Black & White (Part II)

An image comprise of pixels described by RGB. I like B that stands for Blue, as this colour will turn blue to white when transformed into a "black & white" monochrome. While the red and green, will turn the image black and sheds of grey. Hence when i see a scene, immediately my mind will visualise a black & white version... and blue appears aplenty near the coastline with abundance of blue sky and sometimes a blue sea especially in the morning low temperature. Hope you enjoy my black & white images.


The above and below images are the same structure, a ruined dilapidated jetty in Pantai Merdeka. It has plenty of barnacles that provided a lot of contrast to the beige coloured shore, coupled with a storm-coming backdrop. Just a nice combination, god made

The next two images are captured in Teluk Tempoyak with a clean horizon (well almost, as I duly removed some sailing ships far away on the horizontal line). I tend to create more shadows with the slow shutter speed effect, whilst smooth creamy water is another side effect




Its under the Penang Bridge. I come here very often and every time there's a different kind of lighting especially the intensity and angle of the source. Fascinating, as I can revisit countless of times with many permutation of shots (need to buy a good pair trekking shoe as I keep slipping with the present one, heh)

Hopefully, part III is around the corner with a B+W ND#110...yay yay

Ms Pesta at QBM

Last Sunday, I had the chance doing a photoshoot in Queensbay Mall for the Ms Pesta 2008. There were many fellow photographers and we had the front row space to capture the pageantry. While there are 18 contestants in total, I have preselected the probable champion and runners up... heh :)

TAN LAY LEE, she has good eye contact and not too-over catwalked, i judged her at #2


CHLOE, elegant. Her smile says it all and she gonna be the champion...heh

Family Shots

It is our colourful family, and its not often that we can be together as Jar Jar Binks is always occupied with his studies and with his 'better-half'...

Pic above is a pose by Jar Jar Binks in Bali Nov 2008, when he went for a study trip with the HBP team from USM. A distant cousin to Mr Bean, he ain't shy in posing several candids with Perth as the backdrop.

A morning snapshot near the minden gate in USM. Left to right; Yoda, Chewbacca, Ewok & Jar Jar Binks. We had a great family photography outing, albeit a short session...

Two days before, my wife and I went round Georgetown heritage sites together with New2Mac, Citan, Canonteh...one of the images i have uploaded here in flickr

Jerejak Pier

Immediately after the Penang Bridge International Marathon being flagged off in the wee morning of 16 Dec 2008 and runners bee-lined towards the bridge, i took the chance to capture the Jerejak Pier again for probably the 4th time.

The morning sun rose slowly as i lined up for my shot, tripod secured on the soil bank and as I triggered a 25sec shutter, the tripod sank slowly without me knowing. The final image is blurred beyond help of a post-processing but the scene is just too exquisite for deletion. I am keeping this image as a good lesson for me.. hu hu

Simplicity

These shots went out of the B&W conventions which normally require contrast and texture to enhance a monochrome image. Some say that rules are meant to be broken, and yes, these images below just did that. While most of the time rule of thirds plays an important principle in image composition, its cool to sometimes flaunt and see what happens.

This image is intended as a minimalist capture, it looks simple but I believe it carries a strong message of tranquility. When captured wide at 17mm, the scene looks busy but once the field of view is narrowed to 24mm a totally different compposition is achieved. Voila!

Here is another with stronger perspective feel. Cropping presented me with the option of isolating some distraction that appears on the left part of the original image.


This little boy threw his tantrum when his mother scolded him for some mischief. Taking advantage of his emotion and natural facial expression, I clicked a stream of shutters to capture every nuances he could provide. I find this image very amusing, and presented him a dollar upon which he gave me a wicked smile in return. Oh, how simple is his thoughts are, hence the title...Simplicity

Levels & Curves

I want to share my experience on post-processing a.k.a PP of digital images. As we all know, our eyes are the best imaging device one could have as it can capture almost all visible gamut and spectrum of colours, but a camera with all its might in digital technology is not able to reproduce what we see with our eyes. Perhaps, not as yet. While exposure, focus details and other light-technical capabilities can be manipulated by the camera sensor and their numerous lenses, an image that 'comes-out' from the camera would typically look like this

However, when a photographer shoots in RAW (digital negative) and PP for image enhancement using softwares like Photoshop, Capture NX, Aperture, etc, an image can be transformed closed to what our eyes can actually view (as per the scene in front of camera lenses). With a little bit of tweaking on colour casting and contrast through the process of level and curve adjustments, the image below is very possible to achieve...

As the final workflow, sharpening the entire image can be applied to enhance the details and clarity of an image as what one can see when they are 6/6 eye clarity index.

Hope i have sufficiently poisoned someone. Go buy Photoshop CS3 and an iMac 24" !!

cheers


Photoshop

Kuala Muda Rendevous

On 11 Oct 2008 we went to Kota Kuala Muda, a fishing village near the Penang-Kedah border. Three guys and a girl Ning (ChanKM's daughter). Picture below is an image taken by Ning using a camera hardly for her to lift but she still managed a nice vertical shot (smile)
And here is one the first few snaps that i took upon reaching Kota Kula Muda, rendered in black n white

its the 3 of us harry, larrie and moe and shot taken by Ning
This scene was taken using a single RAW and processed with 7 exposures for HDR image to enhance the tonal dynamic range
She is an ever enthusiastic girl who was ready to pose anytime when her dad requested, and with her, a Sony cybershot full of cats and kittens potraits as we stumbled into many along the fishing village
Brian Tan serious in capturing a good scene. Seen above is his new 70-300mm nikkor lens that he bought 2 weeks earlier
A colourful scene not only in Thailand, but also in Kuala Muda
Near a jetty walkway, preparing for shots
Brian reviewing his captures
2 camera bodies = pro
figuring for composition, it was a hot day indeed
i post processed to make the image less warm
ikan belanak for rm3/kg. I think its easy for him to cast 3kg within an hour as 1 cast brought him at least 3 belanaks (mullets)
there he goes again, another 3! Picture below is part of our team who will plan another outing pretty soon. Cheers

Hakuna Matata

... (make life great, no worries)... from the silver screen Lion King


The 4th day of Syawal, I went out photo shooting with Brian Tan (his blog here) who recently dived into the realm of digital photography. He is now armed with a nikkor 70-300mm, apart from his kit lens 18-135 (under repair) and a prime 50mm to barrel his nikon d80. It was a drizzling saturday morning when we arrived at the fort cornwallis. This image i dedicate to the increasing enthusiasm of Brian...

We started our day with roti canai in Transfer Rd before proceeding to the esplanade in a Fiat Punto Cabriolet. Seen here, in his italian marque pride (se ottenete annoiato con Fiat Punto e volete donare per libero, lascilo prego conoscere huh)


(I hope he can click on the pic to extract the bigger image for his keeping....nahhh I am sure he is smart enough to know that!). There was nothing interesting to shoot in the fort cornwallis... even the wall of the fort looks a 2nd worthwhile image to capture

We rounded the day by visiting the Khoo Kongsi in Georgetown, and of course whizzing around with an open-top cabriollet. Cheers, to Brian

Raya 2008

The raya 2008 started with aplomb, the USAIN BOLT style. The pictures below depicted the celebration we had in many locations; bukit jambul, bagan dalam & kampung (tak) selamat.

Jani & family came and stayed with us 1 day before raya and fahrudin came a day later. It was a packed atmosphere in bukit jambul during the 1st day syawal




















This is the family of tan sri hanan and puan sri zaharah who made the crowd on their toes with their antics. they followed us to kampong selamat and then to mak tam's and fahrudin's sg petani. we had a great session in mak tam's when we spontaneously made two teams and threw riddles to each other. obviously puan sri's team won by a narrow margin.

Akmal who was our darkhorse answered 'taxi' and if not for this answer we would lost to the puan sri's team heavily.

In Bagan Dalam, we had this one big great photo organised by Jani, with 3 nikon clicking-away. This line is made up of the better halves who toasted the 40-under club....perghhh!








and this is Ina's family















and Noni's















and Jani's too


























































shivaji the 'boss'