Temporal Paralysis

As I boarded the AirAsia flight to the Low-Cost Carrier Terminal (LCCT) of Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA), little did I know of the adventure that I was about to embark myself. Sometime in the future, I will be experiencing adventures of my own, and I shall look upon this trip as the beginning of many stories to tell my children (or interested readers out there).

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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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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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Some shots I took on a melancholic and cloudy Monday reveals the slight random shots of life somewhere in the West. Here’s another street photography attempt (and probably barely passable if I had to use words to accentuate the shots). I don’t know if these shots will make the grade for the upcoming competition.

Street photograph shots here we go!

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Hot on the fascination of the 50mm focal length lens, I decided to take a trip to my kampong house for a nice retreat. It seems that this lens works wonder as a street lens. Not only it is discreet, it is also sharp enough at certain apertures. The Malaysian scenery will be my next stop for my 50mm adventure.

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Last Friday, there was the commotion that is Comex 2009. I’ve chatted with several people online that I might be going down to check out the fair. Yet when I left the train on City Hall and climbed up the stairs towards Suntec City, I had a change of heart and head in the opposite direction…

I went to Cathay Photo and got myself a 50mm f/1.8 MK II prime lens by Canon.

This lens, as commented by a guy from across the Causeway, is the greatest steal to get. Although it’s a stop slower than the fabled f/1.4, this is the most affordable fast prime lens available for consumers. This lens is so small and light, I felt like being at one with the photographers of old with their trusty rangefinders (not!).

So I took the opportunity to take in on the scene of Comex 2009, as seen with my 450D and my 50mm f/1.8.

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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 »

Something for the preview post today. Later on I’m heading over to Suntec City to cover the highlights of the Cosplay Competition in conjunction with License2Play exhibition. For now, let’s have some tease, shall we?

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