleagues do we not?

:P

(Stupid flash. Auto Flash on the Instax 200 is irritating! Bah!)

I love bullying her, but she loves retaliating back . She is irritating but fun to play and be with nonetheless. Unfortunately though, she can only be with us until the eighteenth when the new school semester starts. While I will still work after-school hours, Joanne opts not to work. So this means that next Sunday will be the last day for us to tease her.

Sad, sad day is it not?

For now, let us irritate her often!

:D

PS. My post was meant to sound retarded. LOL.

Today was actually the first time I managed to bring my camera along for lunch and it was well worth it. Of course, the decision was met with lots of raised eyebrows from my colleagues, but I reassured them that I was in no way affiliated to any terrorist organisation, nor had I any intention of doing recce for them — this was instead made in the name of love for photography, even more than how these extremists claim love for their religion.

Like this chrysanthemum, there were lots of fantastic opportunites that laid scattered all over the airport and just dying for the shot of love from your camera. This flower was found hidden behind a gallery, so it was not really that obvious to the passing eyes unless they were photographic.

What I liked about this photo, was the fact that a simple spotlight aimed from the bottom of the chrysanthemum could create such a fiery, magnificent faux-burning effect that I would never have thought I could achieve just by mere observing. That moment was magic hard to notice initially, but only made obvious once you compose through the viewfinder and hit the shutter release.

Seriously, it felt good to have captured a simple object that was actually a wonder by itself.

Oh, it was called love!

:)

(Always the fourth one missing. Guess who!)

And guess who turned a year older?

THE GIRL WHO TOTALLY HATES CATS!

I requested an AM shift for this day, only because she is part of the FEOPLE. So this meant that, it was just as important as my own birthday. But sadly, Yin San could not make it — cannot wrong her though, not everyone was free even if others wanted her to be there.

It was nice to have celebrated Joon’s birthday at Marina Barrage since not many went there before and it was night time, so the scenery there was indeed spectacular. But not without problems though..

(Joon, your Korean boyfriend. Take it! Haa.)

Evon and I really had problems lighting up the candles, initially because we had no lighter and the crazy winds made it near impossible later on. And the drizzle, Evon had to shelter the both of us, and the cake and also had to shield the wind. Hahaha. We persevered though, and that perseverance and never-say-die attitude overheated the borrowed lighter and rendered that poor thing unusable after that.

Of course, I had some answering to do later on to the owner! :(

(Said Joon: “Which of these three are the biggest? The bundle, the bag or my head?” LOL. YOUR HEAD!)

I saw a huge kite which Justin bought but they never played with! And Qi Rui was there, and Jacky and the fashion boy Zeng Siong too! Wan Ting, Evon and the birthday girl were looking so gorgeous that night, I thought they were their best yesterday! Ah, but I was from work and I had to be there in my work attire though fortunately I bore no Watsons logo on the shirt. Haa.

We got for Joon a Korean book, and the enthusiasm caught her as she profusely tried to thank us in Korean and some other new phrases found in the book. The way that gift was wrapped was classic though, thanks to Jacky. If you have no idea which one, it was actually the bundle of newspapers. LOL!

We went back soon after to catch the last shuttle but I really had to return that damaged lighter to its owner. Thankfully, she was not that abusive (Haaaa..) and declined my money for that lighter. Ahh, nice people!

And the best FEOPLE!

SAENGIL CHUKHA HAMNIDA JOON!

You are so old now wakakakaka!

I love working with my current employer, Watsons Personal Store. Now that I nailed this job, I told Dad I would be quitting the unearthly hours of night work since Watsons pay me more to work less and I badly need those extra hours of sleep for this new semester. But I think I caused an inconvenience to my Dad since my resignation was all too sudden and therefore I sort of forced him to find an immediate replacement for me which was impossible; my Dad was the supervisor there and I worked as his assistant so to get someone as experienced can be a little tricky. I think our relationship is a little bit strained right now, so I will have to sort it out soon.

Oh, stop mocking Ris Low people, I do not think most of you will fare any better. With the way we were brought up, we should blame the system instead.

We love to create big issues out of someone’s flaws but forget that we are no better or even worse become the subject of our own mockery.

Humans are like that and I do not think that will ever change.

Dear friends,
I was just about to write you all a fantastic entry of all the wonderful adventures I experienced for the past week when my mother woke up only to rush me off to bed, knowing that I will have to head to work in about two hours time.

I guess I will have to leave it here for now — my mother definitely has perfect sense of timing!

I shall now sleep and dream of pretty girls with cameras Sakina with pretty cameras. LOL!