Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Weekend Roundup!

I am back! I had a wonderful time shooting Mr Syaiful and Ms Syikin's wedding and reception in Melaka. During the two days I've learned so much about some random things that'll help me to better improve my photos. Definitely I'm not without weaknesses. There are more than 1500 photos need to be carefully filtered and retouched so I guess I'll be working non stop till the end of December, since another wedding reception is coming up in mid December.

Some shots from the wedding:











Congratulations on your wedding! I really can't wait to have the full album ready within the next few weeks!

Right after spending two days shooting the newlyweds in Melaka, I went back to Kuala Selangor and reached home at 10.45pm, recharged everything, and the next morning I was on my way to Penang and then Cameron Highland with my ex-colleagues!

Here are some random shots from the short trip:







Well it's so weird being in my house in Kuala Selangor today feels a lot colder compared to Cameron Highland when we were there yesterday. Now time to go back to work. Till we meet again!

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Going Back in Time: The 6th Annual Toronto Korean Speech Contest

This post is going to be a more personal one and some of the pictures were taken few years ago with a compact camera. Yes, that was when I just started learning how to actually take photos. I used Canon Powershot SX120 and personally I think it's the best compact camera (in the price range) that I've ever used at that time!

September 2009 - During my first semester back in my college days, I was contemplating between taking Chinese, Japanese, or Korean introductory class. I thought it'd be awesome to learn another language so that's the reason why. I took Japanese back in secondary school for three months but I had to quit since I had to move to another school that didn't offer the course. For Chinese, I have zero experience except the words from my dad that it is not a simple language if you're trying to learn writing in Chinese. He used to learn Chinese before so I took his words. For Korean, I noticed that the writing system is a lot simpler than the other two languages so that was a huge plus point that has got me started taking KOR101- introductory Korean class.

My professor's name is Choi Yoon Hwa (최윤화) and seriously if you could ever get into one of her classes then you're lucky. She's very helpful and she'll help you all the way as long as you put your effort in the course. Too bad she's not teaching at University at Buffalo (UB) anymore.
This picture was taken during the traditional game session.  We played yunnori (윷놀이), a game where you throw four sticks that act like dices and move your tokens across the board towards the finish.

January 2012 - So I went all the way from first year Korean to third year Korean (first semester). Too bad I could't get into third year Korean second semester due to some conflicts in my schedule. But lucky me I was offered the chance to be part of the UB team for the Korean speech contest in Toronto, Canada. I just couldn't think 'no' as an answer. 

There are four categories: beginner, intermediate, advanced, and open. I was trying to get into the intermediate category but then prof said that I've had more than 300 hours of class time so that means advanced category. I just couldn't say no too at that time. And so, the journey began!

The speech!

Mid February 2012 - I had to memorize two pages of speech (and understand everything of course) and that was about 4 minutes of presentation time. Nope, I didn't write the whole speech. I only wrote the content in English, tried to translate it halfway but then suddenly prof and her assistant came up with the Korean version of the speech. Lucky me again! 

Taken right in front of Toronto Eaton Center.

March 24th 2012 - The competition day. Prof came right in front of my house with Terris and gave me a ride from my house at Amherst all the way to the bus terminal at Downtown. It was 4.30am, early spring so it...was..cold. Oh and in case you don't know who's Terris, I'm gonna talk about him pretty soon. I think we took the bus really early and arrived at Toronto around...7 or 8 something? The competition wasn't gonna start till 12.30pm so we had so much time to....eat and..find our way to University of Toronto.
Picture of Shuyu. I think she was taking a break from memorizing her lines. This is one of the pics that I love most. I think it looks just natural.

When we finally found our way to the university (well we just took a cab. it's that simple), had some light meal, took our seat and changed into the appropriate dress, the competition finally began!

 My name tag.

 If I'm not mistaken the Japanese girl won the 2nd place and the other one won the 1st place. Well I placed third out of three but they decided not to give anything to the second runner up :p

참가증서 - Certificate of participation, or sijil penyertaan.

Well too bad I didn't get anything but that courage of standing in front of everyone in the hall and giving speech in my third language is something that will stay in my mind for a long time. 

The best thing about the competition? A guy from UB won the grand prize! and his name is... 
Terris Brown! This guy is just so good he deserved it! You can watch more of him speaking in Korean here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sp8q-lSj4Mo

Well it was a great experience. When I first got into UB, I never imagined I'd be part of the team but I did. Thanks everyone! Now after leaving Buffalo I barely use any English or Korean and I think I am getting worse. That's why I'm trying to use as much English as possible in this blog (unless I'm in the mood to write in another language) because being good at a language means having tons of practices!  But what happens to my Korean? There's Kakaotalk and a community on Google+ for that. 

LOL just some random conversation but this is what keeps me learning Korean these days.

Just some personal thoughts here. Learning different languages opens up so many new experiences. You'll get to know new people, learn new culture and try new things you never did before. Demolishing the Great Wall of Communication Barrier is something everyone should try, because only then you'll start to see the other side of a society-good or bad.

So long. I'll be out of town to shoot another wedding this weekend and I'm really looking forward to it!

Sunday, November 17, 2013

IIUM Commencement Day

I had the chance to capture some beautiful moments during International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) commencement day thanks to Miss Dina! Here are some of the pictures and hopefully I'll be done with everything by this Thursday before my next trip to Melaka with Aiman to shoot another wedding. Oh by the way, opening the pics in a new tab will always give you bigger and better looking pictures.













FYI I'm using a 20mp camera so the resolution I'm getting is around 5400x3600px (for uncropped pictures). That should be fine for a 12x18 inches high resolution print at 300dpi. That...is...huge. And actually you can go up to 36x24 inches (at 150dpi)! Even the picture with the smallest resolution should look just fine for a high resolution 8R print(8x10 inches).

For more info on photo print sizes in case you're interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photo_print_sizes

If you're wondering how big can you print the pictures, the link below is going to be very useful. Just check the resolution of the picture and click here: http://web.forret.com/tools/dpi.asp

Anyway I had lots of fun shooting today. Thanks Miss Dina, her family and friends!
I'm done retouching all the pictures and they should be in your mailbox in the next few days!

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

SK Jeram Simpang Tiga

Berikut saya sediakan link-link kepada kebanyakan gambar yang telah saya ambil sepanjang  berada di SK Jeram. Cikgu-cikgu atau murid-murid yang terjumpa blog ni boleh save satu per satu gambar yang anda minat ataupun save satu album terus.

1 Cemerlang: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/2c8uj5jx4d642v5/4rC3efXe5O
2 Cemerlang: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/gxxmo316ss7sohd/NKUpyE7wKT
3 Cemerlang: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/8zmz8bvyq6s7f5k/rz75fNqCC1
Muzium Negara dan Aquaria : https://www.dropbox.com/sh/0tjalo65sbjvel1/Pl6VDux4yM
Berjaya Times Square : https://www.dropbox.com/sh/1xm5jk5j5u8dnt2/1dvV913APB
Klinik Sukan SK Jeram : https://www.dropbox.com/sh/kuzex3gt3yjk1cn/4_jsTrMOF1

Tamat sudah tempoh khidmat saya di SK Jeram sebagai guru ganti. Mula-mula datang, satu pun tak tahu. Nak isi plan mengajar, isi itu isi ini isi blabla. Tapi dalam tempoh tujuh minggu, macam-macam yang saya pelajari. Cikgu-cikgu pun cool semua. Budak-budak, yang nakal tu biasa la. Kalau anak aku, dah lama tarik telinga puas-puas. 

Mengajar, biarpun untuk beberapa minggu, memang mencabar. Pada pendapat aku, cabaran dia terletak pada nak menguruskan macam-macam urusan dalam satu masa. Maklumlah tugas guru sekarang ni nak kena isi itu la, isi ini la. Nak pulak isi semua benda online. Server kat negara ni belum larat nak tampung cara ni. Ni pendapat jujur aku. Kalau lah mengajar, semak latihan, dan uruskan peperiksaan dan program sekolah sahaja kerja guru, kurang sikit pening kepala. Ok masa untuk berhenti membebel.

Tapi aku tak nafikan, benda paling best sebenarnya: Makan-makan dan pergi lawatan. Jangan tipu, siapa tak suka makan-makan lepas tu lepak ramai-ramai? Haha. Berikut adalah beberapa gambar yang aku pilih untuk share di blog ini. Selamat menatap!

Otak-otak yang memang sedap haa!
Masa untuk persembahan para murid.
Hari sukan haaa.
Hari sukan lagi.
No komen. Dah cam babak filem hindustan dah ni. Siap kau besar nanti aku blackmail kau dengan gambar ni ha ha!
Masa Pendidikan Seni. Masing-masing tunjuk topeng hasil buatan.
Sesi foto pra-sekolah.
Budak 2C
Budak 2C lagi.
Lawatan ke Planetarium Negara
Klinik Sukan
Hari Klinik Sukan
Haaa jamuan akhir tahun!
Satay. 15 cucuk aku bantai. aku rasa 15 je la tapi emmm..
3C!
Kelas 3C lagi.
Kelas 2C!
Amanda, model of the year SK Jeram haaaa.

Terima kasih semua! Ini pengalaman yang sangat lah best especially bila hari terakhir, kitorang semua pergi ke Berjaya Times Square main kat theme park dia sampai nak muntah hah.