It’s not often I get to be inches away from a car like this when I was covering the event for BMW at the M Showroom. After the unveiling, I was like wow, stop that drool, remember to keep shooting. One can expect something special’s going to spring out from under the sheet by looking at the shape. And I wasn’t disappointed!
BMW’s M1 Hommage is a concept car that blends the new and retro look. This is a prototype so I’m not sure if this will be released for production but this new take on the traditional M1 is definitely a head turner. How not to miss this car? I love the colour. I don’t know what the official name is but I never realised metallic orange can look so good on a car.
I was so close to James Hill, the ukulele genius yesterday! What a great privilege to be covering the concert at the DBS Auditorium. He doesn’t just ‘play’ the uke, he was more like a musical alchemist, creating percussive rhythms, bringing uke playing to a whole new level. I like his quote “the ukulele is a relatively new instrument, so there isn’t really any boundaries as to how it should be played.” Or something to that effect. At one stage he was using the uke to play techno with chopsticks and tape! It was very experimental in the beginning but when he put it all together, all the audience could say “oh wow!”. He really worked the crowd with his humor, and getting everyone to join him singing towards the end. The whole set felt very personal, and the props made it look like a bachelor’s pad. As if someone just dropped by and decided to wow you with the uke.
Ming and I covered the performance shooting video with 4 5D Mk2s, 2 for backup. I was shooting fixed on a tripod, framing medium shots while he was moving around to get the detailed shots. Here are some images before the performance, during sound check.
The stage and my viewpoint
From James' viewpoint
Ming surveying angles
Sound check
Testing out the techno sounds from his uke with a chopstick!
James up close
Hearing what the audience is hearing
My favourite was the Billie Jean piece. Without witnessing his playing one might think he had accompaniment. You gotta see him play to believe it. He was pretty much a one man band! Here’s what i got from youtube. Be mesmerised, be amazed!
Tonight, I’ll exchange my camera for my ukulele and will join James for a jam session. Yah. Like real the way I said it. Will try get a few more pics if I can of the workshop…..that is if I can put my uke down.
Last week I covered a 2-day corporate event and each night, the highlight was the dinner. And my what a pleasant two nights they have been. The first night’s dinner was held at White Rabbit, Dempsey and the second night, Tanjong Beach Club, Sentosa, which I understand was just opened last month. Both very pleasant locations for a relaxing buffet after a whole day of activities.
The White Rabbit
And the Tanjong Beach Club, which was where KM8 had been:
Goodbye 2009. Hello 2010! After a season of festivities, everyone’s back to work with, I hope, a fresh perspective to work, life and perhaps a zest, zeal and enthusiasm to make this year count. But take a moment to have some reflection on the past year, and use that as a guide for this.
For myself, this blog was started as a kind of social experiment and i must say I am hooked on it. I started in May 2009, after many years of deliberation and fears that I will not get pass my first post. I eventually discovered a love for writing. I can’t say I’m very good at it but at last I don’t dread it. So my first post was on packing for an overseas shoot in a reply to curious questions on what I always bring on my shoot. At that point of time I was already overseas and that was the perfect moment to talk about it. From then my blogging went on to discuss techniques, equipment, workshops, current work, book reviews and now with my new iPhone, a bit on apps and its camera. After the first post, ideas start popping up and since then, I’ve logged 140 posts! I try to go for higher value content and not just one-liners so I think I’ve done decently looking at my workload.
Workshop day! With a very enthusiastic group who sacrificed their precious Saturday to learn photography. Such was the enthusiasm that they streamed in before the scheduled 8am meeting time. As far as coincidences go, everyone brought along Canon DSLRs. The good thing about this is, yes, lens sharing! Since I brought along lenses which the others didn’t have, we had a good time comparing notes and trying out different lenses to get different perspectives. The result, Dee bought a 50mm F1.8 just a few hours into the workshop!
Been awhile since the last time I shot performances. I used to shoot stage performances for Toy Factory, and a few gigs for other bands so I was more than happy to shoot Alila’s CD launch performance last Friday. A few months back I did a shoot for her album, website and promo material, which I blogged about here. She performed a few songs during the launch and together with the band, got everyone on their feet too.
The CD is a collection of songs she wrote a result of a God-given vision for her life. His Name is Jesus is distributed by Padah Recordings and you can get more information about the album, about Alila herself and sample her music at Padah’s website www.padahrecordings.com.
A bit more about Alila, taken from the website:
Tialila Jamir comes from a very humble background from Nagaland in India. She is a worship leader and was one of the pioneers of the Faith Harvest church in Nagaland. As well as writing articles on Praise and Worship, she is currently the music director of Kingdom City Church, Singapore.
The birth of this vision came about in the year 2004. During this period Alila was going through intense pain and struggles, both in her personal life and her professional life. In this vision, God showed her multitudes of women suffering in a remote area and he placed a burning desire in her heart to reach out to these desolated women. God then showed her the verse in Nehemiah 1.10: “These are your servants and your people, whom you have redeemed by your great power and your strong hand” Continue reading 'ALILA’S CD LAUNCH'»
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