My friend Jim Ming was working in America for the past few months, so I asked him to buy me one Sports Illustrated (SI) magazine when he's coming back. Met up with him at Bukit Jambul Complex and have a few minutes chat before he have to leave with his friends Sim and another guy HongYao.

I'm not a Football fan (american football that is), neither do I know about their rules. But what I'm more interested in is the photographs inside. SI hires one of the best group of photographers around. And I believe they have the best machines from EOS 1Ds/D2X or even medium format at their expense. Here's an article from Rob Galbraith which talks about SI's digital workflow (remember, it's written back in March 04, imagine how much more computer power and storage they need with the recent Digital Back cameras which have file size of hundreds of megabytes.

Few months back, there was a short tv series on Sport Illustrated Swimsuit Model Search which I watch online. I was shocked by the gadgets those photographers uses. A macro ring flash which spreads 1 meter in diameter, L lens range(which consider nothing to them), and also portable studio lights. These beautiful ladies get to stay in a beautiful mansion on the countryside, and have their best photos taken in the most exotic location in the world - The Bora-Bora Island. Damn~ How I wish to have my wedding reception there.

If anyone is living in America and love reading myblog, I'll appreciate it if you send me a copy of SI Swimsuit edition, or even a 1 month subscription.

Thanks to AiChing, I received a lot of email jokes for the past few days. No time to write blog, so...if u want some laugh, visit http://neohjokes.blogspot.com.

(November 2nd) Was thinking of bringing her for a horseback riding in the morning, but she doesn't want me to spend the money as she's satisfied wif the pony ride i brought her to in Bukit Tinggi, Pahang. Yet I still feel like she just want to sleep longer as she was out late with her friends the night before. Her X-collegues back in the days when she was having her industrial training celebrates her birthday. She went out with a whole lot of 6 guys and she's the only girl in the group. But in a way I'm not all worried as I know those people (a few of them) and I trusts that she knows how to make a good judgement.

Today's also "All Souls Day" for Christians. She spends time with her grandparents at the graveyard near Youth Park in the morning. So we only go out in the afternoon. Go and pick her up and then go down to Perangin Mall to watch Zorro 2 The legend of Zorro. The first Zorro was shown 10 years ago and it's a mega box office hit. They use the same actor Antonio Banderas, as well as the beautiful Catherine Zeta Jones. Yeah, I used to have fantasy of this gal. Just a trivia...I'm the kinda guy who likes mature, older gals. You can laugh ur way out, but I can only have a good conversation/communication with the intelects. Zorro 2 doesn't dissapoint the audience nor people who came for the sequel as the first part was screened so long ago people don't take them both and compare.

The purpose we prefer Mega Pavillion compared with GSC because GSC doesn't have a good sound system as compared wif MegaP. They are using something called Dolby Digital Surround i think. Besides that, Irene have Digi e-voucher which entitle us to get a popcorn combo for just RM1. $$ saving = Good!

After the show, took her to Sheraton Hotel in Burma Road to have dinner. We saw the signboard every time we pass Sheraton. There's a Korean restaurant there Bee Woon 秘苑 which translates to Secret Garden. Once we came out from the lift, there are two waitresses there to greet us. Then they bring us to a seat which oversees the busy streets of Georgetown. We ordered KimChi with rice and also a steamboat set. The whole restaurant is practically empty (just like we love it) and they play soothing music. Once we order, the waitress on traditional korean costumes brings us moist towels (i don't use wet towels as i have some secondary meaning).

Here's a picture of how the food is served. Try give a guess how much the whole meal cost.



It's only a mere RM75 inclusive of tax and service charge!!! You think it's expensive? Try ordering the same amount of food in Sushi King, I'll not be surprised to see at least RM50 on the bill. Well, that's the problem with people these days, they only visit those popular restaurants and never want to try new food/places of interest. There are a lot of places like Bee
Woon around in Penang. Irene can agree with me that they are merely making a living out from the customers, but they serve their food with passion,love and absolutely nutritious. Last year I bring her to some japanese restaurant which serves sashimi, and this gal still talks about it till this very day. Unless it's nessasary, I would not wanna step into Sushi King, Kenny Rogers or these type of fast food outlets. Don't even try to bring me into KFC and McDs which are more common.

A hint to those people who wants to impress their other half. Bring them to a decent restaurant like Bee Woon, or maybe some out of town restaurant like Mee Udang in Gertak Sanggul. I can say that your partner will be impressed, and enjoy the meal. Don't be such a boring guy which only knows those common famous places. Explore, and you'll enjoy yourself along the way. Best of all, if you know a song or two, play them on the piano. You'll melt their heart, I swear! (unless you meet girls like Cirnelle which plays better than you do)


Playing a song for the birthday girl

All in all, it's a pleasant day. Click here to read how this lady describe her brithday. Before i end, Happy Birthday Choobee.


Me and my Choobee

Linkin Park came out with their side project, Fort Minor. It has the elements of Linkin Park's music on it. "Petrified" and "Remember the Name" are their latest single, and it has been giving me a good listen for the past week or so.

Quote from FortMinor.co.uk:- Fort Minor is a solo project set up by Linkin Park EmCee Mike Shinoda. Accompanied by a group of close friends, he has produced and recorded a solo album. Click here for the official biography of Fort Minor

Download "Petrified" and "Remember The Name" today.

I strongly recommend Petrified. It's the number one song in my playlist.

Tuned in to Mix FM (91.0kHz Penang) every morning while I'm driving to work. They are discussing an interesting topic today about "How does a driver of a left hand drive car pays the toll?" Imagine if he's driving in KL city center, there's so many toll plaza (thanks to Mr Samy). Do they just hand over the money using a shovel? Or they're forced to use a Touch-n-Go card? Hm...even with a Touch-n-Go, he have to touch the machine also right? Weird~



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Something else totally unrelated, a photo I've edited using photoshop. Tried looking out for it's scientific name, but seems like there are so many variations out there they might be coming from different Family. I'm not a biologist, but if anyone of you have the specific name of this Orthoptera, please let me know. Comments welcome.

After downloading the first episode of Photoshop TV, (introduced by Teetoo) I can't watch it until yesterday when I install the updated version of K-lite v1.40.

Anyways, it's intresting what I've learnt from there. These Photoshop experts might make a lot of bad jokes, but the tutorials they share are quite educative especially to beginners like me. You can download it into ur computer, and if you have iTunes, you can download it into ur iTunes (or whatever you call it). I'm not so familiar with Apple's products, but the show works nicely on Windows Media Player as well, as long as you have the codecs.

Here's something i tried with the tutorials given during the show...tell me what you think.
"The 10 brothers"

Thanks to www.photoshopuser.com for the feed.

Sounds more like a compensation/angpow rather than a pay as I din ask for the money. RM150 angpow sounds a lot to me for my first job. I din know what the people aspect, and neither do i know what is the quality the other photographers offer during wedding ceremonies. But today's job is tougher than I aspected. Those small little brats are running all over and try to stand in front of the camera most of the time to have a closer look at the wedding couple. Can't they just move aside and look at pictures later? Or maybe just give the photographer some space to take better pictures for memory.

The "San Kek Mm", a person who is hired to carry out the traditional ceremonial events according to the chinese customs. But she did a terrible job, Irene can agree with me on that. This old spinster doesn't know her stand and was talking non-stop about those silly silly stuffs that she thinks it sound nice as long as it rhymes. There are so many things that everyone has to follow and she acts like she's the director of a movie.

When the bridegroom came and knock the door, the guys are trying to open the door while the ladies tried hard to close it back. End up they burst a bottle of coke on to the floor, which they quickly clean it up (luckily). Both parties took more than 45 minutes to cut the deal. Stella could hardly wait and shouted out to her husband to be more sincere and pack a reasonable pack of angpow. She was so furious she almost change her mind about getting married. Sometimes playing a joke can go too far. But she eventually calm down after some comforting. As for me, I’ve to stay inside a room full of ladies, lucky? No. But I do feel more comfortable under the fan compared to squeezing on the doorway with over 10 guys and an old spinster.

Yeap, that spinster is there, rushing the girls to open up. Which was not the plan. She was supposed to wait patiently for the door to open. She ruined the fun of the tradition. Once the bridegroom pays up, they open the door and go downstairs for the “tea ceremony”. Tried different settings with my flash to lighten up my subject but not over exposing them. Even though my battery is weak (haven’t changed it since Taiping trip), but I can still take a whole day full of pictures. Just that I can’t make multiple burst shots as the recycling time is a bit slow.

Another new experience for me is when we have to visit Pantai Hospital to visit Stella’s grandmother that was warded. I tag along and took pictures for her family. One thing I learn from today’s job is that a photographer has more privileges in capturing the moments compared to others. I get to witness the couples’ have to exchange oaths with their parent in-laws, breaking the toilet bowl, and some other miscellanous moments where usually most people are kept outside the door.

Finished the day’s job around 3pm in the afternoon. Have some food back at Stella’s house and then bring Irene out to have some Laksa before going back my place to continue watching Full House, the Korean drama. Tiring day, but a satisfied one no doubt. Wanted to give my parents back the RM150 that I “earn” today, but they don’t want to accept it. Mom always ask me to study hard so that she can retire after I start getting my own pay, but I don’t suppose she’ll be asking any money from me eventhough I’m willing to give her all. I’m not a huge spender, hence there’s no purpose of me keeping so much cash in hand. All I hope for is for them to lead a better life, eat nicer food without always thinking of saving up when we should spend instead. I love you mom, dad, and also my sister Qi which is back in UM. Good luck in your exams!

She was born Lim Kooi Hwa, until she start working for a hair salon, and then promoted as the manager, she called herself Stella to make it easy for her friends to call her. Stella was my primary school friend in Kong Min Pusat, Ayer Itam. That's until standard 4 where she moved to Sg Ara with her family. But after that we still keep in contact for a while through snail mails. (Back then emails are not that common yet)

Get to hear about her again when I meet up with Irene. Yeah, that was like form 5 that time. So, now and then I do meet up with Stella, but not as frequent as there's hardly much to communicate. I talk camera, she talk hair...there's nothing in common that we can talk about. But she's kind enough to invite us (old friends) to her birthday parties, and also now that she's married, her wedding.

I was asked to help up taking some photos for her wedding. Can't reveal those personal pictures, but here is one that shows the happy couple. :) Congrates both of you.




Picture of me and the bride

Finally after a very long wait (not really long for me）as i just switch camps from the Jedi to the Darth side of photography. Rumours have been spreading out all over the web for the past couple of months. It started with people managed to find out Nikon registered the copyright of "D200" with the copyright office, and then there are various version of photoshopped models spreading over the net.

But today it's official, the 10.2MP CCD squeezed into a magnesium-alloy body. The features are closer to D2X but half the price. Among the attractive features of this machine (other than the price tag) is a 11-point AF, 5 fps, USB2.0, WiFi and GPS support and it's using CAM1000 instead of CAM900, meaning a shorter time lag in between pressing the button and actually recording the information.

For comparison in between both camps, D200 will be retailed a bit higher than EOS 20D (RM5k), but IMHO, has features comparable with EOS 5D (RM13k). Letsgodigital have a 20 page preview of the camera (but most of their pages are purely images). While Phil from dpreview has start compiling the review of this long awaited camera. [Nikon D200]

At the same time, Nikon also comes up with a 11.1x zoom lens: the Nikon DX VR 18-200mm F3.5-5.6G IF-ED with SWM i think. This lens uses VR II motor which means I gives me 4 stops more light. Price? I think it'll be below RM5k retail. Not sure if my estimation is correct or not. Thanks to DPReview for the photos. Hm...for those of you who plans to get this by Christmas, better place ur orders fast. These cameras will ran out of stock fast, just like my Nikon D70s, it's hard to find any units laying around camera shops in Malaysia. To prove my point, you can try to access any Nikon websites, you'll notice how slow it is compared to the past few days before the release of this camera.

Hm...i guess i'll stop talking about cameras now....just enjoy the photos of SU-800 remote speedlite. Juz got my SB-600 a few sunsets ago, so I don't think it's a good time for me to switch.



Anyone wants to give me this for Christmas? I'll be your's for the whole year! And that's the promise of a photographer.

Footnote: Come to think of it, I'm not that expensive to hire D200 (RM7k) + lens (RM5k) + Flash (RM 2,500). Total: A mere RM 14,500/=. Think about it, a slave for 14k that's lesser than RM1.5k per month!!!