TAKE TWELVE JANUARY

JANUARY EDITION

(via instagram)

1. Sketching ideas and organisation for Project Life

2. Dinner overlooking thebay

3. Lunar New Year Spirit in Singapore

4. Self-portrait

5. Cool wooden saying: All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware

6. Waiting for the bus at night

7. Vietnamese Lanterns

8. Cool typography and a play I want to watch

9. Fiddling with my blog

10. Dinner at Vivo

11. Morning milk tea (teh) and washi tape

12. Delicious Wagyu burger

Happy TGIF everyone!

BEEN BUSY

As everyone knows, life catches up with you quickly without you even realising it most of the time.

It's been busy that I have been taking the moments I have to rest and yes I have been creating, but not had the time to blog about it or take pictures of what I have made, because blogging well, really does take time.

Unfortunately I have been busy buying too, given the waiting that I have been doing for Black Friday/Cyber Monday to get a number of things that I have been waiting for discounts for.

 

Here's some of the things that I have bought:

1. Fujifilm x10

If you have not seen this beauty, it is wonderful. I wrote about this earlier, and really for me who wants control and portability this is good. Will it be able to replace my DSLR? No in a short answer, the main reason being because of the lack of a good viewfinder (with the x10, I can see the lens and it irks me).

However the quality is really there, with a decent zoom that unlike other compacts, you zoom by twisting the lens ring, just like my DSLR (:

It was costly, and not for everyone. But if you are a picky picky photographer who wants the control and the flexbility to carry it everywhere without throwing out your back, this is the camera (of course only till the better one rolls along)

Check out the exclusive website here

2. Rad Lab by Totally Rad

I really got into it after reading countless reviews that I had seen and trying it out for myself. And being a visual person when it comes to my photo editing about how it looks, it is a dream. And I liked it so much, I bought it before the free one month trial expired, in part because of the one-day sale that they had, but because I can see using it to speed up creatively editing my photos.

I have "problems" doing so, as I was trained in photojournalism primarily from the start and that ethically, only dodging and burning tools ahould be used on my photos. So it requires a mindset change.

Check it out here and be dazzled

3. Baker's Twine from The Twinery

I love baker's twine and use it nearly on most projects I have created. For the longest time I have contemplated buying the full rolls, as my LSS sells it by the yard at a cost I'll rather not have. But being out of the US, shipping is always an issue. In fact I had been kicking myself for not taking advantage of the free shipping offer that they had two months ago.

But along came Monday and there were discounts going on that made buying my twine finally platable. I wanted to sweep of the shelves as many rolls as possible, but had to control myself. I got: Blossom (pink), Oyster (Grey), Yellow and Aqua, the colours that I reach for most often.

Click here to see more

There's actually still more, but I think that the post is long enough.

But it needs pictures and I have an older layout to share:

Supplies: Pebbles, October Afternoon Sprinkles, Baker's Twine

I used my silhouette for the title too in the cursive font for the title.I adore the tiny heart buttons, so cutely shaped (:

Hope you are having a good day!

PHOTOS FROM A WEDDING

Finally managed to get down to editing the photos of a wedding that I shot. As mentioned before, editing the photos seems to always be my undoing and I am still tweaking my workflow so that less time spent better.

So here's a sneak of some of the photos that I took:

What do you think? I think this workflow will suit me and my needs much better (:

WHEN WILL YOU BE MINE

Fujifilm x10 that is.

My new lust target is black sleek and sexy. I have long been in the market for a high quality zoom, and I think this is the answer. With f2.0-f2.8, this is amazing. My ep1 is fine and well and a compact I need you too, especially if I do Project Life

All the good reviews I have read so far doesn't help.

My difficulties with finding a compact is that a DSLR has spoilt me and I am picky about picture quality and a camera doing what I want. This looks like a pretty good solution and fuji is well-known for the great colour rendering.

Ok tech geek stuff over for now.

A POST-JAPAN LAYOUT

June, July and the early part of August have been laced with travels and work, so I haven't been around much, returning not too long ago from Japan. So apologies for not having blogged.

Well, my job involves travel, and one unique opportunity I had was to go to the areas struck by the tsunami in March to document the post-tsnuami recovery, especially in the coastal towns in the Tohoku region.

To prepare, I spent two and a half weeks binge reading about the tsunami and the recovery efforts that were taking place, while emailing every single person possible to build my contact base and get help in the land. All this without a translator and not being able to speak a sentence of Japanese.

Luckily for me, there were angels sent down that helped me in getting around as well as translating and navigating me around the area.

In my layout are the two places that I had visited and the photos that I took that impacted me the most, a salute to my photojournalism teacher (I hope). Kept the layout simple as it really is about the pictures as I journaled about my feelings, particularly as I never thought that I would be doing this out of school. 

This was put together quickly with the scraps I had on my table, as I just wanted to document how I was feeling at that point of time. The camera tin pin from October Afternoon and the typewriter tag from American Crafts for me, illustrate what I was doing there.

Other supplies: Studio Calico, Jenni Bowlin, American Crafts, Hambly Studios

Have you made a layout about your job or what it means to you? I think you should, no matter what your feelings towards it at the moment, as like it or not, it plays a great part in terms of the time it takes up in our life at least (: 



TYPE ON TYPE

The problem with not liking flash and not owning an external flash, is that when I do event photography at night, it being a challenge is understating the situation at hand.

So what do you do in such a situation? Convert slightly blurred photos to black and white. This quickest fix ever, as grain and noise is appreciated by the eyes better in B&W as compared to colour.

Put to use during this event was my new EP1 toy with 20mm 1.7 panasonic lens (excuse my tech geek side)

Supplies: Lilybee Design, American Crafts.

Tried something new, by layering type on type, thickers on thickers. Personally I love the bold black piece of pattern paper with the dove on it.