Completing the Square (Finding A Vision) - ACJC Orientation 2005
Completing the Square (Finding a Vision) - ACJC Orientation 2005
As I haven't blogged in a while, this is a crazily mad post.
UPDATE: 260 PICTURES UPLOADED!
The first week into the new year has been a rather exciting one of both new and old memories being mirred together in a non-stop tumble jumble and a rushed timeframe. Originally, I wanted to come down to take pictures of the ACJC Orientation if and only if I had procured a Nikon 70-200mm VR lens for Christmas. Sadly, this was not so. So I actually didn't bother about the whole thing.
Strangely, circumstances would have the better of me as Steph asked if I was going to take pictures. In a sense, that changed my mind and I was all ready and prepped up to take pictures on the first day of orientation. This was the time immediately after night shift. But for the first day of the orientation, things wouldn't have their way. I finished my night shift, came back home. And I died on the bed. Wonderfully awaking only when it was 6.30 p.m in the evening!
Normally, as far as I have experienced in school, as well as the recollections of friends. Its not "exactly nice" to leave a girl waiting. Maybe 10 minutes is still ok. But 5 hours is unacceptable. Nevertheless, Steph was particularly nice + forgiving. And so we proceeded to start off the photoshoot on Tuesday instead. The 2nd day of the orientation in the most nonsense college in the country. Walking past the school gates. I realised that in a sense, time somehow stepped back. Suddenly it felt like "first three months" all over again. With the college blanketed in people of all sorts of different uniforms. And of course, the fair share of crashers.
I packed in my wide angle zoom for the day. But I felt that I wasn't getting any nice pictures from the lens. And I still feel that I could have taken far better pictures of the orientation. Its just that something is missing. As much as I'd love to blame "the slow autofocus" and all other camera factors. I think the blame lies squarely with me for not having that ability to "see" through the viewfinder. In a sense. A sort of "photographic blindness". I can get the shot. But its lousy! Pretty discouraging I would say, especially for Tuesday's take on the pictures and images. Nothing special. Just nonsensical shots for which I've managed to extract a few for this particular blog post.
I think this post is going to be so long that it qualifies to be a chapter taken out of a random book in the library. Most of the time, I've experimented with different picture formats for the pictures that I usually post up. Sometimes, they are very weird ones, at other rarer times, they are extended in height for perspective. In this case, I'm inspired by 6 by 6 film, which is essentially, a square shaped negative 6cm by 6cm in length per side that is used in Medium Format cameras. As I type this, I have a MF camera sitting next to my computer. I would say that it is amazingly difficult to use and notoriously hard to adjust the settings! But I don't' know, maybe I happen to be one of the oddballs that happen to "see better" using a squarish format? So I'm just giving it a go in this post. Do allow the images to load, because I've spent a great deal of time processing almost 1800 photographs. Ok, I concede that I took so many pictures, I didn't even give 8 or 900 of them a 2nd look, much less load them up into Photoshop for use in my web gallery.
The weather throughout the orientation was really good. On a few occasions did it drizzle very lightly. But there was no instance of a heavy thunderstorm or rain. And the cloudy yet bright weather made it almost perfect for playing outdoor games. And it one sense, the lighting conditions were very very good during the day time. So it wasn't too hard to get some above average shots. I was still stuck to using my Nikon D70 while Steph was test-driving out her new Canon 20D. After having a hands on for a while. I can safely say that the Canon EOS 20D is the best camera on the market right now in terms of its price to performance package. It packs the equivalent of an 8 megapixel sensor in a body similar to the legendary Nikon D1H (released in 2001). As the handling and autofocus would have it. It is very similar to a digital equivalent of a Nikon F5. Lighting fast autofocus as well as having the ability to blast 5 frames per second. And the shutter is really loud! Sounds like a mini cannon being fired from a short distance away. Much better in terms of handling and response as compared to my D70. Argh. The urge to switch to Canon strikes once again...
And if you ever consider buying a camera. And unless you already have a line up of Nikon Lens. Do yourself a favour and buy a Canon Camera. Because Canon is so far ahead in terms of technology is it going to leave Nikon in the dust within the next 4 years time.
As I walked into school, I realised that the track that L-E-double-N much lauded to the extent of imposing a 10 dollar fine for those who stepped onto it "without permission" has been completely ripped up down to its cement surface. And now, no one even blinks to step on the "track" and everyone just cuts across the field like nobody's business. Such would have been unthinkable during my time. Overall, I think there is going to be an installation of a new track in the campus. And everywhere I went. The place just breathed of an atmosphere that was strangely familiar a time past ago. Now the air permeated with strange foreign feelings that constantly reminded me that I would no longer partake of what those who wore the White and Blue now enjoy. Met up with Brother too and once again, for like the 3rd year running, he was crashing the Orientation... Again. This time, he was even better because it joined one of the OGs and took part in practically all the activities. Including rolling around in the mud.
The mass dance this year was to two cheesy songs that was being broadcast everywhere I went. Believe me, it is so irritating to hear the same song being played over and over and over and over again non stop in all places around the school. I wouldn't mind if it was something funky like US3's Cantaloop mix that I had as the dance track for my year. But urgh! I have to add that the dance moves are rather difficult and quite challenging to learn and master this year. Not only is the song really long by most peoples' standards, the incorporated dance moves are not easy as well. There are many quick fast short movements to be performed to the tempo of each beat in the song. Basically everywhere I went, I saw people struggling to master the dance moves. Nevertheless, the games were much much more interesting. On a second thought, can someone agree with me if I should think that the dance moves this year tend to be more on the individualistic "line dancing" type of movement as compared to my year where there would be plenty of hand contact with the dance partner? I remember one of the steps for the dance for my year (or my junior's year) would be. "Girl squats down. Guy spins leg over girl's head". Kinda interesting at that. For the record, Brother gave up trying to learn the moves for the mass dance on the pretext that it was "too long and too difficult". Oh well...
I got sick of photographing the dance routine after some time no thanks to the cheesy songs that was being blasted around all the time! So no pictures for the dance movements! I found that the hardest place to photograph would be the concourse (also called "the foyer" now) because there is very strong backlighting that filters in from the field and the sports complex and even with a flash. The pictures inevitably come out with the nearest person very overexposed. And the furthest person severely underexposed. This was for my case, even with the use of bounced flash and all. Yet on Steph's camera, her exposure came out almost perfect - which essentially confirms to me that suspicion that the Canon 20D camera has far more dynamic range than my Nikon. (This was heatedly discussed on online photographic forum boards). I was quite unhappy with my pictures even after many different tries and settings of varying exposures.
For a while, everywhere I went. It would just be people mindlessly practising the same old dance moves. And even after watching the dance routine so many times and for so long after 3 days. I could say that I know some of the moves. Yet I concede that I cannot even remember the whole dance routine from the start all the way to finish. Its not fun to photograph people learning how to dance... (haha!) Ok. I shall not type much more commentary about the orientation. Since I know that I will ramble way way out of point. I only hope that as I have typed to here. It will serve as a sort of "buffer" to allow as many pictures as possible to load. I hope that non-broadband users will wait for all the pictures to load or else upgrade at first opportunity to a broadband connection. All the pictures here are high quality photographs that have been minimally edited. So I hope to share a little bit of joy and fun through the images that I have here. Yet I still accept the fact that they aren't exactly good pictures. Pretty much 2nd rate, I would say...
With the exception of the campfire pictures. Most of the pictures that I have here are taken with just the plain, simple and humble 50mm lens. Its autofocus is not exactly fun. And it doesn't scream "Professional!" when mounted onto any camera. And its a cheap piece of glass. Yet it offers pictures with almost no distortion, professional razor sharpness as well as an ability to take pictures in very low light conditions without the need for a flash. It is a cheap lens, much disregarded now in the days of a digital SLR (due the something called the field of view crop) in favour of high end zooms. But it is in the league of fast glass that for its widest aperture, would cost a bomb on any other focal length. To illustrate: A Nikon 50mm f/1.4 lens costs around 300 dollars 2nd hand. But a 85mm f/1.4 lens will cost 1600 dollars 2nd hand. Just for an increase of 35mm in focal length! The 50mm lens has been made for the last 30 years. So don't ever look down on this "cheap piece of glass", as I will show you...
(All pictures are posted up in Chronological Order from the time I took them taken on the 2nd, 4th and 5th Day of the Orientation. I missed the 1st totally. And had to work at the rotten base on the 3rd.)
One of the games being played in the field consisted of a large blue canvas sheet being spread over the ground. It is later soaked with puddles of water as well as generous amounts of laundry powder with plastic cups of water at both ends. Orientation Groups (OGs) that square off with each other will have to send their members, one by one, rolling over the soapy mess without causing the cups to fall over (which they do very easily). Of course, everyone gets down and dirty and wet and soapy and slippery with much laughter as well. In this case, the joker on the left has bumped into the girl on the right. In anycase, I'm wondering: "I thought only one person should be on the canvas at any one time?". Go figure...
(Hint: The OGL is on the extreme left shouting: "Oei! What are you doing!")
At the end of the match. Everyone from the OG will be asked to lie down on the canvas and the Game Host will hose down everyone. Talk about a public practice in "bath and gender equality".
I just happened to press my shutter when I saw these two OGLs in my viewfinder. Only when I opened it up in photoshop did I realise that the OG on the right is a guy called Daniel. And he has a very interesting and long testimony for God. Basically his life only exists no thanks to the Lord Himself. I put up a post about this brother in the Christian Fellowship once (I think that was ages ago!) with a link to his blog here. Go figure...
(Hint: He used to suffer from leukemia)
A games briefing before one of the games starts. What's with the advertisement for Shell anyway?
This is SO SAD...
[Girl] So what school you from?
[Boy] Read the back of my shirt...
Water based games were played in the basketball court. They ranged from one game where OGs will help toss ytterbium from one person to another without the ytterbium bursting during the toss and catch sequence. The other game would be OGs competing to see which side could fill up a pail with more water only with the use of their hair as the medium. Usually when these games ended. There would be three outcomes. 1)Someone in the OG got wet. 2) The OGL got wet. 3) The Game Hosts themselves were drenched. So naturally. At the end of the every single game. There is always some joker who is going to be soaked through and through. With everyone else laughing on with their hair wet all the more.
Just a better illustration of what it would be on one end of the game. This is usually when the game just started. OG members would be allowed to dip their hair into the pail themselves.
However, when the situation was getting desperate. Or when the two sides were very evenly matched. Or when the pail was plain low in water level. "Additional Help" would be enlisted with all sorts of devices: tilting the pail. Pushing the head into the paid or a combination of both. This pictures reminds me of the "dunking incident" in the one of the subsidiaries of the Ministry of Defence. *Cough*. Go figure...
Something like that... Wet and messy isn't it? Imagine the amount of water that actually arrives and reaches the pail. Talk about an "inefficient transfer of material".
On the other end. The OGLs of the respective OGs would help to squeeze and wring hair into another pail. The pail water height would be compared at the end of the game, the winning team simply having had the ability to transport more water over. Actually, the team with more girls with long hair wins. When you're a guy with a hairstyle "strongly recommended" by the institutionalisation of society. Its not likely you'll end up with much H2O to transport over. But you'll end up with lots of laughs at the other end though... Go figure...
The day ended, as with every other day of the orientation with a series of powerful cheers from competiting sides of the orientation. To be honest, I never really got the full idea of the theme of the orientation. It was something like four sides against each other. Just that I think on one side, the general group name was inspired by Orlando Bloom of Lord of the Rings ROTK fame. Go figure. And I realise they allow "Wah Lau" in the cheers now. Is this a resurgence of the "Speak Hokkien Campaign" making its rounds throughout the school once again? I remember that many Hokkien Cheers of my time were "banned" because they were "not appropriate". I think it was only "not appropriate" because it wasn't in English. Well, times change...
Ya, that's a good number of people gathered on the Bleaches for the cheers on the 2nd day of the orientation. And my goodness! They are LOUD! My ears were ringing after I took this shot.
President of the Student's Council. Tan Li Feng, saying a closing word of prayer at the end of the day of the orientation.
I remember that during my time. 30% of ACJC were Christians. Imagine my surprise when I saw almost everyone, save a few people here and there, bow down their heads in prayer! I hope I am not exaggerating here. But that's as far as I can see at least. Something I would not have seen during my time in school.
Ok, I concede. Here is one shot of an OG dance practice in the badminton Hall. This picture and pictures thereafter are taken on the 4th day of the orientation.
As I love to photograph sports. I was pleasantly surprised to see a good number of sports being played on the 4th day of the orientation. One being basketball. Using the 50mm, I had to come up really really close to frame the players in the viewfinder. If not, they'll just be tiny dots on the photograph. It is during such situations that a 70-200mm VR lens else a prime 85mm lens comes in handy.
Will someone please explain to me why they are playing barefooted? What if a swing of the stick hits someone's foot?
This OGL is really really sporting. I asked her if she minded having a waterbomb thrown at her for the camera. And all she did was to cover her face and bend over before someone took the opportunity to launch one at her. In this case, it is an "experiment" in elastic collisions. Here, the waterbomb has rebounced after hitting her on the back and the bag, as you can see, is beginning to break up and release its "deadly payload" on the target. This is the same OGL as the girl standing next to Daniel in the picture all the way up there. I don't know her name. But I really thank her very much for this particular shot.
This is a bad picture. Why am I even posting it up?
In this game. Two persons having to move with their backs towards each other. The catch being that they have to carry and hold and egg in between their backs. At the same time, they have to each carry two cups of water and slowly make their way from their OG on one side, all the way to another side where their OGLs carries an empty coke bottle. Then they proceed to slowly fill up the bottle. The OG that fills up their bottle first wins. This however is not so easy, as the Game Hosts will pelt the OG members crossing the field with waterbombs or else shoot at them with water pistols. Interesting to note that it only takes about 6 to 8 persons before the bottle is filled up and the winner is declared. So naturally, the other half of the OG doesn't even get to play!
This is classic. Pouring soap water by the cupful onto an unsuspecting person.
Picking up Kingdom Hearts...
Last OG game before the campfire starts...
Prelude to the Campfire...
The cohort of the first 3 months approaches the basketball court. For the Campfire on the 5th, final and last day of the Orientation. What a way to end it all...
But before we start. Let us bow down in a word of Prayer first.
The campfire begins!
A better view from the Cafe. Photographic conditions were very difficult in this case because I have to compensate for a high ISO as well as shooting my lens wide open which leads to a tremendous amount of flaring given the spot lights surrounding the basketball court. Even if there is no flaring. Its likely that streaks from the spot lights are picked up on the camera sensor. Such are times when good cameras really shine. And even though the depth of field for most shots here and thereafter is so shallow that many shots look out of focus. I guess, if I had used another aperture. I would not even have been able to take a sharp photo.
The first of two performances by the dance society. The quality of the dance is getting better and better each year that I see it. In this case. I used a flash to compensate for the ultra bright spot lights. Hence that's why the background is pretty much underexposed. In any case. I what I can to photograph with techniques similar to those used by wedding photographers - a flash, followed by a long exposure just so that I can bring some of the background light into the picture. I'm tired of bad night shots that only show one overexposed subject in a sea of blackness.
Every OG had to put up a stage performance. Some were really funny. Others were really lame. And some OGs showed that they didn't even put a single second of time into their stage item as well. Here is one of the better shots that I managed to get. Once again, not a very good one. In such cases, I have to shoot manual because the bright spot lights confuse the light meter in the camera.
OGLs take to the stage to repeat the dance steps for THEIR orientation year.
Some crosstalk sessions. Boring.
Pick up line practice. Here, competing OGs send a member to compete to see who can say the lamest pick up line to the President of the Students' Council. I shan't say what the winning pick up line is. But in Steph's words. "Its gross!". Maybe that should sum it up. For all the ACS boys out there, you've definitely heard the pick up line used or said before during your tenure in ACS. Ok, maybe not definitely. But its an oft repeated one.
One of the OG stage items. It had three of the guys stuffing balloons under their shirts and posing as mock up of "Transexual Angels". My goodness! But it was utterly hilarious and funny!
7 Graduated Seniors put on a Bhangra dance show! This really rocked the SET!!!!!
The last item of the day on the agenda: The Mass Dance. As far as I could see, everyone spread themselves out from the edge of the basketball court all the way onto the field. Lighting conditions were not difficult. They were extremely tough! And no flash can be so bright as to light up the entire field. So there was no choice but to shoot at ultra long shutter speeds. Handheld, while standing on some support for the elevated eye point position. Please don't mind the horrible quality of the pictures. Its the best that I can do. Maybe I could do better if I had a camera that could shoot at ISO 3200, or even 6400.
The fun did not end after the mass dance. Some OGs were still in the mood to wet their OGLs with pails of water.
And this really takes the cake. Someone opened up the fire extinguisher! And starts spraying it all over the place in the basketball court! Here the crazed joker stands next to Joseph Nair, the official Photographer for the ACJC J-Four reunion.
My pictures do not do justice to the orientation. As I type this, I haven't even found the time to open up more than 900 over pictures in adobe photoshop yet. Save for a quick glance through all of them in my picture viewing software. Come to think of it, there are so many other moments, so many other instances of the orientation that I was unable to document down in photographs. Even more, I could not be at every single place all the time. So I definitely missed out on many more moments of fun and candid photography. If we look at it this way. There is just so much fun during these 5 days, that these 47 pictures cannot even express a tiny minute fraction of a percentage of the sum of experiences that everyone went through. There are many pictures that I am unable to post up on this "chapter" of a blog post. There are many things that I have no time to even write about. There are many situations that have left me thinking to the point that my mind balks at the copious amount of thinking it has to do. If you want more pictures. Just surf over to Steph's pbase photo gallery here. I can safely say her pictures are much better than mine and that you won't be disappointed with her version of coverage through the lens of her viewfinder.
The orientation did not stop even as I fired my last picture and my camera's "pictures remaining" counter read "FULL". The dances just went on and on. Cheering went on and on. And hardly anyone was budging to leave the place. People were still dancing at 11.30p.m as I left ACJC. And I don't know what else. What I do know is that I will not be surprised if people tell me that they danced till 3.30a.m in the morning. Or maybe till day break. I believe after the campfire for my year. The student's council people stayed so late. By the time they went home. It was like 12 hours after the campfire had been put out. Well, that's life indeed. And while I am unable to document it in pictures (I shot almost 900 photographs and used up all my memory card space). I think its better that such lives in the memory of the current batch of JC1 students. And personally, I wish them all the best in their studies. May their experiences be much better than mine, in the most nonsense college in the country.
In any case. I guess that this will be the last orientation I will have the opportunity to photograph. It will be very unlikely that I be taking pictures again next year. And to be honest. I don't even know why I do this. I don't even know why I even bother to snap pictures. Then again, maybe its because I get to do three things that I love: 1) I get to practice. 2) I have something to give back to the school. 3) I have the chance to soak into the AC Spirit once again. Even through this, I plan to embargo a large number of pictures somewhere, only to be released to this batch of ACJC students, on their prom night. And I wonder what their reactions will be. In any case. Grow old with me! For the BEST IS YET TO BE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
As I haven't blogged in a while, this is a crazily mad post.
UPDATE: 260 PICTURES UPLOADED!
The first week into the new year has been a rather exciting one of both new and old memories being mirred together in a non-stop tumble jumble and a rushed timeframe. Originally, I wanted to come down to take pictures of the ACJC Orientation if and only if I had procured a Nikon 70-200mm VR lens for Christmas. Sadly, this was not so. So I actually didn't bother about the whole thing.
Strangely, circumstances would have the better of me as Steph asked if I was going to take pictures. In a sense, that changed my mind and I was all ready and prepped up to take pictures on the first day of orientation. This was the time immediately after night shift. But for the first day of the orientation, things wouldn't have their way. I finished my night shift, came back home. And I died on the bed. Wonderfully awaking only when it was 6.30 p.m in the evening!
Normally, as far as I have experienced in school, as well as the recollections of friends. Its not "exactly nice" to leave a girl waiting. Maybe 10 minutes is still ok. But 5 hours is unacceptable. Nevertheless, Steph was particularly nice + forgiving. And so we proceeded to start off the photoshoot on Tuesday instead. The 2nd day of the orientation in the most nonsense college in the country. Walking past the school gates. I realised that in a sense, time somehow stepped back. Suddenly it felt like "first three months" all over again. With the college blanketed in people of all sorts of different uniforms. And of course, the fair share of crashers.
I packed in my wide angle zoom for the day. But I felt that I wasn't getting any nice pictures from the lens. And I still feel that I could have taken far better pictures of the orientation. Its just that something is missing. As much as I'd love to blame "the slow autofocus" and all other camera factors. I think the blame lies squarely with me for not having that ability to "see" through the viewfinder. In a sense. A sort of "photographic blindness". I can get the shot. But its lousy! Pretty discouraging I would say, especially for Tuesday's take on the pictures and images. Nothing special. Just nonsensical shots for which I've managed to extract a few for this particular blog post.
I think this post is going to be so long that it qualifies to be a chapter taken out of a random book in the library. Most of the time, I've experimented with different picture formats for the pictures that I usually post up. Sometimes, they are very weird ones, at other rarer times, they are extended in height for perspective. In this case, I'm inspired by 6 by 6 film, which is essentially, a square shaped negative 6cm by 6cm in length per side that is used in Medium Format cameras. As I type this, I have a MF camera sitting next to my computer. I would say that it is amazingly difficult to use and notoriously hard to adjust the settings! But I don't' know, maybe I happen to be one of the oddballs that happen to "see better" using a squarish format? So I'm just giving it a go in this post. Do allow the images to load, because I've spent a great deal of time processing almost 1800 photographs. Ok, I concede that I took so many pictures, I didn't even give 8 or 900 of them a 2nd look, much less load them up into Photoshop for use in my web gallery.
The weather throughout the orientation was really good. On a few occasions did it drizzle very lightly. But there was no instance of a heavy thunderstorm or rain. And the cloudy yet bright weather made it almost perfect for playing outdoor games. And it one sense, the lighting conditions were very very good during the day time. So it wasn't too hard to get some above average shots. I was still stuck to using my Nikon D70 while Steph was test-driving out her new Canon 20D. After having a hands on for a while. I can safely say that the Canon EOS 20D is the best camera on the market right now in terms of its price to performance package. It packs the equivalent of an 8 megapixel sensor in a body similar to the legendary Nikon D1H (released in 2001). As the handling and autofocus would have it. It is very similar to a digital equivalent of a Nikon F5. Lighting fast autofocus as well as having the ability to blast 5 frames per second. And the shutter is really loud! Sounds like a mini cannon being fired from a short distance away. Much better in terms of handling and response as compared to my D70. Argh. The urge to switch to Canon strikes once again...
And if you ever consider buying a camera. And unless you already have a line up of Nikon Lens. Do yourself a favour and buy a Canon Camera. Because Canon is so far ahead in terms of technology is it going to leave Nikon in the dust within the next 4 years time.
As I walked into school, I realised that the track that L-E-double-N much lauded to the extent of imposing a 10 dollar fine for those who stepped onto it "without permission" has been completely ripped up down to its cement surface. And now, no one even blinks to step on the "track" and everyone just cuts across the field like nobody's business. Such would have been unthinkable during my time. Overall, I think there is going to be an installation of a new track in the campus. And everywhere I went. The place just breathed of an atmosphere that was strangely familiar a time past ago. Now the air permeated with strange foreign feelings that constantly reminded me that I would no longer partake of what those who wore the White and Blue now enjoy. Met up with Brother too and once again, for like the 3rd year running, he was crashing the Orientation... Again. This time, he was even better because it joined one of the OGs and took part in practically all the activities. Including rolling around in the mud.
The mass dance this year was to two cheesy songs that was being broadcast everywhere I went. Believe me, it is so irritating to hear the same song being played over and over and over and over again non stop in all places around the school. I wouldn't mind if it was something funky like US3's Cantaloop mix that I had as the dance track for my year. But urgh! I have to add that the dance moves are rather difficult and quite challenging to learn and master this year. Not only is the song really long by most peoples' standards, the incorporated dance moves are not easy as well. There are many quick fast short movements to be performed to the tempo of each beat in the song. Basically everywhere I went, I saw people struggling to master the dance moves. Nevertheless, the games were much much more interesting. On a second thought, can someone agree with me if I should think that the dance moves this year tend to be more on the individualistic "line dancing" type of movement as compared to my year where there would be plenty of hand contact with the dance partner? I remember one of the steps for the dance for my year (or my junior's year) would be. "Girl squats down. Guy spins leg over girl's head". Kinda interesting at that. For the record, Brother gave up trying to learn the moves for the mass dance on the pretext that it was "too long and too difficult". Oh well...
I got sick of photographing the dance routine after some time no thanks to the cheesy songs that was being blasted around all the time! So no pictures for the dance movements! I found that the hardest place to photograph would be the concourse (also called "the foyer" now) because there is very strong backlighting that filters in from the field and the sports complex and even with a flash. The pictures inevitably come out with the nearest person very overexposed. And the furthest person severely underexposed. This was for my case, even with the use of bounced flash and all. Yet on Steph's camera, her exposure came out almost perfect - which essentially confirms to me that suspicion that the Canon 20D camera has far more dynamic range than my Nikon. (This was heatedly discussed on online photographic forum boards). I was quite unhappy with my pictures even after many different tries and settings of varying exposures.
For a while, everywhere I went. It would just be people mindlessly practising the same old dance moves. And even after watching the dance routine so many times and for so long after 3 days. I could say that I know some of the moves. Yet I concede that I cannot even remember the whole dance routine from the start all the way to finish. Its not fun to photograph people learning how to dance... (haha!) Ok. I shall not type much more commentary about the orientation. Since I know that I will ramble way way out of point. I only hope that as I have typed to here. It will serve as a sort of "buffer" to allow as many pictures as possible to load. I hope that non-broadband users will wait for all the pictures to load or else upgrade at first opportunity to a broadband connection. All the pictures here are high quality photographs that have been minimally edited. So I hope to share a little bit of joy and fun through the images that I have here. Yet I still accept the fact that they aren't exactly good pictures. Pretty much 2nd rate, I would say...
With the exception of the campfire pictures. Most of the pictures that I have here are taken with just the plain, simple and humble 50mm lens. Its autofocus is not exactly fun. And it doesn't scream "Professional!" when mounted onto any camera. And its a cheap piece of glass. Yet it offers pictures with almost no distortion, professional razor sharpness as well as an ability to take pictures in very low light conditions without the need for a flash. It is a cheap lens, much disregarded now in the days of a digital SLR (due the something called the field of view crop) in favour of high end zooms. But it is in the league of fast glass that for its widest aperture, would cost a bomb on any other focal length. To illustrate: A Nikon 50mm f/1.4 lens costs around 300 dollars 2nd hand. But a 85mm f/1.4 lens will cost 1600 dollars 2nd hand. Just for an increase of 35mm in focal length! The 50mm lens has been made for the last 30 years. So don't ever look down on this "cheap piece of glass", as I will show you...
(All pictures are posted up in Chronological Order from the time I took them taken on the 2nd, 4th and 5th Day of the Orientation. I missed the 1st totally. And had to work at the rotten base on the 3rd.)
One of the games being played in the field consisted of a large blue canvas sheet being spread over the ground. It is later soaked with puddles of water as well as generous amounts of laundry powder with plastic cups of water at both ends. Orientation Groups (OGs) that square off with each other will have to send their members, one by one, rolling over the soapy mess without causing the cups to fall over (which they do very easily). Of course, everyone gets down and dirty and wet and soapy and slippery with much laughter as well. In this case, the joker on the left has bumped into the girl on the right. In anycase, I'm wondering: "I thought only one person should be on the canvas at any one time?". Go figure...
(Hint: The OGL is on the extreme left shouting: "Oei! What are you doing!")
At the end of the match. Everyone from the OG will be asked to lie down on the canvas and the Game Host will hose down everyone. Talk about a public practice in "bath and gender equality".
I just happened to press my shutter when I saw these two OGLs in my viewfinder. Only when I opened it up in photoshop did I realise that the OG on the right is a guy called Daniel. And he has a very interesting and long testimony for God. Basically his life only exists no thanks to the Lord Himself. I put up a post about this brother in the Christian Fellowship once (I think that was ages ago!) with a link to his blog here. Go figure...
(Hint: He used to suffer from leukemia)
A games briefing before one of the games starts. What's with the advertisement for Shell anyway?
This is SO SAD...
[Girl] So what school you from?
[Boy] Read the back of my shirt...
Water based games were played in the basketball court. They ranged from one game where OGs will help toss ytterbium from one person to another without the ytterbium bursting during the toss and catch sequence. The other game would be OGs competing to see which side could fill up a pail with more water only with the use of their hair as the medium. Usually when these games ended. There would be three outcomes. 1)Someone in the OG got wet. 2) The OGL got wet. 3) The Game Hosts themselves were drenched. So naturally. At the end of the every single game. There is always some joker who is going to be soaked through and through. With everyone else laughing on with their hair wet all the more.
Just a better illustration of what it would be on one end of the game. This is usually when the game just started. OG members would be allowed to dip their hair into the pail themselves.
However, when the situation was getting desperate. Or when the two sides were very evenly matched. Or when the pail was plain low in water level. "Additional Help" would be enlisted with all sorts of devices: tilting the pail. Pushing the head into the paid or a combination of both. This pictures reminds me of the "dunking incident" in the one of the subsidiaries of the Ministry of Defence. *Cough*. Go figure...
Something like that... Wet and messy isn't it? Imagine the amount of water that actually arrives and reaches the pail. Talk about an "inefficient transfer of material".
On the other end. The OGLs of the respective OGs would help to squeeze and wring hair into another pail. The pail water height would be compared at the end of the game, the winning team simply having had the ability to transport more water over. Actually, the team with more girls with long hair wins. When you're a guy with a hairstyle "strongly recommended" by the institutionalisation of society. Its not likely you'll end up with much H2O to transport over. But you'll end up with lots of laughs at the other end though... Go figure...
The day ended, as with every other day of the orientation with a series of powerful cheers from competiting sides of the orientation. To be honest, I never really got the full idea of the theme of the orientation. It was something like four sides against each other. Just that I think on one side, the general group name was inspired by Orlando Bloom of Lord of the Rings ROTK fame. Go figure. And I realise they allow "Wah Lau" in the cheers now. Is this a resurgence of the "Speak Hokkien Campaign" making its rounds throughout the school once again? I remember that many Hokkien Cheers of my time were "banned" because they were "not appropriate". I think it was only "not appropriate" because it wasn't in English. Well, times change...
Ya, that's a good number of people gathered on the Bleaches for the cheers on the 2nd day of the orientation. And my goodness! They are LOUD! My ears were ringing after I took this shot.
President of the Student's Council. Tan Li Feng, saying a closing word of prayer at the end of the day of the orientation.
I remember that during my time. 30% of ACJC were Christians. Imagine my surprise when I saw almost everyone, save a few people here and there, bow down their heads in prayer! I hope I am not exaggerating here. But that's as far as I can see at least. Something I would not have seen during my time in school.
Ok, I concede. Here is one shot of an OG dance practice in the badminton Hall. This picture and pictures thereafter are taken on the 4th day of the orientation.
As I love to photograph sports. I was pleasantly surprised to see a good number of sports being played on the 4th day of the orientation. One being basketball. Using the 50mm, I had to come up really really close to frame the players in the viewfinder. If not, they'll just be tiny dots on the photograph. It is during such situations that a 70-200mm VR lens else a prime 85mm lens comes in handy.
Will someone please explain to me why they are playing barefooted? What if a swing of the stick hits someone's foot?
This OGL is really really sporting. I asked her if she minded having a waterbomb thrown at her for the camera. And all she did was to cover her face and bend over before someone took the opportunity to launch one at her. In this case, it is an "experiment" in elastic collisions. Here, the waterbomb has rebounced after hitting her on the back and the bag, as you can see, is beginning to break up and release its "deadly payload" on the target. This is the same OGL as the girl standing next to Daniel in the picture all the way up there. I don't know her name. But I really thank her very much for this particular shot.
This is a bad picture. Why am I even posting it up?
In this game. Two persons having to move with their backs towards each other. The catch being that they have to carry and hold and egg in between their backs. At the same time, they have to each carry two cups of water and slowly make their way from their OG on one side, all the way to another side where their OGLs carries an empty coke bottle. Then they proceed to slowly fill up the bottle. The OG that fills up their bottle first wins. This however is not so easy, as the Game Hosts will pelt the OG members crossing the field with waterbombs or else shoot at them with water pistols. Interesting to note that it only takes about 6 to 8 persons before the bottle is filled up and the winner is declared. So naturally, the other half of the OG doesn't even get to play!
This is classic. Pouring soap water by the cupful onto an unsuspecting person.
Picking up Kingdom Hearts...
Last OG game before the campfire starts...
Prelude to the Campfire...
The cohort of the first 3 months approaches the basketball court. For the Campfire on the 5th, final and last day of the Orientation. What a way to end it all...
But before we start. Let us bow down in a word of Prayer first.
The campfire begins!
A better view from the Cafe. Photographic conditions were very difficult in this case because I have to compensate for a high ISO as well as shooting my lens wide open which leads to a tremendous amount of flaring given the spot lights surrounding the basketball court. Even if there is no flaring. Its likely that streaks from the spot lights are picked up on the camera sensor. Such are times when good cameras really shine. And even though the depth of field for most shots here and thereafter is so shallow that many shots look out of focus. I guess, if I had used another aperture. I would not even have been able to take a sharp photo.
The first of two performances by the dance society. The quality of the dance is getting better and better each year that I see it. In this case. I used a flash to compensate for the ultra bright spot lights. Hence that's why the background is pretty much underexposed. In any case. I what I can to photograph with techniques similar to those used by wedding photographers - a flash, followed by a long exposure just so that I can bring some of the background light into the picture. I'm tired of bad night shots that only show one overexposed subject in a sea of blackness.
Every OG had to put up a stage performance. Some were really funny. Others were really lame. And some OGs showed that they didn't even put a single second of time into their stage item as well. Here is one of the better shots that I managed to get. Once again, not a very good one. In such cases, I have to shoot manual because the bright spot lights confuse the light meter in the camera.
OGLs take to the stage to repeat the dance steps for THEIR orientation year.
Some crosstalk sessions. Boring.
Pick up line practice. Here, competing OGs send a member to compete to see who can say the lamest pick up line to the President of the Students' Council. I shan't say what the winning pick up line is. But in Steph's words. "Its gross!". Maybe that should sum it up. For all the ACS boys out there, you've definitely heard the pick up line used or said before during your tenure in ACS. Ok, maybe not definitely. But its an oft repeated one.
One of the OG stage items. It had three of the guys stuffing balloons under their shirts and posing as mock up of "Transexual Angels". My goodness! But it was utterly hilarious and funny!
7 Graduated Seniors put on a Bhangra dance show! This really rocked the SET!!!!!
The last item of the day on the agenda: The Mass Dance. As far as I could see, everyone spread themselves out from the edge of the basketball court all the way onto the field. Lighting conditions were not difficult. They were extremely tough! And no flash can be so bright as to light up the entire field. So there was no choice but to shoot at ultra long shutter speeds. Handheld, while standing on some support for the elevated eye point position. Please don't mind the horrible quality of the pictures. Its the best that I can do. Maybe I could do better if I had a camera that could shoot at ISO 3200, or even 6400.
The fun did not end after the mass dance. Some OGs were still in the mood to wet their OGLs with pails of water.
And this really takes the cake. Someone opened up the fire extinguisher! And starts spraying it all over the place in the basketball court! Here the crazed joker stands next to Joseph Nair, the official Photographer for the ACJC J-Four reunion.
My pictures do not do justice to the orientation. As I type this, I haven't even found the time to open up more than 900 over pictures in adobe photoshop yet. Save for a quick glance through all of them in my picture viewing software. Come to think of it, there are so many other moments, so many other instances of the orientation that I was unable to document down in photographs. Even more, I could not be at every single place all the time. So I definitely missed out on many more moments of fun and candid photography. If we look at it this way. There is just so much fun during these 5 days, that these 47 pictures cannot even express a tiny minute fraction of a percentage of the sum of experiences that everyone went through. There are many pictures that I am unable to post up on this "chapter" of a blog post. There are many things that I have no time to even write about. There are many situations that have left me thinking to the point that my mind balks at the copious amount of thinking it has to do. If you want more pictures. Just surf over to Steph's pbase photo gallery here. I can safely say her pictures are much better than mine and that you won't be disappointed with her version of coverage through the lens of her viewfinder.
The orientation did not stop even as I fired my last picture and my camera's "pictures remaining" counter read "FULL". The dances just went on and on. Cheering went on and on. And hardly anyone was budging to leave the place. People were still dancing at 11.30p.m as I left ACJC. And I don't know what else. What I do know is that I will not be surprised if people tell me that they danced till 3.30a.m in the morning. Or maybe till day break. I believe after the campfire for my year. The student's council people stayed so late. By the time they went home. It was like 12 hours after the campfire had been put out. Well, that's life indeed. And while I am unable to document it in pictures (I shot almost 900 photographs and used up all my memory card space). I think its better that such lives in the memory of the current batch of JC1 students. And personally, I wish them all the best in their studies. May their experiences be much better than mine, in the most nonsense college in the country.
In any case. I guess that this will be the last orientation I will have the opportunity to photograph. It will be very unlikely that I be taking pictures again next year. And to be honest. I don't even know why I do this. I don't even know why I even bother to snap pictures. Then again, maybe its because I get to do three things that I love: 1) I get to practice. 2) I have something to give back to the school. 3) I have the chance to soak into the AC Spirit once again. Even through this, I plan to embargo a large number of pictures somewhere, only to be released to this batch of ACJC students, on their prom night. And I wonder what their reactions will be. In any case. Grow old with me! For the BEST IS YET TO BE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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