Lines and Curves

liNEs AND cUrvEs



Damn that was a long walk, skipped out of work at the half way point yesterday, went with TLOML to take the fatty to the vet...her first "red river"..we almost burst into tears when we realized that the river was rollin along. Our baby isnt a little girl anymore....sigh so quick.
Anyhow after the trip to the vet and the trip to the pet store, Sherwin and i took a train to the city and wandered the area between, Westin-the esplanade and marina square. I took 266 shots, suprised myself there cause i thought i wouldnt be doing much in the way of shooting so i didnt bring my tripod. We started off at the Cenotaph and though the lighting wasnt as good as we had hoped the stark clean cut white lines of the cenotaph were mighty impressive. I wonder how long its going to last there all by itself, the land it stands on must be worth a fair bit and i reckon that they will relocate it or build something that encompass it but they sure as hell aint gonna leave it there, this is singapore the land of the blocked facade. Once again i have wondered from the topic at hand. We went roaming the area and finally we ended back at the cenotaph and i took some shots without the use of the tripod so if its abit blur forgive me. My objective for our walk was to get some ideas and plan a good photography walk, in good light and ideal conditions such as not being so tired! but as they say..the best laid plans lead to ruin ..Once i started taking pics, i was looking for something specific in each shot, after the cenotaph i wanted to see if i could take shots with lines and curves in them or at least one of the two and while not every shot i took had these straight lines or curves most of them did. I found that after awhile i wasnt looking at how pretty everything looked but why it looked nice and how it worked in the larger frame of things. This lead me to find the interior of the esplanade where i took most of my 266 shots a beautifully structed and well designed building. While i will be the first to admit the exterior of the building leaves alot too be desired(to me at least) the interior does have many qualities worth noting. Lines and curves seem to be all over the place here even in things which i would not have paid much attention to(such as the railings) any other time i visted the building. For such a modern building it has a very appealing sense of colonial architecture, with the clean lines and uncluttered feel of the place. We met Frodo at the roof terrace of the esplande, its a nice setting very nice for a stroll for those going on a first date, u get the feeling of wealth while not having to pay for it, almost like walking through The Fullerton Hotel. All in all it was a nice evening, we had a little bit to eat at Marina Square, strolled back to the Cenotaph and departed from the Grand Hotel around midnight, good clean cheap healthy fun. what more could a man ask for i say.
The pics i loaded are not really good shots but they maintain the theme throughout and thats why i loaded these instead of some of the others i could have loaded. The shot that looks like something from the billy jean video, only on the ceiling, is from suntec city another place that i think would take a couple of hours walk around over a couple of weeks for us to be satisfied with.










SIDEBAR-PICS ARE CROPPED AND RESIZED(SMALLER) AND IF YOU NOTICE A TYPO GET IN LINE.











MY last shot is of course a HMMM shot and it doesnt fit into the theme but, i am a fool for flowers so tough luck.

FRUIT

Rambutans


no reason or ryhme why fruit should be here other than the joy it brings to my heart.


looks alot like a poster from primary school doesnt it

The Mobile Column

SIDEBAR(you know it, click on pics to enlarge em. and dont mention the typos...tis a touchy subject.




As you know from reading my blog( thats right i know you are) its been a busy couple of days with us running around taking pics of fireworks and trying to take pics of what really is a beautiful cityscape, and enjoying ourselves all through. so yesterday was declared a lazy day, even though it was national day itself. Spent most of the day watching the west wing and playing with pepper. The highlight of the day was meant to be the arrival of the mobile column in tampines and while the coloum was much much smaller this year it was still impressive to see tanks come thundering down the simei tunnel.Sherwin, Aaron, Mark, Gerard, Noel, JJ, my Mum and me stationed ourselves at the halfway point of the tunnel so that we could get the full effect, of sight and sound and we were not disappointed as you can see from the faces of our cheering group. Photographically it wasnt the best of my days lah, however my objective was to have fun and i wasnt really focusing(pardon the pun) on what i was doing!

The troops in the vehilces were very sporting and were shouting and cheering their lungs out, it was nice to see them waving little Singapore flags...we the little country that could.

Anyway the National Day events will close with the final fireworks display on saturday...if we make it there....i have heard rumours of firewrok fatigue, in some members of our clan.

Fireworkz Part II

HAPPY NATIONAL DAY

A gang of us went to the esplanade to welcome in the birthday of our little nation and to w atch the fireworks display that was put on by a team of singaporeans and man oh man it was awesome good job team singapore!

This time we were located on the seaward side of land near Sheares bridge and man oh man didnt every photog in singapore have the same idea, the folks on on the bridge itself were pleniful and those on the river banks with us we even more so. In our band of merry folk ( 9 of us) we had 7 cameras all canon and 1 nikon, almost like a rat pack of photographers. I was of course shooting away while trying to enjoy the great display which by the way popped in a spot which none of us expected! thus causing several hundred photogs to swivel dramtically around to get some pics.

I will readily admit i enjoyed the whole thing, the fact that so many people were enjoying ourselves, doing what we love together with friends and family was fantasic, whoever came up with the idea for this Festival of Fireworkz deserves an award.

As the display was going on people(including me) were cheering and whooping in joy, shouts of well done singapore could be heard and that my friend is as common as an opposition member of parliament around these parts.

Anyhow today is national day so to all Singaporeans who read this (i bet there are only two people reading this and neither of you are TLOML)

HAPPY NATIONAL DAY

SIDEBAR-PICS are resized and cropped.
bugger all the typos. Click on them to get a larger display(not full size)
oh yeah u notice i din comment on my pics? thats because they suck but i dont feel so bad cause there was a guy were a professional rig behind us who didnt get anything either.

MY LAST PIC- Another Hmm shot, looks like some kind of spaceship doesnt it?

Sunday 070805

What a day, woke up late! Was supposed to meet the folks for a little jaunt around seletar at 8 but alas i awoke at 8 and so everything was pushed back.
We went to a lovely little place called "The Animal (something or other" i have been there before but there did some tidying up and the whol place looks better now. We were too early to see dogs so we spent our time taking pics and feeding the animals. There have some nice looking crested cranes and a lovely brown horsey who unfortunately is blind in one eye. The moo and the doo tried to train a fat turkey to hop and get a bit o bread and they succeded but unfortunately it was not captured by me!

After seletar we drove to lim chu kang and discovered a Frog Farm, yes thats right...doesnt it just conjour up images of frogs roaming the fields or being hearded by a collie...anyway they have thousands of american bull frogs all meant for human consumption, mainly for double boiled frog soup. There was needless to say alot of frog lovin..
From there we went to a couple of plant stores, east point and home! TLOML made a beautiful pie for lunch. lurvely.


SIDEBAR- Dont forget if you click on the pic you will get a larger version but it is still smaller than the actual size.

THE last pic today is a "hmmm" shot.enjoy.

assignment-fireworks

Mission- To photograph Fireworks over Marina Bay(yup you know the one that took 400k to decide to retain the name)
Spec Ops Team- The Doo Pilot
- The Moo Chief Intel Officer
- TLOML Eye Candy
- me Grunt
Mission Status - FAILED

Took more then 200 pics tonight, mostly of the fireworks, had a great time treking to our vantage point on a plot of reclaimed land, but the pic...sigh the pics didnt turn out well.

I tried too many settings when i should have just done a couple of test shots and settled for one setting, jumping back and forth i hit everything but the target.

I am only posting a couple of shots tonight and all of them i repeat all of them are seriously flawed.

Its been rather a busy day, went to work in the morning then popped over to my godmothers place to see her new puppy, silky terrier cute bugger they named him OATMEAL (pic below)
then went over to meet the other members of our team and off we went to get the shots we so badly wanted. 15mins of clr then we strolled over to lau pa sat for satay(yummy) thats where i bid adieu to TLOMY and family and moved on to meet the boys.









We walked down to the merlion and across to the esplanade out towards to mouth of the singapore river , under sheares bridge. A seldom visited place, by me anyway and a good spot to try again for the fire works!(i hope)

Forgot

i forgot to add these pics of the same sunbird(sometimes called the olive back sunbird/olive throated sunbird) shown in my earlier post...

Sunset on the day after yesterday

Sidebar-pics are cropped and resized...and typos are not an issue i care to hear about...




Wens..what can i say...was supposed to finish at 5.30 but at 5 i was told i was needed till 8. that sums up my day....this week really sucks!!
took some pics today nothing great ..the clrs were abit off i dunno why. I tried to be creative with a couple of sunset shots, dunno if it worked.


Got my hair cut during lunch..my cleaning supervisor can fo anything, i suppose cutting my hair is not challenge..set the machine to number 1 and let it rip.(no pics)
Got a pic of a fatty olive throated sunbird...the contrast was terrible mind you it was direct sunlight at noon so i was OK with the pic.

Anyhow tom is another day and it can only get better, right niki?


So i wish you a good night and a better tom.

yesterday

yesterday was another barren day in the desert that is sengkang. a dry dull dreary day. and today it looks like more of the same.BORING.

I have come to the sad conclusion that my hard working, long suffering boots are running their last laps.....they have served me well. I have used them almost everyday for the past 2 years and soon it will be time to send them to the happy hunting grounds..i have sent an urgent note to brad in perth with instructions on the replacment pair..i hope he gets em for me.
all good things must come to pass.......sniff sniff

Sunday 310705

What is a picture if it is not looked at.....

Nice day great weather, woke up pretty early today went with TLOML to submit my two pics for the hype exhibition http://www.hypegallery.com.sg/gallery.html . it really is a great idea it allows blur blocks like me to submit stuff and have it hung in an actuall gallery, one of the pics i submitted is in the online gallery just type simon in the search bar and the pic should pop up or u can type pillay for sherwins 2 pics or pereira for my mother in laws pic. good stuff.
Had some great light for photography this morning, i really wasnt expecting it but i guess that was the best bit. This is the fourth time in 3 weeks that i have been lurking in the civi district and i really enjoyed taking pics today and TLOML was there so that was a bonus. The pic with the chick(TLOML) was taken at the exhibition, they have an online exhibit and a studio exhibit.
I think i shall go there again next week, i have some unfinished biz with the area. As i was strolling along i came across a group of photographers hanging around the riverside, not very friendly buggers. i always get disappointed by people like that, it is obvious that we share the same hobby and you would think that a little chit chat would be fine BUT oh no pardon me i am too good to talk to you. Idiots. Nothing like the people at the dog show we went too after lunch at expo, tons of dogs and tons of friendly people real nice folk, with huge huskys and tiny little yorkies, pepper aka fatty didnt like the crowd and we had to carry her around...she is a shy little doggy.

I just had to take a pic of TLOML sitting in the VIP stands in front of city hall! all set for national she is! hehe we wanted to take a pic behind the presidents rostrum but were too shy to ask the guards, cheh shy what the hell is this world coming to.

If you notice i have placed a pic of the UGLIEST BUILDING IN SINGAPORE here as i wanted to shy my disgust with you. I know i have been ranting and raving on this topic but come on man look at it! its a disgrace, so ugly i could only bring myself to upload a small pic of it, i spit on it!(and if i knew how to spell the sound of spitting i would put that down here too).
The last pic as seems to be my custom, just appealed to me. No Rhyme No Reason.

Well sunday is almost over and tom is another monday, back to work..i leave you with good wishes for you and your own .

sidebar
forgive the many typos. i cant spell.
the pics ahve all been resized(smaller)