a massive load of photos at the subaru international mountainbike race - but not all are on-focus. at least i got probably 30 to 40% keeper shots of the panning shots i made - not bad already. but i attribute it mainly to the usage of a dslr.

photos from yesterday are up already at http://sehsuan.clubsnap.org/saca-mtb-race-2003. found out asmah, one of the local lady riders, was actually the same person helping my practicum school conduct activities for the taf club students! was puzzling myself silly how come she looks so familiar, since the first time i saw her this year.

massive load of photos

then cycled over to visit lynten to get my rear wheel re-trued. in the end, learnt that my rear hub's busted - time to get a new rear wheel, at least. will have to check out with gilbert when i'm free. and ouch - milky, one of lynten's cats gave me a scratch just under my right eye, bled a little. oh well, i've learnt one thing about cats tonight...

anyway, helped sulaiman of the rebound centre to load up some of the on-one's onto a van, to be shown at tomorrow's and the day after's mountain bike race. beautiful! especially the titanium cyclocross model... mavic, you reading this?

saw the flying dutchman at the cafe cartel, swissotel, before i sold off 2 battery cases to bfrost.

once done, i pedalled over to the octagon, and who is the lady who approached me and asked if my bike was good? she mentioned tgp, but i'll not guess who she is. she'd left for a while before aj23 popped by, and out of the corner of my eye, lynten appeared on his on-one at that same road junction, and he said he'd come back in a jiffy. when he came back, he set his bike with me, and asked me to keep an eye on it. it's an on-one inbred, same as what andrew has too. singlespeed, platform pedals, avid mech disc brakes... that's about what i can notice. finished off my chat with aj23, while lynten popped back from the ocbc bank in the same building.

jeslyn gave me a call in the afternoon, because she would like me to do a survey for her. but she did also add in that her father thought my photographs weren't bad too. well, it's a surprise call. hope to find out my timetable soon first though.

coozie's sister is going for her advanced diver's certification soon. good... but auntie coozie still stuck at owd leh..

there's this little thing i'm wondering about singaporeans, especially after my dad splurged three grand for the new kv-hs34m61 tv, and that doesn't include an addition 500 bucks for just the tv rack! last weekend, when cherry came over, i was talking to her in her hotel room (where lilian was sharing with her), and i asked her how come, since she's from kuala lumpur, she had a singtel line. and i added that i'm dead sure, since then, her handphone would surely be more advanced, and newer than the nokia 3310 i'm using. she then showed me her 8250, to me, i still considered as still upmarket. as a note, of late, i've only seen ah-peks and uncles using the 3310.

cherry then brought up a very good point - she notices too, that a lot of singaporeans have this bad habit of continually changing handphones, especially when new models are released. i notice that too, and i often question close pals on why their obsession to upgrade to the latest "toy". usually, the answer would be, "oh, it's so much lighter!" or "it matches my clothing" or something along these lines. but err... how much can less than 100 grams difference in the weight affect you, unless you're a person whose handphone is used so frequently that you have a perfect negative receptacle imprint of it on your face?

i'm really surprised at the extent that people would still fork out good money to pay for that little (rather, neglible) increment/improvement in the functions of the handphone. is it costworthy? and the worst part, so many more people seem to be losing their handphones! shieh li and ling pin were just two people who have lost their handphones of late. some people would have said, their handphones were stolen, but under what circumstances? held up at knifepoint? or left it in the toilet? sigh.

moral of the story - take care of the handphone. when it's lost, money has to be forked out to get a new one. i haven't lost any of the 3 handphones i've ever used - in order, ericsson a1018s, nokia 3210, nokia 3310.

yesterday morning, i woke up at almost 8am, and then i quickly just brushed my teeth, and then set off to meet cherry over at jurong centre. i reached there at about 9:20am, and i was lucky that i wasn't late, because her event starts at 10am. so i had the opportunity to practice my photography skills by shooting at others first, to make sure that my settings for the camera were ok, which basically were moving subjects with more ambient light. but of course, it is much trickier than shooting cycling photos, because you can't really tell where the skaters are going to move, so you'd have to keep your eyes on the subject all the time. now i'm at the cybercafe at hotel rendezvous. this is my first time updating my blog from a cybercafe - with a twist - we (cherry, lilian and me) had just finished supper/dinner at kopitiam at plaza by the park. we'd had lunch (that eventually became dinner for the two girls) at marche's heeren. i cannot believe it - their stomachs are just sooooo small! eat a little also full up to 6 hours and 30 minutes... right now, lilian is looking on the monitor beside me, and cherry having a mail checking/chatting session on her terminal just beside me. photos from the day are up now at my 7th webshots album.

i think figure skating is very much more a beautiful sport when you see it in real person. on tv and such, you don't see how hard the action really is - when you see it just meters away from you, you'll learn to respect the skaters' efforts. and i learnt too, there's such a thing as a team event! well, i'll never grow too old to learn anything...

today morning, i'd have to go back to nie for the macromedia flash basic course, of which i have absolutely no idea what time it ends. hope it ends early enough, so i can send the two girls back, from their hotel at 3pm. and of course, some final parting shots as well.

did i just see valerie on crimewatch just now? i think so! her long locks got shorn short - change of image?

today morning's sharing session was kind of wasted, because some had to go earlier due to personal commitments. guess we'll all meet up on friday morning instead...

just went to the lta headquarters to pick up my roadsign, after meeting up with chinchin regarding financial planning... the sign is massive! almost 1.5 meters long too, thankfully it isn't that heavy, phew!



yesterday was kind of "jinxed" though - couldn't concentrate on anything at all, absolutely nothing. bought a barracuda vii 80 gig for alwyn and a stack of 50 cdrs from joyce. i left sls for burger king burlington - but the service by the manager was severely lacking, in all my times ever patronizing at any bk - first of all, the paper liner on the tray was misaligned a fair load, and the manager gave me sprite even without asking! worst still, after i left the place, i checked for my change - to my horror, i didn't recall receiving any at all! so i walked back from tekka market to the outlet and wrote on a slip of paper for the manager, and he said he'll call me back later in the night - but he never did call me! walked back to the same tekka market bus-stop, but this time i got extra "lucky" - a small wad of bird poo got me on my t-shirt's right sleeve... how "lucky" can a person be in a day?...

life as a single is great.

no one to nag you, no one to impose restrictions on your hobbies, no one you really need to get close to, no one you have to spend eons (and $$$) to court, no one to load with your stresses and making you feel guilty - and no one to inflict those little comments that weren't intended to hurt but did so anyway.

and best of all, money to spend on yourself, alone! ok, household money aside, it's more substantial.

each time, i think about those days when lee li was on my mind, what, about 4 years ago? nothing ever happened - i guess we'd disappear from each other's lives, but it did a massive good thing for me and my running - i was in my best-ever form, thanks to being driven by teenage angst and a single, tunnel-visioned focus.


"tunnel vision" - taken on the mrt northeast line

anyone else intending to go back for the new victoria school's opening/victoria challenge this weekend?

yesterday, i saw a ton of adolescent girls all lining the entire stretch of the bridge that spans the merlion park - so i got off the bus, and then tried to figure out what's the matter. as i proceeded close, i thought for a while, there were so many fans of sm lee and his wife! they were flanked by about 6? 8? beefy not-so-secret secret agents... ok, maybe they're just called bodyguards?

there were all those funny stuff that fans would say that i heard - one of which was this fan who was enthusiastically raving that one of the members of 5566 mentioned that her skin was flushed red - most fans were camping there in the hot sun from 11+am up till the signature session at 4+pm!

eventually, i met harlequin and we went off to labrador park to try some nighttime shooting - only thing i tried was star-photography, but it's amazing how much the stars move in only 30 seconds across the nightsky! we went off to the sinful ol' kopitiam at kembangan where i introduced the place for him to spoil his wife over black pepper chicken...

did the interval work with the rest of the band of brothers - i did 4x1km, took a break for 1, and then added in 2x1km - but the irky thing was that i still haven't figured out how to use my interval trainer on my polar s710 hrm...

met up with some other clubsnappers for a meeting regarding next weekend's subaru mountainbike championships. looking forward to it myself - next saturday i've gotta be there real early, hope my 2x512mb compactflash is enough for triggerhappy ol' me

above shot from jeremy & angie's marriage registration ceremony. not fantastic, but shot it after something just struck me in my head. remember that i'm not an indoor species of photographer. yslee is becoming too self-imposing, he still can't let go of things. ah, what the heck - what's the point of being too worked up because of him?

met a whole load of people today - first it was kevin ng from my school, and then just minutes later, it was andrew wong back from my vs/bb days - both within 100 meters of each other! after the rom thing, it was alvin koh from my previous school, then frederick toh from vs. the regular hougang area cyclist george was spotted at the ground level, and i had a short talk with him about my possibly cancelled out bike - harold, one of my pess seniors, was spotted right outside city hall mrt and finally, christina loo from my previous school too, when i got back at serangoon mrt! it's a small, small world!

met chee hwee as i was heading out to bukit merah to meet jadzia to collect the eof lens work iii - the eyes of eos books from canon singapore. only managed to secure 4 copies, though i was placing an order for 11 copies. during collection, managed to get 1 more! so that unexpected book, i may give it to mr ee, if he likes it, otherwise i'll sell it off at cost price to xin.

met karen wong the second time for two days running, this time right outside baker's inn! small world...

i took out my eyes of eof book to read, because i wasn't really in for the mood to talk, then d asked me to keep it. so i kept it. i still wasn't in the mood for talking, so i lifted up my lowepro bag to my lap and just was touching my stuff. the kids behind were playing with camera (obvious - can tell it from the flashes i can pinpoint to behind me), so i'd pump up the flash and deflected it backwards to them and BOOM! - discharged one pilot flash at them. then she said something vaguely like, if i didn't put aside my camera(bag), she would reduce my $3000+ camera to 3 cents... so i packed my camerabag, picked up my deuter, slung it on, and then the lowepro, then i left without looking back. lucky i didn't try to woo her, or else it'd be hell - photography is an expression of myself - if you tell me that you're going to do something drastic to my setup, that's tantamount to manipulate me - don't try it on me. either i leave, or i could get very violent.

later i walked to hmv to slot off 2 tickets between 5566's albums on the cd racks for the sentosa show on saturday, to see which lucky fan will get two freestanding tickets to go there for the show. met keh siong sitting at the internal fountain of heeren, had a short talk with him. he's been asked to go back for the degree course... good for him! just drifted the stretch of orchard, and then took a bus back home. reached the interchange, walked back to the to-be opened mrt station, and took pictures - come today, the station will be fully operational.

left in the afternoon to visit streetshooter so as to pick up the flash unit from him - when i met him, i was shocked that he is actually loaning me the canon speedlite 420ex! that means he has at least 3 canon flashes - and he already has at least 2 550ex's! *gulp* but it's really generous of him to loan me the unit complete with a self-made bounce card, because i would be using this for gorilla's and angie's marriage registration, solemnization or what-do-you-call-that ceremony on friday. now i have to play a lot more with the camera, thankfully it's digital, not film, otherwise i can only learn really slowly... phew!

visited stanley lim colour centre today, was told about a plan for 12th july for a nature-based photoshoot with models. will post that up on clubsnap soon - also joanne was very hospitable - even asked her daughter (or so i inferred?) to go get the five of us (including a delivery chap) drinks - she's straightforward, but is tactful. too bad they only process film right now, no digital printing yet.

as i passed by fortune centre after leaving stanley's, i saw that fortune centre had quite a bit of smoke. shot some pictures from that scene too.





brought terence and cedric from vr-zone to meet darren for a short meeting, jason ho and edmund were roped in for their opinions. so far, so good. details to be worked out - but heng, not by me.

met the whole bunch of photogs at seed - plus new faces roninwolf, azure, djchris, and many many more. at least i can now put a face to the people who are shooting frequently. also met karen wong when i was going into city hall mrt with adamgoi. small world eh? reminds me - i gotta get a copy of the canon eyes of eof iii book - it is like a bible for the canon lenses!

i was alerted to this post on roadster's site -

It's easy to make a picture look good in 4R. I can take just about any camera, even those single-use cameras in cardboard boxes and a plastic lens, and make good pictures in 4R. Shooting a picture that enlarges well to 8R is a totally different ball game. Not only you require capable optics, you also require to a much larger extend good skills in photography.

now i have no idea if that was directed for me, but then let me issue a technical challenge - shoot using 3 megapixels due to storage constraints, do your cropping, and print out in 8r. unless you're using film, you can't enlarge much effectively without adding pixelated well, pixels to the picture.

incredibly, i didn't go out to shoot anything at all - instead i was working on publishing my photography page/portfolio on my website - so now people can browse to my site and see my better works!

also, there was in influx of emails asking for prints of my photos taken on sunday - gosh, how i wish i could have shot all the photos in 6 megapixel jpegs and shot them for every single rider so that i can recoup a bit of my financial setback in acquiring the 10d...

i was supposed to meet hui to check out her bicycle, to see what maintenance it needed. in the end, she was about to go out, so i thought of getting another compactflash card - so i called joyce. too bad the shop doesn't carry 512mb compactflash cards, so i boarded the train to head for the city - and on it, i met cleve who was heading back to pasir ris. i stopped and got off at city hall, and went on to cathay photo to hunt for the new storage card.

coincidentally, i met kim, who was my bmt recourse pti, and jadzia who happens to be a chinese teacher at another primary school there - and i tried out the canon ef 85mm f/1.8 lens - it's marvellously fast and bright! also tried out the tamron 24-135mm lens, but its zoom ring was amazingly tight! in the end, i bought a silicon-power 512mb compactflash card, and a v-tage bp511 battery for a total of $212.

siangling came over to peninsula and met me at burger king's where i was chatting with jadzia, because he had to get a new pair of shoes for his upcoming ippt. we bid her farewell and headed to peninsula shopping centre for the shoes - where i'd accompany him to get a pair of asics tigerpaws' for $100. we were soon back at peninsula plaza because i wanted to show him some more camera gear - then we met bigbelly and eastgear when we were leaving peninsula plaza - eastgear is moving into there soon! after a chat at the new store, siangling gave me a free ride home.

i've just uploaded yesterday's photos from the saca individual time trial at http://sehsuan.clubsnap.org/saca-itt-2003. i'm also putting up the prints for sale - prices are $3 for a 4r print (choice of matt or gloss), other sizes not recommended because of low pixel count (most are about 3 megapixels). out-of-focus pictures will be cheaper, naturally.



i'm intending a 50 cent donation fund to saca for each print purchased - tell me what you think!

left home at about late 7+ am for changi, to shoot for the saca individual time trials. reached there at about 9:05am - quite fast for my usage of knobbies plus a stopover at the 7-eleven at changi village for gatorade. went on to the registration area - and saw kit leong at there. saw familiar faces here and there, and saw fangru's uncle there too - with a bike rack on top of his bike. can't recall all the faces - but i asked max for the go-ahead to "fire at will". permission granted.

saw christopher ang and ling at the start line area - then i'd cycle away in search of a good stretch where i can do my shooting. met two other photographers along the way - one was called patrick - he'd gave me his namecard too. he was armed with a nikon f5 and another camera that i can't remember. the other photographer was armed with a fuji s2pro and another olympus e-10. we'd play a little "hopscotch" and moved up the early section of coastal road in search of a good place to shoot from. tried some combinations - in the end, found out that iso 100, and either aperture priority (at the largest aperture the lens can pull off) or shutter priority (1/60s) were my best bets for great photos. evaluative metering was the best.

met wildcat at the finish area after the event ended - and met a couple of other folks who were familiar with tgp. markado was there too, and this ben tang too - he has this beautiful custom carbon fiber colnago painted with a map on the main tubes of the frame. the prize presentation was hampered by the lack of a computer to quickly process the winners and such, in the end, it had all to be postponed to next week instead. so, with a paceline, i headed to mcdonald's east coast park with wildcat - where i got introduced to john and carol - a pretty cycling-centric couple. just so happens that john himself is a canon user - i now may have another person to borrow lenses from!

woke up at 6 am, quickly prepared my camera set for the shoot at the school - it's the meet-the-parents day. yours truly was going around snapping photos for most of the time, and in the end, i learnt that mr ee used to coach rugby for the school - and he'd used photographs to help describe techniques and such to his charges. he's even more ahead of his time! i hit off well with this senior man, who has a fantastic charisma for someone who should have had been real tough on his charges in the past. of course, it did make me feel good that my photography are being recognized by this venerable man.

headed off to orchard, but not before spotting a frm frame based bike at tef. next lp on board! hopped on 143 to head to orchard - and i hopped off opposite wisma. bought two 1.5l bottles of 100-plus for only 3 bucks, then i went over to faber house to meet emi. spotted one cannondale super v700 locked using one teeny weeny cable lock - apparently the owner has been excused his/her brains for the matter. i spotted anne who was on her way to meet some mysterious person to watch a movie together with... then after bidding her goodbye, i went on and passed the cd with tuesday night's photos to emi, and then crossed over to meet joseph and the rest of sol fusion at the youth park cafe - and met lena from my primary school class there - she's now running the cafe! what a way to meet up with old pals - because, not too long before seeing her, i spotted serene gong, who was also from my primary school class, but since she was getting comfy with her boyfriend, i decided to leave her alone. tomshen, togu, wolfgang, jingo were just some of the photographers i saw there.

lgf's gig didn't last long - only about 15 minutes at best! apparently, the organizers had made a last minute reshuffle - too bad lar. wonder if it's the impeding rain that was the reason or not. by the way, there were a lot of people in those fancy japanese comic-style dress-ups over at the faber house stage - wonder why.

i walked all the way over to dempsey road, to the civil service clubhouse, and shot a load of photos of the chicks, chickens, and cockerels over there - these photos could be used for primary school science lessons after all. sadly, one of the older cockerels which was tame, had died, and the chicks will all be given to a nursery owner somewhere in mandai.


HELP!





eventually, i met kian yong and his girlfriend at the s-11 opposite my place - we sat together at the same table and had a little free chatter about running...

after school, i'd leave and shots some pictures of the stray, but sterilized cats around the area. found some cats under the care of another teacher from balestier hill primary, herwin's school, and the lady did know that herwin was posted to the school. incidentally, this lady knows of naren's mom and dad too! bought myself runner's world, maximum pc and bicycling at borders soon after i reached orchard road.









joined in the shoot at the street festival in the late afternoon - met pcman, agape01 (who incidentally let me use his 70-200 f/2.8L lens for quite a while), dagger, wolfgang, adamgoi, willyfoo, fooxx, fundee and magixshoe. phew, long list! after everything was done, we happened to meet a retired american couple who were out along orchard with their 2 cogi's (can't remember the spelling for the breed of dog), and the dogs were so friendly!

happened to meet bernard at the interchange when i got back there - he had just injured his leg recently...

went out to takashimaya to celebrate irene's birthday over a dinner at pasta cafe, and later we'd all go to walk around, but eventually setled down for coffee club in the same building. as we were leaving, i saw christine at the takashimaya taxi stand - thankfully i still can recognize her.

went to shoot for the two groups who were leaving for sikkim today - saw so many of them, i'll probably die from typing all their names out. wasn't really going to make it on time to school, so i'd hop off at paya lebar mrt for some food at mcdonald's. my back was strained and the shoulders too - once i reached home, i rested for a long long time until i went to see the doctor.

cycled off to amk in the event to sell 5 aa battery cases to west ray at yio chu kang mrt at a dollar apiece - and met peter from my bmt company there at the station too. talk about coincidences...

met up with dawn for breakfast at the mcdonald's near her place - then there was this lady who was really eccentric - she had to squeeze her way pretty unceremoniously in the space between the table both of us were at, and another just so that she can get a seat beside us when there were plenty of empty seats all around - then later she'd top up her act by somehow spilling her hot tea all over her table. in the process, a little of it got on my left thigh, but thankfully onto my shorts and not on my skin, plus not that much that it would scald me either. but when i offered to help her move her things to the adjacent table that she moved to, she pretty much vehemently refused to let me help - "don't don't! i'll do it myself!"...

the teacher i was attached to today, was practically manhandling the children from her primary one class, and really verbally screwing them upside down. plus with a load of sarcastic words and ill-intention that i'd rather call "malice". even i felt traumatised by the way she handles children, how about the children? sigh. called up nie practicum office to ask more about my intended course of action - then i was asked to refer to the trainee teachers' unit. but the person in charge there wasn't around - so i can't do much anyway - not until thursday, anyway. as we were leaving the school, dawn called up the ttu using her phone and i was speaking to a person from there - but it was useless, since the person was on course, and will only be back on thursday - and i can't do anything at all, not even making appointments. argh...

the two of us went to toa payoh central and walked around - and we'd share a load of school backgrounds, personal backgrounds with each other. seems like we're really easy to get some conversation going along with. left a foodcourt where we were eating soon, because a student from our school was at our table pretty soon with his mother.

i'd reach orchard early, and i started off by shooting some pics of this 3 man band, and they were playing songs by blink 182 and green day. the bass guitar that was used seems to me to be the same billy sheehan signature model that mervyn has. crossed back over to the faber house park, and saw one chap having a haircut smack on the pavement - cool! crossed over back to the skatepark, but nothing interesting enough, really. then it was back to the spinelli stage, and saw budi from bits and pieces, who was there to look at friends performing. i'd shoot a little here, then i saw BIG insects. look at magixshoe unknowingly having one big bug approaching his head!



in the meanwhile, those 3 big bugs were all over the place - and they'd disappear mysteriously too. a couple of them had a showdown, albeit in a hilarious manner. kind of reminded me of the just for laughs episodes broadcast on tv - in fact, there was this primary schoolboy who was scared until he screamed and ran from two of the bugs... by this time, i decided to go back to the faber house site - and there was this group from nus (i think) who had this perfect groovy reggae-ish vibe to their songs, thanks to the guitarist. the bassist was not bad at singing too! their rendition of i feel good was really catchy, and they managed to incorporate a bridge within the song - cool! think i spotted this girl whom i saw during the ntu surf n sweat in february, alongside with geraldine - she was using an ixus to snap shots of the group playing. when this group finished their set, i flew over to cineleisure to catch lgf live, who had a marvellously good set, with a catchy rock-ed version of f4's meteor rain plus a shina ringo number with some other songs i didn't note which was which - but they were great. the bassist and the guitarist have a very good stage charisma with each other as well as the crowd. in short, good!

i also met so many people whom i know of at the shoot - of course there was emi from lgf, as well as photographers - sulhan, dagger, willyfoo, wolfgang, magixshoe and taicw - all armed to the teeth! also met debbie, who spotted me and called me as i was crossing a road earlier, as i was chasing the big bugs.



after emi's band, i found the keyboardist of the next group which went up looking really familiar - and upon asking - it's joseph from my bmt company! he was in platoon 2, while i was from platoon 3. joseph's band (sol fusion) covered dream theater's another day. i think i was the only photographer who can sing parts of the song, better than none! only after their performance, i told one of the guitarists that i found him familiar too - indeed he was - he's prem from my bmt recourse company! oh man, small world... i also saw rachel lee with her boyfriend there - didn't know that she smokes. even met helva with his girlfriend there too! nearing the end of the night, no graffiti played deep purple's perfect strangers - wow - the day was really jammed full with fantastic songs!

from what i found out from serene of the pess office, seems that i'll do better to serve out my seven months in ns now - so i may have to leave my newly-found friends earlier than expected. shucks. by the way, met my then oeti wsm yeo kuan boon around crystal jade, where we'd just finished an early dinner of sorts. talked for quite a while, before i rejoined the group. also, i met amous, one of the clubsnappers at dawn's block, because he was just done visiting his parents living nearby.

after school tomorrow, i'm going to town to shoot for the street festival - lgf is playing at the heeren at 730pm!

siangling wasn't feeling too good today, so i accompanied him for a couple of hours on the bike. and for the second time in my life, managed to see his klein mantra race - the first time was 1997. we made a stop at the jalan kayu prata shop (that's the name of the place) and some makan, before we continued back to my place. oh, good news - that chair of mine that was forgotten was apparently kept for me by the fellow saca officials yesterday - phew!

and this is what happens if you get too much sun. girls, watch out!


"sunburnt", f/4, 1/500s, iso100

cycled to school yesterday morning, and met the rest of the new teachers - jimmy, dawn and irene. turns out in the end, irene is a friend of claudia, and dawn stays in the same block as the kindergarten that i attended as a toddler! it was a long long long torturous day (since i missed out on my sleep for the last few days), with the induction and a lot of stuff we had to go through - struggling just to keep awake.

just before the end-of-term lunch, i rushed back home to get my camera, and got back a little later than i expected - but at least got a couple of shots here and there. subsequently went out with the rest of the fellow beginning teachers to toa payoh central. finally when i left, i went back home to get ready to pop down to the pc show with zongde, who came to my place to drive me over. we got there late, so i didn't stay for long. i printed one of my 30-second exposure of the esplanade waterfront on the canon cp100 direct photo printer. as i was leaving, i met betty with her friend, who i thought i recognized as a girl modelling for fujifilm on thursday when i first visited the show. eventually, we'd all hop on the train together, and i was happy to have the company of two svelte young ladies, all the way from expo mrt, to raffles place mrt. betty also told me that her term with upfront models (yes, that's where tammie is from too) ends in august, so i'd offered to try doing mutual-benefitting portfolio shoots with her and a couple more photographers - can be easily arranged. oh, and i didn't mention her friend's name - wan ru. you can see their photos at upfront models. and betty is coming to nie this july for the pgde course - and she knows quite a lot for a person who's not already in the service!

as for today - went out in the mid afternoon to the saca bike clinic at track 15, and did some shooting. my panning shots were lacking, but i'm sure with practice i'll improve. encountered one puncture on my rear tire - oddly enoughly, it's a single pinch, not a double pinch flat. how did it happen?

and i goofed up - i left this folding tripod style minichair in the army training shed at t15. hope to be able to recover it tomorrow...

met kassey in the nie library in the afternoon - but before that when i was looking for a/p angela wong and mrs jessica tan, both of them weren't in the practicum office. that's why i went on to the library. after photocopying the first aid card that i just picked up not too long ago, i went to look for prof teo to inquire about my module's arrangement - and guess what - she wasn't in as well... argh. good reason for me to head for the pc show, since it's day one, anyway.

got to talk to miss universe singapore 2003's miss photogenic, josephine tan and 1st runner-up, jun chua at the canon booth at pc show today. met zplus, and he was glad to lend me his speedlight 420ex to shoot with - it's a massive boon to shoot using a dedicated flash! before i got into the exhibition hall, i met adrian lim, one of my ex-vs mates as well. and everyone there at the expo had to go through thermal scanners as well - it was indeed a show with a difference, especially being the first after sars. joyce and her sister were there too at the benq booth - handed her the ancient asia magazine issue with scuba diving as the cover story, dating from 1991!


josephine tan, miss photogenic for miss singapore/universe 2003

the canon booth was fantastic - apart from the three ladies who were there for us to shoot their photos - it's that we could print out using canon's cp-100 for free! yes! free! yaay! the prints are amazing - the final output is just exactly like gloss prints - but it doubles up as a postcard on the back - cool! in the small banter that i had with jun, i was amazed to learn that she might be coming across the school i'm posted to... small world, isn't it? anyway, after returning home, i'd passed chester the photos that i took from october onwards to this february so that he could use tomorrow for the grad thing. hmm.

yesterday, i'd went to toa payoh in the afternoon, to retrace my childhood days. as i was at lorong 8, a young boy asked if i could take his photos of him doing a handlebar spin on his stunt bmx. i'll print out some of these pictures for him for his keeps. pei chun was different too - the principal had been changed, and the clerk was more than happy to invite me to leave the premises. so many things have changed about lorong 1 too, and my entire memories of that area. massive changes. my old unit was still there, and i walked past it, remembering the two pugs that my neighbor used to own. met ernest wong as i was watching this group of children practicing for their upcoming performance for the street festival at the former community centre.

emi and lgf are performing at the singapore street festival!

10 june 2003, tuesday stage "d" - cathay cineleisure orchard at 7.45pm and
14 june 2003, saturday at stage "a" - faber house park at 3.15pm

some of my shots last night are also published in the official galleries for 3rd june... guess which!