Event: TasteMIGF – 2014 Edition

About a month back, I attended the Festival Gala Launch for Malaysian International Gourmet Festival where the chefs from various fine dining restaurants cooked up gourmet dishes and served them in bite size portions for everyone to sample. That night, we were served with many different types of cuisines from Sri Lankan to Cantonese, Modern French to Italian, Japanese to Thai, and a fusion of International and Western specialities.

Signature Summer Salad | Signature by The Hill

Salmon Sashimi | Minori

Salmon Salad | Minori

Certified Angus Porterhouse Dry Aged | Chambers Bar & Grill

28 Day Aged Striploin | Tanzini

Chilled Mini Abalone | Dynasty

Hot & Spicy Hokkaido Scallop and Clam | Dynasty

Chicken Liver Terrine Tart | Neo Tamarind

Pizza Bufalina | Nerovivo 

Fish Cutlet | Aliyaa Island Restaurant & Bar

French Snails | Tanzini

And that is all the food porn I have for you, I wished I took more pictures of the rest of the dishes. But there were so many that night and under limited lighting conditions coupled with the fact that I was shooting with an unfamiliar camera (Alex’s Panasonic GX7), I didn’t get as many shots of the food as I wished I had.

I hope you enjoyed the pictures nevertheless, and here’s to looking forward to attending the next one? ;)  Before I end this post, you can click here to read last year’s post on TasteMIGF, Sunway Pyramid - 2013 Edition.

Snaps: Embracing colours.

As I am typing this, I still can’t decide on a suitable title for this post. It was shot around Petaling Street and the neighbouring streets, but about half of the pictures this time are taken in Sri Mahamariamman Temple. As I have other pictures as well, I could not just title this post as just the temple name. I have only started shooting on the streets recently, but I realised that my pictures would so often be in black and white, or almost muted colours. You can check out my other Street Photography pictures.

This time around I have decided to go for colours; brilliant, vibrant colours. It feels awesome to think that when I was shooting, I never had any particular theme in mind. But as I was post-processing the pictures, somehow I opted for colourful edits instead. :) I hope you’ll enjoy the set as much I do.

* * * * * * * * * *

Snaps: Olympus Malaysia’s First Street Walkabout in Pudu

Trust me to blog about things that happened more than one month ago, because I can damn well procrastinate.

About one month ago, Olympus Malaysia organized their first ever street walkabout which was lead by none other than Robin Wong. If you know or heard of Robin, then you would know how amazing and awesome his street shots are. In fact, it was only because I tagged along with his earlier street walks that I begun to enjoy street photography. Previously, I didn’t understand how to take and find subjects on the street to photograph. It still doesn’t come too naturally for me yet, but I’m getting there slowly. You can check out my other street pictures here; Street Photography.

* * * * * * * * * *

We started things off by walking from Pudu Plaza (the meeting point) through the streets of Pudu and then, the Pudu wet market and back again to Pudu Plaza. The pictures in the set below won't be in the order taken but rather grouped together with a common theme. 

Snaps: Chow Kit in Colours!

If you read my last post on shooting the Chow Kit Market (if you haven’t, click to read it here ; Chow Kit Market in Monochrome), I said I would upload another series of pictures from the shoot but this time in glorious colours. :) I have contemplated in uploading everything in the same post but I decided otherwise because they would be too many pictures in one post and it might bore you to go through, so two separate post it is.

Hope you liked the pictures from this set as much as I did.

* * * * * * * * * *

Snaps: Chow Kit Market in Monochrome

A couple of days ago, I blogged about trying Kin Kin Chilli Pan Mee for the first time ever in the Chow Kit area. (Funny thing was that although the pan mee wasn’t fantastic, I find myself craving for them now). I was around the Chow Kit area for another round of street shooting with a couple friends, it’s one of Robin’s favourite place to shoot.

As we were making our way to the pan mee shop, the skies were gloomy and I was worried it might rain. Even though, we were shooting indoors (inside the market), I know the pictures would turn out greyish, so I thought to myself, if it did rain, I would just shoot in black and white. That’s an easy way out, and shall I add lazy too?

It didn’t rain in the end after our breakfast. In fact, the sun was shinning gloriously, for which I am extremely thankful for. We managed to shoot the streets leading to the market and then at the market itself. I was told the market would be worse than the Pudu one, but honestly I still think Pudu is awful. I have yet to shoot there, but I have been there with my parents and it’s always so crowded inside there. Chow Kit is less crowded but it could have been due to the public holiday.

I had not intended to post process my pictures into black and white initially, but I did not like the colours as it was when I captured them. In most of the pictures below, I found the coloured version too distracting from what the picture was supposed to convey or feel. (I mean these are in my opinions at least.) 

I will post another set of pictures from the streets of Chow Kit in colour, look out for that other post. That is very colourful!

* * * * * * * * * *

Snaps: Deepavali, the festival of lights.

If you read my latest post - Happy Deepavali, then you’d know that I posted that in a completely sleep deprived condition in my attempt to be productive. Who am I kidding? I’m the best procrastinator I have ever met, so I ended up posting two pictures from the shoot when in my head I planned for like five. ha-ha. =.=’

(and now I’m thinking nobody wants to read what crap I have to say)

Seriously. 

* * * * * * * * * *

Like I briefly mentioned in my previous post, I was out shooting with a group of friends at an Indian temple yesterday night. It was my first time attending and shooting a Deepavali celebration, although the atmosphere yesterday was not so much of a festive celebration. What went down yesterday was the lighting of hundreds of candles all over the temple, where people donated money and in exchange, they were given candles to light and to place them in the temple. In other words, it is called “Diva Lighting For Charity”. I am not familiar as to whether any other Indian temple practice the same tradition, to light candles on the eve of the Deepavali celebration. Yes, today is the actual day by the way.

For this shoot, I went trigger happy and shot quite a number of pictures. But as I came back and reviewed the pictures, I realised most of them were repetitive and for the rest, they were just pictures which doesn’t tell stories, or I just didn’t like them. In the end, out of all the pictures I took, there is about give and take ten photos at most. I’m going to stop rambling now, so enjoy the pictures! 

If you noticed I shot a picture of this deity (I'm sorry I didn't get the name) from a different angle in my previous post (Happy Deepavali). Similar to that picture, this was also shot with the 25mm CCTV lens. During my post-processing, I didn't add any vignette to it so this is as it is from the lens. I'm pretty happy with the results from the CCTV lens, I think I'll do a separate post on that lens alone.

Happy Deepavali!

Update: I have posted the pictures from this Deepavali shoot in my latest entry here: http://www.carmenhong.com/2013/11/snaps-deepavali-festival-of-lights.html

 * * * * * * * * * *

Before I begin this post, let me wish everyone a very “Happy Deepavali” to all. :)

I have just returned back from a shoot with my friends (Robin, Alex, Jason and made new friends!)  at an Indian temple, and I decided that for once I will try to post up my pictures within 12 hours of the shoot. This is inspired from Robin, who had always posted up his pictures from shoots on the same day itself. His overproductive-ness is making me look awful in comparison. I have tonnes of backlogs which I don’t want to think about now.

Since it’s 2am in the morning, I decided to make this post a quick one and so, I’ll be posting some SOOC (straight out of camera) pictures where I got my JPEG right and you can see how gorgeous Olympus colours are. This time around I shot most of the pictures with Alex’s Olympus 45mm f/1.8 ED M.Zuiko Digital and a 25mm f/1.4 CCTV lens.

* * * * * * * * * *

#TSDayOut to Banting - Part I

Just recently, Tourism Selangor organized yet another TSDayOut after a short hiatus due to the Ramadhan month along with the other festivities lined up. They kicked things off with a trip to Banting this time. And I have been lucky enough to join them again after my last #TSDayOut to Subang Skypark. Click on the link to read about what we did in the Skypark, pretty fun stuff for a seemingly normal place.

Just a short brief of what we did this time around; we started out the trail with a bus ride to have ‘Nasi Lemak Sotong’, visited the ‘kerepek’ factory and finally, we visited the Paya Indah Wetlands. The highlight for the trip for me would definitely be visiting the wetlands, although I must admit that I didn’t know anything about it at all. Sure, I heard of the place before but I don’t actually know anything about it.

I have decided to blog about the rest of the #TSDayOut on another separate post and to just concentrate on my favourite part of the trip; which was the crocodile feeding at the Paya Indah Wetlands. It was my first time seeing crocodiles being fed. Of course, I have seen it on National Geographic but it’s a whole different experience seeing it in person. Besides, this called for a photo opportunity!

I was so excited, I was at the front row (right next to the lorry with the food!) along with all the kindergarten kids too. Haha, I’m amazed with the child in me sometimes. The food they feed to the crocodile stinks really bad by the way, I’m surprised I didn’t feel nausea and sick. Probably too excited to feel anything else.

* * * * * * * * * *

Meet my lovely models for the day!

I briefly heard from the guide who mentioned that these crocs were of a more 'ganas' type than those in the National Zoo. There are about thirty to forty crocodiles living in the pond, but I'll only feature some of them today. :p

Photowalk: Jalan Masjid India, Hari Raya Haji

You know it’s going to be a good day when the first thing you see is a rainbow and a gorgeous sunrise skies. And the moment I saw that, my first reaction was to grab my camera to try to get a better shot of the rainbow (because it was earlier sandwiched between the houses and condo). So, I chased the rainbow in my flip flops with my camera around my neck. By the time I reached the park, the sun was up and the rainbow gone. I would have been upset, but the rainbow was too beautiful and it would be etched in my head anyway. Here’s a quick picture of the sunrise anyway.

* * * * * * * * * *

P H O T O W A L K

|Jalan Masjid India|

| Meet my friends! Can you guess who is who? |

I was up early because I was joining a few of my friends for a photo walk on the streets. If you know me, you probably know that I don’t head out much to the streets and that I’m so much more of an indoor type of photographer, except for the macro shoots I go. Otherwise, I mostly shoot still life, nails, self-portraits and also food. Shooting on the streets and the streets itself have never been something I liked, because I just don’t go what to look out for and what to shoot basically. In my lifetime so far, I have only shot the streets twice, the first time using the Canon S90 and after that, I borrowed Alex’s Panasonic GX1. You can read about the my first photowalk here (Pudu area) and the second one here (Petaling Street area). I just realised that it’s been approximately 7 months since I last shot on the street. It’s good to see if I have improved over the months.

It was a short shoot, for just a couple of hours (2 hours plus minus) to cover the Jalan Masjid India area and we finished off with lunch at Yut Kee Restaurant, a place is famed for its Hainanese pork chops. I was shooting with my Olympus EPL5 along with a couple of different Olympus Micro Four Thirds lenses. Since we were all using the Olympus Micro Four Thirds camera system, we were able to share and switch lenses for whichever picture we needed another lens for. This was definitely one of the advantage which got me into the MFT system in the first case.

| The Man at the “Kaki Lima” (Five-Foot Way) |

Snaps: Artisan Roast, TTDI

“This place is filled with hipsters.”

“All coffee places are for hipsters.”

* * * * * * * * * *

For the two months I was working with a colleague, he could said Artisan Roast at least 50 times, and cheesecake (from Artisan is the best), maybe 20 times. I finally did manage to give Artisan Roast a visit, when a friend wanted to try the coffee there. I don’t do coffee, but I take tea but I didn’t feel like drinking it then. Had a Smoovie, RM10 which was a banana milkshake. Terrible awful, tasted horrible. Don’t order. Cheesecake, RM10 on the other hand was really that lovely, so it did justify my colleague’s need to have it ingrained that I must try them.

Cheesecake & Iced Latte | RM10 each

Artisan could have been a really nice place to chill and have a nice chat over a cup of coffee and lovely desserts/food they have there, except the seats there were pretty much hard wooden benches. Not the most comfy option, when you’re planning to chat for a while. Also, space were pretty tight in the shop. I get that cramped feeling while I was there. So, do come here for the coffee and food, well, pretty much just for that then. Oh, maybe for this one cute barista too.

“Can I get a picture of you, making coffee?” | :)

I was sitting in front of the counter and it’s was a pretty interesting to people watch. All sorts of people come and go; friends, men, ladies and even families. They came for coffee, some for the desserts and some had them packed.

* * * * * * * * * *

All pictures were shot with Olympus EPL5 using Leica 25mm at f2.8, 1/40 sec with ISO 400 to 1600.

Snaps: Markets @Jaya One

* * * * * * * * * *

After years of not being able to attend Markets in Jaya One, I finally managed to head down there last weekend. I’ll be completely honest and say that within five seconds, I just went….”whaaat? this is the bazaar?”. Within five minutes, I was already bored. Why? Maybe I have had my expectation sky high. I thought it would be like those summer bazaar they have in the west. It have the similar feel to how The Curve’s weekend bazaar is like, except more spacious. Maybe I had expected more festivity with girls going all out to dress up. Except they don’t. They do dress up, with less extravagant and more ordinary basics. Not much of fashion scene going on here, for a fashion bazaar. Oh, well.

* * * * * * * * * *

This is my first time shooting, and the girls were gracious enough to let me take a picture of them. Picture in this post are shot with a Nikon D7000 and a Nikon 50mm f1.8 AF D lens.

Photo Set: Nature, Genting Highlands

* * * * * * * * * *

Short post on the trip to Genting Highlands; here.