What do you want to be when you grow up?

Something a little different for a change – I’m writing about the police and kids.

Have you seen the latest Singapore Police Force commercials? I happened to see one of them on TV the other day, and Joanne pointed out that she and her female colleagues recently crowded around one computer swooning over this particular one for ten minutes:

For more, you can go to the Singapore Police Force Facebook page or their YouTube channel  for the rest of the 2011 recruitment drive vids.

Coincidentally, I was actually planning to write a post about something I’d spotted a month ago during my visit to the National Museum, and it’s related to the police as well.

There was this activity corner on the second storey, where kids were invited to draw out their personal hopes and vision for Singapore, and put it up as part of an interactive exhibition. And one common thread I found was that many of kids wanted to be policemen and women when they grow up!

Gone Bananas

Yes, because I took two days of medical leave for the first time since I started working in June 2009.

Ok, but that’s not the point of the post. Falling sick (viral cough,  doctor says) gave me some time to write this post as I’m supposed to stay home and rest.

In keeping with the festive theme of the previous post, I’m talking about bananas and good fortune for the Chinese. Singaporean Chinese, at least, because I do not know if the same applies to other Hokkien-speaking Chinese elsewhere in the world, such as those in China’s Fujian province or in Taiwan.

Anyway, my mother bought a bunch of small bananas and hung them at our kitchen window for Chinese New Year. That’s uncharacteristic because our family prefer eat only the bigger varieties such as those from Del Monte, so I asked her why she bought them...

Why are you hanging at my window, Mr Banana?

“You mean you don’t know? Hokkiens believe bananas bring good fortune. Gim jiou! Gim jiou! Kuai dian zhao, kuai dian zhao!” she replied enthusiastically. (My mum is Cantonese though)

Gim jiou is Hokkien for banana, which is read the same way as “bringing in gold”. The latter bit, in Mandarin, means to hurry up and bring in (the gold). There was something about the way my mother said it that made me and my sister burst out laughing, but I guess that explains why some Chinese in Singapore hang banana-themed ornaments in their cars and houses.

Hmmm maybe that’s part of the reason why I had a relatively good Year of the Tiger. Work-wise I had the chance to go to Pakistan and Japan for work assignments, and also got a chance to write my first opinion piece. And last month, I got promoted and collected my first proper bonus (along with the rest of the company, of course). As for my personal life, I met Joanne and so far had some wonderful times with her both here and on our overseas vacations (three so far, and much more to look forward to this year). To Joanne’s sisters: nope, I really didn’t have to sell my organs to pay for the trips so far. Haha.

You see, I’d bought a new watch last June as a birthday present to myself, from a shop in Ion shopping mall in Orchard Road:

I call it my “banana watch”, and I wear it every time I go out. The design is apparently based on a famous banana painting done by the father of pop art.

From what I understand, the painting was featured on a legendary rock album by Velvet Underground, and that was probably part of the reason why it became so famous.

While I would have loved to get a Jaeger LeCoultre from a luxury watch shop, I figured it was not the right time yet and settled for something slightly cheaper. Actually I was attracted initially to another Andy Warhol watch at the same shop in Ion but settled on the simple but elegant design of the banana watch. I also like it that it’s quite thin and light, which makes it less uncomfortable to wear throughout the day. Get it here if you want! (Please don’t wear it when you meet me though, it’ll be awkward.)

Oh hey, there is a banana on the watch dial too!

Yes, yes, this is all superstitious nonsense, you may say. I’d be a fool to count on my watch for good luck too, but every little bit helps, I suppose? :)

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PS: I’d discovered a good Hokkien online dictionary as I was confirming the Hokkien pun, since I know only a little of my dialect. For those who are keen to become Hokkien experts, click here.

Double exposure fun

I first read about how to use lighting with double exposures in Joe McNally's excellent book, The Hot Shoe Diaries, and had been wanting to try something out ever since. Unfortunately, my D40X doesn't have the function -- only models D90 and above have it.

Fortunately, Joan has a D90, and one day in August, we decided to just try the function. Here's a test shot.

Ok don't puke, it was just for fun. © Lin Zhaowei, 2009.

So a couple of weeks ago, when Joan had some good friends over for a sushi dinner, we thought it might be fun to try it out with everyone. Here are a couple of the pictures we managed to take, using just one SB800 as lighting.

Love rectangle. © Lin Zhaowei, 2009.


Give me the money... © Lin Zhaowei, 2009.

When Joan's friend Daniel suggested doing a "family portrait", I realised my folly of not bringing my SB900. But well, we always do our best and the end result wasn't too bad! But I had to cheat here -- as I wasn't behind the camera, it wasn't possible to do a double exposure and prevent any overlapping. So two exposures were taken and layered in GIMP. (I can't afford Photoshop)

We had 12 guests and two hosts at the party. © Lin Zhaowei, 2009.

Anyway I think GIMP is quite feature-packed, though it would take quite a bit of getting used to for the Photoshop user. Took me a while to figure out how to do masking, which was needed to black out some parts of the picture. But it works and it's free, and I'm really quite impressed. Just wondering why they don't have a "hand" function like PS tho... It's not that comfortable moving around the image using the scroll wheel...

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Note: There is however, a very useful Image Overlay function in the D40X, which is found in all recent Nikon consumer DSLR models. It is a sort of built-in HDR function that lets you put two images over each other. It is how, for example, I created this following image a few weeks ago, when I was in Beijing:

Tiananmen at night. © Lin Zhaowei, 2009.

Those of you who have taken pictures of a scene with a moon will know that the moon is very bright -- on a camera sensor, at least -- so when you expose such a scene, the moon will always be blown out. Hence the workaround, and it works fabulously for me!

Skate-Scooting Strobist

I had been wanting to take part in the Strobist.com Boot Camp II, but the themes to the first three assignments weren't easy for me to do. So when the last assignment (ie. my last chance) came and the theme was declared to be transportation, boy was I excited! I mean, I can possibly come up with something...

So while stoning during one of my recent remedial training (RT) sessions, I decided to actually think about what to shoot (instead of what to buy) for once, and came up with a couple of rough ideas. A phone conversation with Joan that night yielded the final idea.

Location: concrete tubes found near her home.
Photographer: Joan.
Lighting man: Me.
Model: Me???

And the transportation? A skate-scooter! I'd always wanted to try riding on one when they were all the rage many years ago, but never did. Here's my chance! (Ok, the truth is, we don't have a car, truck, bike, or any other mode of transport between us. Heck, even the skate-scooter was borrowed from a primary school student learning the piano from Joan)

Pondering over how to pose for the shoot... © Lin Zhaowei, 2009.

Anyway the day of the shoot-- Sep 20 -- finally came. It was fortunate that RT was cancelled on this day, due to the Hari Raya holidays. And when night fell, we moved out from our HQ (Joan's place) to the location.

The tubes, which were lying on a grass patch next to a canal for reasons unknown, made for a superb location, esp. with the right lighting. © Lin Zhaowei, 2009.

We have two lights between us: an SB900 and an SB800. Since the SB800 is more powerful, I used it as the light in the distant set at full power (manual). This serves to create a sense of depth in the photo. The SB900, mounted on my Gorillapod on a metal beam that ran across the opening of the tube, behind the camera, bounced off the ceiling of the tube with the built-in bounce card up to illuminate the model (me). I used TTL for convenience.

Setting up the light. © Lin Zhaowei, 2009.

We used Joan's D90, and originally planned to use the Tokina 12-24 f4. However, turned out that it wasn't wide enough, and thank goodness I'd brought the 10.5mm fisheye along! The shot was taken from a very low angle. And we used a very high ISO (3200 to 6400) so as to make the distant light brighter.

The first variation, with the SB800 closer to me. © Lin Zhaowei, 2009.


The final shot from the second variation, with the SB800 further away. I submitted this to the Strobist pool. © Lin Zhaowei, 2009.

As you can see I had a lot of fun with the shoot. Haha! And I am quite happy with the final product too.

Don't think I stand a good chance of winning, but I guess I can always hope for an honourary mention on the strobist blog...

Edit: Just an extra note, this was another instance when the fisheye saved the day... It's seldom used (maybe once in a month at best) but there are situations when nothing else can do the job, simply because it's so darn wide.

I think I will never think of selling it again to fund my impending camera body upgrade!

Photographer's Math

What is an "artistic" shot? Or HDR photography? Is a Gary Fong Lightsphere worth the money? Find the answers at the Photographer's Math blog!

Thanks to Shaun for directing me to the blog! Sure cracked me up, although I must admit I don't get some of the "equations".