More Gears

Had med checkups for Solid Energy throughout the week. Let's just say having your Doc take a rummage through yer junk isn't very fun... AT ALL!!

So yea, had a bit of time in between med check ups and x-ray scans so I came up with this:

What Gears would look like in real life...

Not to get ahead of myself or anything, but I guess its one of the better ones I've done to date. And also, Ben looks uncannily like Dominic Santiago. So much so its actually kinda creepy. Look at the original and tell me how freaky it is...

Scary stuff...

Smoko' Von

Hehe, sorry boys and girls for the delay in posting. Been busy, what with driving up the coast and around the country in the midst of a weather bomb and all...

Anyway, I got the chance to photograph the ever elusive (yea right) Yvonne Mak one day when I got bothered to lug my gear round to the flat. And wot a co-inky-dink, she just happened to be having her smoko break. LOL.

Nah, Von was practicising puffing for her Law Revue Night (she wants me to remind y'all to go and watch her onstage debut). And so in the waning evening light, I had the chance to portray her in a light that suits winter at the moment.

The theme here is grey, dank and sorta emo. Hope I hit the mark with these shots.

Thought about captioning the rest of them... but maybe just the one will do...

PS: BIG thanks for the photo-op Von, might do more in future!!!

Zoo Day

This is a bit of a back post...

One of the many cool places in Singapore that I got to visit was the Singapore Zoological Gardens. Even putting the pictures onto GRIDS!! format brought back fond memories of dodging torrential rain and attempts at conversing with the animals in some hope that they'd come out from their wee hiding spots and pose a bit. I've never gotten to see 'exotic' animals, not in my adulthood or recent memory... A trip to Willowbank Reserve for Bursary Biology comes to mind.. but that isn't as much a zoo as it is a petting farm, so that doesn't really count.

Various forms of wildlife available in Singapore...

On the day itself, Singapore's tropical weather didn't fail to rain... like in BUCKETLOADS, so it was a bit of a mission keeping the camera dry and electric short free. Shooting wise... its quite an experience with a 70mm-300mm f3.5/5.6 zoom lens and trying to frame something thats about a meter away from you and in dim light at best. Mmm.. quite fond memories indeed.

PS: More pics on my Flickr account!!

Announcing GRIDS!!

This is totally the next big thing!! In this day and age where people like to just gloss through quickly and shortcut everything, GRIDS!! are a godsend. Especially for all you busy uni students out there, this means you get to see all the pics you need to see in a teeny snippet, saving you maybe a minute of your valuable time (assuming you dont have to zoom straight in to every pic you see). So, heres a preview of what to expect in future:

Just a test run.. hehe

23

There's alot behind those two numbers - '2' and '3'. Apparently there's a whole number of conspiracies behind it. At the end of the day its just BS. In my case, it wasn't quite BS... it's my age for the next year...

Damned I feel old...

It doesn't help when you're the oldest of the bunch and being surrounded by those younger. It also doesn't help when Jo taunts ya' about it (well at least I CAN keep my eyes open when the flash fires off JO!!!)

Are his eyes open?? We'll never know...

Eyes Wide SHUT...

At this stage, we've theorised it to be some undiscovered condition where the eyes are seemingly shut but are apparently open and it doesn't matter how hard you force em', when the flash fires off, the eyes are always shut. When it's found to be a disease or some condition in the next few years, I want it to be called 'Kwak's Syndrome' after it's most famous sufferer.

The day started off with cake and coffee (compliments of James) with James. Denegenerated into chips and beer (compliments of Ben) when the kids came over, dipped further into mahjong before dinner time came round and we headed to Osaka.

Thanks James!!!!

Thanks Ben!!!

Thanks Osaka!!

Dinner was followed by a quick shot of coffee at Coffee Culture. The initial plan was to catch Kung Fu Panda at Hoyts... which degenerated into catching the Hancock premiere. It was ok I guess... Got a bit too lovey dovey towards the end. Camera work was shoddy as fuck. It didnt help that we were 3 rows from the screen, it got to the point where Von felt induced to vomit. But the mythical elements and references to super heroes were good. Then it was Round 2 of cake time. This time it was a rich Lemon Cheese Cake (compliments of the Kids) from Divine, which was just that - divine!!

At 'da Culcha

Von having a go at the cake...

Von having a go at herself...

Mmm, well a year has passed since I was 22, not alot has changed. Except maybe being on the virge of my professional life. I find myself at a crossroads with the job offers. Rio Tinto is very eager to offer a contract, BHP haven't rung up for that interview yet. I hope my decision doesn't boil down to the first person that rings. Then again... who am I to complain?? Just a fresh grad here... The months ahead are gonna be rocky as fuck. No more smooth sailing from now... Man, I'm getting old...