This post is outdated by one week, but I guess it will be nice if I share the photos I’ve taken during Valentine’s Day. Yea, I am single (weaves another story out of it, we’ll leave it for other posts) and so that Saturday didn’t have much meaning to me. The weather was perfect so I grabbed my tripod, my infrared filter and headed out for another day of outdoor free-for-all photography. Sometimes I prefer shooting alone because I won’t feel so bad for having others to wait and vice versa, and the only place you can’t go is limited by your own physical limits.
I took quite a few infrared shots around the campus, I guess I will just pick a few nice ones to share.
Fountain. Trees. Clouds. f/6.3, 6 sec, ISO 100.
This photo is taken outside Lee Kim Wee Lecture Theatre, facing the Student Services Center (whose top floor is peeking out of the tree tops). There seems to be a slight issue with the hot spot (my kit lens aren’t really suitable for IR photography) but it’s still looking good. Slightly burned the sky during post-processing. The reason why I chose ISO 100 is because I didn’t want too much noise to be in my photo – you know, infrared photos taken from unmodified cameras like mine usually will contain a lot of noise. To make up for the inadequacy, I opted for a longer shutter speed of 6 seconds.
The Fork, at NIE. f/3.5, 5 sec, ISO 100.
Taken at the National Institute of Education, where buildings on two sides of the strcutre split apart, with the canteen located in between the two wings at the end of the fork. The sky is definitely overexposed – that’s partially because of the overcast sky.
Of course there are more infrared photos and panoramas. I’ve uploaded a few of them to my Flickr set called NTU, in a different light – be sure to check them out if you have the time.
Later in the day I went with my roomie (who was my college roomie as well) to our secondary school buddies gathering at a al-fresco steamboat restaurant located downtown. He brought his girlfriend along as well, but it’s a pity that she couldn’t quite understand what we’re all yapping about (well, guys do get excited when they meet up too!).
Down the street, with Suntec City towers in the background.
The photo above is a pseudo-HDR image converted from RAW (I was too lazy to get a tripod to take bracketed exposures). Converted using Photomatix and touched up in CS3. I can’t shake the habit of launching CS3 although I have CS4 installed. Back to the photo itself, the steamboat restaurant we’re heading to is actually located at the corner unit of the row of shops to the left.
And here are some of the photos I’ve taken during our dinner. Since it was my roomie’s birthday on Valentine’s Day, they bought him a cake and celebrated outside a small shop selling appel strudel – the lady was a little mad that we didn’t buy much from her shop, but hey, we did buy some strudels!
That’s all for this update!
So… how was your Valentine’s Day? Feel free to link to the post you’ve written about it! If your post gets held up in moderation queue because of linking, no worries, I will approve them in a jiffy.
p/s: In case you have not noticed, I’ve slightly altered the post metadata section. Tell me if you like it or hate it :)
i like ur IR shoots..nice 1
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The weather looks so nice over there! I’m getting so sick of the snow and just general sunlessness of my city. Your pictures are absolutely gorgeous, making me even more jealous of your spot of good weather. ^_^
I’m super fond of the first one, actually. Well done.
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@Natalija: Why? I love snow so much – I’ve never even touched real snow before (except for the fake ones in snow houses of theme parks). In Singapore, the dry weather usually persists up to August when the rainy season kicks in, but for the moment being we’re getting pretty huge rainstorms every other day.
Thanks for your compliments! I’m glad that you like it.
@teddY: Mainly it’s because when it snows where I am, it’s not just a fine smattering of powder snow that one can then go play in. It’s so much snow you sometimes can’t even open the door, and you can’t leave the driveway. Basically, it’s fun the first couple of snow days, but once you start actually needing to get anywhere, it’s just another obstacle.
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@Natalija: Yea, I can empathize with the inconvenience caused by snowing – many people like me, who’ve never seen a real snow storm, are often blinded with the sterotyped snow scene, a winter wonderland where people have snow fights, make snow angels, go skiing and etc. Snow storms can be really bad! My friends car was stuck in the garage because snow had piled up outside the roadway. Gee!
And I heard that severe snow storms cut off powers as well. That’s pretty scary, considering that many people run on electrically-powered heaters. Do such outages occur often in your country during winter?
you amaze me with every single one of the photos :)
i don’t have GF either. haha. don’t worry, we’re not losers, we’re just planning for something better, aite? :D
Awesome IR photos of your campus Teddy! The first one really looks like a scene from the futuristic sci-fi movie AeonFlux. Stunning.
I am wondering though, with such long exposures why wouldn’t the tree leaves blur out of movement. I was getting blurred tree leaves even with a 1-2 sec exposure when I was doing long-exposure waterfall shots awhile ago.
Oh and I love the HDR of the street! Beautiful colours and composition, with colonial-era shoplots in the foreground and towering skyscrapers right behind it!
@ember: Thank you! I’ve never watched Aeon Flux before and didn’t know how it’s supposed to look like… but well, the scene definitely look surreal, hah!
Regarding the lack of blurring of the foliage in the long exposure photos, I’m not very sure why is that so but as far as I can remember, that day was a pretty warm and windless day, the entire atmosphere just cloaked and blanketed the ground without much wind. If you do scrutinize closely at the larger versions on Flickr, there are indeed some degree of blurring.
I shall shamefully admit that I forgot the straighten the HDR photo before posting. It just slipped out of my mind and now I’m too lazy to right it. Haha! Do you have colonial-style shophouses in Kuching?
BURGH! I really want an IR filter!! But but, before that, gotta get myself a flashlight!! Lotsa diy cool stuffs with flashlights =)
Ehhh btw teddy, uve got a flashlight??
*If you dont, prepare to be poisoned!!*
Ohhh btw, 1st picture is the best =) Love the cooool blue sky!!
And teddy, your panorama doesnt have the WAH effect lahh if scrolled like that.. Somehow when I display it fully without scrolbars, it WAH more.
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@sue: Oh, the filters are really good investment, although they’re on the expensive side. The Hoya R72 filter is quite expensive – it’s around SGD80~95 and so I expect it to be at least MYR200 in Malaysia? However, there are cheaper alternatives like the Suntec’s filter. You might even check out eBay, but I don’t encourage that as there’s a chance you might be conned or be sent a scratched filter (or even a fake red filter – my friend got it).
I don’t have a flash light, so now poison me with whatever you have… like… cyanide?
Regarding the panorama thing, noted. I will see how I can display future panoramas next time :) I’m thinking of providing a link to view the panoramas on black.
Very nice photo. I wish I could have your photo shooting skills.
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@Kun: Thank you! Anyway, don’t feel too sad about leaving your old job. A fresh start might mean meeting new people and seeing life in a different way ;) good luck!
@abdusfauzi: Thanks :) we’re proud to be single, aren’t we? You just reminded me that I’m yet to place the Singles badge you’ve gave me previously… I’m still figuring where to place it, heh.
@Bey Luen: You might want to pick up photography! You don’t have to invest in an expensive dSLR or anything – even a compact digital camera will do magic.
hey hey…very nice infra shots indeed…totally change the whole feeling of the picture