Not very often, I had myself appear in photographs.  But this time I was quite pleased as my sifu had quite a number of my candid shot taken during our recent photography outing.  Love him for that!

Candid shot courtesy from www.kamkuey.com, taken using lens 17-35mm f2.8-4.

With this,

(This is when the live view came in handy when you can’t reach the view finder.  My first time switching it on.  Unbelievable!)

I get this:

With this,

I get this:

With this,

I get nothing. LOL!  There is no bugs on the dead tree trunk.  Just some wild  wood fungus grew on it.  Furthermore, the wood fungus doesn’t looks nice at all on macro.  It is other wise if they are mushroom.

And for some curious people like Aunty Kambing, no, I was not the only rose among thorn during the outing.  Nah, I got proof here *sticking out tongue*:

For those with school going kids and especially chinese school students, they have started extra school days on Saturday to replace CNY holiday.  Last week being the first day of school on Saturday (which I usually love), I prepare porridge/congee for the Prince who is in afternoon session.

Nothing fancy as we had the same thing for lunch at home.  We had some steam broccoli & artificial crab claw with REAL! crab claw life insurance.  Further to the back is fried omelet with tomatoes, french beans and shrimps.  And obviously, the one on the further right is porridge.

Not sure about you but I grew up eating porridge for lunch and rice for dinner.  And when I have my own family, the tradition was stuck with me.  We always had porridge for lunch and never, never had rice. lol.  Typical Foochow huh.

Date:  17 January 2010

Venue:  Taman Rimba Kiara, TTDI

Time:  Meeting time 7.30am.  Went for breakfast then adjourned to the park. Full swing was around 8.30am if I’m not mistaken.  And round up around 12noon.

Lens use:  Tamron SP90

Organizer:  Photokaki.com/forum

Other than this first photo, the rest of it was taken with Tamron SP90.  Forummers of Photokaki.com

Troops fixing up their gears getting ready for the shoot.

Custom made special flash extender.  Guess what is Andrew snooping about?

Nah, this praying mantis.

Damselfly

Macro was best to shoot at ratio 1:1.  But I notice (for my case) for example this caterpillar.  With 1:1, I can’t get the full body shot.  So half it is.

An eye opener for me.  Taking bugs shot is very different from big object.  We or rather they really look under every the leaves, in the deep bushes, examine every tree trunk, staring at the still water and many more.  But the effort really paid off once you look at the picture.  No regrets.

Final picture from the outing something that is not a bug.  I wonder what species is this?  Looks like nicotine earth worm. LOL

Things that blurted out from a 4 years old mouth.

Scenario 1

On our way back to kampung while the kids sleeping at the backseat:

Mummy:  Kharlette, since you are up we stop for you to shee-shee (passing urine) ok?

Kharlette:  *nod head*

Mummy:  If later Kor-kor (brother) wants to urine he can always urine in the (mineral water) bottle. *jokingly*

Kharlette:  *giggle* *giggle*

Mummy:  Kor-kor can shee-shee in the bottle or not? *holding up the plastic bottle*

Kharlette:  Can!

Mummy:  Daddy can shee-shee in the bottle or not?

Kharlette:  Cannot.

Mummy:  Aiks, why?

Kharlette:  Because Daddy’s penis is too big.

*ROLLING-ON-FLOOR-LAUGHING*

Scenario 2

One of the night Son gave me a good night kiss on the lips and I asked him to kiss his Baby Sister too and Kharlette said, “If he do that I’m going to use his shirt to wipe! I don’t care!” *while closing her mouth with her hands* LOL!

Isn’t this the best anti wrinkle cream in the world?

Waking up time – 5.30am
Completion time – 6.45am

I realised that Monday is the best time to pack a tricky bento after the body get a full recharged on weekend like catching up with sleep and such.  By hook or by crook, if I keep it up this way, I should be able to go back full swing on my bento.  The thing is, I’ve run out of new idea and today’s was a repeat from what I’ve posted up before.  The new stuff I made is the korean seaweed rice balls.

Top Left to right:  Sweet tamago sushi, korean seaweed rice balls
Bottom Left to right:  Stuffed kamaboko, baby tomatoes

For Him & For Her

Let’s talk a bit about schooling hours and I’ll bitch on the modern furniture they have in the next post.  For people like us who left school almost 18 years ago, we are shock (or rather I am shocked!) to learned that school nowadays start as early as 7.15am. During our time, school starts at 7.45am! LOL!  I didn’t know this as all these while, my children is in the afternoon session and I am still adjusting to my new routine.  Even driving to school in the wee hour of morning is a big challenge to me as the sky is still dark outside and I’m the type that can’t do night driving. Oh, don’t even talk about waking up!  After the 2nd day of school, I started to hit the snooze button.

This is my first time trying out studio photography.  I regreted not taking a shot of how I draped up the white linen as backdrop.  Excuse me, the fabric doesn’t come cheap ok.  I choose the whitest and thickest (so that they would not crumple when step on) fabric in the shop and they cost me around RM40 plus for 4 meters.  What’s missing is the studio lighting.  Overall, I’m quite satisfy as to how the pictures turn out.  Well, based on my standard ok.

The willing model this time is my 6 months old nephew, Ezekiel.  He is our latest addition to my family.  I’ve done some baby shots on him sometime back too when he was just day old.

There’s a few thing that I would like to add to the photos like some shadow around the perimeter but too bad, my laptop has been experiencing some hiccup lately and the CS3 program was wipe out.  I’m getting a new one this weekend.  Yippie!  It’s a good laptop deals. But still, I need the CS3 program.

School has reopen and this year I have a new routine to adapt to, that is being the chauffeur for my 10 years old Princess as she is now in the morning session.  Which also means that I have to get up at 6am (if I am preparing simple food) or 5.30am for bento that required some cooking.  So far this two days, I managed to leave home slightly before 7am (since school starts at 7.15am.  So freaking early!!!!).  It’s a drag!  It seems that I was drug by sleeping pills as my eye can hardly open.

Sadly to say, I have lost my blogging mojo during my hiatus and this is what came to my mind the first thing.  Something simple yet delicious at the same time easy to prepare.  I wouldn’t want my Princess to be late on her first day of school.

Top Left to right:  Cultured drink & cherry tomatoes
Bottom:  Ham Sandwich

At the same time, I prepared identical bento for my 8 y/o boy.  Since he is in the afternoon session, I have to be extra caution to gave him food that won’t go stale by afternoon.