Casual event photography by Mochi

Happy long weekend peeps.

I'm getting a little tardy in upkeeping my blog... *oh no no no..*.

Was busy reading up on all the photo hosting sites to see which calls out to my needs and pocket.

The winner goes to Smugmug and I paid $60 for their Pro package to host my pictures and was busy playing around with it. After a long struggle, with inputs from various tomodachis, I've decided to keep the URL to azukimochi.

This name somehow has stuck with me over the years and is so close to my heart. It didn't seem possible for me to experiment with other names anymore.

http://www.azukimochi.smugmug.com/  it shall be! Come drop by for updates on my portfolio.. gimme your comments!

I'm into Casual (Event) Photography and trying to build up my portfolio in that.Though I've received comments from friends that I do have some flair in photography and should consider going into maybe wedding photography etc, I've never really seriously considered it. Reason being I love photography as a hobby, my way to destress and relax. I enjoy editing pictures too and it's super therapeutic for me, minus the finger and wrist aches from overclicking in PS.

I didn't want the profit making and rushing for deadlines part to kill my passion for photography. If you know me...I'm the epitome of casual-ness...if there's such a word. Yea, so I've been thinking how the ideal situation should be. To be adequately compensated for my efforts but yet be able to find my preferred niche and have fun in the process.

I have to be very honest and say that I function best in outdoors.. in the company of the children, sun, sand, sea, greenery, flowers.... nature! So you may infer that I'm not allergic to heat and physical activities...eg. chasing kids to get perfect shots which would form precious gems down your memory lane.

So if you do know anyone who just wants to be part of the whole event.... without worrying where the camera is or avoid having to dash around trying to capture the candid moments while trying to ensure food is ready for guests... can contact me!

Close friends referrals and contacts preferred at the moment.

Rates are not applicable at the moment as my focus would be just to build up my portfolio. Selamat Hari Raya!

Jurny @ Botanic Gardens!

Public Service Sports Carnival - 26 Nov 2011

Lots of chillis must have been sacrificed for this event coz the weather was unpredictably kind with the help of mr sunshine. The PS Sports Carnival was held at Marina Barrage. 

Singapore's skyline is becoming more iconic. I love how MBS, the unique greenhouse structure of Gardens by the Bay and the flyer form a picturesque landscape from the barrage. Maybe the Merlion could be planted in the middle of the bay just like statue of liberty in USA.

Experimented with some infrareds today. Loving it.

Marina Coastal Expressway in construction at LTA site office

Jurny was there. Looking blur and totally engrossed in the Clown magic performance, not in the mood for phototaking. well. haha.

the dragon boaters.... all ready and set.

Toy Camera effect - neko as my model

Been totally in love with the iphone photo apps. Love how the effects can significantly change the mood in pictures. Here's a hardworking mochi trying to reproduce the same effect using the long long but good old photoshop way. Key thing is the light leaks to give the polaroid effect. Pretty complicated process which I'll need to practise over and over for deeper reinforcement.

Harlo toy camera neko. Oh. and not forgetting my buddies at work. They're my models too. 

Before

After...with light leaks and a kodak frame..

my buddies at work..... literally and non-literally.

Buddies in Polaroid.

The Old Photo Effect

Finally enjoying some mochi time. Me, myself and mochi. I find that as I grow wiser (i.e. older), the more challenging it is to dedicate time to self-improvement activities. Excuses? We have more commitments which never fail to zap us of our energy. Physically, we are more 'mature' making our bodies succumb to fatigue more easily.

So once we can breathe free time, we'll indulge in lazing around catching up on our dramas, surfing net, activities which do not require much effort. I feel it so much. I need like double the amount of motivation to make me jog, clean up my room, housekeep my computer, organise my life in general and improve my PS skills. urgh. such are the cruel truths as we mature.

That's why I haven't been diligently reading of my photo mags. I still buy them religiously but haven't been conscientiously reading them. They are still there on the shelf, stacked up high and nice, neat and untouched. yucks. Guilt.

So today, I successfully ejected my butt from my sofa and relieved some of the guilt by playing magic with my photos. hmm. This website has pretty good and comprehensive tutorials. Though I had a hard time trying to save the instructions on the webpage into PDF for my future reference, I managed to do it after some googling for PDF converter software. CutePDF converts files into PDF in an instant and PDFmerge site merges several PDFs into 1 PDF doc FOC. 好万得福. http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-effects/old-photo/

Tried the old photo technique with one of the pics I took with sharon san during our recent healthy 3 hr trek at macritchie. This pic was taken at the tree top walk... sharon san, photo for you to commemorate your virgin climb to the tree top!

~Before~

~After. Added the sepia tone, then added the grain and noise effect. finished up by revealing some color from the original photo to show the loss of photo color due to ageing~

Composite pictures

I've always been allergic to washed out skies. Could be due to the strong sun, cloudy sky or that the camera angle was just not right. Tried this composite image technique today which took only 15min to miraculously give life to the otherwise plain and sad looking sky. Eye candy now. :)

~ image before edit~

~ sky image..my preferred sky! ~

~ After~ composite image!~

最重要的小事 episode 1

I really am loving my iPhone.

Intoxicated by the amazing photo apps n hopelessly addicted to words with friends. Dun think it'll replace my SLR though which is still great for travels n special occasions.

Just trying out blogging using this blogger app I downloaded.. Pretty user friendly so far! It's mid week people! Weekends almost there.... See the light...

Meantime I wanna share 最重要的小事 pics series with you. Episode 1: little things that make my life complete... ES, travel, nature n flowers, mayday. Life is beautiful.

Toy Camera effect

Gonna fully utilise my weekend. Learnt this new toycamera effect on photoshop which I thought really gave the pic a different feel. Never knew how to use adjustment layers till I read this tutorial. Cool. but I'll have to practise more if not I'll forget for sure since the steps are really complicated for my tiny brain.

Not all pics are suitable to apply this though so cannot abuse this technique! heh. Gonna jog... eat... then do my thesis. That's how I'm gonna spend my next few weekends.

~ before~

~after~

Out of Focus in Sentosa

~ As lighting was super poor and using the flash would overexpose the pic, had to play around with the shutter speed to get the exact brightness. The best I could get liao. You'll need to place the camera on a tripod or a bench which I did to get a sharp pic.~

Had a good break at Rasa Sentosa over the weekend. A simple stay where we jogged around the island, visited the Resorts World, had a satisfying totally calories-bursting meal at Chili's, played arcade and frisbee by the beach. It was lucky that setting up of the festival of lights was half completed which triggered the trigger-happy me. The not so happy person was ES. But he was nice and patient that day....as usual. muacks!

The lights were great for playing around with the out of focus mode.

~Original - before out of focus~

~ Making the bright lights into abstract rainbow bulbs. Set it to manual focus, turn the focus ring to throw the lights of of focus. Play around with the shutter speed to get the background dark~

the story of S.M.A.B.

love playing ard with photoshop..only when i've got alot of time. you really need patience and interest to try out the limitless stuff you can do to a picture. had time to also think of a new name for this crazy gal gang of mine... S.M.A.B.! siti, maria, ahmad and babu! cool! sounds like the jap group SMAP! yeah!

Thanks to babu's tripod! but we got thrown a couple of weird stares from beachers. DND. cam whoring in process.

~ Right out from an idie movie. The famous dance sequence around the coconut tree~

The dark silhouette range of pics which I totally love!

~think only SMAB is capable of this stylo pic.~

~ We can see our future. Go SMAB!~

~salute to SMAB!~

~ love this as well~

~ doing the thing we do...~

~ the beauty of mis-alignment~

~ one of SMAB's famous dance routine~

Dedicated to the crazy, gorgeous, cool, act cute S.M.A.B. SMAB forever!

Super-imposing 3 pics of different exposure levels

learnt some photo shop technique from the class. it's sad but also fortunate that we can enhance pictures now using technology. Baimei emphasized that he uses alot of photoshop to enhance the color, add effects and also color contrast to perfection. There's only 1 thing photoshop cannot enhance. Sharpness of the pic. How true. So, this becomes the main target and motivation for photographers to continuously hone their skills to get that blade sharp shot.

Anyways, 1st pic is a normal pic taken at sentosa with an overcasted sky during sunset.

The 2nd pic is done by superimposing 3 pics of different exposure levels together. You'll need to play around with the opacity to get the effect you want.