Temporal Paralysis

This weekend, on the 18th to the 21st, I will be flying over to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to attend the following events:

1. Monash Open Day
2. Comic Fiesta

Monash Open Day 2009

Incidentally, Monash University is having their Open Day on the same Saturday which Comic Fiesta is to be held.

One of the reasons I’m attending this, is because I am interested in applying for their Bachelor in Information Technology & Systems course. I will be asking their staff on the requirements for the course, fees and miscellaneous enquiries.

I planned to enrol myself there for the July intake, so that would leave me plenty of time to sort out the administrative work and basically sit back and relax until I get the letter of acceptance. God Willing, all things should be as planned, and hopefully I can enjoy as many Ramly burgers as I want to! XD

Comic Fiesta 2009

This is one of the few events most followers of the anime/cosplay events scene would be interested.

For the uninitiated, Comic Fiesta is something like Singapore’s End-Of-Year festival, minus the EGL fashion and Makino Yui. I’m interested in the artworks of the various doujin artists, considering that the organizers have set up a countdown of sorts, featuring art from many contributors to support the event.

It is a refreshing take on the cosplay scene, as I understand that 3 people (that I know of, wink wink) are attending the festival. I may/may not go for the Saturday event, as I am probably busy with shopping spree at Petaling Street (already there have been requests for high-quality… err… imitation goods, which will make me go orz before the end is over).

Incidentally, both events are happening at the same district. Talk about ecological sustainability (if I minus the taxi cab…), Also, this is my first self-planned solo trip (I’ve been to other places alone before, but that was with a group), so backpacking here I come!

My apologies for the late posting up of my AFA’09 pictures. It seems that only now do I have the strength and tranquility to post up some pictures that I took on that event. Even so, I ran into some problems (to be told later) and I felt that today is a day too late for any good posting up of pictures. I need to clean up my workflow.

By most accounts, all the pictures taken during AFA’09 have already been done and done by a lot of people. Checking out on SGCafe and Clubsnap forums, a lot of them have posted their Naruto cosplay shots – and their aunts’. So rather than to post up some pictures of cosplayers and/or the event itself, I decided to post up pictures of photographers in their natural environment.

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Yesterday (November 14, 2009) a horde of otaku decided to congregate together and march towards Cathay Cineleisure to watch Evangelion 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance. Yours truly self-invited himself to the event – because I knew the event was planned since late last July – in the anticipation of Anime Festival Asia 2009, due in 6 days’ time.

As for me, the trip to Cathay Cineleisure is also an adventure in itself. The old adage said, “It’s not the destination that mattered, it’s the journey that counts.” I finally found my impetus to attend AFA’09, knowing that the event might be more terrible than last year’s. (Looking at you, Cheetah!)

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To be honest, I find it really hard to find a good reason to attend AFA’09. What’s more, the entrance tickets are sold higher than the previous year’s, there is too much commercialism, too much publicity, too much variety (actually that’s a good thing, but I’m having a downturn in relation to my interests in the ACG circle), I probably stumble upon my arch-rivals with media passes (I’m an amateur photographer, by the way, so they probably either ignore me, or brag about how they have the “right” to take photographs whatever they like), and most probably I will be losing out on enjoying so many things that I always wanted to do.

I would attend the event, because the people I have grown my relationship with for the past one year, are attending this event.

P.S.: I empathised the organizers of this event: you could not choose the worst time to host the event.

Last weekend, I took part in the Canon Photomarathon Competition. It was an extremely challenging day, since the themes are not mentioned beforehand, giving us participants little time to make a picture that best tells the theme. The rainy Saturday that ensued throughout the day, made the following week a lot worse for me, as the flu starts kicking in full gear.

For the event, I took with me a pair of kit lens (the 18-55mm and the 55-250mm lens) and the 50mm prime. It’s more than enough for me to take some good pictures I hoped will make it to the selection list. (I later found out – those who saw my tantrum in Facebook will know – that while that may be true, there’s more to it than just making good pictures.) As many would have already known, the themes that were released to the contestants – Togetherness, Motion and Energy – were only given in each three-hour interval, of which contestants must submit their photograph before the annointed time, in order to qualify for the selection list. From these selection lists, three pictures will be awarded to first, second and third prizes, in order of which picture the judges believe are worth its placing.

The following pictures that I took on that day isn’t something to be proud of (still learning), but hey, now that my nerves have calmed down since two days ago, I will attempt to put in a coherent picture montage of the scenery I took during that day.

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"A thousand apologies." "Oh blimey! I have completely forgotten about it!" "Aa, sou. Yu must-o not-to forget-to to rejisutaa for za ebent-o."

So, my working colleague pointed me to the all-important event for both casual and professional photographers of all ages, both from here and across the Causeway.

{link:http://www.canon-asia.com/photomarathon2009/singapore/index.html}The Canon Photo Marathon 2009, October 10, 0700 - 2000{/link}

This incoming Saturday, there will be a massive horde of photographers thronging all over this 671 km² of sovereign territory, to take pictures at unsuspecting passers-by, camp at exotic locations and massively flood the streets, roads, walk-paths and wherever there’s people or creatures to shoot at (figuratively speaking, of course).

I have – not to miss this big opportunity – registered for the event under the “Open” category. It costs S$10 per pax entry (in which you’ll get a Canon T-shirt and other camera accessories which past participants attested to), and registration starts at 7:00 a.m. I’ve yet to enter myself in any group/cliques that are of interest.

For the event, I’ll probably be shooting in my 50mm prime lens, since the large aperture will be of a great advantage for street photos. I’ll be backing up with my dual kit lens – the 18-55mm 3.5-5.6 and the 55-250mm 4 -5.6 – for any opportunity/last-resort measures I’d take along the competition.

Looks like I’ll have to buy some new accessories on the eve of the competition.

So I guess every other freaking anime blogger that attended the presscon has blogged about this afternoon’s event that was held at Suntec City (wait, I thought it was supposedly held at iluma?). I do the readers here a favour: I will not rehash any more information than what these people had done already.

© Danny Choo. Also, you can spot who's who.

My intention is to bring my first impressions of the event, my feelings about it, and ultimately what I view about the entire thing altogether – I may even touch on the subculture in general –.

(General Warning: this post may, or may not, contain inflammatory content. Viewer discretion is advised… If I were you, get a thick skin and enter at your own risk. Details are after the jump. Also, if you’re particularly offended by my subsequent writings, I suggest you stop reading this, and move to other “self-affirming” websites.)

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The participants of the event have yet to come back home, so now I’ll be the first to report in the highlights of today’s press conference for the Anime Festival Asia 2009.

I See {link:http://www.kyourankyodai.com}TheFuzzy{/link} there!

Actually, I’m not gonna bother posting up a lot of pictures: Naka-Dashi has already put up the website much earlier, and with more pictures than I can suffice. Basically, I’m interested in the following:

Seiyuus

Apparently, they invited Yoshiki Fukuyama and Shoko-tan to complement the return of Ichiro Mizuki and May’n. Yeah, so that makes four artistes to grace Singapore’s shores. I wonder if the anime blogosphere will react adversely to this.

But other than that, the rest are pretty much self-explanatory. You should refer to Anime Festival Asia 2009’s website for more details, as well as its twits, to check out the anticipated lineup. I’ll blog more about this event as soon as my head clears.

Hmmm… what did I remembered last weekend…?

That ain't me.

Nice artworks... Damn I have no spare money already!

Where art thou, Mysctea?

Picturebooks for sale. For the non-anime viewers, think of it as FHM, 2D style. (Others: "BOO!")

The Wall of Photog: Add +50 Defense, +50 Charm and -100 Patience.

I'll counter your attack with... MY NIKON!

ZETTAI RYOUIKI!

OK that’s enough.

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I’m sorry guys. The rest of the world have already done their Cosfest 2009 pictures, and are eagerly anticipating the Daicon coverage. (Idiot Setsuna! You’re supposed to drink it off the bottle itself, not through the straw!)

Reasons (or excuses) are as follows:

1. I’ve already done CosFest Day One pictures, but by the time I am done with them, I realized that the output JPEGs are so horrendously off-cast compared to my RAWs. I’m seriously wanting to ditch my AL1916W in favour of the Dell 2209WA If anyone has any good ideas on a better IPS panel (not the common TN panels), please do comment.

2. I had to do household chores for the weekend, as my family went up North for a retreat. That means house maintenance and duties, leaving me with only up to 12 am to touch my Day 2 pictures.

3. After looking at MrMayat’s photos of both Days One and Two, my immediate reaction was to °|¯|_ . This is for just a small-scale event, what more the big ones. (Yes, your pictures are epic, MrMayat.)

I’ll try to do more photo editing once I get back tonight from work. I’ll leave you guys with my half-baked attempt at doing a panorama shot. I spotted 4 inconsistencies with this shot as it was done hurriedly using the Photoshop Photmerge function default settings. Could you spot others? (Pictures after the break — big-ass panorama shot.) Read the rest of this entry »