Thaipusam 07

Have been visiting Botanic Garden these few days for macro shots.

Portrait Shots with Macro Lens

Voigltlander 125mm Macro Apo-Lanthar

Got a new macro lens from Voigtlander. It is an obscure brand but it has a long history and is currently manufactured by Cosina in Japan. It has produced many stellar lenses rivaling German Leica lenses at a fraction of the price. This manual focus macro lens can be mounted on a Canon EOS body and provides focus confirmation!

Having fun with a 24mm f1.4.

The new Vivo City, a mega shopping complex, is so crowded on weekends but is pretty empty on weekdays.

My camera was nearly drenched from the sea splash this morning. Together with the salt water were fine sands find their way into the lens and camera body. Heartache? Yes, a little. And since I didn't get my picture, I will return again. The cam is just a tool afterall.

Back from the Market

This couple marched home after they did their weekend marketing at Tiong Bahru.
Left, left, left right left.......
:)

Wet Wet Wet

The rainy season is far from over.
The intermittent rain started since yesterday afternoon. It varied from rainning cats and dogs, moderate downfall, light drizzle to a complete stop.
The weather is just getting a little crazy.

Kelong!

Received a calender from Sentosa today. It was a compliment from them since they used the above picture in the calender.

They ran a photo contest last year and 10 winning shots were supposed to be featured in this calender. I was disappointment that my entry did not win any prize (I sent in the entry using my wife's name). They contacted my wife shortly after the contest asking for permission to use the photo. My wife agreed but if they had contacted me, I would say no since they did not pay for my picture in any way. Well, I guess they might want to have more than 10 pictures featured in their calender.
However, flipping through the calender now, I realised that exactly 10 shots from the contest were featured. Hence some of the winning shots were dropped out.

Why are they using the non-winning photos and not those rightful winning shots?

I feel robbed!

The holidays and leaves are over and it is now back to work work work.

No time to keep up with a daily photo blog.

Sunset at Labrador Park

Brought Jingwen and Zhiyang to Labrador Park in the late evening. I checked the tide and judging from the day's weather, suspected the sunset should be lovely.
Having two kids sticking close to me and fighting for my attention, my interest had to take a backseat.
However, luck was on my side and the sunset was indeed beautiful. The kids had fun throwing pebbles into the sea and enjoyed the spectacular light show put up by mother nature.
And the finale was a glimpse of a shooting star!

This photo was taken and had intented to be published here yesterday but was overtaken by the bees attack event.

Straits Times ran the report of the bees attack using my photos. There was actually a separate incident of bees attacking a group of school children yesterday. Straits Times called me again today asking for different photos so that they can run a follow-up article in the Sundays Times to educate the public what to do in case of bees attack.

Today's evening Wanbao also runs my photos in their frontpage.

Bees Attack!

Was having late lunch at the Zion Road when I witnessed an elderly woman being attacked by bees just outside the hawker centre.

At first, I thought it was flies. The lady tried to fan off the bees with a towel and wanted to enter the hawker centre for shelter. Frightened hawkers and patrons shouted at her to run to somewhere less crowded. She stood there helplessly while the little insects stung and finding their way into her ears, nose and mouth. Some hawkers tried to help by fanning off the bees with burning newspaper. Another person from the coffee shop across the street splashed water on her.
Finally, she ran across the street towards Great World City where someone had set up a little fire and smoke. After the ordeal, her face and limps were full of bee-stings. The poor lady wanted to just walk away on her own to seek treatment from a nearby private clinic. The ambulance arrived just then and passersby advised her to seek treatment from the hospital.

No entry for parents.

The second day of primary school forbidded parents from entering the school compound. Parents awaiting eagerly to fetch their kids home after school was dismissed.

The rainy season is still looming around with a heavy downpour in the evening.

1st Day of School

First day of school for the kids.

Zhi Yang is commencing his nursery class. He didn't cry nor stick to me as much as I've thought he would have.

And for Yang Loong, he is starting his primary one. He has to learn to use money for transaction to buy food from the canteen. He is a clumsy boy and consuming his meal on his own will be a challenge.

Bought some Powerex recharger batteries recently. Have no use for these except using them for my strobes. So will likely be playing around with the strobes more often from now on.

Happy New Year!!!

Happy new year and a happy birthday to this photo blog!