290705

SIDEBAR-Before your go further, please note that i could care less about my many typos and other errors. The pics have been cropped and resized, and if you click on them you will get a slightly larger pic than the one displayed NOT the full sized picture.

Had a real long walk yesterday, took my half day off, met Sherwin and we went down to old parliament house to see the HYPE exhibition. It was great found out that we can submit our own pics for the show....i cant decide what to send in!!
Anyhow yesterday we covered alot of ground that we have gone over the last couple of weeks, it was variations of a theme almost. i will be posting around 10 to 15 pics in this post now take note its not because they a great shots or even good shots to me they are just interesting shots. My goal is to train my eye and skill as a photographer to take shots of things we are familiar with in an everyday setting and view them from an aspect we are unfamiliar with. That’s not to say that i was successful here, thats just my goal. Of course my other goal is to be a real good nature photographer, a skill that eludes me! My greatest flaw in photography is impatience, and being to lazy to learn about the camera. I hope to improve on those flaws! I took the pic of City Hall in national day deco as i was thinking it would be nice to morph myself behind the Presidents post heheh. The fence pic is from old parliament house but what i found interesting is that they used the exact same design for the new parliament house a nice gesture of respect from the architect and designers of the new building.

The Red Carpeted Staircase is from old parliament house, the odd thing about this place is that you can take pics around the building, but not on the second floor..when i asked security why they were unable to furnish me with an answer, i call this shot elevation 1 (like real).
I found the Hype exhibition rather exciting, the whole idea that anyone could send in their artwork and it would be hung in such an old and venerable building is a thrill, the online exhibition can be found at www.hypegallery.com.sg .
After the exhibition we went down to change alley, and man oh man what a change. I remember walking across the bridge in secondary school and everytime since then that i have walked across the bridge it seems to have lost another shop, only a handfull survive. The best of whats left is a little second/ antique store they have stuff like cameras from the 20's to phonographs to watches from the Soviet block!

We had a friend who owned a little second hand book store there but he seems to have gone as well, change alley indeed..

Clifford Pier, one of the places i want to spend some time photographing before it changes or gets knocked down. I like the idea of all those heliconia flowers infront of what to me looks liek ant art deco style building, not colonial looking at all. I like buildings that have good lines that fit the environment in which they are located, sometimes buildings that clash make a bold statment of advanced technology, sometimes they just surprise us with its look that we take sometime to come around, like the esplanade. One building that will never win a prize for design or architecture is the SRC building on the padang to me it is a building that looks like Phua Chu Kang designed it, i will never understand how that dogs breakfast ever got approval. Another building which i find UGLY is the new supreme court. To me it looks like the spaceship from independence day, one of the guys said that should there be a war people can get into that and fly away. It doesnot compliment the area at all it should be destroyed or used in design school as an example of what not to do. I have another disaster to display later. We took a walk down to the Merlion Park, i always felt that the merlion is abit of a let down up close and is best viewed from a boat or on TV. I took the almost obligatory pics of it..left ..right ..rear and it was this rear shot that i thought looked the best. Just before we got to the merlion both sherwin and i took some shots in the reflection of a building, like i said at the start my goal is to see things from a different perspective and i am just at the start of this learning experience. By this time the sun was bright and hot, and there really is no shade at merlion park so we took cover under the new bridge(whose name i cant remember right now) It really is a nice looking bridge, clean flowing lines, and i think i am not alone in like t cause there were at least 5 people under there taking pics as well. They have a little coffeshop thing going on there it wasnt open but you should see all the cooking devices, might be a nice spot for a bite to eat. We walked past the fullerton twice and boy does it look different in the day, still nice but its the night that makes that building glow. Sherwin was delayed at the al fresco area they have there taking pictures of glassware and bottles, in the mean time i took another staircase, i call it elavation 2(hehe). Staircase are such interesting things to photograph.

We really did the rounds this time, we walked back down towards amoy st with the idea of taking pics at jingle bell lane(which was a BIG disapointment) but on the way we stopped by a very old temple and almost came to blows with the staff that work there, would have been good eh, fighting with temple workers! anyway i came away with several pics but the ones that i like were of the spiral hanging inscense that they use on the temple grounds. We are almost at the end of the journey now, and a long one it has been eh as i type this i am listening to Marvin Gaye. From the temple we met frodo, and walked down to clarke quay where sherwin left our company . At clarke quay i found the disaster i mentioned earlier, some blind designer decided to create an ugly out of place puke looking( insert your own vulgarity here) horrendous god knows what to call it. So what was once a nice clean looking row of colonial buildings which looked great from across the river is now obscured by wat i can only descride as hair salon dryers. God i wish the guy that approved this would let me into his house. its so ugly and it makes the whole area feel cramped and much smaller then it was, i really want to type some pretty nasty things here but i shall not. idiots, idiots , idiots.
Take a look at this lamp they blending old school design with new world technology, is it so hard?

This shot i dunno why i took. the man squatting and using his comp outside the toilet in such a bizarly coloured area was too weird to pass on.
So it ends, the 29th day of july in the 2005th year of our lord.

bits of here n there

Thought i'd put a couple of funny pics of the fatty ala pepper up. Ok not all of them are funny, remember how small she looked
when we first brought her home...my little angel
I have not been writting much over the past few days cause..nothing has been happening aside from the normal work issues its been pretty quiet on the eastern front. Went for dinner with TLOMl and the moo last night, pasta fresca at siglap. Moo had a soup thing with clams, i had calamari (ok lah but fish n Co calamari rocks!) and a pizza was shared by all, they really do make nice pizza and not bad price wise. TOML got promoted!!! she is now the boss of her level! Congrats to TLOMl.
Got a lovely book from the Moo, tis a semi auto bio of sean astin the guy that plays samwise in LOTR( also mikey in the Goonies), read half of it already! I never knew he was Patty Dukes son and his father who was one of dukes 3 husbands John Astin was the original Gomez from Adams family! she also dated desi arnaz jr, till lucy put a stop to it!
I am going to Old Parliament House to see an exhibition ( www.hype.com.sg ) and will do a nice walk around talking pics.
Not much is happening news wise, Tooks trial goes on, i will be suprised if he isnt hung by the end of it all, the head of the LTA is another one that may be looking for a new job...400k for an excercise in re-branding marina bay only to find out that marina bay was the best name for it. Thats what happens when we have too much money to spend. anyway it wasnt much just peanuts.....

TLOML

Well the photographic drought has been broken for now! TLOML was the subject today, along with the fatty aka pepper. Came home took 86 shots!! lol cook a nice little pasta dish, brushed the dog and thats that. A nice quiet day at home. click on the pic ....it grows

Drought..

Not one...not one photograph have i taken since friday. i think i am suffering from withdrawal.

Downtown in Chinatown

So we went to chinatown! Turned out to be Frodo, Sherwin, Mark, JJ and myself we few ..we happy few. I was disappointed with the results of our adventure photographic wise i think i did poorly, took 250 shots and after having a good look at them i found i could have done so much more with a little patience. I got there early around 6 so had a 45min wait for the guys. Instead of hanging around the train station i took a walk along my old stalking grounds of chinatown, i used to work in a little company in a little office on Sago Lane. My wanderings brought to the top floor of one of the flats there. I think it would be a good vantage point for some night shots of the city, not a common perspective that i am aware of anyway. I got some shots of my favourite buildings but nothing that stands out to me, there was no shot of the day for me yesterday, and though in this post i am putting up more pics than normal that is mainly to show wat i saw and not because i am happy with the results. The building on the left and below the buddha is one of my favourites, i love the old school wrap around balconey the 18mm wide angel came in usefull for that picture, i was suprised that i managed to get the whole thing. In preparation for the trip i had only mentally said that i wanted just one good pic of that building to be satisfied, i got the shot as as i am human i am not satisfied, next time i want to get it with some clouds and better lighting or even at night. The Sri Mariamman Hindu Temple along south bridge roads must be one of the most photographed buildings in singapor, so i took the obligatory shots. if i had patience i would spend more tiem composing the shot and adjusting the camera as it is i feel like i am a journalist in veitnam and need to keep moving before that arty fire drops on my head. Chinatown does lend itself to photography but not in the way i remember, it seems to have become more tacky and the new food stalls remind me nothing of the chinatown i remember of my early youth, i am not sure which is better but yesterday the stalls all seem to be selling the same things. i didnt dare ask the monk in the picture to pose...so i took a papparazi shot. he could be a monk on any street in the world and at any time in the past 150 years...

The building below the monk is on ann siang hill nad has always interested me, i reckon if i win the 5mil toto (as if) this will be my first purchase.
The last building is the Freemason lodge next to eh Armenian Church, if ever you have a chance to go in there go cause unless your a free mason its pretty hard to get in(though they do have the odd open house)
So that was China Town and its neighbourhood. I will go back there soon and try again. My next target is either Geylang Market or Kampung Glum and for both i have professional "tour guides", experts in the area to guide me.

SIDEBAR

These two shots it took earlier in the day.
Bee in flight and Bee on stem
Looks like this fella is wearing a furry yellow vest from the 70's







All pictures have been cropped and resized, please pardon any typos, spelling errors and any other problems you may find.

lunchtime-no makan but have camera will travel

Took some pics around the estate at lunch time, i met the friendliest little bee like creature in the world. Beautiful clrs but the light was just in the wrong position .
I had to crop the pics once again.
No lucnh today, i just couldnt decide what to eat, nothing was calling to me. The flower pic in this post was edited using paintshop.

Not much................................

Its been a couple of days since i wrote anything, the reason is two fold. Firstly nothing really happened and secondly i didnt have time as i was so busy with work yesterday. I came into the office yesterday monring and was informed by the manager that our head office people left instructions that i was too do some stuff for an up coming project, well its not my job but i did it anyway spent 2hours working at it and when the head office guy comes he takes one look at it and says "why you did that? dont waste time" i lost it. i told him i was instructed to do it and was told that these instructions came from HIM!!!! i was damn pissed off.

Before that as i was on my normal two bus ride to work, a blind man came up the bus and was looking for a place to sit he accidentlly touched an old women on the shoulder and apologized for that, he found a seat rright in front of her. Anway the old women was glaring at him ( i was watching this from across the aisle) and she spoke loud enough that everyone heard "are you really blind?!!" this stumped tghe blind man cause at first he was like you talking to me but he answered "yes" the old nag than shouted ' if yo uare blind why are you wearing a watch?!!!! Can you see or what" i could hear sniggers behind me by this time which i assume came from the JC students, the blind then replied it what can be termed a sarcastic tone "i ask other people to tell me the time" i thought the whole thing was damn funny! but i reckon you had to be there to get the full impact.

Spent part of yesterday afternoon putting up national day decorations, well i supervised lah...my deco team comprising of my technician and cleaning supervisor handled the realy work.
I havent really been taking many pictures and god knows i need the practice, i dreamt i got a canon 600mm lense last night, woke up happy all only to discover it was but a dream!

Oh if you guys are wondering what the col sanders is all about, in that pic he reminds me of my glory hound manager. Fella thinks he is a star.
Anyway will post more later....



AS IN ALL MY POST PLEASE FORGIVE TYPOS, SPELLING ERRORS AND THE LIKE. I DONT PROOF READ THE STUF I POST AND SOMETIMES WHEN I READ THEM AGAIN I CRINGE AT THE HORROR OF IT ALL.

Foiled again!

In my last post i typed that i have next weekend to look forward too but i have been foiled again! i am wroking sat morning and SUN i have to go back to CCK to MC an event oh the horror, the horror

Sunday....

We took Pepper for grooming today, our regular groomers are closed for renovation so we had to go one near my sisters place....TLOMY says that the cut is nice and cute but i reckon they butchered my dogs lovely fur.
The picture on the left was taken two weeks ago, the one on the right was taken today. TLOMY says she looks cute..but i dunno lah at least the fur will grow back. While Pepper was at the groomers we popped over to my sisters place and had a bit of lunch(buns) the small fella michael was so cute today he took off all his clothes and went into the shower on his own! he is turning out to be a real water baby, megan was busy drawing cats and i was very impressed with her work. Philip aka baba and i went about our normal wwe routine! That guy is getting too big for me to carry him!

We took the doggie to the park in the evening, moo, doo TLOML and me. Pepper had a good time she was running on the beach then we took her to play with two cute corgies! they were so well trained and pepper was tryign to keep up with them. The owners were really nice giving me tips on training and stuff. For the first time we let her off her leash as she ran around with her two friends( like a fool i didnt take any pics) a little later a beautiful border collie came walking by ! Really a beautiful dog, black and white just like the pepper!

The weekend has come and gone with such speed its left me wondering where has it all gone........
There is always next weekend !!! I shall endure!!

Din Din-Sat

Well i had a lazy sat this past weekend, woke up late(recovered from friday's walk about), watched tv, played with pepper took a nap then went for dinner at the Moo and Doo's place, the occasion? Moo's birthday dinner, the menu? Lontong which was enjoyed by one and all. I enjoyed myself lots as always, spent lots of time with corey, kyle,nik, ross and shauna we sat outside chit chatting about this and that while i smoked an excellent cigar..i know i know bad influence and all that but the setting was great for it. I took tons of pictures but i found that not many of them turned out well, i havent really taken many indoor shots with the new camera so i got to get onto that. We were playing around with some effects and came up with some ghostly images....
I am really one of those people that like having people around, i mean i can cope being alone or going out alone but i enjoy having people around listening, talking laughing that really gives me joy(a little deep stuff here hehe)
even the rain was a blessing cause it kept evryone cool! in the end the night ended to early for me as always!!

ESCAPE FROM CCK

Escaped from Chua Chu Bloody Kang!! Gave frodo a call from yew tee mrt station and he was game for a little trip to town. we met at raffles place and the plan was to go to lau pa sat but we never made it......Sherwin met up with us around 8, by then frodo and i had already take around 100 shots, mostly i was experimenting with the aperture and shutter speed to try and get some nice effects.When Sherwin came we decided to follow the banks of the singapore river down from boat quay towards Fullerton across the bridge then on to the old parliment building, supreme court past westin then home. it was a long bloody walk. In the end i took more then 250 pictures of which i think i am happy with maybe 5. Still need lots of practice though. I havent walked around town like we did today in ages it was fun, the next time i want to go i must make sure TLOML comes with me, she is a lot better looking then frodo thats for sure! I saved china twon for a day with her as i know she likes to walk around that part of singapore.
Once again i had to crop and resize some of the pics or they wouldnt have fit in here, if you click on them you get a larger picture but not the full size image. I checked, it is possible to do that but the space given is only 300mb so i am saving it for better pics. I took the pic of myself leaning on a pillar at old parliment house using the timer feature, i also adjust the clr to make it look abit older . I was really impressed with the work they did at old parlimet house and empress place, it really looks like a nice area and its great for walking, i have always said our civic district is full of grand buildings, except for that disater of a club on the padang and i am not talking about the cricket club to me it looks like something phua chu kang would bloody well design. The Supreme Court (not the one with the spaceship on its roof) on the other hand is one of my fav buildings anywhere and who ever designed the lighting effects has done a great job. I put a couple of shots of the building in this blog, so you know how much i love it. All in all it was a good evening and it more then made up for a crappy day!
I am so looking forward to waking up nice and late tom! or rather later today. I got a couple more pics to post relating to tonight, but they will have to wait, i am off to the land where i am wealthy and wise...dreamland.