Tag: Nikon D700

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Announcement

Association of Bloggers (Singapore) – This Is Your Secretary Speaking

Association of Bloggers (Singapore) - First Group Photo

Here is one secret of mine that no one knows except my mother.  When I was young, I dreamed of being a bus driver.  I would pace around my home in Hong Kong for hours imagining that I was shuttling my passengers around.  Little did I know that instead, I would become a secretary one day.

Maybe I could look cute in skirt.  That’s why our president EastCoastLife has appointed me as the association’s secretary.  When the prominent local blogger EastCoastLife – whom we have been dropping comments at each other’s sites for years – invited me to meet with other Singapore bloggers in person, I was curiously excited.  A series of events since the days of the Singapore F1 that lead to our association formally registered in Singapore – first of its kind.

Hooray!

Blogging is my passion.  And I am excited to be part of this association.  As a first generation immigrant of a country that I love (since 98), I am honored to take part in building something tangible here.  This is my sole motivation.  And as for the key stakeholders – in my personal view – they are (1) Singapore, (2) the public, and (3) the members.  My personal vision of success in mid term is to contribute in building a strong and sustainable blogging community in Singapore as the frontier of the New Media.  Some of you know that I have been a Management Consultant for more than a decade before moving into the industry and now helping to drive global initiatives.  I aim to bring along my experience of working with the leaders of the organizations – both profit and non-profit – into this new association.

Back to this secretary role, I hope it is just about taking minutes, co-signing cheques, answering phone calls, buying takeaway, babysitting bosses’ toddlers, taking pictures, and screaming at everybody but the bosses.  I mean, that is the job description of a secretary right?

Above are some of the pictures taken during one of our meetings (note: written consent required by the association before used).  Below are the links to the websites of our founding members.  They are really fun people to be with, so much talents from a diverse background.  I can’t say too much on the upcoming events now and we shall hear it from our media team later (hmmm … where have I put my media team hat).  Stay tuned!  This is a beginning of many great things to come ~ to quote EastCoastLife.

PS. Association of Bloggers (Singapore) is covered by Today’s TODAY newspaper, the morning edition.

Association of Bloggers (Singapore) – Committee Members

Categories
Memorable Events Photography

Captured Moments of My Sister’s Wedding in Hong Kong (2008.12.28)

A Sample from My Personal Collection of My Sister's Wedding

Fortunately I was not the main wedding photographer.  What hard work it was!  With no control over light quality, background, and where everybody stands, I did the best I could.  And I did the best I could with my first dSLR camera that was less than 2 months old and my non-existing knowledge of Photoshop.  At times I am amused by the faith my little sister has in me.  I love my little sis.  I have been practicing hard, for this very moment.

Can’t wait to see the result?  Click here but please do come back.

I have been resisting to ‘photoshop’ my pictures for a long time until now.  Simply because I’d like to show the world what I can possibly do with my camera and my camera only.  Here is an analogy for you.  Showing you what could have done with my camera (to the point of no cropping) is like performing my music live to you.  The artwork is not perfect, it has its flaws, but (I hope) it has its charm, a sense of genuineness.

Most professionals do some forms of post production work on their photos.  Competitions allow that too.  Hence to me, admiring a moderately or heavily ‘photoshopped’ picture is like listening to a music album.  Perfectly finished and generally accepted.  Some cross the line and they have become more like a digital art to me.  No disrespect to those who are skilled in post production work, I personally enjoy playing my music live.  I.e. my photos as they are being shot (or could have been shot).  Having said that, after ‘photoshopped’ this little photo collection of mine, I do enjoy admiring the end result of this twenty odd pictures, out of 500.

It is surreal to think that my little sister is now married.  It seems like yesterday when I changed her diapers, when I was 4.  Now, here are the rest of my photo collection.

Related Link: Personal Photo Collection of My Sister’s Wedding (HK), What a Fruitful Year that Ends with a Bang: My Sister’s Wedding

Categories
My Hobbies Photography

Testing My New Tripod System in Wee Hours, One Friendly Police Officer Stopped Me and She Asked …

Raffle Statue at Night

“I see that you are taking pictures of A LOT OF buildings, what are you shooting exactly?” a young female police officer stopped me at two in the morning, right next to the Parliament House.

Good question.  What was I doing by the Singapore River in the wee hours of the Boxing Day.

I needed to test out my new tripod system before heading to Hong Kong later in the late afternoon.  The answer is as simple as that.  And I have always been wanted to shoot the beautiful night scene of the Singapore River.  So I chose the wee hours, after attended the evening Christmas Mass. 

Bizarre things do happen in the wee hours of 12 to 3.  A band was playing in one of the pubs and as the party has ended, the crowd started to disperse.  One group – 3 Indian men 2 Chinese ladies – walked passed me, looked at my camera, and one of them asked, “It’s so dark, what do you see?”  Like magic (due to 30 seconds long exposure), first was the sound of the shutter, then came the image.  And they looked at the picture and gasped.  All of a sudden, all the guys were very animated.  One guy told me that he has the D90.  Yes, it is a good camera, I assured him.  He pointed at mine and said, “Yours is much better!”  And I reassured him that a D90 is a good camera.  We chatted and chatted and how a group of 5 managed to squeeze inside a BMW Convertible, I have no clue.  But they waved at me like good old friends do, breath of the alcohol still lingered in the air, and with a touch of the gas petal, the sport car vanished into the dark.

And that was the closest I get next to a BMW Convertible that opened its roof just moment ago.

How I love to be a – quote unquote – photographer.  People are super friendly with me.  Even though … I am a …

I don’t even know what I am anymore.

Note: All pictures shown here are mostly straight from the camera, with some very minor touch-ups – including the 7 dust spots I have discovered on my image sensor.  Thanks to Nikon Service Centre, they are now gone.

As I walked along the river, admiring the beautiful serenity dotted with couples having their own romantic moments, I heard someone said, “Adíos!”.  Spanish?!  Filipino perhaps.  From the band I reckon.

Someone was sleeping on the street with his bicycle next to him.  He must have woken up by the shutter sound of my camera.  He paced around waiting for me to go away.  I stuck around waiting for him to go away.  Reluctantly, he cycled off and that was when I was stopped by two police officers.  I reassured her that I was not taking any picture of the government buildings (common security measure even in the US of A).

Moving away from the quietness of Boat Quay, I was drawn by the light and the sound of Clark Quay.  3am in the morning, people were still doing reverse bungee.  I could hear their screaming across the river.  Some time ago someone raised a concern over such entertainment in Clark Quay.  Too much noise in the wee hours.

I climbed up an overhead bridge and took some pictures of the traffic on the street.  One white lady screamed just another flights of stairs behind me saying something like she wanted to die.  I turned around, saw her in the middle section of the bridge with one leg over the railing.  Her lover (I supposed) pleaded her to stop killing herself.  I saw the hesitant in her so I did not want to get involved.  They went on and on over I love you I love you not with drinks in their hands while I went on and on shooting for that one perfect traffic shot.  There were cars that braked hard right before my eyes (people who think that I was the traffic police with a speed camera?).  There were cars that shot past me with such ferocity.  Yes, that grey Nissan GT-R.  I nearly got your number plate.

I love my new tripod system.  Unlike cameras and lenses that the heavier the gears are, the higher the quality, but rather like the bicycles for the professionals, losing the weight without compromising the performance cost a lot, a lot of money.  I have previously carried a tripod for my entire trip to Italy in 2000.  Anything heavy I just wouldn’t use (unless it is the case of heavy weight that implies good quality).  That much I know about myself.

Night time photography can be a lonely activity.  Each shoot took a minute or more to complete – mount the camera, adjust the tripod head, compose the picture, determine the settings, close the viewfinder blind, use a 10 seconds timer release, wait for 15-30 seconds or more for the picture to be properly exposed, and if the result can be improved, restart the whole process again.  If that is not tedious enough, at times I have to wait for the people to move away, pray that people will not move into the picture (anything can happen during the 30 seconds exposure plus 10 seconds timer release).  I have to observe the wind speed over the river, and the movement of the cloud.

It is all about patience and perseverance.  And this is my passion.  Above all, I love taking pictures in this beautiful country that I call home.

~ Dec 26, 2008

Yes, I’m Singaporean! Blog Contest
Check out other Singaporeans at mySingapore.sg

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My Hobbies Photography Travel Blog

Second Batch of Photos from Our Bandung Trip – Cafe Sierra at the Peak and Our Last Day of the Trip

A Lovely Waitress at Bumbu Desa

OK.  This photo of the waitress at Bambu Desa looks lovely.  The authentic Indonesian food from the lovely city of Bandung is lovely too.  Now before I get into that, here comes the second batch of our selected photo collection.

If you notice from the previous batch, I have reversed the order of the batches because … I simply want to do something anti-chronicle.  On the last evening of our Bandung trip, the sky had finally opened up after days and nights of rain.  So we headed to one of the cafe at the peak.

Year 2000, I was at the exact spot.  To cut a long story short, it was my first meet-Cynthia’s-family session, and Cynthia’s mother passed me her antique van to drive up to the peak.  Looking back, I often joked that it was one of the tests to assess the suitability of erm … you know lah. Both Cynthia’s mother and brother are better drivers and are familiar with the Indonesia road structure while I …

OK.  I stalled the handbrake-less van once at one crucial steep hump and the villagers were kind enough to help us to hold the van while I engaged the first gear.  Ahem!

8 years have passed and instead of the same cafe we have visited in 2000, we chose the more classy Cafe Sierra.  You can see from the evening photos at the peak.  A lovely cafe.  By the way, I love that photo of the balcony with kids running round.  Look closer and see if you can see Cynthia and her mother!

The next day, we had our lovely lunch at Bambu Desa (Bandung) before heading to Jakarta for an overnight stay.  As you can see, we took the SIA flight.  I love the last picture a lot (the one with Cynthia holding a Starbucks coffee and the SIA plane as the background).  It was time critical as the plane was moving away as I was trying hard to adjust the flash setting.

Thanks for viewing!  More are on the way.

Note: the dude in our collection is Tong Kiat, our good friend.

Related Tag: Bandung December 2008 Trip

Categories
My Hobbies Photography

First Batch of Photos from Our Bandung Trip – A Teaser and More to Come

Shooting from the Back of the Car - Cynthia and I

I know I have been slow in publishing the photos from my trips and now that I am heading to Hong Kong in less than 72 hours’ time, it’s a high time to release the first batch of … erm … teaser. Recently, I have added a telephoto zoom lens into my collection. Though it is rather chunky and heavy and make my entire setup (with flash) weights more than 3kg, it adds a lot of fun to what I couldn’t have done with a wide angle lens. The widened space between my subjects and I have created new means to articulate my vision.

In this collection, half of the photos are created using the telephoto lens, from the casual pictures taken inside Indonesia eating places to the garden of Cynthia’s home in Bandung. Inside the car, I use the wide angle lens (see picture above). I took a picture of that “Satay Building” (the government building with a pole that looks like a satay stick on top) and later at night, I attempted to capture the light of the sunset around the estate, hand held.

Coming soon, I intend to share sets of the selected photos from the close to 2,000 shots I have made during the trip. At the end of this mini-series, I am pretty sure that you would fall in love with what Bandung has to offer. Proposed blog titles are as follows.

  1. Last Day of Our Trip and Sierra – A Cafe at the Peak of Bandung
  2. North of Bandung – Air Terjun Maribaya (Waterfall) and De Ranch
  3. South of Bandung – Kawah Putih (Volcano)
  4. My Family My Friends & A Good Driver / Tour Guide to Recommend
  5. Pigeons, Lots of White Pigeons
  6. Shopping at Rumah Mode & Paris Van Java
  7. High Speed Street Shots
  8. Wildlife at Taman Safari

Categories
Diary

I Faced the Moon As My Block Leave Began

Camera : Nikon D700 Lens : AF-S VR Zoom-Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8G IF-ED Exposure : M mode, 1/1000 second, f/4 Sensitivity : ISO 200

I have been holding back on writing the crazy drama and frustration I faced at work questioning why some people have this lens that see the perspectives in life that is so different from mine.  But I choose to focus on the happy things in life.  It was hard till the very last few hours countdown to the start of my compliance leave and it is all worthwhile.  I always see my work environment like a game of survivor.  Season 2 begins unexpectedly even before I wrap up this meant-to-be a wonderful year at work.  I still hold firm to my belief that do the right thing and I will be taken care of.  So I do just that and the moon has smiled at me tonight.

So I am happy, very happy today.  I can’t tell you too much about a Singapore entity I am involved that is officially registered today, nor I can tell you too much about the fruition of this global initiative that I have poured in 18 months of blood and sweat.  Just take my word.  I am a happy man.

My brother-in-law-to-be called me if I would be his best man for his wedding with my sister in Hong Kong.  Certainly I am honored to be.  I have known him for so many years ever since I have stepped into Singapore.  I can’t think of a better man on moon earth to marry my little sister.  That reminds me.  Wasn’t I the emcee for my guitarist’s wedding with my band manager just earlier on this year?

Life is good.  I am happy.  By the time you read this, I shall be inside a jeep taking pictures of the wildlife in an Indonesian Safari.  I still want to see the volcanoes although Cynthia told me that recently, these volcanoes have coughed out poisonous gas.  Some tourists have died.  Maybe we could … wind up the windows and hide inside our jeep?

I will have Internet access, however limited it is going to be.  So, do keep the comments coming.  This is going to be an exciting block leave.  All the way till Jan 4 next year.

~ 12/12/2008

PS. A casual picture taken from my window.  No post production work has been done to the … moon.  Actual image resolution after cropping.  The picture of the moon does look better on a Google browser, less jagged than on IE.  I wonder why.

Categories
Whacky Thoughts

A Series of Interviews – Of Blogging and Journalism (So I Have a Digital Badge)

I don’t know which is more mentally challenging, the competition or the interviews thereafter.  Fortunately, my mind was very much heightened with the essence of at least two chickens I took in the morning.  One reporter pulled me outside for an interview.  Well, I had no clue that when she asked me the first question, it was meant to be a warm up.  So after I poured my heart and soul in answering that first question, she pulled out her camera and said, “Let’s do the video recording now.”

Ah ha …

One reporter traveled from Malaysia and I have to be nice!  Besides, it is still my dream to have my band playing gigs in Kuala Lumpur.  Ha ha ha.

But seriously, all my answers are from the bottom of my heart.  Journalists are the smart, hardworking, and observant ones.  You really can’t trick them.

Many friends after sending in the congratulations (thank you!), they would ask what kind of questions I was being asked.  I won’t repeat what I have already covered in my previous post.  Will I blog about the event?  Sure.  And I told them that I had two versions in mind: Yes We Made It and No We Didn’t.  Will there be another blogger competition like this?  BRANDS should absolutely continue this effort.  I would if I was the CEO or MD of BRANDS.  BRANDS could easily own the mental competition branding as the pioneer of the event.

Why wouldn’t they?  No brainer really.

What do you get the most from this event?  It has to be the great opportunity of meeting the bloggers in person, both in Singapore and Malaysia.  Is it that big a deal to meet the bloggers?  Sure.  There is only that much you can know about someone from what you read.  The texture of the personality tends to be one dimensional.  Yes, face-to-face is still the best way to bond.

Blogging versus Journalism

Of all the questions thrown at me after that intensive mental experiment competition, the questions of when and why did I start blogging and my view of blogging versus journalism – new media versus traditional media of newspaper, magazine, radio, and television – are the most challenging ones.

If you take away the obvious, going back to the basic, these outcomes from different media channels are all stemmed from the passion to write, are they not?  The desire to observe and to share is imbued in all of us.  Some choose the path to transform thoughts and observations into words; some take pictures that speak to people’s heart; some paint; music is written because of this desire; and others choose to converse.

I consider myself a writer before a blogger.  Blogosphere is one of the by products of the big bang of the Internet era.  Technology changes the way we connect, the way we get our hands onto information.  Sharing information is king while keeping information may not in many instances.  In this era of virtual connectivity, suddenly all those who write and share online become bloggers.  But peeling away the label and going back to basic, both journalist and blogger have a passion to observe, to write, and to share.

It would be naïve to imagine that the landscape of journalism will be the same with the ever evolving, ever expanding blogosphere.  Many consumers these days are more knowledgeable than the salesmen inside the stores who may not even use the products they sell (trust me, that’s the very first question I ask).  Many travelers these days bypass the travel agencies, plan and book their own tour routes and means.  There will be more readers out there taping onto the Internet to look for what they wish to read, blurring the line of censorship and control.  Maybe the most up-to-the-second information, maybe independent views, maybe keeping constant touch with a personality admired is more intimate than reading the celebrity news.  I personally have stopped reading product reviews from the traditional media long time ago.  Whatever the reasons are to be, we only have 24 hours a day.  An hour spent touring the blogosphere is an hour less to do something else.

Future journalists will have to be a lot smarter, revealing insights that awe the audience.  The future of the blogosphere is bright and promising, as we are marching towards affordable mobile broadband access and the convergence of how small a computer can get and how rich in functionality a hand held device can be; and as we the bloggers gain enough critical mass to make a difference, to compliment the traditional media.

“Bonus” Materials

Enough of deep thoughts.  Here are extra photos taken during the event.  Big thanks again to my new friends at Burson-Marsteller – Selena, Genevieve, Matthew, and Ingmar.  Also, don’t miss a lovely article written by Deborah Choo at Youth.sg.  Those pictures crack me up big time!  Thanks Deborah.  And BRANDS has posted an article too!

Related Entry: Team Singapore Won BRANDS Blogger Challenge, And I Was There

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My Hobbies Photography

Photo Shooting at Singapore Night Safari – No Flash, Hand Held, Total Madness

Knowing that I will visit Taman Safari Indonesia next week, I managed to purchase the perpetually sold out Nikon zoom lens and wanted to give it some practice at our Singapore Zoo or Bird Park during the long weekend.  I stared at the sky everyday and willed the rain to go away, without success.  So one evening I took my Nikon D700 with my new lens and headed to Night Safari, alone.

I have totally underestimated the challenges ahead.  Before I left home, I was very pleased to finally leave the flash gun behind since it is morally irresponsible to shoot these lovely animals with flash.  Flash photography has been a steep learning curve for me; shooting moving wildlife hand held with no flash in near pitch dark and less than ideal light source is very hard.  It is hard to describe unless you try it out yourself.

I have seen many visitors gave up after some test shots (all black, grossly under exposed).  Looking at my LCD, they were amazed at what I took; but I was less than thrilled by the results of this trip.  Sorry guys, I promise to do a better job next time.  Perhaps with a monopod and a different setting.  Below are 28 pictures selected out of close to 500 shots I took that one evening (no Photoshop, no cropping).  I have put in some captions to better describe the condition.  If the OVI player moves too fast, feel free to mouse over it, click pause, and manually forward the slide.

After the first few auto shots, I was stunned by the result (in a negative way no fault of Nikon).  Bear in mind that I have just invested don’t know how many years of my future Christmas present budget into this one lens, I stood still trying to figure out what to do next.  Auto focusing option is out because it was too dark for my camera.  The animals kept moving and the shuttle speed could not be too low.  Some animals kept moving towards and away from me and I had to keep changing the composition (i.e. zoom) and the focus.  Basically my left hand was busy with the two rings on my lens.  I have to go for full manual mode anyway because it is not a question of getting the right exposure, it is a question of how low you can possibly tolerate.  I learned as I shot.

Most of the shots I was shooting at a focal length of 200mm (widest aperture of 2.8 for all).  That works out to be an ideal shutter speed of 1/200s for hand held condition (please let me know if I talk rubbish)?  VR – vibration reduction – can slow down the speed for 3 stops for those who have steady hands (I leaned towards stationary objects whenever possible) and I had to go even lower than that.  Most of the shots, I used a speed of 1/15s.  Some I manage to up it to 1/30s.  Still, it is very hard to get a good shot with that speed at 200mm.  I tried to get a better ISO whenever I could but rarely could I go below 3200.

I had no prior experience nor read anything on manual setting prior to this trip. Most definitely, I have committed a lot of laughable mistakes.  My last manual focusing practice session was when I was a very small boy.  I did the best I could and figured the above out through experiments on the spot that one moist evening.  How glad my scientific mind kicks into action when I need to make my art works.  As always, all online and offline feedback is welcome.

Categories
Memorable Events

Team Singapore Won BRANDS Blogger Challenge, And I Was There

In the morning of the blogger challenge I woke up feeling fresh, popped one bottle of BRANDS, opened up the training kits provided, and started looking at the exercises while I was ironing my shirt.  Sheylara has worked through all these exercises and more for the past 2 weeks.  I flipped through the sheets of exercises in between my starching and ironing, staring at one rather high-end Sudoku I said to myself … Uh-oh.

Five of us for the ‘Team Singapore’ met at the Coffee Bean that I happen to visit every morning and the friendly lady from Burson-Marsteller was explaining to us what the competition would be like in between my cup of caramel latte and warm scone and my fiddling with my new toy (camera).  I must have got her quite stressed up due to my lack of concentration.  Sorry!

And while I was distracted by my own camera, the rest of the Singapore bloggers unanimously appointed me as the team captain.  Huh?!

But with a team of such talent – EastCoastLife, Mr. Endoh, Aaron Ng, and Sheylara – my job was easy.

The Malaysian bloggers actually flew into Singapore the day before for this challenge!  Wow, I thought it was going to be hosted over the Internet via a webcam.  And it was with great pleasure to have met these very popular bloggers here in Singapore.  I have a lot of respect for them.  Did the Malaysia government recently jail a blogger or something like that?  How brave they are to blog in such an environment.

Of all the questions the press has asked me after the competition, my favorite would be: What came into your mind when the Singapore team was lagging behind? 

Singapore Table Tennis Team at the Olympic (if you know how much I love my country, I was more referring to their fighting spirit than anything else)? Hmmm.

Below 33 photos were taken jointly by EastCoastLife’s hubby and I.

Round 1 – a game of arranging random alphabets into a word – our team was having one point lead against Team Malaysia.  Round 2 – a set of mathematics puzzles – was a draw.  Round 3 required us to watch a BRANDS commercial and memorized the key frames.  And we lost a gazillion number of points to the Malaysians on that one game.  Oh no!

Round 4 was yet another one-on-one challenge to guess the missing words in one sentence (like ‘the 12 S of the Z’ … what are the S and Z?).  I did a mental calculation that we needed five straight wins from the five of us in order to marginally reverse the trend.  I tried to steady our team; we did our best in that round but that didn’t happen; we were still behind.

Onto round 5 of 7 and things were not looking good to the Singapore team.  It was yet another group challenge and if we were to lose this round, we would have little chance to win the competition.  Immediately, I practiced what I preached when the host asked about our strategy: I popped another BRANDS Chicken Essence on the spot.

In round 5,  We had to form as many words as possible with the letters given (believe it or not I actually formed the word “porn” and someone asked if there was such a word … they must be shocked).  We gave it all that we have, filled the entire board with as many words as we could humanly think.  I have to give it to the Malaysians that some of their words formed are pretty original.  The judge summed up the words and we had more!

Hooray!

Round 6 was bizarre.  It was some sort of computer game that we have to focus on the movements on the screen.  We won some, we lost some, and onto the final round, Team Singapore had the lead but anything could happen.

Another video was played, questions were asked, before we arrived at the final question, we knew we did just enough to clinch onto the title.  Nevertheless, Sheylara took the last question, which I thought was kind of very tough (a faint banner in the video background with the words “Robot Soccer Club” or something like that). She did observe the details and got that right.

Gosh!  You go girl!

Maybe it was the Chicken Essence we took, maybe it was the home ground advantage, maybe because all of us were having fun (EastCoastLife and I constantly jumped off our chairs whenever we gained points), I am happy to take home the grand cash price + more BRANDS products as well as a T-shirt I wore with that little Singapore flag stitched onto the sleeve.  I love that shirt!  It’s the flag more than anything else!

Thank you for reading.  And thank you BRANDS and Burson-Marsteller for the invitation – a very well-run and fun event, EastCoastLife for the nomination and her hubby to help up with the photography, great meeting the Malaysian bloggers Red Mummy, Sultan Mufazzar, KY, Suanie, and Capt’n Hook who was standing in for Babe in the City – KL.  Yes, we shall meet the next time I drive up!  And thanks for all the warm wishes from my friends and families too.

Above all, congratulations to my teammates, you have done us proud!

PS. To whom I promised to send your photos to … please drop me an email and add me in the Facebook just in case I don’t recognize your name.

Related Entry: First Ever Singapore vs. Malaysia Blogger Challenge by BRANDS® – I Will Be There, A Series of Interviews – Of Blogging and Journalism (So I Have a Digital Badge)

Categories
Memorable Events Music Journal

The Hereen After – A Thank You Note

Yes!  Our band finally did it at The Hereen, a 30 minutes slot playing our own original music.  I have practically put all my other plans on hold for this Nov 29 event.  Being introduced as a local Singaporean band means a lot to me, though Jason the guitarist joked that my accent is not very Singaporean.  Ha!  (Note: The PJ Harvey shirt was a gift from Jason during one of his Australia trips as he knows that PJ Harvey has been a great influence to my music and I have been waiting for an appropriate occasion to wear it!) 

Click here for the photos shot during the performance.

Time now is close to two in the morning and I have no idea how long this post will be.  My intent is to write a simple thank you note, to take you through some of the behind-the-scene thoughts, and to share with you some of the pictures taken during the ‘celebration’ party.  Life as an artist as such.  One moment I was jumping up and down at the stage as a musician; another moment I was moving around the crowd with my rather gigantic camera.  But I am not complaining.  I enjoy art more than anything in the world.

Thank You Note

In no particular order, here we go.

  • I would like to give thanks to the Lord who give us humans the ability to create something so beautiful called music, and to give us the ability to appreciate music that transcends all barriers.
  • Thank you B Well for organizing “Music for Hope”.  I hope you do meet your fund raising target.
  • A big, huge, gigantic, enormous THANK YOU to all of you who took time out and be there.  You have no idea what it means to me (and us) to see familiar faces.  And your engagement is fantastic!  You guys have kept me going especially in the rather uncertain situation (see behind-the-scene).
  • To my friends who send in text messages / blog comments / Facebook comments / emails right before our gig, thank you for your warm wishes.  Not to worry if you were unable to turn up, I am sure No Eye Candy will play again.  Another place, another gig.
  • To the new faces of the crowd, thank you for being there.  I hope to see you again.  And I would like to hear from you too!  Do write to us or catch us for a face-to-face next time we meet.
  • To Tong Kiat, our band crew, Mark Lim, our band photographer, and Jason Seet my vocal coach, thank you for helping out.  You guys are the best!
  • I would like to thank my band – Cynthia, Jason, Selrol, and Wieke – in making my dream comes true, in making our dream comes true.  Nothing is more humbling than finally hatching this 14 years of songwriting hobby into a public performance.  I love you all!
  • Finally, I thank the Lord for the music talent bestowed onto me, the music talents of those surrounding me, and the lovely friends and families I have.  What more could I have asked for … perhaps good health, long life, and more gigs?

Behind-the-Scene Thoughts

1. On New Year Resolutions

Some people believe in New Year resolutions, some don’t.  In 2007, I have set a personal scorecard aimed to do a few things and one of which was to perform live.  In retrospect, it wasn’t such a silly idea after all.  Maybe my targets were a bit too high.  One third of what I set to do, I achieved in the same year.  Some of which, I have achieved in 2008 instead.  The learning point for me is that I may not have control over the timeline of when what I set to do will come true.  But if I set my heart to it, it will happen when opportunity meets preparation.

That brings forth the second point.  In 2008, I set a theme of “Do It”.  And it works wonder.  I think year 2008 must have been the busiest year as far as I can remember.  I hate to look back ten years later and say to myself: how I wish I could have done more.

2. On Beyond Practice

We have practiced hard for this gig.  At times I wonder if my band would ever get bored playing the same set of songs over and over again week after week.  Personally, I miss playing other songs of ours, with the drums.

We didn’t have high expectation on the sound system.  First, it is a charity event.  And second, we don’t have our own amplifiers like other bands do.  So we have to rely on what was available.

Turns out that although we have given our precise requirement months ago, Jason and I have to share the same guitar amplifier and that makes our guitars sounded pretty harsh and noisy.  And there were supposed to be two monitor speakers on stage that project our music back to the performers on stage – those didn’t work.  So I have to rely on that rather echo-ish faraway sound of my voice in attempting to hold the key.  Nothing beats a supportive crowd in a situation like this.

Overall I think we did OK.  Not stellar, but OK.  And certainly we will be back on stage one day, with better sound quality and delivery.  Stay tuned!

After Gig Celebration

Ahead of the pictures taken during our performance by Mark our band photographer that I will link to later, here are some of the pictures I took after our gig.

PS. That pretty necklace Cynthia wore for the gig was from Brüttal – don’t miss an upcoming entry on our Brüttal shopping experience when we last visited PJ Malaysia!