An Evening at Changi

After an initial party of 4 ppl, I wound up going to Changi to explore the boardwalk alone as Joan and Joce had to visit their Granny and Han had some last minute dinner. I nearly didn't go, but as I looked out the window, the light looked promising for the first time in quite awhile, so I made my way down. I'm glad I did as I was rewarded with pretty nice light. Not the best I've seen, but nice all the same, and definitely enough for some great photo-production.

My take on the famous Changi rock, which everyone shoots when they go there.


A Tough Existence


More Rocks



After Sunset - Magic Blue moment for night shots



After Sunset - 30s after that, see how fast the light changes! I had to compensate somewhat as the light died on me. You can see light leaks from the bottom right!


And some other images.

Me and Big Bro


Sea meets shore


Reaching

PIME 12: Making Great Nightshots

I have tons of time on my hands now and I decided to churn out more photography tutorials before I go into NS, where there probably will be very few, if any. I'll be learning to read/write/speak Japanese next year in addition to giving photo classes on weekends, so depending on my vocation, I may not be able to provide written tutorials anymore.

People often have problems making good nightshots, even with expensive digital SLRs. In the following tutorial, I will cover the basics of night photography and how to improve your night shots.

In essence, to achieve a correct exposure, you must collect enough light. Imagine this, I need to fill a bucket of water. During the day, the sun is like a huge hose that sprays out tons of water, so I may only need to turn the hose on for a very short amount of time. As the sun sets, the flow of water dwindles to a small trickle, and I will thus a need a much longer time to fill the same bucket. There are several approaches to night photography, and each is more suitable for different purposes.

The most common method is using a Tripod, where you allow the light to collect slowly but surely. The reason why you cannot handhold nightshots is often because the shutter speed is too slow. As long as the shutter stays open, the sensor is collecting light, and any movement(including handshake) will be captured on the sensor. Naturally, handshake causes blur photos. A tripod does not shake, and hence will not introduce blurring into a photo. This allows for exposures that can even go up to several hours and still result in a sharp shot devoid of blurring. This method is most favoured by landscape photographers as a large depth of field(area in focus) is often required for landscape imaging and hence much longer shutter speeds are required. As landscape photographers often want to minimise noise on their images, they tend to keep ISO settings as low as possible, which of course demands a longer exposure.

The best time to make landscape photographs at night is often not at night, but rather in the evening as day turns into night. This is commonly known as "blue hour" amongst photographers and is the time when most landscape photographers make their night shots. The rationale behind this is that at blue hour, you still get detail in the sky and there is also enough light to illuminate your main subject. You must bear in mind that the camera can only expose at ONE setting and hence you cannot expose for both the sky and the ground in a single frame. You may shoot two seperate frames and merge them in photoshop, but that is another matter altogether. What happens at blue hour is that the light from the sky exactly balances the light on your foreground subject, resulting in an even exposure all across the frame. If there is more light coming from the foreground subject(a lit building), you will need to expose the image earlier as there is more light earlier in the evening. A black sky is rather boring, so always make sure you have enough light to get detail in the sky.

Another method of approaching night photographs is to use large aperture lenses, such as f1.4 lenses or even f1.0 or f0.75 lenses. These lenses collect light more rapidly and hence fills up the bucket faster. It is equivalent to using a larger pipe, in some sense. These lenses allow for faster shutter speeds and are hence best suited for night street photography. They are unsuitable for landscape photography as you have to stop down your lens to achieve more depth of field, which defeats the purpose of having such a large aperture lens. The problem is that these lenses are highly expensive and are thus regarded chiefly as specialist equipment.

You can approach night photographs using flash as well. Flash adds light to a scene and is like adding a bottle of mineral water to the bucket instead of just filling it from the tap. As I've covered flash photography before I shan't expand on this paragraph. The basics of a single exposure setting still remain the same though, so what you want to do in essence is to balance the exposure between the background and foreground. The amount of light emanating from the background is always fixed, since you cannot add light to such a large area in a natural setting. The power output of your flash, which controls how much light is falling on the foreground, is however variable. Hence, in order to get an even exposure, just make sure your flash output matches the ambient light in the background. Easy as pie.

Happy shooting!

Little India: Revisited

In preparation for my trip I decided to revisit little India after about 2 years to "train". I did these images and the write-up as if I was a mock tourist. How often do Singaporeans visit our tourist destinations anyway, I probably know less about the place than some tourists. Heh.

[B][U]Little India[/U][/B]

Little India was a quaint little location where colours abound and life bustles. The most notable thing about the area's shops is that they seem chiefly to be made up of flower-garland shops, grocers and jewellery shops. The odd periodical or Hindi music shop can be found here and there but a good 80-90% of the shops seem to be made up of these three types of businesses. As I jostled past the crowd in the narrow five-foot walkways, which were mostly blocked by various paraphernalia such as the grocers' baskets and upturned flower bins and only allowed throughfare for a single person at once, I noticed the proprietor of one of the garland shops giving me a curious look as I was photographing one of the garlands.

[B]Garlands[/B]


She asked if I was on a school project, so I explained to her that I was on a personal enjoyment project instead. I took the opportunity to satisfy my curiousity about the purpose of the garlands as I watched her man her stall. The garlands are apparently used for just about any Hindu ceremony and are hence an important part of Indian culture. She keeps the garlands out of the sun to make sure they don't dry out and splash water on them every 5 minutes to keep them looking fresh and appealing.

[B]Watering the Garlands[/B]


After saying farewell, I passed numerous jewellery and textile stores. The proprietors all seemed to be in nice afternoon conversations so I left them alone and concentrated on making photos of their wares.

[B]Cloth[/B]


[B]Textile Shop[/B]


[B]Jewellery shop[/B]


What I noticed as well was that there seemed to be a fairly large Indian muslim community in Little India. I could see them almost everywhere, shopping for groceries

[B]Two Indian Muslim ladies purchasing Tomatoes[/B]


As I roamed around, I stumbled into a backlane where I saw a small cloud of pigeons nesting on one of the shophouses. I promptly snapped a photo.

[B]Taking Flight[/B]




I also saw some, well, mops hanging out to dry. They were lit beautifully in the light and I couldn't resist.

[B]Mops[/B]



I then crossed the road to Tekka Market, one of the oldest and most famous markets in Singapore. As I made my way across the junction, I was surprised by a sudden convoy of Japanese tourists on trishaws. I noticed these two adorable old ladies on a really funky trishaw, much to my delight.

[B]Japanese Tourists[/B]




[B]Tekka Market[/B]



Stepping into Tekka Market, it was easy to see why it is one of the most famous markets in Singapore. The range of seafood available at this market was much wider than what I'd ever seen elsewhere. There was seafood here that I could not even identify. The smell of fresh seafood hung in the air as I passed trays after trays of iced and live produce.

[B]Big Head Prawn[/B]


The proprietors of the stalls were also friendly in general, obviously curious about the camera toting person that had entered their domain. A mutton seller who was on a break promptly grabbed his friends and insisted I take their photo, I happily obliged.

[B]Mutton Sellers[/B]




Unfortunately, I left out another of his friends, but that was soon rectified. His friend was more rheumy-eyed from a tad too many cigarettes, but was cheerful nonetheless.

[B]Mutton Seller, again[/B]



Around the market, I also found a lady shucking cockles, or "hum". It seemed like child's play in her hands, but having tried it myself before, I knew how terribly difficult it was. Hey, why else would people buy it shucked?!

[B]Shucking Cockles[/B]



Before I left Tekka Market, I also passed by a live crab stall, where the proprietor was conducting a roaring trade. He good naturedly asked me not to photograph his customers, so I photographed him instead.

[B]Crab Stall[/B]



Had a lot of fun down there. Would recommend you to go down to the Little India area to take a good look at it, there's much to see!

Other Random images

The Arts lane


A quaint cafe where the charge $1.50 for a puny cup of sugar cane. Avoid.


Bangles


Alleyway


Another Alleyway


Decorations



After Little India, I went down to orchard to meet Joan for makan at Pepper Lunch, I still love the place. As Ken Rockwell says, whereever you are at blue hour, make photos, so I did.

Wisma Atria



I also noticed the light-up was pretty nice, but having missed blue hour, I got a pretty shitty photo, but you can see what it looks like at least.

Anime Review: Gantz + SpeedGrapher

I've decided to adjust the format of my anime reviews and just write a short paragraph on each of the shows I've watched because I decided that providing ratings are quite subjective. If you wish to take a look at ratings, you may check out the shows on Animenewsnetwork.com. Go to the links bar on the left and click on the anime encyclopedia.

Gantz - Studio Gonzo


This is probably one of my favourite anime because it's a really powerful portrait of human society today; selfish, screwed-up and quite twisted really. This particular anime and the manga that gave rise to it was famous for being extremely twisted, ultra-violent stuff. Having just studied Ted Hughes' poetry I think that I very much appreciate the fact that things are presented as it is, rather than disguising twistedness with beautiful language and poetic verse. There is a certain honesty in the brutal rawness of the anime that I really love and appreciate.

The story revolves around Kei Kurono, a selfish high-school student with perverse thoughts filling his brain most of the time. He stops by a bookstore weekly to purchase pornographic magazines and has constant problems with erections in class, which his female classmates are quick to notice and point out. One day, after buying his usual magazine, he heads home via the subway and notices that a drunk homeless bum has fallen on to the tracks. The thought process of Kurono and the entire subway patronage is fantanstic in showing what society is like in this scene and it remains one of my favourite scenes to date. None of the crowd at the subway wants to help the man, but Kurono suddenly notices a tall high school student jump down onto the tracks to help the man. The tall high school student appears to be none other than his childhood friend Kato, who unbeknownst to Kurono, idolised him when he was young because of his courage and mental strength, which he has since lost to "growing up". Kato looks around for help and suddenly notices Kurono, and instantly calls him over. Kurono curses in his mind but as the crowd of commuters stares at him, he is forced to go over to help Kato. As Kurono gets onto the tracks, they find that they are still unable to lift the homeless man onto the high platform and as the train's approach suddenly becomes imminent they realise that they're in a fix. Kurono's first thought is to escape and leave Kato and the homeless man behind but Kato persuades him to stay. With a final push they get the homeless man onto the platform with seconds to spare. Kato reasons that if they run to the point where the front of the train stops they will be fine. However, as they run, a twist of fate occurs and they hear the announcement blare over the intercomm that this train will be an express train and will not stop at this station. They are both killed instantly as the train smashes into them and as their vision darkens they suddenly find themselves in a room with a group of people and a bizzare, non-descript, black ball. Having vivid memories of dying, all the people in the room think that they're in heaven. However, Tokyo tower can be seen out the window and it seems that something strange is going on. To complicate matters, a nude girl suddenly appears in the room as well. Kurono reacts as expected and some yakuza in the room try to rape her but Kato steps in, saving her and knocking out the yakuza. As if in response to the tension, the black ball suddenly opens and a post-war radio exercise song plays. As they gather round the ball words start to appear on the surface of the ball: "Your lives have ended. What you decide to do with your new lives is up to you" As they examine the ball, they realise that the ball also offers them strange rubber suits and also oddly fashioned guns. The ball also flashes a picture of what seems to be an alien with the word "target". As they examine the weaponry, they are suddenly teleported out into the streets of Tokyo. What will happen next?

The art in this Gonzo series is highly detailed and is reminiscient of Clamp animations. It, together with the soundtrack is gritty and a highly suitable complement to this masterpiece of a series. The only let down is the ending, which is somewhat wishy washy and doesn't really provide a conclusive, satisfactory ending. This is, in general, a feature of Gonzo series, which may possibly be a marketing ploy on Gonzo's part, but it is irritating nonetheless. However, in light of one heart-pumping mission after another, you will quickly forgive the ending. Highly recommended

SpeedGrapher - Gonzo/Tap



What you will notice straight away if you like Gonzo productions is how much the art differs in this animation. There is very little attention to detail and hair often seems like just a sheet of fabric. This, of course, may be the influence of Tap studio, but nonetheless, the story is engaging and very enjoyable. The series, though not as strong as Gantz, also provides another insight into Gonzo's scriptwriters' view of the world today, where money rules the world.

The story revolves around Saiga Tatsumi, a famous war photographer whose images are haunting and emotional. He lives to take photographs but has a morbid fascination with shooting death; he gets turned on by doing so. Nearly dying during a war, he is recalled by his editor, much to his irritation. With a dearth of any "interesting" to photograph, he starts to investigate a secret club which he hears indulges the deepest and darkest fantasies of it's members, for a price. He manages to infiltrate the club by ambushing one of it's members and stealing that member's club pass. What he stumbles upon is a twisted world where mass orgies go on in an underground club. Every fantasy plays itself out in different rooms of the club, pandering to its members desires. Saiga has a field day photographing all of this but he suddenly stumbles upon a ceremony of sorts where a beautiful, ethereal, female descends from the sky to "bless" a recipient with the ability to live his wildest fantasy. Saiga is enthralled by her beauty and cannot resist taking a photo, which instantly draws the attention of the guards. In an abrupt twist of fate, he receives the blessing of the "goddess", Kagura, instead, but is nearly killed by the guards as they attack him with machetes. As he lies there dying, the goddess' blessing suddenly takes effect and he finds himself a being known as an Euphoria, and he has the power to cause "death by photo". Go figure =). He takes Kagura and escapes, as she begs him to. Kagura is however very important to the club because of her powers and the club will stop at nothing to get her back. As Saiga and Kagura go on the run, he investigates the club and turns up horrifying truths, including the fact that the entire government body and almost all the important heads of every corporation in the country are involved in the depraved club. Behind the club is a man known as Suitengu, who was in the same war with Saiga and had apparently nearly been killed in the same incident that wounded Saiga. More than a way to make money, the club's creation was designed for Suitengu to exact his ultimate purposes. As Saiga attempts to uncover the mystery behind Suitengu and the mysterious club, he meets even more Euphorias, all of which are after his life. As a consequence of his power, Saiga's eyes blur gradually and he faces the prospect of becoming blind. To make matters worse, Kagura only has a limited amount of time to live as her power has caused a tumour to grow in the centre of her brain, where it cannot be removed. Saiga must race against time to solve the mystery behind Suitengu, the massive Tennouzu corporation and the club in order to grant Kagura freedom to live out her last days.

As a photographer, I tend to appreciate little intricacies about this series, like when a fellow Euphoria blasts Saiga's cameras with a shock of lightning and thinks they won't work anymore and Saiga smirks saying "Real pros don't use electronic cameras, they use manual ones". The ending is also pretty good, which is unusual for a Gonzo animation. Thank you Tap!

PIME 11: What's in the background?

Here's a recent photo which I forgot to post. Noticed this little plume of smoke coming out from Changi Prison, the cookhouse must be having a BBQ or something.



PIME 11: What's In the Background

One of the things about great photos is that everything that's in the frame is meant to be there. Nothing is in there for fun or by accident. When a good photographer makes a picture, he/she will take into account everything within the four walls of the photo and make a snap decision on whether to include that element or not. If you've done photoshoots with me, you'll realise that I'm about to take a photo when I suddenly stop, walk forward, and remove a piece of tissue on the grass. Why? The piece of tissue is very small, but does it contribute to the photo? Of course not! The trick is to let your eye roam around the image in the viewfinder or on your lcd before making the shot. Sometimes you don't realise me doing it because as you get proficient at it, it's so fast that it takes less than a second to do so. This is the reason why I can find little details quickly in a scene by looking at it. I notice minute details, because I've trained myself to do so. This isn't an innate capability, it can be learnt.

With compact cameras, one of the limitations is that you always have an incredible amount of depth of field(ie. the area in focus) due to the puny lenses that are mounted on a compact camera. Essentially, the smaller your camera's sensor, the shorter the focal length of your lens(this is the mm value on the lens) and the smaller the aperture(the larger the fx.x value on your lens, the smaller your maximum aperture), the more depth of field you're going to get. The problem with this is that your background will typically be in focus and hence you have to pay lots of attention to what you're putting in it. With digital SLRs, or compact film cameras, the lenses used are typically around 18-200 mm, whereas on a compact, you'd typically get lenses that range from 5-17mm. Hence, with digital SLRs and compact film cameras, it's much easier to blur out the background with low DOF and it's not extremely important what's in it, as long as there are no distracting colours or light sources. However, with a large DOF, you will often find people lurking in the background of your group photo if you're not careful.

So you have a small digicam and can't blur out the background. You're sunk. Wrong! You just have to wait till the background is clear or you have to find a suitable background which is relatively clean. Street photographers often use small apertures to photograph because they want a large DOF in order to place their subjects in their environment, but they control their backgrounds just as superbly. The trick is always looking out for it. If you look out for it, you won't miss it.

The background is essentially an integral part of a photo, and should be used well. Sometimes, you don't want to use the background, but the following are examples where the background is extremely useful and contributes greatly to the picture.

Here, Yvonne is the main subject, but Deb and the other SSS climbers also play a great role in showing the fun everyone is having. They are equally important. Without them, this photo of Yvonne would be dead boring.


This is a simple shot of a 100m race on sports day in VJC. However, choosing a spot where I could get the house banners in the background made this shot come alive, because I now have the context under which this photo was shot. It's not just a shot of the runners of a 100m race, but a 100m race at VJC sports day, a competion between houses.


Without the background these pictures would be worthless trash; that's how important the background is. Learn to use it, and use it well, for this is essential to making great images.

PIME 10: Digital Black and White

If you guys monitor my work, you'd know that I use the BnW medium quite frequently. I don't use the BnW medium because it's novel or cool but because the BnW medium is simply more useful in strengthening certain images or bringing out what I desire from the images to it's full extent. Colour images are always about colour, but what makes a good BnW image then, since there is no colour. The answer is tones, or shades of grey, as some like to call it, and texture. In the absence of colour, the human brain will always focus on the tones and the textures inherent in the image. In a colour image, vibrant colours create drama, but in a BnW image, the tones do this. Hence, having a wide range of tones in a BnW image is highly desirable.

Traditionally, when BnW film is used, the film doesn't record any colour at all like our digital sensors do today, it simply records tones. The problem is that our brain sees everything in terms of colour, but the great thing is that your brain also sees tones, but you have to recognise it. Look at an object you look at everyday, take a lamp or torch and shine it on that object, does it seem brighter? That's because the object is now reflecting more photons and has a lighter tone. When you look around, you'll realise that some objects have a lighter tone than others(for example someone's face has a lighter tone than their hair, assuming they're asian). It's useful to think of it this way, light green has a lighter tone than dark green and will register on BnW film as a light grey while a dark green object will register as dark grey. Traditionally, photographers use coloured filters such as Red, Yellow, Green, Blue to lighten a particular colour's tone and to darken others. For instance, a deep red filter will make skin tones(which are primarily red) much lighter and will turn a vibrant blue sky into a deep grey. Coloured filters allow light that corresponds to their colour through while filtering out light that is a contrasting colour. Red filters out green and blue, green filters out blue and red and blue filters out red and green. The reason why BnW photographers go through this trouble is that most scenes, if shot without manipulation, turn out very differently from the way the photographer would want them to turn out and will often result in an image with a poor tonal range. Furthermore, certain objects, such as greenery, will always turn up a boring neutral green in a BnW image shot without filters. A deep-red filter (25A) will turn it a more interesting black.

Given modern digital technology and Photoshop, many BnW shooters have converted to making BnW images digitally through the use of software. By shooting a colour image, they can apply an infinite variation of filter factors and even apply different filters to different sections of the image, which transcends the boundaries of traditional BnW imaging. This is done by applying these coloured filters digitally in Photoshop. If you have photoshop, there are 3 ways of doing this.

- Straight Desaturation. This can be done using the Desaturate command (Ctrl+U on a PC or Apple+U on a Mac) and sliding the saturation slider to -100. This is by far the worse way of doing desaturation and should be avoided at all costs for it is equivalent to shooting without any coloured filters at all and will almost always result in a boring BnW image with poor tonal range.

- The best way of doing desaturation is to create a new channel mixer adjustment layer. Using the 'constant' slider will enable you to increase the contrast of your BnW Image. I recommend setting it to -25 for a rather flat scene. The tricky bit is now with the Red, Green and Blue Channel sliders. These simulate the use of coloured filters in traditional BnW photography. Naturally, you can increase the sliders one by one to 100% or more, depending on how much it takes to achieve the original exposure(but remember to set the other sliders to 0% when doing this), to see how each filter affects the image. With experience and keeping the fact that red filters out green and blue, green filters out blue and red and blue filters out red and green in mind, you can even mix the sliders to give you the effect of using a combination of coloured filters at once! This offers the most control but is the hardest way of converting a digital image to BnW. Don't forget to check the monochrome box at the bottom of the Channel Mixer tab.

- A compromise also exists in the form of the Calculations function. There are several preset filter settings which do offer a pretty good end result without much fuss. However, this method reduces the dynamic range of your image substantially, clipping a good amount of shadow details and highlights. It does work wonderfully for flat images though. Try experimenting with this mode, it's pretty fun.

Ultimately, in a BnW image, what you want to achieve is a full range of tones, from pure black to pure white, with a full range of greys in between. Naturally, shooting a scene which has a full range of tones is also vital. As a tip, high contrast scenes work particularly well in BnW. Below is a BnW image I shot some time back. Notice how the tones range from a rich black to pure white? That is a good tonal range.



As you get more proficient in BnW imaging, you may want to digitally tone your images. In the past, toning was used by printers(yes printing was formally done in the darkroom and is what you see in the movies when they show shots of a darkroom with red lights. Developing of film is done in total darkness and cannot be filmed) to give prints of a BnW image a particular look. For instance, selenium toned prints had a bluish-purple tinge whereas sepia toned prints were more brownish. The common reddish sepia that you see today is a digital sepia, printers never toned prints that colour. This old picture is a true sepia toned image. This is currently my favourite tone, a rich brown. If you like it, this is a preset tone available for Photoshop CS/CS2 users and can be found under the Mode->Duotone->Quadtone->Pantone. It is the last one in the selection of 4. There is also an excellent selenium tone available under the same folder. These tones were created by a master printer Adobe hired, so make use of them!

Rom Coms

I've probably never told anyone this, but frequently after I turn in for the night, I often stay conscious for about an hour thinking about stuff. After finishing off School Rumble last night I thought about rom coms and why I liked it so much. If you think about it, the reason why people like rom coms is kinda sad; it makes up for the lack of something similar in their life. Don't we all wish that we could have wonderful swept-off-your-feet relationships like those you see in the movies? Or in television series? In reality, it doesn't quite happen that way and the story never quite ends with getting together does it? Then comes the headache of having extra responsibility, extra financial burdens and all the trade-offs that come with companionship, whether good or not. Marriage is in fact less than rosy with all the various tumultuous problems that arise from living together and I guess that's the reason why divorce rates are on the rise, as people start to break away from tradition and go on to seek the best possible welfare for themselves.

The problem therein is people have the wrong idea of love, because movies are so prevalent in our lives today that we tend to mistake it for reality. During the honeymoon period, it's quite common for people to only see what they want to see; the best bits of their partner and when their partner starts squeezing the toothpaste from the top or leaving the toilet seat up after marriage, they get divorced.

Reality is a bummer, isn't it? Don't we all wish that we could have super powers when we watch something like Superman? It would be really great to save people and make a difference to someone's life or rather, many many lives. It would be fantastic to hear people say, hey, that person's really cool. Gosh, I wanna be like him. Then again, it can't be simply making a difference in the lives of others, who wants to be Mahatma Ghandi or Mother Theresa? They were both heroes in their own right, who stepped up to champion a great cause, but in truth, they weren't really idolised for what they did. What do people seek then? It must be that we seek recognition for our deeds. I thought about the reason I photograph as well last night. I've always thought that I photographed only for myself, but I realised when I do so, I strive to make beautiful photographs because I want other people to attach that beauty to me. I feel great when total strangers appreciate my photographs, because it feels like i've achieved something of worth; that my life has impacted even a small corner of the world. It's the same reason why I like dressing well, why I do nice things sometimes. I was reminded of a particular episode of Bleach, where one of the main characters was sucked into an alternate dimension and all memories of her was erased amongst her friends. If I left the world today, would it truly make a difference to the way the world operated? Would it make a difference to the lives of my friends? Consider this, if I got knocked down by a car today and died, you would be sad right? The crux is this, would you still remember me in 1-2 years time, after my number has been deleted from your phone and my name has been shifted into long-term memory? The point is this, if I didn't exist, the world would still be spinning and going on as per normal, with nothing having changed. There would be someone else teaching the S1 boys in church and there would be someone else being your friend, or maybe one less friend wouldn't be much of a difference, if any difference at all.

It's the same thing for love and relationships isn't it? We always wish that it could be as funny, madcap and as totally impossible as we see it in rom coms. It's really a form of escapism isn't it, where we can hide from how pathetic our own love lives are by living vicariously through the characters. You find yourself thinking "Go Hugh Grant!" or for fans of school rumble, "Baka! Stop deliberating and confess already!" When they finally get hitched, we smile and feel happy for them. It's silly isn't it? The biggest problem with that is what goes on in there is simply fantasy, it doesn't actually exist! All the characters and relationships were figments of somebody's imagination. Why are we rooting for them? The stuff I watch does often make me think about it's content though and I just want to share a rather interesting insight from school rumble, which is the most recent thing I've watched. My MSN nick translated means "The sky is always blue, but always looking at it has no use". In the context of the show, the characters are always struggling to confess to the person of their dreams. In the context of life, I think it's pretty much the same. We're always comfortable with just sitting under the tree and looking at the beautiful sky. We don't want to get sunburnt or pull a muscle by reaching for it, and thus we'll never quite get there. I don't know about you, but my own relational life has been nothing but crap. When you have feelings for someone, you either get rejected or you never get round to telling them and everything totally passes you by. When someone has feelings for you, they never tell you. Either that or like me you're too dumb to notice the overly subtle hints. I'm a person that tends to need to process things a lot, and I think on several occasions, I've missed out on opportunities because of the lack of spontaneity. Basically, I will find it tough to deal with a situation that happens suddenly, though I'm trying to correct that at present because it seems meeting lovely people happens to work like that. It's pretty often that I go home and after thinking about it, I conclude I'm an idiot. Unfortunately, that also means you're probably never going to get chance 2. Then sometimes, I don't know what the hell I'm thinking and I go and do something on impulse, which I regret immensely later. Such is the story of my idiocy. Frankly speaking, I'm rather realistic(or disillusioned), I'm just looking for someone who's slightly cute(at least), down to earth, and basically whom I can get along with. Unfortunately, I'm not popular material and so there isn't much in the way of choice. Conceivably, I think that if someone slightly cute were to ask me out, I probably would be honoured enough to accept. I think the biggest wish of guys is that girls in Singapore would be slightly more forward, the ultimate would probably be to the extent you get in movies or in media that you watch. I, for one, would be overjoyed if someone made me a bento(box meal), or whatever equivalent exists locally. It seems that in Singapore, guys wind up doing alot of the dog work in pushing for something and girls are mostly relaxing in the background. I don't remember a time when someone of the opposite gender actually did something I really appreciated outside of a relationship. Perhaps the popular guys might beg to differ. Well, at least there's always anime to take refuge in. Do genuine happy relationships still exist in the world today? Or do relationships simply last out of habit, out of responsibility, out of religious beliefs, out of fear of change?

I thought about life and religion as well and for a long time I've been mulling over this. I don't know how many of you remember my theory on Murphy's Law, but essentially I theorised that the reason why Murphy's Law worked was that we only notice when it happens. When you want it, it isn't there. When you don't want it, it's there in abundance. We often forget about the times that it's there when we want it. Murphy's Law is in essence, part of chance and is constructed by humans to explain why things don't go their way. I know this might be a rather blasphemous comparison, but I've thought about it nonetheless. Does answered prayer work the same way as Murphy's Law? Does it seem to always exist because we choose to only see the times when prayer is answered and gloss over the times when it's not? Consider this as well, what is the point of prayer if God only answers prayer that is according to his will? If we do not pray, will his will not still be done? After the 40 DOP session, I remember most vividly that we were created for God's pleasure. If you think about the whole purpose of life, we simply strive and fight to live in order to keep fighting to live, what are we living for? Are we simply some interactive soap opera for God? Isn't everything we do kind of like part of the God edition of the Sims? It's kind of like you taking pleasure in watching rom coms, which I'm sure exist somewhere around the world. If you were God, watching the world would be better than having 500 channels of cable. You'd have violence in Somalia, you'd have drama in Broadway. You could desire to watch anything and it would all be available somewhere around the world. Was the reason God told Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply to increase his cable channels? Are we indeed created for God's entertainment? I can think of no other purpose for existence. Alternatively, it could be a test from God to filter out who he doesn't want in Heaven. If it's a test, that would explain how horrible life is.

It's a chore to be alive isn't it? Doing your best so you can continue to do your best. Helping others so that you can feel like you've accomplished something and made your mark in someone's life. Wouldn't it have been better if the human race simply ended at Adam and Eve, should God have said, "Adam, you lousy wretch, I shall now destroy you and your wife Eve." After watching Gantz, which is a splendid portrait of human society today, I decided beyond a doubt that society is rather self-serving. Why does one serve the Lord, so one can gain recognition from the Lord(storing up treasures in heaven, better status in heaven maybe) and maybe from fellow church members. Why does one make sacrifices? So one can fulfill their hero complex. Agape love(or unconditional love) DOES NOT EXIST in this world. God might possibly be the only one capable of giving it, for humans are always self-serving, whether conscious or not. Why do Christians love the world, so they can bring the world to Christ, so they can be obedient to Christ. WHY WHY? So the Lord will say, "Good and faithful servant, you shall be entrusted with more". Are we not serving ourselves?

At the same time, I can't help thinking there must be some good thing in life, that I will miss when I pass on, that I will remember in old age(should I reach there), that I want God to delay the 2nd coming for. I remember when Mian Yi was getting married, we were talking about the 2nd coming and he said he hoped God would delay the 2nd coming until after his marriage. So at that time I concluded that what must be the best thing in life would be love. All my life, I don't remember there ever being a time when I've been truly happy. There's probably not a single person on this earth that knows the true me. I have a split personality, in some sense. All of you have met the wacky Tim that you know and love. The other Tim thinks too much and writes these blog entries. If you befriended the other Tim you would be absorbing a lot of depressive energy, which is why you will always see the wacky Tim. Maybe I've just never been content. Maybe I'm just looking for somebody that will accept Schizo Tim and not just wacky Tim who couldn't give a shit about responsibility. I've had all my physical needs met, which conceivably should make me more content that a hungry African child, but that just leaves me room to think about the more important needs in life. I even tried looking for happiness in Christ, for some time, but that resulted in an increase in my usefulness via service and increased my sense of belonging to a family unit. It made my life mean something, but it didn't make me happier. I dated this year, to try and fill the gap, but that wasn't really what I was looking for either. Maybe it was just the wrong person, but then you know in looking for the right person you wind up hurting others. That's kinda stupid, my depressiveness shouldn't transfer, it should be contained. If you're not happy, the important thing is to not let it make others unhappy, that's the only responsible thing to do. For instance, if you've got an infectious disease but want to mix with others, you'd need to put a bubble around yourself to prevent others from being infected. Alternatively, you don't mix with them at all.

Secretly, everyone probably carries their own inner demons, would we ever be able to conquer it? I for one, am curious to find out if there's anything present in life that would make it worth living for. Is there anything in this world(or out of it) that can provide happiness, true happiness? Bible verses are cool, but they're more useful for teaching others rather than comforting others. Personally, I've never really been comforted by the Word at an emotional level. It's more of an intellectual level, where you say "Hey, here's what God says. Hmm maybe I've been approaching it the wrong way. Maybe I've been thinking about it the wrong way." Then you try changing your thought patterns, habit patterns, and you still find out all roads lead to Rome. Fundamentally, it doesn't solve anything. Am I bitter? I honestly can't say, but I'm quite tired of seeking out the good in life when I'm not sure any exists in the first place(but i've only been searching 19 years, still it's a quarter of a life time and I've not made much progress. I need to go somewhere else other than Rome, it's not the destination I'm looking for). I'm afraid i'm probably just going to find how to make life more livable until death, this is 'Rome' btw. Death, the blissful state of nothingness, would I regret having been alive? I haven't been dead before, so I can't say if it's better. The problem is if you die and you find out life is better, you can't change your mind can you?

Possibly, you might find happiness in heaven, but that's outside of life.

Marc Adamus

If you love photography, do take a look at Marc's Gallery here. It's the most brilliant shit I've seen in quite a long time. We should all aim to be this good =). Hopefully I might reach there in another 15 years or so.

Mind-blowing collection, aint it?

Classes for next year.

Ok classes for photography are tentatively confirmed for next year and will begin as soon as I get out of BMT and army life stabilises(Approximately Feb). The classes will be conducted once a week, likely on Sunday afternoons. I currently have 2 students at the moment and still have space for 2 more. If you've ever wanted to take up photography properly this is the time. I will not be conducting such classes formally again, well not for free anyway, so do take advantage of this offer. A Digital SLR is recommended for the course, but a digital compact with FULL manual control is also acceptable. However, if you're using a digital compact, you may not benefit from some lessons, as I'll be covering features that are native to a more complex camera.

Random Katong Shoot + Chong Pang Makan photos

Was supposed to meet Xu at Katong today but he was late by an hour. Thankfully, I had brought my camera along to shoot some pictures that night at the makan so I walked around the backlanes of the katong shophouses shooting random street abstracts.

Shards


Tilt


Towels


Warped


Tiles


Mats


Safety


Shirts


Poles


Junk


Hanging


Ash


Fence


In the evening the both of us headed down to Marina South to meet the rest of our cell for dinner at chong pang. I consumed a definitely unhealthy amount of carbon(I have a terribly sore throat now) but had fun. Here's some random shots from the night. As you can see, much harsh lighting from the flash. The pull-out bounce card didn't do much and I still haven't gotten round to getting my Lightsphere. It's not paid work anyway, hehehe, so didn't quite bother to bring my ultra bounce card that I've been using so far(those who went to prom last year would remember this).

My cell. I couldn't have Aaron inside cos the shot Abs took was kinda blurry due to handshake.


CB Cho, plus horns


CB cho again


Esther and Ian + Aaron + Deb


Myself, Ian and Xu


Shirley, Abs, Esther and Deb


Cho, Jamie and Meatloaf Han


Same trio


*BTW, you can click on the pictures for a slightly larger image. Should be enough for your viewing pleasure on your com.