Pkchukiss - Reality Wine

Also known as “camera-whoring” in the forest. I was in National Service for 2 whole years, and I definitely have not forgotten about the mosquito bites and smelly clothes (though you usually stop thinking that you smell after a few hours; I could stink passer-bys to death and not know why), but yesterday I found myself walking through the vegetation again - this time as a photograph apprentice.

You see, I got myself a Fujifilm S5800 point-and-shoot camera around one moon ago, after my Casio QV-R61 camera went kaput. The new camera allows me to play with the shot aperture and shutter timing, and I learnt quite a bit about the photography world. Plus a friend, his uncle and his uncle’s friend, all three whom are insanely into photography (I’m looking at you, Xiang Ju), I got sucked deeply into the world of filling up memory cards with RAW and JPEG files.

Well, without further ado:

Welcome back to the jungle

There are many things you can take pictures of, and the beauty of the place cannot be something you are able to appreciate, especially when you are busy hiding inside of it. To put it into perspective, you can’t really care what prickly or ant-infested plant you’re hiding behind when the battle is raging all around you. (Until you get angry ants biting chunks off you)

I’m not sure if the water is totally safe to drink, but if it were some 20km from the nearest civilisation, just like how Brunei’s forests were, I would have no problems drinking it… if I had purification tablets (haha!). The clear stream flows steadily, and had a nice gurgling sound that I wouldn’t mind sitting down and staring at. I simply have no problem watching water flow past me all day.

I managed to capture a picture of a dragonfly!

It was nice enough to let me close in to take a picture of it, but it flew off after I snapped this picture. I wanted to snap more of it in this pose since it looked really good, and I was afraid that this photo turned out blurry. Thank goodness ISO 400 was enough to use a high speed shutter to counteract my shakey hands!

This is Xiang Ju trying to take a picture of a snail with his dSLR, the Nikon D80. dSLRs are professional level cameras that serious photographers use to take pictures. It is many times better than my point-and-shoot camera, especially in terms of ISO performance. These cameras can really go up to ISO 1600 without introducing too much noise into the picture. Already, I’m using ISO 400, and the image quality is starting to suffer.

Now, my camera may not be too good with pictures, I dare say it is good enough for photography beginners like me. This flower looks really pretty, but I don’t know its name. I also over-exposed its white parts, though I didn’t have the time to re-do this, since everybody was going on ahead without me already.

Xiang Ju was extremely shagged out by the climb, so he took a rest on the floor, while I snapped some pictures discreetly. You can call this his personal portfolio

Later, Xiang Ju’s uncle treated us to Roti Prata at Shibly Indian Restaurant. It’s the stretch off Old Thomson Road, at Casurina Drive (I think). I knew that I should have taken a picture of the road name to remind me!

The Roti Prata tastes a bit cheesy, but has a firm bounce with a slight crisp. Probably a bit over-done, but I like it all the same. They might need to work on spreading the egg, since the egg yolk was clustered near the centre. The egg white is essentially tasteless, so parts of the prata tastes like the plain version.

Here ends my first photo-shoot with my “bridge” camera. Critiques and comments (only on the pictures!) are welcome! If you have any photo-shoot, please ask me along too! I hope to learn as much as possible!

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