A Psychedelic Rush Of Memories To The Head
A Psychedelic Rush Of Memories To The Head
This post has been purposefully delayed!
(Photos from the ACJC J-Four Reunion can be found here. The password to access is "acjc")
Except for some moments which were dull and boring. And for a few moments where there was really nothing to do. The ACJC J-Four Reunion at the Hard Rock Cafe on the 23rd of December 2004 was great! I would say that it isn't anything super fancy or as special as our prom night was made out to be. However, the pleasure to sitting in a small cramped place, block-booked for the entire evening with many very familiar faces is quite a moving occasion.
Generally, I wandered around the place as I am very acustomed to in my last two years of school. Being a person who doesn't really fix into any particular cliche (very nicely, T-Squared, L-Squared, Jaimes and Prof Wang ALL couldn't make it!). I just sat with the rest of my really wonderful class that could make it for the event. It was quite weird that we came so early, in anticipation of "booking a nice table" for the night and realised that we had one table nicely reserved for all of us already - in the CORNER!
Normally, a table consists of 6 persons. However, for my class, we were pretty special to be sitting in a table of 8. And somehow we were routed to sit in the corner. Alas, it was a memorable time, the entertainment was pretty much what one would get out of a trip to Wala-Wala on a Saturday evening. With a few musical performances lined up as well as some short entertainment sequences in between after the short buffet dinner that started half an hour late.
Overall, it was just good to see many familiar faces in one particular place already. Consider it an upgraded version of an average day in the Void Deck during recess. I realise that things have indeed changed so dramatically over the course of two years. National Slavery has changed the perceptions as well as attitudes of a good number of people. And generally, I guess almost all the guys are just looking foward to resuming their life in the universities thereafter within the next 3 to 5 months time after they are set free. Its been a worthwhile stint.
I realise with a tinge of sadness, that with my generally introverted nature is has to become some kind of a "forced-extrovert" just in order to get through the daily emotional tussles of life as with relating to people. I've not been doing a good job in keeping in touch with a vast number of people. Its like, I saw so many people on my friendster account. And yet I know I most probably can't say a "hi" or anything close to that, because, they'd most probably go "Who are you?". Generally, the ones that I could still approach for casual banter are all True-Blue ACS boys that I've been connected with via means of shared experiences over in primary or secondary school.
It seems that point and shoot cameras are getting more and more advanced! Not too long ago, most people who used point and shoot cameras at indoor venue (like the prom) often came out with ugly, badly white balanced colors as well as blurred, out of focus areas and vastly underexposed backgrounds. I guess now either the camera manufacturers have made "night portrait mode" so good and so damn easy that almost everyone tonight can come out with a decent set of nice pictures. This is nonsense man! And to think I have to go around and calculate a bounced flash exposure just so that I don't kill off the ambient lighting in the pictures! Oh well, I guess I'll have to improve... Even the canon digital point and shoot camera's now come with almost perfect auto-white-balance. Something that my Nikon dSLR struggles to do unless I compensate for it manually! Argh, will automation eventually kill off the manual skills of photography? We'll all know a few years down the road.
Originally, I intended to post a final entry post for the year. As a form of summary to everything that has happened this year. I don't think I'll do that now, nevertheless, I will, however, write a few things that I felt was very significant during the course of this year. Of course, a good number of it aided by my photographic archives, that now stock almost 15,000 pictures. All taken by me. Good and lousy pictures all have their inherent memories of a time past. And I realise that a picture can only be considered to be accurate and true for the duration that the shutter of the camera was open. So therein belies much memories as well as deep throughts that I know I will never venture further to think and ponder upon.
In short. I could summarise the year as a year with vision. A year where I can see things much clearer. The time in much-disliked national slavery has allowed me sufficient amounts to think through several issues that I could never have pondered upon when I was a student not too long ago. Really, come to think of it, this year has been a year where I almost lost sight in one eye in January. In a very serious accident that the top eye specialist in the country said, "a few more mm, and you'll be blind already".
The Amazing Lord has been very kind to me once again this year. Showing me His mercies. Truly, they are new every morning! I've been blessed many times over this year and for that, I really give much thanks and praise. God is really faithful towards me even when I am unfaithful towards Him. And it is so comforting to be able to run into the arms of the Father, even after a long time away from "home". I almost dropped off an almost vertical giant granite surface while climbing Mount Ophir and had to be rescued halfway up. It was a vertical drop that went almost a thousand meters below. I could turn around and see all the "scenery" as well as the immense height. I almost lost grip on the rope that I was suppose to use to help me conquer that steep slope. It was amazing indeed. Although in my memory I do take it for granted. Its really a worthy mention.
Naturally, doing duties and eeking out my existence at National Service has changed my perspective on the civil service to some form of beauracracy of politiking. I've covered probably the widest range of duties in that rotten base this year as compared to any other NSmen in the patrol teams (much less the clerks with attitude problems!) It was good because I need not have to study anything this whole year. No exam worries. No stress. The hours on the days of shift duty pass by very slowly. Off days and weekends breeze by very quickly in comparison.
Ironically, the very thing that I almost lost earlier this year, would now be something of my great travesty and concern - my vision. Whatever ability I had to "see" in photography. I can't believe that the first real digital camera I bought in March this year has taken me this far. I've moved from "automatic exposure" slowly to "program exposure" and followed by the semi-automatic modes and finally manual mode. All the pictures in this post were shot on manual mode. I learnt the beauty of the prime lens and its inherent "disadvantage of not being able to zoom". I realised that I have a very long way to go indeed. My pictures are pretty lousy to be honest, as compared to the popular galleries on pbase.com/photo.net/trekearth.com. I wonder where some people get their vision and creativity from. And its good to be indulging in something more focused on the artistic side of me. Since its a part of myself that has never really been given a chance to develop all these years in our education system.
In some things, some people are gifted. Other are talented. And yet more struggle to be taught to learn and improve. I sadly, fall into the last category, often wondering what real talents or gifts that the Lord has given to me. Its been more than 20 years of my existence on the planet and I still honestly don't know. I can't play music, I can't do sports, I can't excel academically, I can't do so many things that when I look around, at least every person I know is gifted at something or at least talented. For this I really wonder greatly and wonder where this "hobby" of mine will take me and what state it will be in 10 years down the road. I've not advanced or learnt much in photography to be anywhere remotely in the region of good.
The day I am "good" is when I can take up a Hasselblad 6 by 6 medium format camera with a standard prime lens. And adjust the aperture manually, focus manually, set the shutter speed manually, frame with certainty - conviction and vision, meter using standard manual flash metering and create beautiful pictures that capture the whole gamut of emotions. And to be able to shoot a wedding using a manual film rangefinder camera. That will be my own personal benchmark of photographic standards and personal mastery. And I know even by then, I would have spent a large sum of money on my hobby.
In any case. Many of my memories this year, if they were not part of my NS life. Then much of it as well as many of the pictures I have in my archives are about ACS: Orientation. Fun-O-Rama. Founder's Day. Christian Fellowship. Class Parties. One In Spirit Reunion. Open House. And J-Four Reunion. And if it were not either about the schools that educated and miseducated me. Then it would be about church. About ministry and cellgroup and so on.
Generally, I would say that I did not progress as far as I wanted to as a Christian this year. Maybe its circumstances in NS that make it rather difficult. Maybe its just me. Maybe its just a whole slew of factors. I look to grow closer with the Lord next year, when I know for sure I will have to lean more and rely more on Him and hae much more trust and faith in Him than I do now, with the commencement of my life as a university student.
What else can I say? I guess I'll close the chapter of life on this year pretty soon within another few days. Extract out whatever memories and learning journeys that might be valuable in memory - both good and bad ones. Look forward to next year, which for sure is going to be exciting and write down some more personal goals I'd like to achieve in life. In any case. I'll let the pictures do the talking. God Speed. Merry Christmas to all! Peace on Earth to all men!
Completed on 25th December. 0413 HRS
Pictures and Comments
The official photographer, Joseph Nair. Same person who lent me a 35-105 lens to photograph the ACJC vs RJG rugby finals earlier this year. He and his twin brother were in charge of taking pictures of the event. He was still shooting on film with a Nikon F100 camera (One stop below F5 and two stops below the F6, both legendary film Nikon Cameras). His CAM 1300 Autofocus module AF speed is very very fast, even in the poor lighting in the hall. This picture was shot with a giant bounce card on the external flash, made impromtu on the spot by converting the the card on the table with my name on it (for reservation bookings) into some sort of old-age bounce light card. It worked really well as it just brought out the highlights to the face. While preserving the background lighting.
To the right is no other than Nabil. ACJC's very own resident National Debator during our time. I only found out at the end of my JC 2 life that this joker has been living in my estate for the last 15 years! I think alot of people might remember him as the person who queried our now PM about the Newater Issue on national TV - the time they had this "dialog session" with JC students and the DPM. Of course, detractors will only say that the current gahmen can only face up to the rhetorical questions of a bunch of kids and not real adults. Oh well, Nabil did provide much comic laughter on the scene for a few minutes.
The organiser, Alex. As well as the other host, whom I don't know her name. But she's pretty good looking girl in my opinion. The other photo is one of the singers of one of the bands that performed for everyone's entertainment. Its actually a blurred photograph. A spoilt picture. But nevermind anyway. I can't be bothered about blurred pictures in indoor concert venues - they sort look a little bit more artsy given the colored lighting coming from all over the place.
Some faces of raw emotion... I'd love to advance to emotional portraiture in future... Done in attempt of a 500C camera film format.
The inner cloister of Hard Rock cafe. The picture has been heavily white-balanced, because shooting without flash would actually cause the red hue and tint of the lighting inside the place to overpower everything into a sea of crimson. Generally, whatever of the school that came occupied the entire ground floor of Hard Rock Cafe. It was a pretty small place to squeeze in close to 150 odd people. Cramped no doubt. But the atmosphere was pretty good.
Lorraine! Who is simply one of the best local singer/song-writer/musican one person soloist performer that I've seen in the country. Her performance was simply heavenly, a self-written song (I believe) that thanked the Lord for all that He had done, so that gives the reason for the season of Christmas. Her solo performance on the last day of school is probably one of those very well remembered performances in my memory.
And presenting our very own Singapore Idol Finalist contestant...Nathaniel Ho! I didn't even know he was in my batch in ACJC! Thought he was at least 1 or 2 years ahead of me! And it was to much laughter that he was beaten by slyvester... He can really sing! His performance on television during the contest does no justice to his stage presence as well as vocal ability.
As an additional tid bit of information. Christopher Michael Lee sang Train's "Drops of Jupiter" (With Shawn Khiu at the helm of the drums!) for our batch's prom. Aptly themed "Drops of Jupiter". Well, I guess we were all too busy snapping photos with each other on 9th of December 2002, the last time so many ACJC people from the 2002 graduating batch saw each other in such "massive quantities" that we didn't even bother to hear him sing. Who knows that he'd be 6th place in Singapore Idol later on!
Former members of the choir, all from the J-Four batch in ACJC, giving an acapella performance for the rest to behold. The guy on the left isn't blur due to handshake. It is due to the very shallow depth of field created by the prime 50mm lens when shooting with the aperture wide open. The guy on the right is still razor sharp in focus. They sang a jazzed up version of the school anthem - acapella style. While the tune was very new to me, the words were just so familar - having repeated them in tune for at least once a week for 12 whole years!
The final band performance for the night. They were really entertaining. Generally a good and acceptable performance. What I would have liked to see in preference was a whole band that was from my batch - familiar faces would make it so much more emotionally touching in that sense. Nevertheless, their drummer is from my batch in ACJC.
Presenting the drummer of the band! SHAWN KHIU! He is not good with drums. He is not talented at drums. He is superbly gifted at the skill of keeping time by hitting objects in sync with other musicians! Two years ago, his drumming standard was already way up there in ACJC. Definitely the best I've seen in school. But his performance at the reunion just blew me away. So I felt it was justified in giving him a special framing as well as post-processing for his photo. His performance - absolutely psychedelic!
And the most emotionally touching photography of the year? It would be this one:
Our ACJC players crying and displaying their emotions of sadness and dissapointment openly when we lost to Raffles JC during the ACJC vs RJC Police Cup Rugby Finals. Nevertheless, I have much faith that they will reclaim this title next year. For the HONOR and the GLORY of the RED, BLUE and GOLD. This is the photograph of the year.
Completed on 24th December, 0418 HRS
The Nikon D100 Review - Christmas Time
A personal attempt at photojournalism. Pictures have very little, to almost no edits and except for resizing, these are the way the pictures came out of the camera
Generally, with the festive season that happens with the end of the each year, with the "double celebration" of both Christmas as well as New Year's Day. Its really a time that everyone can just let their hair down as well as to take things easy and to put the year past them into much perspective. Today I had a rather interesting time, as well as experience that stirs up many thoughts within me as well.
For starters, I started off the day at the Indoor Stadium, where church was having its annual Christmas Service. Imagine queueing up to enter the place at 4.50p.m in the afternoon for a service that starts at 7p.m. Nevertheless, even though I queued that early on, there was at least close to five hundred people ahead of me in the queue already. When the doors of the place were finally opened and we were let to rush in. I realised that most of the seats inside than also be already "pre-booked" or "block-booked" by those who were inside the place by virtues of priority. Its incredible, but I had to sit at the very last row at one side of the Indoor Stadium.
Neverthless, I had a wonderful opportunity to test a legendary camera - the Nikon D100. Its a camera that was released almost 3 years ago. And when you and me think about it, 3 years ago, most cameras were still in the "3.2 megapixel" range at best. The top of the line consumer model being the Sony DSC-707 (The first sony that I shot with in ACJC) and that was only 5 megapixels. The Nikon D100 landed upon the scene with a massive 6 megapixels in its giant sensor, lightning fast autofocus (for its time) as well as a really really short shutter lag. It is every bit a professional camera as can be and I can see why many Nikon wedding photographers still use the Nikon D100 as their staple camera for photographing weddings. While the D70 that I now own exceeds it in some manners due to a "trickle down" in technology. It still holds its own very strong and even beats my camera that has only been on the market for about 9 months. The Nikon D100. Very impressive photographic piece of equipment.
Generally. Church service was very good. So many people turned up that close to a few hundred had to be turned away at the door. The praise and worship, as well as the wonderful drama and the short, at the same time, convicting message being shared just made it a wonderful time to celebrate the birth of the King of Majesty. Later on, I would take the cellgroup over to Orchard Road for a late dinner as well as to make out way to the park opposite Border's in attempt to see some of our church members putting up a performance.
To me at least. I felt that it was a terrible mistake to have come to Orchard Road. While on the outskirts where I had my dinner and things were pretty much ok. The stretch that went from Border's all the way down to HMV was just plain chaos. Havoc and it was a rough and tumble mess of people trying to find and shove their way through the thick crowd as well as trying avoid being sprayed upon by numerous ididots welding a variation of "canned snow". Basically an aerosol based propellant will drive out a a soap based mixture that solidifies upon contact with air. Or so it was. It was horrible to be blasted left and right by all sorts of weirdoes who thought that camping at one place and liberally "sharing their money's worth" upon every single passer-by was the best reason to get into the spirit of Christmas.
If not for guarding the camera in my hands. I think such circumstances made it extremely ideal as an environment for pickpockets to strike. For staters, there's plenty of distactions around as well as much shoving and pushing. I don't think its easy to distinguish between an innocent shove or a bumpe that is suppose to distract one's attention from a pickpocket. So that wasn't so good. Worst were the aerosol fumes that were emitted from all the cans when they ran out of "snow foam". The propellant was quite stinging on the nose and the inner membranes. Some parts of that stretch of Orchard Road had been so blanketed by the canned snow that the ground became slick and difficult to obtain traction upon. All this while trying to shove through the capacity crowd nonetheless.
Everywhere I walked and tried to find a way through the crowd. There would be a canned snow vendor every 20 meters or so who would sell four cans for the price of 10 dollars. And to rub salt in the injury, these vendors themselves would liberally spray all those that walked pass their selling points! It was chaotic I tell you as some people tried to avoid these people and others were busy cleaning themselves from the dirty "snow". I was sprayed directly into the eye at point blank range by some idiot that I really felt like giving one solid punch to. Then again. Its not very nice. At the same time, its really painful and stinging to be sprayed by a soap based product into the eye. Now my eye is red. I guessed that I would have punched the guy if I were not carrying so much expensive photographic equipment.
Some of these road side vendors looked to me like people with questionable character. Its no surprise when all of them are similarly attired and I can see all sorts of full chest tattoos spilling out from the gaps in their shirts. At the same time, someone must have coordinated this "business procedure" and move very well as to blanket the entire stretch of road with these vendors. Practically everywhere I went, I was kicking used cans of the canned snow. And I did take my chances once in a while when the air in front of me wasn't blanketed in a thick fog of foam to snap some pictures. All the ugly strings of foam landed all over the Nikon D100. Thank goodness I have a UV filter to protect the lens elements. Or else it would be a pretty messy job of cleaning up the camera lens later on.
Generally, after shoving and pushing my way through that immensely thick and chaotic crowd for about half an hour. I finally reached the field opposite Border's. And it was SO CROWDED that I could barely even take a few steps inside the place. The crowd was so thick and so many people were watching the performances that it was just plain jammed in the place. I decided not to stay there, since I couldn't see anything, although I could hear a little bit of the performances that was put on by our church members. Then again, it wasn't really worth it to trudge through an abominable stretch of Orchard Road with a 10 thousand dollar dSLR and still not being able to take any worthy pictures of the performances themselves. So I made my way out of the place and the midnight of Christmas struck while I was halfway getting out of that wretched place. Just too crowded.
The crowds were so bad that they were spilling onto the streets and the cars (like in NEW YORK) had to start giving way to pedestrians. And its amazing that everyone can jaywalk across a red men at the junction of Border's and the side of Orchard MRT even when there is a traffic police and two motorbikes at the center of the pedestrian crossing. Come to think of it, weren't they jamming up and blocking other pedestrians too? The traffic police were useless I tell you. The normal ground policemen even more useless as they probably couldn't do anything to handle the massive crowd, which was a borderline case between havoc and chaos.
There were traffic jams everywhere. The whole entire stretch of Orchard Boulevard was jammed so badly that practically none of the cars and buses could move. Worst was that there was this double decker bus that broke down near the junction of Orchard Boulevard and Paterson Road. Horrible. There was this open deck double decker tour bus (ala NEW YORK) that a a full deck of "stranded" tourists celebrated the stroke of midnight in the middle of a massive traffic jam.
Strange as it may sound. The police also barricaded all the entry points to Orchard MRT. Only allowing people to leave the station, but not enter it. That was quite bad, because there was this every growing pile of people that were gathered around the barriers - adding to more human congestion.
If I were a police commander of a division. The first thing I would do would be to despatch as much manpower as I can to arrest all the canned snow vendors for inciting a breach of peace and for creating public disorder. Else for being a nuisance to public. Next would be to confiscate every single can of artificial snow in sight and finally put more policemen at the junctions to regulate human and vehicular traffic. It was absolutely horrible coming to Orchard Road. To be stuck in a human jam where you are being pelted with all sorts of weird canned stuff and reaching a destination so immensely crowded that people can't even move around in is really just a waste of my time. Something needs to be done. Not things like having traffic police sitting around the place or a bunch of condemned policemen taking care of barricades to the public transport network. Oh well, this is just my opinion on the matter anyway. Let the pictures speak for themselves. The icing on the cake comes when I drive by Orchard Road NPC and realise that there are like 20 plus policemen inside a room with a nice big Christmas Tree laughing to themselves. ARGH. Nowonder even as an NSmen, I am truly disillusioned with the organisation I have to eek out my slave debt to.
Completed on 25th December at 0452 HRS
This post has been purposefully delayed!
(Photos from the ACJC J-Four Reunion can be found here. The password to access is "acjc")
Except for some moments which were dull and boring. And for a few moments where there was really nothing to do. The ACJC J-Four Reunion at the Hard Rock Cafe on the 23rd of December 2004 was great! I would say that it isn't anything super fancy or as special as our prom night was made out to be. However, the pleasure to sitting in a small cramped place, block-booked for the entire evening with many very familiar faces is quite a moving occasion.
Generally, I wandered around the place as I am very acustomed to in my last two years of school. Being a person who doesn't really fix into any particular cliche (very nicely, T-Squared, L-Squared, Jaimes and Prof Wang ALL couldn't make it!). I just sat with the rest of my really wonderful class that could make it for the event. It was quite weird that we came so early, in anticipation of "booking a nice table" for the night and realised that we had one table nicely reserved for all of us already - in the CORNER!
Normally, a table consists of 6 persons. However, for my class, we were pretty special to be sitting in a table of 8. And somehow we were routed to sit in the corner. Alas, it was a memorable time, the entertainment was pretty much what one would get out of a trip to Wala-Wala on a Saturday evening. With a few musical performances lined up as well as some short entertainment sequences in between after the short buffet dinner that started half an hour late.
Overall, it was just good to see many familiar faces in one particular place already. Consider it an upgraded version of an average day in the Void Deck during recess. I realise that things have indeed changed so dramatically over the course of two years. National Slavery has changed the perceptions as well as attitudes of a good number of people. And generally, I guess almost all the guys are just looking foward to resuming their life in the universities thereafter within the next 3 to 5 months time after they are set free. Its been a worthwhile stint.
I realise with a tinge of sadness, that with my generally introverted nature is has to become some kind of a "forced-extrovert" just in order to get through the daily emotional tussles of life as with relating to people. I've not been doing a good job in keeping in touch with a vast number of people. Its like, I saw so many people on my friendster account. And yet I know I most probably can't say a "hi" or anything close to that, because, they'd most probably go "Who are you?". Generally, the ones that I could still approach for casual banter are all True-Blue ACS boys that I've been connected with via means of shared experiences over in primary or secondary school.
It seems that point and shoot cameras are getting more and more advanced! Not too long ago, most people who used point and shoot cameras at indoor venue (like the prom) often came out with ugly, badly white balanced colors as well as blurred, out of focus areas and vastly underexposed backgrounds. I guess now either the camera manufacturers have made "night portrait mode" so good and so damn easy that almost everyone tonight can come out with a decent set of nice pictures. This is nonsense man! And to think I have to go around and calculate a bounced flash exposure just so that I don't kill off the ambient lighting in the pictures! Oh well, I guess I'll have to improve... Even the canon digital point and shoot camera's now come with almost perfect auto-white-balance. Something that my Nikon dSLR struggles to do unless I compensate for it manually! Argh, will automation eventually kill off the manual skills of photography? We'll all know a few years down the road.
Originally, I intended to post a final entry post for the year. As a form of summary to everything that has happened this year. I don't think I'll do that now, nevertheless, I will, however, write a few things that I felt was very significant during the course of this year. Of course, a good number of it aided by my photographic archives, that now stock almost 15,000 pictures. All taken by me. Good and lousy pictures all have their inherent memories of a time past. And I realise that a picture can only be considered to be accurate and true for the duration that the shutter of the camera was open. So therein belies much memories as well as deep throughts that I know I will never venture further to think and ponder upon.
In short. I could summarise the year as a year with vision. A year where I can see things much clearer. The time in much-disliked national slavery has allowed me sufficient amounts to think through several issues that I could never have pondered upon when I was a student not too long ago. Really, come to think of it, this year has been a year where I almost lost sight in one eye in January. In a very serious accident that the top eye specialist in the country said, "a few more mm, and you'll be blind already".
The Amazing Lord has been very kind to me once again this year. Showing me His mercies. Truly, they are new every morning! I've been blessed many times over this year and for that, I really give much thanks and praise. God is really faithful towards me even when I am unfaithful towards Him. And it is so comforting to be able to run into the arms of the Father, even after a long time away from "home". I almost dropped off an almost vertical giant granite surface while climbing Mount Ophir and had to be rescued halfway up. It was a vertical drop that went almost a thousand meters below. I could turn around and see all the "scenery" as well as the immense height. I almost lost grip on the rope that I was suppose to use to help me conquer that steep slope. It was amazing indeed. Although in my memory I do take it for granted. Its really a worthy mention.
Naturally, doing duties and eeking out my existence at National Service has changed my perspective on the civil service to some form of beauracracy of politiking. I've covered probably the widest range of duties in that rotten base this year as compared to any other NSmen in the patrol teams (much less the clerks with attitude problems!) It was good because I need not have to study anything this whole year. No exam worries. No stress. The hours on the days of shift duty pass by very slowly. Off days and weekends breeze by very quickly in comparison.
Ironically, the very thing that I almost lost earlier this year, would now be something of my great travesty and concern - my vision. Whatever ability I had to "see" in photography. I can't believe that the first real digital camera I bought in March this year has taken me this far. I've moved from "automatic exposure" slowly to "program exposure" and followed by the semi-automatic modes and finally manual mode. All the pictures in this post were shot on manual mode. I learnt the beauty of the prime lens and its inherent "disadvantage of not being able to zoom". I realised that I have a very long way to go indeed. My pictures are pretty lousy to be honest, as compared to the popular galleries on pbase.com/photo.net/trekearth.com. I wonder where some people get their vision and creativity from. And its good to be indulging in something more focused on the artistic side of me. Since its a part of myself that has never really been given a chance to develop all these years in our education system.
In some things, some people are gifted. Other are talented. And yet more struggle to be taught to learn and improve. I sadly, fall into the last category, often wondering what real talents or gifts that the Lord has given to me. Its been more than 20 years of my existence on the planet and I still honestly don't know. I can't play music, I can't do sports, I can't excel academically, I can't do so many things that when I look around, at least every person I know is gifted at something or at least talented. For this I really wonder greatly and wonder where this "hobby" of mine will take me and what state it will be in 10 years down the road. I've not advanced or learnt much in photography to be anywhere remotely in the region of good.
The day I am "good" is when I can take up a Hasselblad 6 by 6 medium format camera with a standard prime lens. And adjust the aperture manually, focus manually, set the shutter speed manually, frame with certainty - conviction and vision, meter using standard manual flash metering and create beautiful pictures that capture the whole gamut of emotions. And to be able to shoot a wedding using a manual film rangefinder camera. That will be my own personal benchmark of photographic standards and personal mastery. And I know even by then, I would have spent a large sum of money on my hobby.
In any case. Many of my memories this year, if they were not part of my NS life. Then much of it as well as many of the pictures I have in my archives are about ACS: Orientation. Fun-O-Rama. Founder's Day. Christian Fellowship. Class Parties. One In Spirit Reunion. Open House. And J-Four Reunion. And if it were not either about the schools that educated and miseducated me. Then it would be about church. About ministry and cellgroup and so on.
Generally, I would say that I did not progress as far as I wanted to as a Christian this year. Maybe its circumstances in NS that make it rather difficult. Maybe its just me. Maybe its just a whole slew of factors. I look to grow closer with the Lord next year, when I know for sure I will have to lean more and rely more on Him and hae much more trust and faith in Him than I do now, with the commencement of my life as a university student.
What else can I say? I guess I'll close the chapter of life on this year pretty soon within another few days. Extract out whatever memories and learning journeys that might be valuable in memory - both good and bad ones. Look forward to next year, which for sure is going to be exciting and write down some more personal goals I'd like to achieve in life. In any case. I'll let the pictures do the talking. God Speed. Merry Christmas to all! Peace on Earth to all men!
Completed on 25th December. 0413 HRS
Pictures and Comments
The official photographer, Joseph Nair. Same person who lent me a 35-105 lens to photograph the ACJC vs RJG rugby finals earlier this year. He and his twin brother were in charge of taking pictures of the event. He was still shooting on film with a Nikon F100 camera (One stop below F5 and two stops below the F6, both legendary film Nikon Cameras). His CAM 1300 Autofocus module AF speed is very very fast, even in the poor lighting in the hall. This picture was shot with a giant bounce card on the external flash, made impromtu on the spot by converting the the card on the table with my name on it (for reservation bookings) into some sort of old-age bounce light card. It worked really well as it just brought out the highlights to the face. While preserving the background lighting.
To the right is no other than Nabil. ACJC's very own resident National Debator during our time. I only found out at the end of my JC 2 life that this joker has been living in my estate for the last 15 years! I think alot of people might remember him as the person who queried our now PM about the Newater Issue on national TV - the time they had this "dialog session" with JC students and the DPM. Of course, detractors will only say that the current gahmen can only face up to the rhetorical questions of a bunch of kids and not real adults. Oh well, Nabil did provide much comic laughter on the scene for a few minutes.
The organiser, Alex. As well as the other host, whom I don't know her name. But she's pretty good looking girl in my opinion. The other photo is one of the singers of one of the bands that performed for everyone's entertainment. Its actually a blurred photograph. A spoilt picture. But nevermind anyway. I can't be bothered about blurred pictures in indoor concert venues - they sort look a little bit more artsy given the colored lighting coming from all over the place.
Some faces of raw emotion... I'd love to advance to emotional portraiture in future... Done in attempt of a 500C camera film format.
The inner cloister of Hard Rock cafe. The picture has been heavily white-balanced, because shooting without flash would actually cause the red hue and tint of the lighting inside the place to overpower everything into a sea of crimson. Generally, whatever of the school that came occupied the entire ground floor of Hard Rock Cafe. It was a pretty small place to squeeze in close to 150 odd people. Cramped no doubt. But the atmosphere was pretty good.
Lorraine! Who is simply one of the best local singer/song-writer/musican one person soloist performer that I've seen in the country. Her performance was simply heavenly, a self-written song (I believe) that thanked the Lord for all that He had done, so that gives the reason for the season of Christmas. Her solo performance on the last day of school is probably one of those very well remembered performances in my memory.
And presenting our very own Singapore Idol Finalist contestant...Nathaniel Ho! I didn't even know he was in my batch in ACJC! Thought he was at least 1 or 2 years ahead of me! And it was to much laughter that he was beaten by slyvester... He can really sing! His performance on television during the contest does no justice to his stage presence as well as vocal ability.
As an additional tid bit of information. Christopher Michael Lee sang Train's "Drops of Jupiter" (With Shawn Khiu at the helm of the drums!) for our batch's prom. Aptly themed "Drops of Jupiter". Well, I guess we were all too busy snapping photos with each other on 9th of December 2002, the last time so many ACJC people from the 2002 graduating batch saw each other in such "massive quantities" that we didn't even bother to hear him sing. Who knows that he'd be 6th place in Singapore Idol later on!
Former members of the choir, all from the J-Four batch in ACJC, giving an acapella performance for the rest to behold. The guy on the left isn't blur due to handshake. It is due to the very shallow depth of field created by the prime 50mm lens when shooting with the aperture wide open. The guy on the right is still razor sharp in focus. They sang a jazzed up version of the school anthem - acapella style. While the tune was very new to me, the words were just so familar - having repeated them in tune for at least once a week for 12 whole years!
The final band performance for the night. They were really entertaining. Generally a good and acceptable performance. What I would have liked to see in preference was a whole band that was from my batch - familiar faces would make it so much more emotionally touching in that sense. Nevertheless, their drummer is from my batch in ACJC.
Presenting the drummer of the band! SHAWN KHIU! He is not good with drums. He is not talented at drums. He is superbly gifted at the skill of keeping time by hitting objects in sync with other musicians! Two years ago, his drumming standard was already way up there in ACJC. Definitely the best I've seen in school. But his performance at the reunion just blew me away. So I felt it was justified in giving him a special framing as well as post-processing for his photo. His performance - absolutely psychedelic!
And the most emotionally touching photography of the year? It would be this one:
Our ACJC players crying and displaying their emotions of sadness and dissapointment openly when we lost to Raffles JC during the ACJC vs RJC Police Cup Rugby Finals. Nevertheless, I have much faith that they will reclaim this title next year. For the HONOR and the GLORY of the RED, BLUE and GOLD. This is the photograph of the year.
Completed on 24th December, 0418 HRS
The Nikon D100 Review - Christmas Time
A personal attempt at photojournalism. Pictures have very little, to almost no edits and except for resizing, these are the way the pictures came out of the camera
Generally, with the festive season that happens with the end of the each year, with the "double celebration" of both Christmas as well as New Year's Day. Its really a time that everyone can just let their hair down as well as to take things easy and to put the year past them into much perspective. Today I had a rather interesting time, as well as experience that stirs up many thoughts within me as well.
For starters, I started off the day at the Indoor Stadium, where church was having its annual Christmas Service. Imagine queueing up to enter the place at 4.50p.m in the afternoon for a service that starts at 7p.m. Nevertheless, even though I queued that early on, there was at least close to five hundred people ahead of me in the queue already. When the doors of the place were finally opened and we were let to rush in. I realised that most of the seats inside than also be already "pre-booked" or "block-booked" by those who were inside the place by virtues of priority. Its incredible, but I had to sit at the very last row at one side of the Indoor Stadium.
Neverthless, I had a wonderful opportunity to test a legendary camera - the Nikon D100. Its a camera that was released almost 3 years ago. And when you and me think about it, 3 years ago, most cameras were still in the "3.2 megapixel" range at best. The top of the line consumer model being the Sony DSC-707 (The first sony that I shot with in ACJC) and that was only 5 megapixels. The Nikon D100 landed upon the scene with a massive 6 megapixels in its giant sensor, lightning fast autofocus (for its time) as well as a really really short shutter lag. It is every bit a professional camera as can be and I can see why many Nikon wedding photographers still use the Nikon D100 as their staple camera for photographing weddings. While the D70 that I now own exceeds it in some manners due to a "trickle down" in technology. It still holds its own very strong and even beats my camera that has only been on the market for about 9 months. The Nikon D100. Very impressive photographic piece of equipment.
Generally. Church service was very good. So many people turned up that close to a few hundred had to be turned away at the door. The praise and worship, as well as the wonderful drama and the short, at the same time, convicting message being shared just made it a wonderful time to celebrate the birth of the King of Majesty. Later on, I would take the cellgroup over to Orchard Road for a late dinner as well as to make out way to the park opposite Border's in attempt to see some of our church members putting up a performance.
To me at least. I felt that it was a terrible mistake to have come to Orchard Road. While on the outskirts where I had my dinner and things were pretty much ok. The stretch that went from Border's all the way down to HMV was just plain chaos. Havoc and it was a rough and tumble mess of people trying to find and shove their way through the thick crowd as well as trying avoid being sprayed upon by numerous ididots welding a variation of "canned snow". Basically an aerosol based propellant will drive out a a soap based mixture that solidifies upon contact with air. Or so it was. It was horrible to be blasted left and right by all sorts of weirdoes who thought that camping at one place and liberally "sharing their money's worth" upon every single passer-by was the best reason to get into the spirit of Christmas.
If not for guarding the camera in my hands. I think such circumstances made it extremely ideal as an environment for pickpockets to strike. For staters, there's plenty of distactions around as well as much shoving and pushing. I don't think its easy to distinguish between an innocent shove or a bumpe that is suppose to distract one's attention from a pickpocket. So that wasn't so good. Worst were the aerosol fumes that were emitted from all the cans when they ran out of "snow foam". The propellant was quite stinging on the nose and the inner membranes. Some parts of that stretch of Orchard Road had been so blanketed by the canned snow that the ground became slick and difficult to obtain traction upon. All this while trying to shove through the capacity crowd nonetheless.
Everywhere I walked and tried to find a way through the crowd. There would be a canned snow vendor every 20 meters or so who would sell four cans for the price of 10 dollars. And to rub salt in the injury, these vendors themselves would liberally spray all those that walked pass their selling points! It was chaotic I tell you as some people tried to avoid these people and others were busy cleaning themselves from the dirty "snow". I was sprayed directly into the eye at point blank range by some idiot that I really felt like giving one solid punch to. Then again. Its not very nice. At the same time, its really painful and stinging to be sprayed by a soap based product into the eye. Now my eye is red. I guessed that I would have punched the guy if I were not carrying so much expensive photographic equipment.
Some of these road side vendors looked to me like people with questionable character. Its no surprise when all of them are similarly attired and I can see all sorts of full chest tattoos spilling out from the gaps in their shirts. At the same time, someone must have coordinated this "business procedure" and move very well as to blanket the entire stretch of road with these vendors. Practically everywhere I went, I was kicking used cans of the canned snow. And I did take my chances once in a while when the air in front of me wasn't blanketed in a thick fog of foam to snap some pictures. All the ugly strings of foam landed all over the Nikon D100. Thank goodness I have a UV filter to protect the lens elements. Or else it would be a pretty messy job of cleaning up the camera lens later on.
Generally, after shoving and pushing my way through that immensely thick and chaotic crowd for about half an hour. I finally reached the field opposite Border's. And it was SO CROWDED that I could barely even take a few steps inside the place. The crowd was so thick and so many people were watching the performances that it was just plain jammed in the place. I decided not to stay there, since I couldn't see anything, although I could hear a little bit of the performances that was put on by our church members. Then again, it wasn't really worth it to trudge through an abominable stretch of Orchard Road with a 10 thousand dollar dSLR and still not being able to take any worthy pictures of the performances themselves. So I made my way out of the place and the midnight of Christmas struck while I was halfway getting out of that wretched place. Just too crowded.
The crowds were so bad that they were spilling onto the streets and the cars (like in NEW YORK) had to start giving way to pedestrians. And its amazing that everyone can jaywalk across a red men at the junction of Border's and the side of Orchard MRT even when there is a traffic police and two motorbikes at the center of the pedestrian crossing. Come to think of it, weren't they jamming up and blocking other pedestrians too? The traffic police were useless I tell you. The normal ground policemen even more useless as they probably couldn't do anything to handle the massive crowd, which was a borderline case between havoc and chaos.
There were traffic jams everywhere. The whole entire stretch of Orchard Boulevard was jammed so badly that practically none of the cars and buses could move. Worst was that there was this double decker bus that broke down near the junction of Orchard Boulevard and Paterson Road. Horrible. There was this open deck double decker tour bus (ala NEW YORK) that a a full deck of "stranded" tourists celebrated the stroke of midnight in the middle of a massive traffic jam.
Strange as it may sound. The police also barricaded all the entry points to Orchard MRT. Only allowing people to leave the station, but not enter it. That was quite bad, because there was this every growing pile of people that were gathered around the barriers - adding to more human congestion.
If I were a police commander of a division. The first thing I would do would be to despatch as much manpower as I can to arrest all the canned snow vendors for inciting a breach of peace and for creating public disorder. Else for being a nuisance to public. Next would be to confiscate every single can of artificial snow in sight and finally put more policemen at the junctions to regulate human and vehicular traffic. It was absolutely horrible coming to Orchard Road. To be stuck in a human jam where you are being pelted with all sorts of weird canned stuff and reaching a destination so immensely crowded that people can't even move around in is really just a waste of my time. Something needs to be done. Not things like having traffic police sitting around the place or a bunch of condemned policemen taking care of barricades to the public transport network. Oh well, this is just my opinion on the matter anyway. Let the pictures speak for themselves. The icing on the cake comes when I drive by Orchard Road NPC and realise that there are like 20 plus policemen inside a room with a nice big Christmas Tree laughing to themselves. ARGH. Nowonder even as an NSmen, I am truly disillusioned with the organisation I have to eek out my slave debt to.
Completed on 25th December at 0452 HRS
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