Search this site:    

Posted on September 19, 2008

PixelPixie photography has been accepted into the Wedding Photojournalist Assocation (WPJA), a “professional organization composed of photojournalists and wedding photographers from around the world”

Posted on September 18, 2008

Want to create a slideshow that look like a MTV production? You can, with this neat video tool called Animoto. It is an online application that takes in your images and music, and then (claims the creator) it applies AI that “analyses” and creates a custom slideshow! Not sure if this is really the case, but check out a quick one that I “produced” below.

Wedding slideshows, anyone?

Posted on September 14, 2008

When I was younger, I did not like to travel. It is such a hassle! To me, the best thing to spend time is to stay at home, go watch my favourite movie and play my computer game. When I was studying in Perth, I did not travel much during my term breaks. While the rest of my friends will zip to Sydney or Melbourne for a getaway, I would *gasp* rent videos and laze at home! Thankfully, this is no longer so.

Photography played a large part in remolding the way I feel about travelling. With my camera, I am suddenly able to take back with me the sights that I see. Best of all, thru my viewfinder, I realise I control the way the sights look, and consequently, how it makes one feel by looking at the image. It is this empowerment that intrigues me, and just spurs me on to travel to as many places as I can until I’m physically not able to.

Recently I went on a 17 day photographic trip to Japan with 4 other people whom I have never met before in my life. I would probably have questioned my sanity at this prospect a few years back, but it was the promise of being able to share the same love in photography with the rest that threw away all reservations. Anyway, photographers are always nice people, right?

We went to various places in Hokkaido and Nagano, shot various types of wildlife and scenary, all in a cold winter setting.

It really opened my eyes to what amazing things there are out there, outside of tiny Singapore which I have lived half my life. The trip only reinforced my desire to continually see what the world has to offer. And I know I will.

Note: More picture from my Japan trip can be seen here

Posted on September 11, 2008

Ivy and I went to choose our bridal studio photographs earlier. Our package consists of 30 photos. Prior to this, both of us have agreed that we will not budge from this number since each additional photo will cost us a whopping $75. Thats $750 for 10 photos, $7500 for 100 photos… you get the drift. Both of us feel that it is better to put the money into better use for our other wedding expenses.

So after our dinner, armed with a full stomach and a strong resolve, we made our way down to the bridal shop. We were placed in front of a large 22″ LCD monitor and shown the folder where all our photos were. We were told that for those we do not want, we can delete them from the folder. At first I thought nothing of this, but on hindsight, after the selection, I realised that intentionaly or not,  it is actually a clever psychological way to make us take more photos. Compared to just writing down the photos you want, the act of deleting the photo becomes harder, especially when you like what you see.

I estimated that there were about 200 photos there, so we proceeded to go thru them. After the first round of culling, we were left with 161. After the second round, 130. We realised it got harder and harder to delete the photos after each round as those that were left behind were increasingly the ones we liked. It got especially difficult when we were down to 60 as we really liked the ones that were left behind. I must admit that for myself, there were brief moments where I toyed with the idea of just paying for the rest.  To the bridal shop’s credit, there were minimal promptings to make us order more photos as we were left pretty much on our own throughout the process.

Well, after many rounds and a strong exercise of willpower, we finally selected our agreed quota. We had taken more than 2 hours to go thru the process but I am happy to report that we prevailed!! Hooray!!

Posted on September 8, 2008

I’ve entered into a photo competition called “Life is great with Nature” photo competition. The photos submitted should “depict an aspect of the animal or plant kingdom that is compelling to the viewer”. Well, I don’t know about the compelling aspect, but I rather quite like the following 3 photos I took during a recent trip to Japan, so I decided to submit them. Here they are:

These are the Jigokudani Snow Monkeys, found in the Nagano region in Japan. This particular image showed how a family unit huddled together to keep warm in winter.

Another aspect of the behavior of these primates. They are highly social animals that, if you observe closely for a while, you will notice they exhibit many humanlike behavorial traits!

This is a white tailed sea eagle that was captured swopping down for his food. It was taken on the ice packs off Rausu, a town in North eastern Hokkaido.

Next Page »