HellBoy Part III

Saturday 26 July 2008 was a blackday for my mother in law (MIL) as she got robbed and injured in her own house.

It was a bright 6.45am morning when her daughter left for work and leaving her alone, a usual routine for umpteen years. Never before my MIL felt her safety is compromised as the village is rather peaceful (aptly named, Kampong Selamat) and no such mishap ever happened to the place she called home for the past 70 odd years. She is 84yrs old and ailing due to the old age osteoprosis and on that very morning was crouching and inching her way for breakfast in the kitchen. She was initially not surprised as she thought 2 figures in front of her were to be two of her many grandsons probably popping up early morning. But suddenly the 'grandson' got hold her right arm and warned her not to shout.

She immediately realised that the person is a 'bad' guy and in the scuffle, broke her arm. The intruders shoved her to the floor and began emptying cupboards and cabinets finding anything valuable they can retrieve. During that 10minutes of frantic activity, my MIL who is laying scared-still on the floor witnessed all the ransacking and too hapless to crawl for safety fearing that the robbers can easily caught her. The intruders hastily ran out after getting their loot but my MIL had trouble to call for help as she has no vocal strength, the phone was out and herself, very limited in mobility. With a broken arm she crawled out of the house, inched her way through shrubs 80 meters away to her nearest neighbour. We just cannot imagine how long it took her crawling and the agony she carried with her.

Help came immediately after, but then it is all too late for the memory of the tragedy has already been etched into her and we wonder if she would ever say her village "Kampong Selamat" again.

A Miracle in the Making ....

The world has... Lance Amstrong, champion of Tour de France for a record-breaking 7x through 1999-2005. Prior to this, he also survived testicular cancer, a germ cell tumor that metastasized to his brains and lungs, in 1996. His cancer treatments included brain and testicular surgery and extensive chemotherapy, and his prognosis was not originally considered to be great.

                               

The world has... Tiger Woods who in 2008 accumulated 14 golf Majors and played the 2008 US Open injured with a knee ACL and a double hairline fracture in his leg and won. Simply amazing.

The world has... Oscar Pistorius a double amputee South African wanting to participate the Beijing Olympics 2008, and compete with abled runners. They called him the blade runner

And the world also has... Naje, whom we hope can have a miraculous recovery of a brain encephalitis. He is still in coma in the ICU ward of the Damansara Specialist Centre, but there are positive signs of imminent recovery. We know that he is fighting strong, and we'll pray beside him all the way

More latest updates can be retrieved from his other half.

Tips for composing black & white images

Capturing black & white images are not easily achieved if one does not understand key prerequisites that need to seek for. Below are 3 snapshots that I personally feel able to manifest the concept of mono image and outshine the colored version.

Basically a photographer need to pre-ascertain; 1) high contrast in an image, 2) existence of patterns/designs, and 3) texture within the fore or backround. These are the three vital ingredients that can make a black & white photo exquisite looking and when captured in color, looks less dramatic. Imagine the above image of a bowing shelter to be in colour where the sea colour is dull green with wash-out sky makes an uninteresting color rendition. Similarly the photograph of a lone kayak has all the textures that makes a good b&w under the silhouette

sunrise of Putrajaya. In this image the backlighting is pretty obvious and do not worry as it can easily be adjusted with (selected) levels adjustment in Photoshop. The image below presented another challenge as it lacks contrast but has all the conditions of a good black & white image. When you are confronted

with this situation, you can opt to dodge (whiten) or burn (darken) on selected parts of the image. Here you can see the bundled weeds (top) is dodged to lighter pixels and the folded attires are burnt to make a nice deep contrast. Click here if you need enlightenment on Photoshop CS3, and a good website for further reference is by KenRockwell

Next tip: Cropping for good composition

Camera Wishlist

With outlet counters full of brand spanking new camera models on offer, creatives have never had so much fun in choosing...

Fortunately, the spectrum of digital cameras has never been so wide, and with it the scope of affordability has increased. As most individuals are moving on their second or third model, the market has adapted to meet the demands of the tech savvy consumers. The technology within compact cameras has blossomed, offering higher quality images and feature-packed menus in units that make their predecessors look like WW2 tanks. The prosumer compact market has swelled to meet the growing demand of photography enthusiasts looking to step up from an everyday compact to a model with more manual manoeuvrability, but who are perhaps not ready for the complex areana of DSLRs. (* DSLR - digital single lens reflex)


The DSLR market, traditionally reserved for an elite scattering of manufacturers, has now been penetrated by other successful brands delivering a wider range of bodies at more affordable prices.

In the recent months every camera manufacturer has released a new model, some offering dozens of products. The key is to plump for an option that reflects your personal workload and purpose. For example, for large poster printouts at maximum resolution your focus should be guided to the DSLR quadrant; alternatively, if your work is purely experimental and photography takes a back seat to Photoshop artistry, it may serve you well to get a grounding with a reliable compact camera.

What would you do ... ?

Yesterday my wife and I went to the GSC to catch Hancock on screen after all those persistent hype from Chewbacca. It was Sunday a 9.35pm show and as I did not had my dinner, decided to smuggle-in a McD quarter-pounder from 4 storeys down QueensbayMall. In planning to have a great time without the kids, we further decided to have some more... a super large pop corn package + large lemon tea from the cinema's F&B outlet. Both of us knew that the cinema won't allow outside food, and 'intelligently' shoved the McD into the pop corn bucket and walk happily thru the gates.

Pow Wow, you guys know what happened?! the plan turned awry, we were being stopped. The guy asked... 'bro, you can't bring outside food. Its against the regulation' ...and I confidently replied ..."what outside food are you talking about? its pop corn bro!!!" He had oh such a wicked smile (that I will never forget)...he said "its what inside the pop corn bucket"

&%%!!@##? Yoda, a green creature, turned flushy red with total embarassment!! He had to surrender his 4-storey-hardwalking-rm6.40 quarter pounder!! In a huff off we went into the cinema gallery and for the next 20 minutes Hancock is no longer interesting. Idea flashes keep on unveiling in my mind (Yoda turned into the dark side?) Revenge? to cover for the self inflicted humilation? Option 'A' was to spill the big bucket all over the carpet floor, and Option 'B' to wet the carpet with lemon fragrance, while Option 'C' to combine 'A & B'. The story will be continued ..... (in the meantime, what would you do?) oooh empathy empathy you shall...hmmmrphh

The StarWars Family

raya 2007 in damansara
Originally uploaded by troy16

L-R chewbacca, ewok, yoda, jar jar binks

Family theme song here

Welcome!

Our planet is situated in Penang Island, an island far far away from Timbuktu. Many light years ago and due to the dark-side, the high council decided to migrate from the mainland's Province of Wellesley formerly known as 'death star' as the Malayawata's megatron constantly spewing its fiery breath oxide daily to the surrounding Prai communities. The republican starfighters used to only prepare coffee 'neat' as we need to only expose our cuppa to the Prai air for free sugar complement from the Prai Sugar factory who provided sticky sucrose from the air. Thats why, we jedis took our starfighters to the calmer galaxy of Bukit Jambul. A serene community laced with the Penang International Airport for milleniums, the forever 'under-maintenance' Penang Bridge, the Queensbay Mall and the University where Jar Jar Binks learnt his saber skills.

A short profile on each starfighter:-

1) Chewbacca a.k.a Adil (adil_dexman@yahoo.co.uk)
Chewwie is a 17 earth years Wookie, hefty 170pounder and 36" belly. Apart from his infamous war-cry... oooeerrgghhh! has a full range of amouries; a Nikon D40, a couple of Sony-Ericssons, an avid iPodder & Nike apparels for evening runs (supposedly on a diet program!). Taking his final exam SPM in 2008 and who dreamt to be a pro-chef Anthony Bourdain (who never cooks but gets to travel and eat anything under the sun!). This species has high intelligence in inter-galactic communication (friendster/mySpace) coupled with extremely rapid finger reflex in text messaging with eyes closed - a true jedi's trait that Obi-Wan Kenobi would be proud of. See his flickr photo website here

2) Ewok a.k.a Khadijah (khadijah.puteh@gmail.com)
Once she was a radiant queen, Padmé Amidala by name and hails from the planet Naboo Tasek Glugor but eversince smooched by Jabba the Hut, she turned into a midget but dynamite Ewok. It was 48 years ago when she was born and key member of the Galactic Senate. Cooks well, prolific surfer on PC but a tad slow on Mac system just like R2D2 on a desert terrain. Beautiful but one need extreme caution when her nostrils flare like hippo resurfacing from water (like the Darth Vader's headgear) ... she can be quite intimidating to all jedis especially Chewwie, master Yoda & Jar Jar Binks : )

3) Master Yoda a.k.a Ridzuan (ridzuanismail@gmail.com)
Jedi High General, survived for 480 yoda years, he has. Small though he is but has the ability to gravity-pull the jedi council into a fearsome quartet of Chewbacca, Ewok, Jar Jar Binks and the master jedi himself. Hrmmmpph... Yoda has many dark sides, easily bringing Inspector Gadget to shame. His green light saber sword is his Nikon D300 and the master swashbuckled his way through into the inner cyberworld to creat this blogspot with many saga images to upload. More to come, he will. See his flickr photo website here (for friends & family), and here (for workmates)

"Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. I sense much fear in you."

4) Jar Jar Binks a.k.a Alif (medieval_axer@yahoo.com)
A Gungan species and you can get more character information from this site. Or his flickr image website, click here
22yrs old, slim & tall Yao-Ming like, diet strictly on veggies and lamb only. Milo fluid. Sleeps during the day and an active nocturnal species. Like Yoda, Mr Binks is obsessed with anything click-clack and thereby has a sole proprietorship of a Nikon D200, SB800, 80-200D f/2.8, 12-24 f/4, 17-55 f/2.8...etc. All the good fast lenses. Jar Jar Binks aspires to buy his own gears (Master Yoda is delighted and full of anticpation). He has a partner Princess Leia who resides from the other side of our island galaxy. Jar Jar Binks is now officially a retired young musician as he felt its best to concentrate in one field. Awww man... you can do both, man!!

Troy16 Blog commences

It has been for quite sometime that I was thinking of creating a blog, and after countless soul searching and procrastination - 12 July 2008 is the magic day... The Troy 16 blog starts operation!

Neo, Uno, Ichiban

My existing flickr images could also complement this blog http://www.flickr.com/photos/troy16
(Ooops, Google's Picassa would not be too happy as flickr originates from Yahoo!)
Nevertheless, here is a sample image from my flickr. An indoor 2 strobes lighting of the Cologne's Kolsch VW van of diecast model i got from bern letzner during a recent working visit in Monheim, Germany