Life goes on~
In life, there may be times when you are in a dilemma that you cannot solve easily or peacefully. There may be times you wish that you don't exist on this world so that work and deadlines cant find you. There are times when you just feel like slamming the table to let you frustration out..

But think of the happy times when you had fun with your friends, laughing away at the silliest things. Think of the proud moment when you finished something that took you so much time (up to months), effort and sleep.

Life can be mean on us sometimes... But! Just move on and bash through this forest full of thorns and at the end of all the tiring and painful bashing, you will finally see the light and warmth~


Dedicated to all my friends there who are not in a good shape for one reason or another... Survive! Dun die!

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Happy Family~!

Taken at West Coast Park~ It's a place full of activities on weekends, where you see family warmth at maximum vibrance~ Haha~

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Happie Valentines Day!

Preparing a Vday gift can take up a lot of time and effort but seeing the smile on your loved ones is definitely worth all time time and work, sweat and blood~

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Reunion Dinner

Fried Mullet Fish Roe wrapped with Cuttlefish Paste

CNY is coming tommorrow and reunion dinner in a few hours~! Recently, it has became increasingly popular that people have their reunion dinner at restaurants rather than at home. Perhaps people are getting more affluent and want to have nicer food outside or simply because they want to take a break from their hectic lifestyle.

Braised Pork Knuckles with Taiwanese Style

Nonethless, due to increasing demand for reunion dinner at restaurants, you also see more and more ads on CNY food on the papers too and I was lucky enough to do a food review on a Taiwanese restaurant about two weeks back.

Pan-fried Fresh Oyster with Scrambled Eggs and Greens

The restaurant do have a few unique dishes such as their special almond jelly dessert which has a very "Q" texture. Their pan-fried oyster is also "taiwan-authentic" and different from the ones in Singapore~ So if you want to eat some nice food, don't hesitate to visit Shin Yeh restaurant @ Liang Court~

Sweetened Almond Jelly with Peach in Syrup

Happy CNY!
More photos here:
http://imouyang.multiply.com/photos/album/95/08_Jan_09_CNY_Food_Review_Shin_Yeh

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On-Location Fashion Shoot: Tight Walkways and Messy Backgrounds

As the title suggest, I went to shoot for a fashion article that will be published on 15th Jan on omy~ (Will post the link once it's up!) Shooting such an assignment (which I have not undertaken for a really long period of time) poses many problems to the photographer~! Firstly, since it's on location, you have to work with tight spaces... Shop rental is expensive so I guess that it is inevitable that shops owners at Far East plaza and Bugis cram their shops with all their clothes, leaving you with almost, in fact no space to shoot! Secondly, even when you want to shoot outside the shop, you will start to realise that the wide variety of clothes in the shop make the most messy and ugly background you can ever use for your photos... Lastly, lighting becomes a problem as well due to dim-litted interiors and also the fact that bounce flash is not appealing and effective (black ceilings!) as well~!

So how to go about this problem? Pray that you are lucky that day! There are still some more "classy" shops that do have some nice interiors for you to take photo, so pray hard you get to interview one~ If not, you can always look for window glasses that make nice reflections~ If not, you can always try to blur out the background as much as possible like the very first picture to make things look right;) Bottomline: Work with your constrains!

A few more photos here:

http://imouyang.multiply.com/photos/album/94/03_Jan_09_Fashion_and_Lifestyle_SG

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When there is no Light... Make it yourself!

Shot as part of an assignment on budget places to date, this was shot at Sinema Old School, Mount Sophia~ By the time I went in to shoot the "couple", the show has ended and the movie projector has already been switched off... So... What happens when there is not much available light? Make it yourself! For the photo, I placed a strobe (off camera flash) at the place where screen was, simulating the condition it would be like if a movie is being screened~ Also, since you make the light, you can control the power of the flash and put less strain on your camera in terms of ISO and aperture~ However, owning an extra flash i believe is a luxury to many photographers...

Btw, I shot something else on the same day apart from budget dating places~ Will be revealed in the next post~ So do watch out this blog space regularly:P

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Lines, Curves, Shapes and Forms

Last monday, I went to help a friend shoot some of her design project items. After shooting a few items, I realised that the items revolved around shapes and forms for I start to see lines and curves "pop up" in the viewfinder. Despite seeing the lines and curves so evidently, it's hard to produce a striking image for each item as it is not easy to find a composition where all the lines and curve fit in smoothly. Perhaps I should go and look up on some design magazines for inspiration before I do such a job again~ Anyway, the image above and below is one of my favourite items shot that day (a pencil holder) which i liked due to it's complexity and how the different triangles complement each other.

Also, one thing that I realised is that still products like the 2 photos above are more "friendly" to photoshop creativity. This I feel is due to the lack of a benchmark reference such as skin colour in portraits or sky colour in landscapes. Thus, you can do more tweaking and it still looks "ok" to the eyes.

A few more photos here: http://imouyang.multiply.com/photos/album/92/29_Dec_08_SDE_Products_NUS

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First Post! Looking back at 2008~

Wouldn't it be nice to look back at 2008?

Landscapes

Labrador Park, Dec 08

Looking back, I feel that I got to love to shoot landscape more in the past year. One of my friend once said, every photog trip is like a mini holiday to him. I think this pretty much applies to me as well especially on trips to shoot landscapes because the secenery is so refreshing and you have it all to yourself. Singapore is a place with many nice places to shoot landscapes be it during twilight hours or at night and my wish for 2009 is to explore more of them!

Events

NUS Chinese Dance, Sep 08

At the first half of 2008, I shot a lot of events perhaps due to my more free schedule, being just freed from Army and waiting for uni. It was also the time I changed my camera to my current one and this frenzy period of shooting quite some events made me quite competent with my new camera, altho i have to say that I haven fully master it fully. Later came the later part of 2008 when uni started, shooting also declined as more focus was placed in studies. Yet, NUS also did provide some avenue for shooting like this concert I shot a few mths back.

After one whole year of event shooting, I realised that I really loved shooting stage performance. The beauty of the lights (which is also one less worry for me as flash is not allowed and you just focus more on composition) and the atmosphere is something that I really loved. The thrill of following with the rhythm of the music and following and predicting the performer's movement is smthg like playing a shooting game to me and the adrenaline rush during fast-paced scenes is simply amazing. Wish for 2009! More stage performance! I love the arts:P

Portraits

Qiang Mai Portrait, May 08

I have to say that I love shooting portraits a lot as well, primarily because of the interaction that you make with your subject. Also, it may be partly because I am a very "lifestyle" person so i prefer to shoot lifestyle related stuff like people, concerts and food(next up!). 2008 was a great year of experimentation with lighting when it comes to portriats. A lot of lighting breakthroughs were made. I bought triggers, new flash and made lots of DIY light modifiers. And it's good that you have a friend who knows a lot about lighting and you can learn from. However, as school started, portrait time got less and lesser due to studies... So my wish for 2009! Find more time to make more interesting modifiers and shoot better portriats!

Food

Turkish Delight Cheesecake, Dec 08

As most of my friends know, I love to eat! And I bake as well! So wouldn't it be nice if i can combine cooking and photography? Haha... That was what i set out to do this Dec holiday and here I present to you! Turkish Delight Cheesecake~ I particularly like this photo as it was kind of a breakthrough for me. The lighting used was newly thought out. In the past, I used mainly uniform lighting and decided to work more on arrangement of food but recently, I realised that lighting is equally important as well and thus decided to work on it:) Wish for 2009! Come up with more creative lighting for my food! And also work more on food styling, smthg that i am realli not good at:)

Random

Black Knight Flying Past IR, Aug 08

Lastly, I decided to post this photo to wish that all my friends will pass their exams in 2009 with flying colours! That aside, I hope that my passion for photography will be like the F16s soaring high despite in the midst of other commitments:)

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