baby photoshoot : my first try

back in november, a fellow mommy blogger who also happens to be my neighbour, Didee, asked if i'd like the opportunity to take photos of her newborn because she liked arwen's photos. i was honoured and nervous at the same time, because arwen's photos? that's not all my doing. they're all collective force of all the people in the house who knows how to operate the DSLRs. but i decided, it's now or never. i mean, how would i know if i'd suck at it if i didn't try it first, right? so i accepted the challenge. but when the day came and Didee delivered baby muhsein, i was busy with the new job and couldnt make time. she went back to her kampung for confinement and we had to postpone until she comes back to KL.

so, during the thaipusam holiday a couple of weeks back, i went to Didee's place and shot whatever i could do within the hour. man! taking of photos of new babies are tough! it's not like they can understand what you want them to do, right? i don't know how you guys (who takes photos of other people's babies professionally) do it, seriously. i seriously don't know what Didee expects and i told her not to expect awesomeness because what i can do is far from it.

i've done my best and here's the result. you be the judge of it. can i turn this into a living, possibly? or just forget about it?



i also made a slideshow as a surprise for the mom. (ok fine. this is not part of the package. it was sort of an afterthought because i couldnt find a blank CD laying around and had to ask my brother for a DVD and there were too much space and i didnt wanna waste it so i made a slideshow).




Thank you Didee, for the opportunity. i had a fun time. hope you like what i did.

i want : an ephiphanie

i don't really care much about bags, but as i was catching up on dooce just now, she introduced the really stylish Epiphanie camera bag by Malie Wilson for women. good riddance to all the bulky manly camera bags that's not at all flattering. the Epiphanie looks so versatile and spacious that it can be worn as a normal slingbag or a mommy bag. or all at once. i don't mind having the black Lola. though the red one looks so yummeh, but i'm not liking the lavender interior lining. i like the Ginger too. i don't think i can afford them though, but it'd be awesome to have!



photos from Dooce and Beyond Snapshots.

more on mona marcella's wedding ... this time by kudegraphy

Ok, i've written my part and posted my photos. but are you ready for some awesomeness because it's coming to you. as i've told in the earlier post, my brother and his Significant Other, the wonderful Miss Ili, the incredible duo that makes up Kudegraphy, covered our cousins Hafidz from my mom's side and Mona from my Dad's side weddings respectively. While they're still in the midst of editing Hafidz's photos, they're also getting Mona's halfway done. also check out this inspiring video!! send me to tears watching it. i never get bored of it. and the newlyweds told me that they've been watching it over and over again and it's surreal, like out of the body experience coz they still can't imagine that's them in the video.

they're still redesigning their website so it's facebook for now. click on the links and see if you're not impressed already. and (assuming you've clicked on the links) as you can read, they've got rave reviews! initially, they planned to loop a slideshow of the nikah & bride's garden party reception during the groom's reception and the video during the makan beradab. they spent the whole night, pumped with lots and lots of coffee i imagine to do it and due to some unforeseen technical difficulties at "Laman", the whole thing went unshowcased. sayang ok. Mona & Hafiz planned to give them a standing ovation after the video was shown. heck, with shit like that, i'd jump on the table and shimmy'ed my boobies. even i, the irrelevant annoying cousin who did not help with the wedding at all could cry watching it, what more the celebrated couple, kan? now i'm looking for the digital copies of my wedding photos to be given the Kudegraphy touch.

(fyi. i do not have a hard copy of my wedding photos and lost all soft copy because i stored it in the now defunct external harddrive and the one copy is with my inlaws. i hope they still keep it. otherwise, i have to take it from flickr. technology can kill you and it can save you. so ironic.)

weekend in (faved) photos

photos courtesy of the wonderful Miss Ili Aris

had a wonderful food-filled weekend with wonderful family from near and far (some who just met arwen for the first time) which i'll blog about later coz i need to process photos from my brother's camera. and the coming weekend will be my beautiful cousin Mona's much anticipated wedding (they've been engaged for like what? 2 years? damn right it's much anticipated).

serina & gavin by kudegraphy

my brother and his better half (and i do mean better) covered Serina Chef Wan's wedding early this month, not as the official photographers as Serina engaged a lot of other photographers and the slew of media, but on behalf of the wedding decorator and designer as well as the wedding dress designer.

some of you may have already seen or been forwarded emails of the occasion, but there's no way that you've seen these photos yet. maybe i'm biased, as i will always be with my family, but personally, i like my brother's (and ili) pictures better. they're different that most wedding photojournalism style we always see nowadays. kudegraphy's photography not only captures moments, or just for the sake of aesthetics, he evokes feelings. this is what i mean when i say that he doesn't take photos, he makes them.

looking through his portfolio is an experience in itself. i mean every wedding photographer in malaysia aspires to be saiful nang. but my brother, who is an aspiring fashion photographer, develops a certain fine-art style for his wedding shots. something i don't see in the typical wedding photography in the country today.

just feel for yourself.

trying out Markii

my brother just got a canon 5D MarkII (Markii, as i want to call it. tak malu orang lain punya camera dia pulak nak kasi nick names) which costs more than our Nabira. it's a pretty awesome investment, since he's going on full-time, full-gear with is wedding-fashion-lifestyle photography business.

as usual, with all new toys in the family, especially when it comes to gadgetry, we all will have a go at it. as usual, the little diva will be my convenient subject matter. it's bloody heavy, the camera (along with its lens and bulky battery grip). a very manly-man camera. don't ask me about the technical part like how many ISO was this? what lens did you use? what are the EFIX? fuck if i know all that. all i know was to point and shoot.

what? just coz my photos in here are all self-admittedly almost awesome, you think i know shit about photography? i'm a poser. i just think i am cool. ok fine, actually that's a lie. of course i know some shit about photography. why else would i come up with a separate blog teaching other people about photo-making? right?

get ready to be impressed.

these test-drive photos were taken at ISO2500 and without flash with relatively low light, 1/125 exposure, f/1.2 aperture. the end result is amazing. i don't even need to post-edit in photoshop to make the colors pop.

i get wet the moment i hear the shutter clicks. it's the kind of sound that makes your hair stand, spine tingle right down to your toes, your heartbeat races, your nipples erect, your pupils dilate and certain parts of your body gets warm. i get that kind of feeling when i hear the sound of babies laughing, rustle of the comforter in my bed, swords being pulled out of their sheaths, and camera shutters (faiz also once added the sound of zippers being opened in that list). i don't think iz needs to use a flash ever again. oh, and the bokeh (!!!!) it's to die for. if only arwen can stay still for longer so we can keep the focus right.







on another related note, here are some of the first photos i tried taking using my EOS400D with the help of my new Speedlite 580ex ii and a 50mm lens pinjam from faiz. i'm not the best focus-er, i know. but my point is, i have a renewed love for my camera now with the flashgun. i also love the fact that faiz is using a canon now, which means that i can pinjam lenses from him! and he can also use my gears in case he needs another body to use for his events.

CEA photography edition update! like, about damn time.

arwen's first photographic attempt

arwen has been interested in cameras (and any gadget for that matter) since she first saw them extended in front of our faces, which means since she was born. so, i let her play with my camera and even taught her where and how to press the shutter. so here's some of arwen's first take on photography. she's got some mad skillz happening yo!

updates!

updates!

updates!

so you want to take photos like i, i mean we do?

people, let me direct you to my other blog (like i need another one?) :


* click on the image to be redirected.

the reason why i put it up because i've had some requests from friends and readers to help them with taking and making photos by giving ideas and pointers and whatnot. so this is not a perasan decision. well, not entirely anyway.

but i am not a pro. and i still get some comments from my brothers sometimes because i am the kind of photographer who doesn't really care about the technical part of photography, i simply point and shoot and edit later on. some of the photos i have posted in this blog are of my brothers' handiwork. (even a few, my husband's). i don't even have a niche. i just take what i see. beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, no?

this photography blog is in by no means a professional solution tool. it's merely a projection of my own personal experience, know-hows and whatever, that could (or not) help you take better photographs, especially of your loved ones.

so drop over there if you want to get unprofessional tutorials and guides on photography. and guess what, i'm doing it for free!

yearning for a vacation

i was bored last night. ayis was watching some scary movie that i'm forbade to watch until maybe when the baby can make jokes. so i went marauding through a box old photos, when i couldve packed my hospital bag to get ready for the anytime delivery. whilst ransacking, i found some really old photo of when i was stick thin and looking very hot. a hot tween kinda hot. when shown to ayis, he wants warns me to get back to that hot body once the baby is delivered.

umm. yeah. right.

i also found photos taken last year while we were vacationing in perhentian and redang. the last family vacation we had before i got married and now, having a baby. makes me wonder when the next one's gonna be. ayis and i didn't have a honeymoon. tak sempat. hahaha. so, i guess, maybe we're gonna really have to wait till the baby can make jokes, or at least till she can walk before we can plan another vacation. gila ke nak bawak babies on vacation? that's not a vacation.

i'm already yearning for a few days away at the beach. right now, i'd settle for a day at the spa.

anyway, here are some of the photos i scanned. i know it looks shitty, but i kinda like the whole pseudo cross-processed, lomography effect on these. we seriously need to get one of those waterproof shockproof crushproof idiotproof olympus compact cameras for our mostly water vacations. ironic really, half the people in my family (math : just 3 people) can't really swim (well, we sortta float, we waddle and paddle clumsily under water, and our breast strokes look like we're actually having stroke) but somehow we like to vacation where there's water.

crazy pregnant lady rambling about stuff

a friend-cousin-aunt of mine just bought herself a spanking new camera. and why is it that upon knowing about this, i suddenly feel the urge (and a burst of pent-up energy that was summoned out of nowhere) to drop everything and go out, wobble through the world slowly carrying this big tummy, and straddle my camera around my neck to shoot EVERY FUCKING THING?

dont worry. that's crazy pregnant lady talking. im not about to exert myself doing things i best not be doing at 8 months pregnant. i know my limits. i mean putting on underwear is already such a challenge for me. let alone taking pictures at absurd angles that's not humanly possible for a lady who's about to pop.

it's not dengki. or jealousy. ok, maybe a wee bit of those both. but i'd rather call it a nudge. i was so inspired that i finally updated my photoblog. but with old photos, given some fresh treatment.

maybe i'll get to click a few shutters (whilst sitting down) at faiz's graduation this saturday. and perhaps at mona's engagement too, later on that evening. we'll see.

the wall

the project i've talked about earlier is now ready to be revealed. in pictorial format. yes, i've been posting a lot of visual journeys lately. it's not because i'm too lazy to write, ok fine maybe i am a bit, but actually it's easier to explain using photos rather just using incoherent words strung together to make make sense of what is not making a lot of sense.

see what i mean?

oh, and also because i think that my picture-taking has improved considerably. (still not good enough, but at least better than those i've taken back when ISO 400 film was considered hi-tech).

anyway, this project revolves around this particular banal and empty wall on our stairway, which desperately screams at me to splash some creative juices on it every time i walk up and down the house.



so i figured, since we've got a lot of pictures unprinted, unframed and unhung, and ever since we've finished with the 2nd phase renovation a couple of years ago, there's no family portraits on any of the many walls in our home except for a couple of our baby pictures ... thus, i figured, this wall needs some family portraits. so i sketched the layout a bit, trying to pacify all the visuals and ideas that are roaming around aimlessly in my soup brain on a piece of paper. i did this during one of the brainstorming sessions at work, to stay awake.



and then comes the hard and most expensive part. the choosing and printing of the photos. i've had like a gillion random-sized boxes drawn in the initial layout, but i only had enough money to print a dozen. it's the gigantus size of the photos and the texture matte lamination that cost me a hand, a foot and 1/2 a foot of my lower intestine. the biggest ones are the picture of mom & dad (24" x 12.5") and the picture of the 3 of us (16"x16").



by the power of greyskull, my genius brothers proposed that i use polystyrenes as my frame. at different depths so that i have a varying degree of dimensions and dynamics. (words were purposely used out of context for geek effect)





i painted the sides of the frame with black pelaka (pelaka, for ye non art students, is basically the expensive version of the buncho poster colour we used to use in school), an event that's brought me back to 1997 during my first year of art school when my first presumption of graphic art was doodles and scribbles and fancy handwritings and was terribly clumsy with the brush.

and then it's the mounting on the wall, which, without help from my mother and her sound measuring and calculating proficiency, i'd have a really careless, haphazard mush of random pictures arranged like it seemed to have been inspired by the stretch marks on my thigh.





we still have a few more pictures to be printed, which will have to wait till the next payday. the beauty of this wall is that it's an ever growing, expandable project. well, at least until we run out of wall.

i love to moo

last friday, i sent an email to the good people at MOO about the status of my moo minicards floating somewhere in freight world. they were supposed to arrive a week ago (which was only supposed to be 5-7 working days from the day of dispatch), but it's been 17 days and i was getting foamy in the mouth trying to figure out what happened to them. patience just isn't one of my virtues.

but on saturday, while ayis and i were casually having roti bakar and kopi at station kopitiam in semua house, taking a breather after a whole freaking day of walking around masjid india-jalan tunku abd rahman looking for wedding-related stuff, and become subjected to fittings after fittings of a really distressing state of baju nikah which by the way has a mind of its own, falie called with a very enthused tone telling me that he's gonna 'open it' now. of course, i didn't know what he's talking about, because i'm naturally slow. can't help it. was born that way, just had to wait till the very last day of the decade to embrace the world and all of its quandaries. but when i finally deciphered his coding messages, i was shouting - louder than how i'd normally talk and you can actually see the all caps and exclamation points in my eyes - YES! YES! OPEN THEM NOW! at that point, i just couldn't wait to get home. luckily traffic was clear that day, or else ayis would've gotten a taste of the wrath of my impatience and decide to call off the wedding.









they're so cute! the RM84.00 was totally worth it. actually i expected them to be slightly bigger though, but they're still really cute. and the matt lamination adds depth to the photos. making them look like as if they were taken by professionals.

we're gonna turn them into a mosaic collage and frame them. our piece of camerart - a showcase of our combined imagined grandeur. initially i wanted to make funky moognets out of them but then i figured, people - especially those who'd be coming in and out of the house during my wedding - could just simply pluck them off the fridge and keep as souvenirs. can't risk that. so we just might as well collage and frame them up. it'd be a fun project but i'd only get started on it after the wedding and probably wait till i order another batch of the moo minicards.

this however, isn't the project i mentioned about in the last 2 post. that particular project is still waiting to be revealed later because it's still incomplete for documentation purposes. but i promise myself to get it done before the wedding.

like she needs another one

i'm about to start on yet another personal home-beautification project. this time i'm determined to see through till at least, AT LEAST, 80%. given my history of half-assed personal endeavors, i'd say that's pretty optimistic. this particular project though (which i'll reveal later) has already cost me RM153.00. money i should've kept for wedding needs. but i'd like to think that this one applies as 'wedding needs'. i'll tell you why in my next post.

edit : ok, probably not next post, but definitely next next (next) post.

kids these days...

ever since this post, i've been taking a lot of pictures of kids (mostly of ayis' cousins, nephews and nieces). so much that people might take me as a pedophile. no, i assure you i'm not. i just like taking pictures of kids. but unlike professional pedophiles, i feel awkward talking to kids. i dont know how and what to talk about. cupcakes? movies? cameras? life and all the problems that come along with it? so, without having good interactions with them, how could one possible capture them at their best? no pun intended.





but luckily, kids are just really good at being kids. so pure, innocent, moody, animated, easily amused, natural posers and complete camera whores. i don't even have to talk their language to get them to pose. here's a trick i learned on taking photos of kids : you take one photo, immediately show them the photo you've taken on your LDC (it is annoying when they're bound to do this EVERY DAMN TIME you take a picture, but just deal with it) and watch how they grow to become professional models within just a few shots. and then, believe you me they wont stop posing and asking to look at the LCD and trying another pose to see if they can try to be any cuter than the last pose, and continue to do this until you've run out of space in your memory card, or battery, or sanity.







i don't know why people say that its hard to take photos of pets and children. they're a lot easier than picky, whiny adults. yes, kids and pets require a lot of patience, i mean, putting up with their cuteness is hard work. really. but i think the best thing about taking photos of kids and pets is that they don't really care if they look goofy in the picture, or that their hair is not in place, or that they're missing two front teeth, or that their face is covered with food or their own drool, or worry if their double chin is visible (i'm talking about me) .. well, at least not till they're in their 20s and start to crunch up their faces flipping through old photographs.







you can bet that my flickr page will someday be filled with photos of my unborn kids. but for now, i'm just having fun taking photos of other people's bundles of joy ... practicing, leading up to that time.

promoting skin cancer

there's a billboard near the gombak toll exit that says "now you know how charming the east coast can be" or something along that line. disregarding the 15 hours drive in a cramped-up, suspension-lacking kembara, the east coast can truly be charming. especially the islands beyond its coasts. especially redang.

we spent the weekend at coral view in perhentian besar. we were really impressed to see the wonderfully clear waters, but we later found out the beach was unswimable. it's relatively nice, but it's littered with dead corals.

coral view, my ass.

upon checking in, papa cracked open a few durians bought from the locals, my first durian for this year, and our first durian by the beach experience, ever. and then we hopped on the boat onto the small island to watch the sunset. took a few photos, got to know our boatman and witnessed this out-of-this-world storm clouds rolling and roaring toward the beach.

the clouds and winds were crazy but we were crazier. i don't know what the fuck made us do what we did but we decided to ride through that storm. it was one of the scariest experiences i've ever gone through. it's right there between coming out into this world naked and crying and learning how to rollerblade for the first time. with all the confusion of emotions i was feeling, i'm glad that i was with my family at that time. should i have died that night, in the middle of the tumultuous ocean, i'd die happy knowing that my family was with me.

the next morning, the sky was bluer and the sea was calmer. thank god. or else the trip would be a total photog loss. we headed on to our next island adventure - breakfast. i had a hearty mat salleh breakfast with really really kaw local coffee. a good way to start a day although really stupid when your day entails choppy seas, jumpy boat rides and floating in the water face down most of the time to swim with the fishes. and then we headed out to redang.

redang is one of the most beautiful places i've ever been to. i've never been to many but so far, it's the most beautiful. we all kinda regretted for not staying there in the first place. but glad to experience it anyway. i've got no words for it. not because i'm vocabulary-challenged, which i am from time to time, but because there's no words to describe the beauty of it. and the fishes.. oh my god .. i never thought i'd be that happy to see fish in my life.

and the best part of the trip is that i get to do the travel-photographer wannabe thing with my toy. i even agreed to wake up at 6.30am to catch the sunrise. i mean, i don't even wake up for solat subuh.

speaking of toys .. i almost had to replace falie's really expensive polarizing filter if it wasn't for the hero of the day, our boatman, wak. we were at pulau lang tengah where i stayed on the boat to take photos of my family snorkeling when suddenly, the polarizer accidentally dismounted from my camera and casually dropped into the water and onto the corals. i was freaking out calling falie and my dad to dive down and get it for me. out of the blue, wak just took of his t-shirt and dove down like a pelican scooping a mouthful of fish. it took him less than a second to retrieve the filter and climbing back into his boat and back to his driver side. one of the most impressive things a man has ever done for me. i was impressed.

so anyway, im still rather vertigo from the trip. i can still feel myself swaying aimlessly like a sandbag. so .. here're some photos from the trip.

on shopping sprees and vanity. and seafood.

in my family, the boys shop much worse than the girls do. i know how my brother falie shops and i can't compete with him even if i'd earn as much as he does. but my cousin noorman. oh my god that man can shop. he almost swiped his credit card thin in klcc. and that's just in klcc. and just within 5 hours.

im sorry if i don't share the vanity. i'm a budget babe. it doesn't take a platinum card to impress me. i don't mind being taken to the mamaks on a first date, i dont even mind paying for it.

you can consider me cheap for not even thinking that i myself am worth spending my own hard earned money on. whatever. honestly, i don't really like spending that much on clothes that i'll outgrow within few meals anyway. so i buy RM10 baby tees. tees that i can hand down to my skinnier cousins after i've grown another fold on my tummy. and also, working in advertising, particularly the creative department helps a lot with my kedekut-ness and lack of vanity. my clothes are mostly ambiguous. my work clothes are my weekend jalan-jalan clothes are my work clothes. best kan? i just keep a coat and sensible black pumps in the office should i'm asked to go meet the client.

i rather spend money on food, as evident by my folds of flabs. and also on movies. if there's good money doing both, i'd be the first one to sign up. seriously.

speaking of seriously, i think grey's anatomy is one hell of a good show, but it's just a bunch of bullshit. yes, i only realized this at the 3rd season. yes. i'm slow, but you're butt ugly, so fuck off. i mean, people ... you don't need to sleep with your bosses to get ahead. especially if you are doctors. but bullshit as it is, i still love it.

anyway, since i'm too constipated to write about my stormy saturday with my cousins liana, noorman and julie in klcc (where i bumped into my old classmate jija and her chubby son raul) and then seafood dinner with ayis and his sister nisha around sungai wang, here it is in a pictorial format. in sequential order.

1. shadows threatened by the rising sun


2. bumped into an old friend and her kid


3.lunch with kak liana


4. julie took this awesomely candid shot


5. lunch with abang noorman


6. the neck-breaking view of the ceiling


7. shopping with cousins


8.julie


9.abang noorman


10.stormy


11. another sun soaked season fades away


12. ayis & nisha


13. garlic butter prawns


14.lanterns


15.speeding


16.drunken perspective