I just had a fantastic day at the Charge Up Conference at Life College at Jalan Tandang. Why fantastic? Because I am learning more and more about photography. What made today even more fantastic is that I participated in my first “No chimping” contest. Basically “No Chimping” is a method where we shoot in manual mode and take photos with our Digital SLR without looking at the LCD monitor.

Yes that’s right, all you film camera junkies out there would probably give me that “now you know how it feels” look and yes, it was definitely challenging. What made it even more intense was that we were given about 2 hours to shoot only 36 shots and we had to select our best 3. It wasn’t easy at all but I tried to have a story behind my shots.

In the shot above I wanted to depict a red stop sign from going in to the 4D Toto shop. I have to thank Luke for helping me to look out for traffic while I stood in the middle of the road trying to nail the shot. I needed a higher angle to get the larger sign.

In the shot above I wanted to let the grey area depict that of an industrialized area or perhaps something that is urban and then show the bright contrasting colours of the flowers peeking through the railings.

I saw this interesting sign whilst exploring PJ Old Town as I walked across the pedestrian crossing.

I saw these flowers at the florist and took a quick snapshot. Really glad that although I got some weird stares from the shopkeeper, she didn’t chase us away.

This is a shot of Julian outside the training room. The competition required us to take 36 shots and by the time I arrived back at Life College, I had only 20 shots! Quick shot of him using the hallway lighting to nail this shot and still get some catch light in his eyes.

The last photo was rather interesting as this was the door handle to the men’s toilet at Life College. Looks like someone was a real “Heroes” fan.

As I walk away from the 1st day of the Charge Up conference, I can’t help but remember about Ps. Sandra Chin’s sermon. What would we be without our equipment? We need to separate ourselves from our skills and realize that we are children of God.