Archive for May, 2009

Wednesday Clicks

May 20, 2009

Since I am on a totally different time zone (its supposed to be 1.20pm in KL now but its only 12.20am here in Chicago) so I decided to post pone the post a little bit to suit my time here. Frankly, between 8am-7pm classes all day, I am thankful that the sun does appear about later than usual so that it doesn’t feel that late. But nevertheless, I haven’t gotten used to waking up at 6am everyday so that I can head over for breakfast before class. Food here is absolutely fantastic and fresh strawberries every morning! Ok, I have to be honest, my breakfast is usually made up of pork cumberland sausages, with pork bacon and scrambled eggs and of course, the creme de la creme, free Starbucks coffee. Yeah, that is the life I can get used to.

Anyway, back to this week’s click.

  • Head over here to download Coldplay’s live album, absolutely free!
  • Check out this new blog released by the New York Times called Lens. I guess the name explains it all about what the content of the blog would be.
  • This week’s guest speaker at Scott Kelby’s blog is none other than Vincent Versace. I was introduced to Vincent Versace by Kee Sitt. This led me to purchase his book last year and to be perfectly honest, I have had just a glance through it but never really study it yet.
  • New leaked specs about the upcoming iPhone which is predicted or assumed to be launched on the 17th of July. Can anyone say, Organice Liquid Emitting Display ten times?

That’s all for this week. Its late over here and its time to sleep. I guess it would be easy to get over the jet lag now since I have had a couple of drinks at the local bar earlier.

On my way to Chicago, I was booked on a flight which I had to transit in Hong Kong for 2 hours and then fly another 12 more hours to Los Angeles and stay overnight at the transit hotel and before you know it, hop on a 5 hour flight to Chicago. After a 3.5 hour flight, we arrived in the Hong Kong airport and it was full blown ready to take on the reported H1N1 Flu. Actually, all I did see were cameras which monitored each person disembarking the plane to see if they showed signs. Other than that, the transit area was quite nice.

hongkongairport blog 005 Suffering from long transits

First of all, I liked the architecture of the airport itself, the design really reminded me a lot of KLIA but the airport was so much more packed compared to our wonderful deserted KLIA.

hongkongairport blog 003 Suffering from long transits

Everywhere I turned within the transit section, there were loads of stores there ranging from high end brands such as Giorgio Armani to Starbucks coffee as well as individual smaller restaurants (they could be a chain too).

hongkongairport blog 004 Suffering from long transits

I guess the rent must have been quite high as the seats that we were given were really small. So small that I can’t put my bag on the chair and sit on the chair as well (no, I am not that fat, the chair is just that small!).

hongkongairport blog 001 Suffering from long transits

Anyway, Jamie ordered a duck pizza which was interesting but it was extremely small. The damage? USD$16.30. Food prices in Hong Kong are off the roof especially in the airport.

hongkongairport blog 006 Suffering from long transits

After a quick snack, I managed to go to one of these stations to charge my laptop as well as surf the internet. Note that I realised that KLIA and the Hong Kong Airport provides free Wi-fi. Sadly LAX and O’Hare International Airport does not offer free wi-fi.

After going back on board the next Cathay Pacific flight, the one thing I noticed was that all of the flight attendants were wearing masks throughout the entire flight there. By the time I arrived at LAX, the scene over there was as if they never heard of what the H1N1 flu was. The line at immigration was very long especially since the Homeland Security has implemented the new “Visit US” rule. By the time I arrived at the transit hotel, it was already 12am and I had to get up at 6am the next day to catch the 8am flight.

Anyway I definitely need to catch my sleep now, need to definitely fight off my jet lag. Will be continuing my transit nightmares on my next blog post.

Ok, I lied about the title, its officially 1.14am and I have not yet finished packing. I guess I only packed the important ones, or the things which I deemed as important such as my camera gear and my laptop.

3534129856 30f6380afb o All packed and ready to go

That’s right, my camera gears! I will be at Chicago and New York in the upcoming two weeks so I definitely know I can take loads of pictures there! What’s in my bag above? I have packed in my D700, an 80-200mm f/2.8 lens, a 14-24mm lens (I want to shoot when I am on top of the Empire State building!) as well as a 50mm lens. Also together with my camera gear is my MacBookPro and I am packing all of these items into my new Lowepro FastPack 250. Not too bad eh?

I still got loads of packing to do and double checking to do so I am going to continue packing and hitting the slack soon.

My laptop is currently copying photos over to a portable hard disk where I am supposed to pass some photos to Grace and I am also considering trying to figure out where should I backup my entire laptop documents. Probably into one of my external hard drives. Ah, I do things very last minute!

At the same time I printed out an eBook and I will be reading it on the way to US as well as brainstorm and plan out my slides for my presentation at ShootFest and for a photography workshop which I am giving at my company.

Before I announce the official press release below, the quick update is that there has already been 65 participants who have already signed up for ShootFest, hence there are only 15 spaces left people!

Anyway, I have been a little busy this entire week and I started packing last night for my trip to the US which begins tomorrow! Woohoo! Yes, I will be flying off to sunny Chicago on Saturday and then over to New York the week after. After trying to remember what I need to bring, I definitely have a huge packing list including some of my camera gear and 20Gb of memory cards. In the event that 20Gb is not enough, my contingency plan is that if I do use all 20Gb of memory, I would probably buy a 8Gb CF card there.

If you are wondering what I am doing in the US, its part business and part holiday (I’ve never been to the eastern seaboard). Definitely looking forward to photographing New York and checking out some of the fantastic landmarks there. Tweeting will still continue and hopefully, I can find some free wifi spots about NYC.

Official Press Release

ShootFest: The Wedding Unconference

Date: 6th & 7th June 2009 (Saturday & Sunday). Registration starts at 9am.
Venue: Integricity office, Centrepoint Bandar Utama, PJ
Fees: RM50

So what is ShootFest: The Wedding all about? And what is an unconference?

An unconference is an informal gathering of likeminded people with a common interest. It’s a participant-driven conference, meaning everyone must participate in some way or another. Everyone is encouraged to present a topic or engage in a discussion during the 2-day sessions.

Each ShootFest is a media unconference primarily for photographers and videographers. This first one that is organised is themed The Wedding and is meant for professionals, freelancers and anyone interested in wedding photography and videography.

The benefits of ShootFests are knowledge-sharing, networking and raising the bar for the industry. The idea is to breed improvement for everyone in a friendly environment.

Our sharing slots are open to everyone who is interested to speak. Participants can choose to speak about anything… from technical know-how, to marketing your photography business, to sharing your experience about how you left your full time job to be a wedding photographer. Other interesting things that will be happening are like Pecha Kucha sessions, where you share 20 slides, each for 20 seconds, or a buy-sell session where everyone brings their second hand gear to sell.

How it All Started

Inspired by a techies gathering called Barcamp, Alex Lam (www.integricity.com) and Grace Tan (www.weddingstory.com.my) gathered a group of wedding professionals and shared the idea of an unconference with them. The first ShootFest meeting was held at a coffee outlet and 5 people met up to discuss ideas. Those who were present were Zach Chin (www.zachchin.com), Jon Low (www.idealwedding.net), Mark Leo (www.markleo.net/blog) and of course, Alex and Grace.

Everyone was really excited about the idea of sharing knowledge and networking with others. It was at this first meeting that the name ShootFest was determined, and that night itself the domain was purchased, and a Wordpress site set up. Others who couldn’t make it for the meeting due to geographical constraints were Ian Chong (www.eeyern.com/blog) and Lim Kee Sitt (www.weddingstory.com.my).

Latest Updates

From that first meeting, we have gathered a group of volunteers who have willingly availed themselves to help in any way. Word about ShootFest went out informally through forums, blogs, Facebook and Twitter. Over a short period of 2 weeks, we had 65 registrations. The cap on the total number of people would be around 80 due to venue restrictions.

Visit the ShootFest website: www.shootfest.org to get the latest updates, view the schedule, register and sign up for a speaking session. If you’d like to help out in any way, do email admin@shootfest.org. We gladly welcome volunteers

Before I announce the official press release below, the quick update is that there has already been 65 participants who have already signed up for ShootFest, hence there are only 15 spaces left people!

Anyway, I have been a little busy this entire week and I started packing last night for my trip to the US which begins tomorrow! Woohoo! Yes, I will be flying off to sunny Chicago on Saturday and then over to New York the week after. After trying to remember what I need to bring, I definitely have a huge packing list including some of my camera gear and 20Gb of memory cards. In the event that 20Gb is not enough, my contingency plan is that if I do use all 20Gb of memory, I would probably buy a 8Gb CF card there.

If you are wondering what I am doing in the US, its part business and part holiday (I’ve never been to the eastern seaboard). Definitely looking forward to photographing New York and checking out some of the fantastic landmarks there. Tweeting will still continue and hopefully, I can find some free wifi spots about NYC.

Official Press Release

ShootFest: The Wedding Unconference

Date: 6th & 7th June 2009 (Saturday & Sunday). Registration starts at 9am.
Venue: Integricity office, Centrepoint Bandar Utama, PJ
Fees: RM50

So what is ShootFest: The Wedding all about? And what is an unconference?

An unconference is an informal gathering of likeminded people with a common interest. It’s a participant-driven conference, meaning everyone must participate in some way or another. Everyone is encouraged to present a topic or engage in a discussion during the 2-day sessions.

Each ShootFest is a media unconference primarily for photographers and videographers. This first one that is organised is themed The Wedding and is meant for professionals, freelancers and anyone interested in wedding photography and videography.

The benefits of ShootFests are knowledge-sharing, networking and raising the bar for the industry. The idea is to breed improvement for everyone in a friendly environment.

Our sharing slots are open to everyone who is interested to speak. Participants can choose to speak about anything… from technical know-how, to marketing your photography business, to sharing your experience about how you left your full time job to be a wedding photographer. Other interesting things that will be happening are like Pecha Kucha sessions, where you share 20 slides, each for 20 seconds, or a buy-sell session where everyone brings their second hand gear to sell.

How it All Started

Inspired by a techies gathering called Barcamp, Alex Lam (www.integricity.com) and Grace Tan (www.weddingstory.com.my) gathered a group of wedding professionals and shared the idea of an unconference with them. The first ShootFest meeting was held at a coffee outlet and 5 people met up to discuss ideas. Those who were present were Zach Chin (www.zachchin.com), Jon Low (www.idealwedding.net), Mark Leo (www.markleo.net/blog) and of course, Alex and Grace.

Everyone was really excited about the idea of sharing knowledge and networking with others. It was at this first meeting that the name ShootFest was determined, and that night itself the domain was purchased, and a Wordpress site set up. Others who couldn’t make it for the meeting due to geographical constraints were Ian Chong (www.eeyern.com/blog) and Lim Kee Sitt (www.weddingstory.com.my).

Latest Updates

From that first meeting, we have gathered a group of volunteers who have willingly availed themselves to help in any way. Word about ShootFest went out informally through forums, blogs, Facebook and Twitter. Over a short period of 2 weeks, we had 65 registrations. The cap on the total number of people would be around 80 due to venue restrictions.

Visit the ShootFest website: www.shootfest.org to get the latest updates, view the schedule, register and sign up for a speaking session. If you’d like to help out in any way, do email admin@shootfest.org. We gladly welcome volunteers

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