Blink. The power of thinking without thinking. In this book, Malcolm Gladwell discusses how sometimes too much information and analysis can get in the way of our judgement. Snap decisions are made subconsciously, or even unconsciously. And sometimes this beats all the scientific analysis in a way that even the person cannot honestly explain.
The book begins with the discovery of whether a statue was legitimate or not. A lot of data was taken and analyzed over many months and the scientists were convinced that the statue was an original. On the other hand, a few experts, seeing the statue for only a few seconds felt uneasy and were convinced that it was a very good imitation. They were right They didn’t know how they came to the decision, just that it didn’t look and feel right. Their spontaneous reaction in this case was better than the carefully considered one.
Continue reading 'BLINK AND THE DECISIVE MOMENT'»
I’m a big fan of Malcolm Gladwell. In his book, the Outliers, he mentioned that to succeed in your field, you need to spend 10000 hours honing that skill. I have no idea how he arrived at that number but in his analysis of successful people, that seemed to be the common denominator. The greatest athletes, entrepreneurs, musicians and scientists emerge only after spending that number of hours in their field.
I was told by another photographer that a client joked with him that since he had the same equipment as my friend, he should be charging the same thing. Although in jest, that might be the way he perceived my friend’s work, forgetting that the camera doesn’t make the man.
I sometimes come across people in a wedding shoot having a ‘bigger and better’ camera than mine and they perhaps feel that they’re ‘better’ than the professional photographer. Funny how people think that the camera determines the level of competency. I can think of this analogy, if you have the same pot as a chef, does that make you one? Or if you buy the same racquet as Roger Federer, you’re on way to the Grand Slams. People seem to think that photography bucks this trend.
Going back to Malcolm’s 10000 hour rule:
Continue reading 'THE CAMERA DOESN’T MAKE THE MAN'»
So I’ve finally made up my mind. It must be the most well-researched and tested software I’ll ever purchase. I’ve ran it to the ground, compared it with Lightroom 2 and Lightroom 3 beta, tried all sorts of funny things with it, go through my entire workflow to make sure I can get used to it fast and I’m satisfied. Unlike Photoshop, where there aren’t many choices out there, Aperture and Lightroom are both great choices but Aperture works better for me. At least for my workflow. I love the adjustment brushes and the slideshow capabilities. Plus working with the full screen. Speed-wise, I thought Lightroom was faster but in the end, the difference was imperceptible.
If you’re using Aperture already or are thinking of it, here’s a very useful website to learn tips and tricks: http://aperture.maccreate.com/.
Well now that I’m ready to buy it, I’ve been told it’s out of stock. Duh! And I think the money I spend deserves a nice little box, a CD and a bunch of useless material, instead of just downloading the key. I can wait. I have 20 more days to use the trial version.
Just came back from a press release of Aperture 3 and to add a bit to what I posted earlier. Nothing much new that you can’t get from the web but having someone go through it was quite an experience. A lot of emphasis was given to the iPhoto and Aperture compatibility. If you use iPhoto and the Faces and Places features a lot, you’ll be very impressed with these. The face recognition algorithm is much more advanced and you can manage it at the project level instead of library level.
What I found impressive was the Places feature. As long as you have a GPS enabled camera, you’ll have a lot of fun with this. Here’s a screenshot of my iPhone images with the location service enabled and the places tagged. You can use it even in the slideshow where your slides can be automatically captioned with the location. Very impressive indeed.
Aperture 3 screenshot showing the Places feature
So Faces and Places are cool. Just that as a professional photographer who works mainly in Singapore and who catalogs images based on event instead of faces, I can’t say I can find a lot of use for it. Sure, if I’m a National Geog photographer, Places will be extremely useful or if I go vacationing a lot. Or if I constantly take pictures of my friends and family, Faces may be useful. But counterintuitively, I find that because the face recognition processing is done all the time, I feel it slows down my other processing. I can see that processing in the status. I’m not sure but perhaps, that can disabled.
Continue reading 'APERTURE 3.0 MEDIA BRIEFING'»
Had someone check out my light that did a nosedive a few weeks back. Conclusion: it’s still working fine except there’s this piece of plastic about the size of a key on your keyboard that came loose. It was the source of the rattling sound and it seems to be some spacer or something like that. Do you know what this is?
A piece from Elinchrom BX500Ri light
I’ll probably keep it for awhile before I junk it.
I still like to tell the story of how this light of mine fell 4m and suffered only a cracked shell and this loose plastic piece. Next time I tell it, it might have fallen 5m or more….
I blogged about downloading Aperture 3.0 last week for evaluation. The conclusion, don’t bother during Chinese New Year. Too much eating, drinking and socializing that period. So I finally sat down to evaluate it today. And…one word..IMPRESSIVE! Ok, this comes from someone who have not been using the fastest and best tools for processing so this is a big leap. I’m halfway through the door, with a few hundred bucks in hand, heading to the nearest Apple shop. Until someone suggested I try Lightroom too. Can anything be better than Aperture? I’ve to check that out.
Screenshot of Aperture 3.0
Here’re the things I really like about Aperture:
Continue reading 'APERTURE 3.0 TRIED AND TESTED'»
Wishing all readers a very Blessed Lunar New Year! And a Happy Valentine’s day too!
Shot with Canon G9, balanced on the balcony, Tv, 8s, -2EV
At the strike of midnight on the eve, the sky in Penang lit up with fireworks. Reminded me so much of my childhood. I missed the sight, smell and sound. Of course, I had to settle for ‘moon travelers’ last time, unlike the variety I was looking at last night. And they said fireworks is banned here! I gotta find some and relive that childhood of mine 
I’ve just checked out videos and testimonials on Aperture 3 and that’s it, I’m convinced I need it! I don’t quite care for the faces and geo-tagging….not for now, but the editing is way cool. It seems to score on the cataloging feature too. For years I’ve been using Expression Media, ever since it was called Iview Media Pro to sort through my images, make selects, convert to smaller files, etc. Adobe Bridge is too slow for me and for going through a thousand over images after a shoot, I could find better use of my time than to wait for it to render the thumbnails. Expression Media does the job really well, but it’s an additional software to run on top of Canon’s DPP raw processing software and Photoshop. Too many apps requiring too much resources.
One look at Aperture 3 and I think I can retire all my other software. I’ve downloaded a trial version and I can’t to put it through its paces in keeping up with all the processing I do. It’s supposed to be optimized for Intel Macs so I’m looking forward to a better performance.
Continue reading 'APERTURE 3'»
For those of you interested in keeping a copy of Scene City: Singapore, the DVD will be launched tomorrow!
Here are the details:
When: Thurs 4 Feb 6pm-8pm
Where: Objectifs 56 Arab Sreet Rooftop
I should be there if I can find time away from my work which includes a corporate tour of Lenovo, Google, Nokia Siemens, Rolls Royce, Siemens…all in one crazy week! Seems like everyone wants to have pictures taken just before CNY. Ouch.
More importantly, Tom Ang will be there too so if you want to see what he’s like off-camera, now’s your chance. He’s a great guy.
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.
Continue reading 'A YEAR IN RETROSPECT'»
Baby Photography, Event, Family Photography, Kids Photography, Musings, Overseas shoot, Personal, Portrait Photography, Pre-Wedding Photography, Pregnancy Photography, Product Photography, ROM Photography, Sports Photography, Tips, Understanding, Wedding Photography
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book review, camera, iPhone, Kids Photography, learning, Photography, Portrait, Pre-Wedding Photography, product, studio, technique, travel, Wedding Photography, workshop
I’m a big fan of Yellow Octopus’ christmas gifts. So when Kevin dropped by to deliver them, I was in for a ‘wow’ moment. Yellow Octopus is this collection of very talented designers and illustrators and their talents are put to good use every Christmas.
Christmas. A time of giving. It goes beyond just giving material things. In Yolo’s gift, there is a book called ‘The Empty Box’. It’s about a box which was abandoned and later found its purpose…of giving and blessing others. It brings to mind also the biblical story of the five loaves and two fishes. Jesus wanted to feed the thousands that gathered to hear him. All there was were just 5 loaves of bread and 2 fishes. But that was enough. He multiplied them and fed the thousands and even had leftovers. All Jesus needed was for someone to offer something and a miracle was thus performed. This Christmas, let us be reminded that even though we think we have little to give, but giving it willingly is enough to bless all around us. You never know who you can touch deeply with even a gift of good works, of friendship, or even a smile.
Besides the book in the Empty Box, there were rolls of beautifully designed wrappers, all illustrated to the main theme. How apt. A book to shares a heartwarming tale of sharing and giving, and wrappers for all the gifts to bless your loved ones.
Merry Christmas everyone. May you never forget the joy of giving.
The Empty Box
The Empty Box Design
The Empty Box Book
The Empty Box Book
Illustration in the book
The wrappers
The wrappers
Brought my new baby to Aceh and with CameraBag, grabbed a few images. I loved it! The iphone’s camera was surprisingly quick, with very little shutter lag. I was even able to capture a shot of a boy jumping off a wall. That was pretty amazing. Of course, I had so much fun with the Helga function of CameraBag that I didn’t bother with the other effects. The only issue I have is the ability to quickly launch the app from the phone. That was the only delay. Gotta find a way to do this quickly so I don’t miss out those ‘moment’ shots.
I was with a group that painted a kindergarten and organized a children’s program for the kids at the village ala Singapore style. The event was impressive, the decoration they put up included colourful bedsheets to cover a gaping hole in the wall. The Balai Desa (Community Hall) was transformed in a matter of minutes. But the transformation back to its original state was even faster, unfortunately. The result of kids and balloons in the same room.
Decorating the venue
Local kids giving full attention
The painting of the kindergarten provided more fun for the guys than anything else in the trip. As someone quipped ‘it looks nice from far but is far from nice’.
Before painting
Work in progress
More images here:
Continue reading 'RANDOM IPHONE IMAGES FROM ACEH'»
Ok, that’s a cheesy enough title to grab attention. I finally got my iphone! Got a real good deal, thanks to the orange fella. Spent a fair bit of yesterday playing with it, loading up the apps before my trip to Aceh tomorrow. I’m leaving behind my trusted G9 and will go on a shooting spree with the iPhone and all the apps I talked about the last time.
Stay tuned for the results of 4 days of shooting!
Took a walk around the Marina Bay Sands construction area scouting out a location for a personal project. Can’t help noticing the beautiful light we had today. Blue skies in one direction, warm light in the other. Amazing. Got even better towards the later part in the evening but I was already in the car, scouting for location. Mental note: Need to spend more time on foot with camera. Not in traffic jam.
Marina Bay Sands construction
Marina Bay Sands construction
Marina Bay Sands construction
Ok, photobuffs may be disappointed that this has nothing to do with photography but this is another passion of mine….eating! It’s so cheap to go Penang now and I get many friends asking me where to go to eat this legendary Penang hawker food they hear so much about. So instead of repeating myself over and over again….here it is. The quick and dirty, the lowdown, the scoop, the secrets.
It’s all in this link.
I hope you have Google Maps. Why do I use Google Maps so much? Well, because most people drive around in Penang and I’d recommend you do too. Georgetown is not as small as Malacca where you can easily walk from one end of Jonker Street and back. Walking around Georgetown is quite a challenge. Besides, taxi fare in Penang is not cheap. From Maps, you can extract the GPS coordinate (check the internet if you don’t know how to do this). Plonk in the coordinates on your GPS unit, let it guide you and you’ll be a happy camper. No need to pour through maps and navigate the one way streets. At the moment, these locations are not exact since they’re from my memory. Perhaps I’ll bring a GPS there one day to get the exact coordinates.
Continue reading 'MY PENANG FOOD GUIDE'»
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