Amidst all the rush and dash through the long weekend, it was definitely worth all the effort and hard work put into it. From running about doing a photoshoot for a website, to rushing for a wedding in Subang and planning a surprise party for munZ as well as shooting in church on Christmas morning, I can say that it was a terribly hectic 5 days.
Because of that, I totally forgot to wish everyone a very BLESSED CHRISTMAS!
Oh yeah, and don’t forget, Happy New Year! (in case I forget next week 
)
A normal weekend usually starts off on Saturday, for me it was a rush all the way from Friday till early Sunday morning. It all began with my department dinner being held on the same night I was to drive down to Muar to shoot a wedding the very next day. Things started to become hectic when I left work at 4.30pm (the managers literally chased everyone out so that they wouldn’t be late for dinner) and rushed back home to pack. I had to pack all of my gear including my laptop for on the fly video editing as well as my clothes for the night in Muar.
One problem I faced was that I had to shoot the same dinner event as well but thank God that I wasn’t the main photographer but one of the backup and runners.
The night before…
Client: “Hey Mark, can you be one of the photographers for the dinner event tomorrow night?â€
Me (attending the wedding photography workshop busy toying with my camera): “Er, yeah, sure thing!â€
Moral of the story, pay attention to calls to avoid jamming up your time and session. Anyway, back to the story.
Dinner was held that the KL Hilton which is one of the craziest places to get parking. Because KL Hilton shares the same basement as Le Meridien, it is practically impossible to find a space and after going around for 30minutes, I finally decide to park via valet parking which costs a bomb but also split 4 ways since I had three passengers with me.
Dinner was fun and interesting especially since the organizing committee hired in JJ and Rudy, two local DJs from the Hitz.fm morning crew to be the night’s emcee. It was interesting to actually see them in person but most of the time I hear their voices in the morning, especially the “gotcha†prank calls. Many fun things occurred throughout the night including several impromptu performances where I had to play the guitar for Ramon and also for the 2nd placed winning team for the Jingle Shell caroling competition.
Sadly because of the photoshoot the next morning, I had to leave the dinner early and rushed down to Muar. By the time I arrived at Muar, it was already 1.30am and I was totally worn out. By the time I actually laid down on the bed, it was already past 2.00am!
The next morning started extremely early, I was bunking in with the other photographer, Daryl, and there was a loud knock and scream at the door at 5.45am asking us to get ready! Dragging myself out of bed, I got up, packed my gear and began preparing for the shoot. This time it was a little different than the usual shoots because none of the photographers could be at the bride’s house so both of us started off at the groom’s place. We left Muar at 6.30am to arrive in Malacca by 7.00am.
Of course the usual course of events of a typical Chinese wedding occurred and I was busy shooting away. After picking up the bride from Malacca, the entourages made their way back to Muar in time for the church wedding. In fact, everything went so smoothly that the group of us arrived too early (30mins to be exact)! The bride had to make a detour and wait while everyone could prepare the church and usher guests into the hall.
It was a Chinese speaking church so being an absolute banana didn’t help. Was totally lost and I had to rely on the program to find my cues of when to take the “special moments†photos. Interestingly enough, the ring bearer who brought the two rings before the pastor blessed it was a remote control car. Totally different!
By the time church was done, everyone made headed for lunch at a local Chinese restaurant. At that time I was already looking at the time and made sure that I had enough time to prepare the morning’s pictures to be put into a slideshow, which will be shown on the night itself.
Of course with every Windows OS, you get Windows Movie Maker, which definitely was my main tool, but it kept on crashing! After many hours of frustrations and redo, I realized that the stupid audio codecs were crashing the software and I had to uninstall all of them to get Windows Movie Maker to work properly.
By 5pm, the slideshow was ready and completed and tested. I took a quick 30minute nap and headed to the dinner place and started taking photos. The dinner itself was held at a school hall (Chung Hwa) but this is no ordinary school hall. It was huge, much like the Octagon Hall at where I studied back in my university days and of course, air-conditioned.
The biggest challenge for me was shooting in such low light conditions as I have limited gear and I really had to make do with what I had, shooting away at ISO 800 – ISO 1000. The night was definitely exciting and fun, even the food tasted superbly great! One of the best suckling pigs I ate in my life, honestly!
At the end, the event ended at about 11pm where people slowly started going home. I decided to drive back that night so I drank a couple of tins of Nescafe and headed up to KL, leaving Muar at about 11.45pm. By the time I reached home, the only thing on my mind was sleep.
Coming soon, photos of the event (that is if I can balance my time to post process the photos!)
Edit: Corrections made!
Its always refreshing to be able to take a break from the continuous strain of work and pressure and yesterday was a good example as the diversity and cultural group held an inter department carolling competition in the office yesterday. There were 7 teams in total and there were 7 teams singing their hearts out to win the grand prize of RM800 worth of vouchers.
Teams brought guitars, shakers, and many more whilst others brought their entire departments for support. Creativity filled the air as some teams sang the traditional Christmas songs while others came up with their own creation. My department was one that did just that. Check out the lyrics below, we started off by saying to the judges that these were our “demands”.
The Twelve Days of Christmas
On the first day of Christmas, my Blueprint sent to me
A Lifetime Petrol for Free
On the second day of Christmas, my Blueprint sent to me
Two Parking Lots
and A Lifetime Petrol for Free
On the third day of Christmas, my Blueprint sent to me
Three Off Days, two Parking Lots
And A Lifetime Petrol for Free
On the fourth day of Christmas, my Blueprint sent to me
Four Working Days, three Off Days, two Parking Lots
And A Lifetime Petrol for Free
On the fifth day of Christmas, my Blueprint sent to me
Five Percent Rebate.
Four Working Days, three Off Days, two Parking Lots
And A Lifetime Petrol for Free
On the sixth day of Christmas, my Blueprint gave to me
Six Weeks of Resting,
Five Percent Rebate.
Four Working Days, three Off Days, two Parking Lots
And A Lifetime Petrol for Free
On the seventh day of Christmas, my Blueprint gave to me
Seven Hours of Working, six Weeks of Resting,
Five Percent Rebate.
Four Working Days, three Off Days, two Parking Lots
And A Lifetime Petrol for Free
On the eighth day of Christmas, my Blueprint gave to me
Eight Users Screaming, seven Hours of Working, six Weeks of Resting,
Five Percent Rebate.
Four Working Days, three Off Days, two Parking Lots
And A Lifetime Petrol for Free
On the ninth day of Christmas, my Blueprint gave to me
Nine Lines are Ringing, eight Users Screaming, seven Hours of Working, six
Weeks of Resting,
Five Percent Rebate.
Four Working Days, three Off Days, two Parking Lots
And A Lifetime Petrol for Free
On the tenth day of Christmas, my Blueprint gave to me
Ten Bosses Sleeping, nine Lines are Ringing, eight Users Screaming, seven swans
a-swimming, six Weeks of Resting,
Five Percent Rebate.
Four Working Days, three Off Days, two Parking Lots
And A Lifetime Petrol for Free
On the eleventh day of Christmas, my Blueprint gave to me
Eleven Team Leads Surfing, ten Bosses Sleeping, nine Lines are Ringing, eight maids
a-milking, seven Hours of Working, six Weeks of Resting,
Five Percent Rebate.
Four Working Days, three Off Days, two Parking Lots
And A Lifetime Petrol for Free
On the twelfth day of Christmas, my Blueprint gave to me
Twelve Months of Bonus,
eleven Team Leads Surfing, ten Bosses Sleeping,
nine Lines are Ringing, eight Users Screaming,
seven Hours of Working, six Weeks of Resting,
Five Percent Rebate.
Four Working Days,
three Off Days,
two Parking Lots
And A Lifetime Petrol for Free
Now why don’t you try singing it for yourself? 
Today mark’s the UN’s celebration of the World Human Rights day. In effect, many people today lack the very knowledge of the rights that one might hold, whether it may be their own personal rights as a consumer, a voter or just as a normal citizen. But truth be hold, amidst many of what some might consider a “drivel” of misguided information put forward to unsuspecting people, many of them are clouded by a mist of twisting and spinning stories to lure them further away from the truth.
Quote from the UN’s website:
The promotion and protection of human rights has been a major preoccupation for the United Nations since 1945, when the Organization’s founding nations resolved that the horrors of The Second World War should never be allowed to recur.Â
Respect for human rights and human dignity “is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world”, the General Assembly declared three years later in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In 1950, all States and interested organizations were invited by the General Assembly to observe 10 December as Human Rights Day (resolution 423(V)).Â
The Day marks the anniversary of the Assembly’s adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Over the years, a whole network of human rights instruments and mechanisms has been developed to ensure the primacy of human rights and to confront human rights violations wherever they occur.
Respect for human rights and dignity is of the essence but unfortunately it isn’t practiced so much around here with statements such as “balik tongsan” coming from the very people charged to helping us preserve our rights.
Too much has happened over the weekend and too much has been reported on the media. Of course everyone wants to know what is going on and with the Internet being so easily available nowadays, who ever believes what they read in the newspapers. How much so can we trust these so called “credible” sources of the media?
I rather read my news online because I believe that the level of trust I have for these spin doctors have reached an all time low and as someone once told me that it only takes a minute to destroy a lifetime built reputation.
Anyhow, let us not stray from the fact that today is the World Human Rights day so let’s celebrate the fact that we are still in a democratic state but yet mourn for the things that are happening around us. Perhaps these photos might tell a better story indeed.
My first ever DSLR was the Nikon D40 which I purchased in January. Since then, I started my interest in the area of photography. Being a relatively middle income earner and knowing the exorbitant prices that revolves around this new hobby of mine, I faced a problem.
The Nikon D40 didn’t have the autofocus motor built in the body. I guess this was Nikon’s way of reducing costs but it came as a problem for D40/D40x owners, they had to buy either Nikon’s AF-S type lenses or perhaps a cheaper alternative would be the Sigma HSM type lens.
But, I am not here to talk about the D40 shortcomings.
Tamron, another 3rd party lens maker has finally decided to jump onto that bandwagon to manufacture a lens capable of having the autofocus function with the Nikon D40. In any sense, this is a good business move by Tamron because they are catering for a large market (the D40 has a huge market because of its price worldwide) of consumers.
AF18-250mm F/3.5-6.3 Di II
“The AF18-250mm F/3.5-6.3 Di-II LD Aspherical (IF) Macro is the ultimate high power zoom lens boasting the world’s greatest zoom ratio(*1) of 13.9X, a milestone that Tamron, the pioneer of high power zoom lenses, has achieved by commanding its technologies to further expand the capabilities of high power zoom lenses.”
With this in mind, I think Tamron has a winner provided that the price of this lens is priced well as it is definitely a good travel lens. It gives a nice wide 18mm as well as a long telephoto (compared against the usual 18-200mm lenses). Let’s see how this will fare against Sigma’s travel lenses.
Back on the other spectrum of the price range would be something which many people have been waiting for, the Nikon D3. The first full frame DSLR for Nikon, the D3 marks an important milestone for Nikon and I am sure many people would be more than happy to jump on the new bandwagon.
Well, if you are still clueless about the Nikon D3, don’t fret. Head over here to see how the D3 would look unboxed!
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