Musings

Writing and preparing yet another Blurb book has become a regular ritual for me. As soon as I finished Book III of the series of Vita Una books last September, I began work on Book IV:

The initial plan for the fourth book was to cover the period from Hannah at 3 months to when she’s a year old, but the large number of pictures I liked and are significant in Hannah’s life journey accelerated the production quite a bit.

This new volume covers the period between 24 Sep last year to 21 Feb 2010 and just a shade under five months. There’re more photos than the previous volume too: a projected 221 compared to 182, though that’s come at the expense of text. The format of the book, like the previous volumes, stipulates a maximum of 160 pages – a bummer since I’d really like to do up more pages if I could.

I suspect that the next volume – Book V – will come out even quicker, and that’s in view of the travels we’ve had that weren’t centered specifically on Hannah and I haven’t yet covered in the series of books. Specifically, I’d like the next book to at least cover the San Francisco and Kumamoto Trips, and Hannah turning one in June this year – and if at all possible, perhaps even pictures from the Boston trip if plans work out.

It was my last day guest lecturing at the college today. The lectures and workshops I did with my Japanese students covered a lot of material.

And when there’s such high content density, so much memories have been created during the last five days that even though it’s just been five (intensive) days, each day has actually felt long – and in the good sense.

I finally got round to bring the D300 to work and taking pictures during my lunch hour today too. Didn’t get to take much as the weather was crazily freezing. At noon with the sun right up overhead, the temperature was still a frosty 4 degree celsius… with wind to boot!

I was no longer playing hero: I didn’t bring winter pants, but wore a thicker polo-shirt, a sweater, and my jacket as a third layer when I was outdoors.

So, there really aren’t too many pictures I took of the college compound as I was too cold to venture walking further than the immediate vicinity of my block to take better pictures. The first picture was taken right beside the cafeteria building with some students milling about during their lunch hour.

The picture below is a HDR composition:

Lots of students cycle to work – and all the bicycles aren’t secure chained. Theft of bicycles clearly isn’t a problem in this part of the world:

And lastly, here’s my class of students, with the college professor I’ve been liaising and working with this whole week (these are also his own students). This was taken just before we said our good byes. In addition to their daily bow at the end of each teaching day, the class – led by their class representative – also thank me in unison in English for my teaching this week. It was really moving, especially considering many of them aren’t confident English speakers:

Well, the rest of my stay here or at least for tonight and most of tomorrow morning will be spent marking their test they sat for just now. Hopefully I’ll finish by noon time though, and also that the weather holds – just so I can visit Suizenji Gardens.:)

Tom Ang -- the UK-based photographer whose How to Photograph Absolutely Everything book I enjoy reading so much -- was apparently in Singapore to do a photography series in Singapore. As far as I can tell from the series trailer, he goes around to both well-and less-known spots on the island… alongside two local photographers LOL. Quite a refreshing concept.

Here’s the trailer for the series:

Over the last 18 months now I’ve been putting together a series of photo books with Blurb and titled Vita Una, or “Life in One” in Latin. The first volume covered the first four years between 2004 and 2008 of our being together (blogged here), and the second volume of our Bali trip.

I’ve been meaning to put together the third volume since June this year, and it’s intended to cover the most significant event since the Bali trip: pregnancy, delivery and Hannah’s first four months. The photo hard drive has 531 pictures, selected from the probably two or three times more that number of actual frames captured of Hannah’s journey in the last 12 months.

This new volume is a little different from the first two though. Firstly, I’ve selected about 70 of the Baby Blues blog posts here and am adding it to the book. What better way for Hannah to read of her history one day than to read the actual posts we wrote of her? Secondly, the pictures will be supplemented by more text that’s addressed to her as Daddy and Mummy.

At this point now I’ve completed work on the first 135 of the intended 160 page length of the volume, and it’s been a fun ride recollecting many of the memories, observations and thoughts going through our minds of Hannah from her conception to pregnancy to delivery and to her first three and a half months so far. Hannah will be four months old in 2 weeks, so there should be enough material in both pictures and blog posts for the last 25 pages of the volume.

I’ve been looking for a good travel photography book for ages now – and in every sense of the word. It’s got to be about travel photography, and also portable enough for me to bring during travel too.

The photography books section though isn’t short of material on this subject; though it’s a lot harder to find books that are small enough yet contain enough objective information and captioned pictures for one to get ideas from.

The Lonely Planet’s Guide to Travel Photography is in its third edition, and with a publication date of Aug 2009 is a very recently-released book too. Interestingly, the third edition is a larger tome than the earlier edition which was paperback novel sized. This third edition isn’t nearly as big as a coffee-table book, but it’s still larger than the earlier one and about the size of a netbook.

Of first impressions: the paper used is of heavy stock… nice! I’m not quite so sure of the cover though. A landscape shot would had been nicer. Instead, there’s this scary looking painted Pulikkali dance performer eye-balling the reader.

Content wise, it’s all in order. The book has been nicely updated from the earlier edition with technical specifications that are more 2009 than 2006. E.g. the table presenting storage space vs megapixels in an image now specifies up till 32 GB cards and 25 megapixel images. I’Anson in the book’s Introduction also notes a long list of additional places – including Singapore (!) – he’s visited since the second edition, and the book end nicely indexes pictures of each new place.

Unlike also the other Lonely Planet Photography book I picked up a fortnight ago (blogged about here), I’Anson’s writing is more objective, less flippant and containing pained attempts at humor injection. His advice, perceptions and take of a particular subject theme is stated matter-of-fact.

Unlike Tom Ang’s How to Photograph Absolutely Everything though, while I’Anson’s book covers very roughly the same ground and 2-3 page presentations of numerous subject themes, there isn’t those third person pictures to illustrate how pictures were taken that I really liked in Ang’s book. Oh well – you can’t have everything.

Minor quibbles too. The books shipped from Amazon are always cardboard reinforced, and shrink-wrapped for additional protection. Of the two books that arrived from The Book Depository, one was placed in a bubbled envelope – scary – and neither of the two books were shrink wrapped. Scarier. The Child photography book was in pristine condition, but this Lonely Planet Guide was very slightly dog-eared.

The last of three books I’d ordered from The Book Depository arrived yesterday afternoon: and it was Roger Ebert’s Movie Yearbook 2009. The book costs a hefty SGD38 including shipping from the store – compared to a hefty SGD58 from Kinokuniya. Even with the member’s 20% discount, it would have still cost SGD46 at Kino.

For those of us who read critical reviews of films, Roger Ebert is one of the industry’s most well-known and popular film critic and reviewer. He’s been reviewing films for 42 years now.

This book is a pretty massive tome. It crams every review that Ebert has written from January 2006 to July 2008. The book is also supplemented by numerous other articles, essays, and interviews. And the heap of written content weighs in at a massive 944 (!) pages. Just goes to show how incredible is Ebert’s output volume.

Funnily though, while Ebert is one of the two film critics I make a point to read, he’s not my favorite of the two. Specifically, I prefer James Berardinelli’s reviews (his review site here) – the latter’s articles are as insightful as Ebert’s, but I enjoy his humor far more. Unfortunately, Berardinelli most recent book collection of articles comes from several years ago and there hasn’t been a new edition since.

Either way, I did quite a bit of browsing at Amazon before settling for this one by Ebert. Leonard Maltin’s yearly guides are pretty popular, crazily thick at 1664 pages for the latest volume – but his reviews are all snippet-lengths and typically just a paragraph long. I’m guessing Maltin’s guides are intended more as a quick references to DVD or video rental. Not especially interested in short articles, as I’d really rather read long critical essays on films.

The nice thing about this book is that I don’t feel the compulsion to read from page 1 to 944. That would be like reading a Dictionary i.e. crazy. Nah – this book is a reference volume that I can pick a film between 2006 to 2008, flip to the page and read an essay on the film. Just my kind of thing. For certain in the upcoming trip to Japan and on the 8 hour long flight, this is gonna be in my carry-on luggage.

I finally set aside some time over Sunday evening to begin reading the second of two photography books I’d bought from Kinokuniya during the 20% members discount a week ago.

Lonely Planet has a couple of photography-theme books. I like them for a few reasons: they’re slightly cheaper than similar books from other publishers, the pictures in them are invariably annotated (more on this later), and most importantly – the books are novel sized. As much as I enjoy reading Tom Ang’s How to Photograph Absolutely Everything, hard cover books of that size just aren’t much fun bringing around to read when I’m eating dinner alone at Kopitiam.

I found Wildlife Travel Photography by Andy Rouse a good read. The author has certainly traveled widely, and the book is broken down into many chapters, and then into bite-sized sections. Not essay-like like Joe McNally’s The Hotshoe Diaries whose author uses a writing style that doesn’t appeal to me.

All the pictures in this book are annotated with equipment identified: the SLR and the lens used, alongside shutter speed, aperture, and ISO settings. What I like even the more was that the annotations also note the location where the picture was taken, and the full name of the animal or critter in the picture.

The little descriptions finally also include the author’s explanations of challenges he faced in taking each picture and how he got through them. Some of those anecdotes elicited chuckles from me, like one picture he took in which his subjects – inquisitive wild dogs at a South African private game reserve – bit the DSLR he’d mounted to take remote-trigged pictures, leaving teeth marks on the wireless transmitter unit.

That said, there’s also lame humor, as though Rouse is trying hard to be cute when writing. E.g. when describing the usefulness of angle finders, he says

“It (an angle finder) allows the camera to be flat on the ground without you having to be, which is great for those tuxedo-wearing photographers out there.”

Duh. The humor works better when it’s part of a situation he encountered taking pictures.

I’ve got a couple of other little gripes I’ll make a mention here.

Firstly, there’s some incongruity between the book’s intended audience and the kind of equipment that non-professionals are likely to use. Rouse makes no bones about the value of expensive glass. Ok I get that; but not everyone has the moola to own a 500mm f4 – which costs a very cool USD5.8K. If this book is written with advice and ideas pitched at entry-level enthusiasts, then I think the author should have provided more material advising non-professionals how best to maximise their consumer-grade equipment to take the best pictures. Like what Tom Ang did in his Absolutely Everything book.

Secondly, the book was published 3 years ago, and there’s a bit of information in it that isn’t as correct as it once was. Not the author’s fault of course though. But still… for instance, Rouse discourages the use of laptops for field use and makes a pitch for portable photo storage devices.

But 2006 was before netbooks came about, which has made photo storage devices look so yesteryear. Netbooks are cheaper, have better and larger displays, bigger storage space, potential photo-editing abilities, better battery life – and most importantly, don’t cost an arm and a leg. Just take a look at the Epson P-7000 photostorage device. It costs USD740. For that money, you could get two netbooks that can do everything the P-7000 does, and better too.

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Still, I’m happy with this purchase, considering that it costs just SGD24 for a good read that I can bring along with me. I’ve got another Lonely Planet photography book on order, and this time it’s the new edition of Richard I’Anson’s Travel Photography. Hopefully the next one’s just as good.

Someone was saying that while macro photography is reasonably accessible to amateur photographers, it remains one of the most difficult themes in photo-taking for amateurs.

There’s some truth to that: you’d want specialized equipment for starters – dedicated macro lenses, close-up filters, extension tubes or lens attachments to reach the necessary magnification factor first, then a steady tripod with a ball head that won’t sink under the weight of a heavy DSLR with a macro lens / attachments, then finally a remote trigger while shooting in mirror-up mode to eliminate the minute vibrations that come with using finger triggers on the shutter release.

But now I have a different opinion: taking baby pictures is even the more !@#!@%%^@! difficult! The lens equipment, accessorizing, framing and composition is all easy: it’s getting the subject to cooperate that’s crazily tough.

We can get Hannah to coo and make cutey noises at home easily enough when we’re playing with her. But of late, she’s (somehow) smarten up to the presence of a camera and will do anything but look cute. She’ll instead grumble, look away, fidget, chew on her thumbs, widen her eyes (like she’s seeing a ghost).

Case in point: it’s been raining for most of this Sunday weekend today, but after the rain mostly subsided at 4:15 pm, we made our way down to the poolside to see if I can get some nice outdoor pictures of Hannah and Ling. And out of the 120 exposures I took, just a measly 4 pictures turned out with Hannah not making one of those funny faces.

So, I’m gonna make an order for this book and see if I can outsmart Hannah in the next photographic outing. There’s a lot of books on this theme (the one I’ve linked seems the most well-reviewed one), which only suggests that there’re probably other equally as exasperated parents / amateur photographers trying to take pictures of tots.

There’s some difference in color temperature BTW between the two pictures above. It’s probably impossible to tell from looking at the exposures, but the one on the right was taken with a pool table umbrella over us.

(Taken on the Sigma 18-250mm).

There’s another photography book that is a constant companion beside my bed: and that’s Tom Ang’s How to Photograph Absolutely Everything.

This is a hard cover, coffee-table sized photo book on how to photograph, well, most of everything: and it gets down to even specifics like taking pictures of babies, 1 year old children, formal portraiture, family self-portraits, flower macros, gardens in full-bloom, misty woodlands, city waterscapes etc. It’s pretty thick for photography books at 384 pages (people who read books of this type will know what I mean by the 120-160 page pint-sized books that’s more common).

Now what I really like about this book though is the consistently direct advice and suggestions given on how to take pictures in each situation. There’s no idle banter: just step by step instructions. A lot of the pictures in the book are also supported by third person pictures of Ang – i.e. there was another photographer following the author showing just exactly the positioning and posture techniques he adopted in each picture.

Interestingly too, this is the only photography book I’ve got where the amazing pictures were apparently all taken by a compact camera. Yep, no DSLRs, no L glass, no 500mm lens, no f2.8 glass – no nothing. On the upside, it’s fabulously appropriate for point-and-shoot camera users, since his instructions get down to specifying scene modes (e.g. ‘landscape’, ‘sports’), but DSLR users will have to do a bit of guessing on what were the aperture and shutter-speed settings used though. Yeah, unlike the Lonely Planet guides, this book is short on including EXIF-type information on each picture. My other quibble is the size of this tome: I’d love to bring this book with me when I travel, but it’s just not possible with its hefty size and weight.

Still, there’s plenty of down-to-earth advice in this thick book, and you get a lot of ideas. The hard cover edition I bought a year ago was listed at SGD80, but there’s a paperback version available now too at SGD56 or so. Well worth every cent.

The Amazon link above has page samples too.

One of the nicest things about Kinokuniya – the Japanese bookstore chain – in Singapore is the store’s Privilege Card membership.

Now, books aren’t very cheap in Singapore as a rule (though they’re still cheaper than what I saw in Australia). Typically books sold on Amazon will cost about 2.9 times their USD prices, taking into account currency conversion too. I’ve ordered cartloads of books from Amazon direct and also via Vpost before over the years, and the savings can be quite a bit though I’ve had the bad luck of getting expensive books shipped here to Singapore in a little less than pristine condition.

Kinokuniya now has been offering over the last few years periodic 20% discounts for membership card holders for a small annual subscription fee, but if you’re a frequent book purchaser, the savings are substantial and easily outstrip the fee. The items still aren’t as cheap as ordering from Amazon, but you get them immediately and there’s no nervous anticipation of books arriving dented either.

In any case, IDP Education started its two day Further Studies in Australia fair today at Orchard Hotel, and I was invited alongside other Polytechnic staff in Singapore to network with the Australian Universities early this morning prior to the event being opened to the public. When the networking segment was over, Ling and I headed to Kinokuniya where I picked up a few photographic books. I’d already made a list of items I wanted (specific titles on HDR, macro, landscape, and finally wedding photography) but in the end found only the HDR book I wanted, and also picked up a second choice title on Wildlife Photography.

More notes to come on them once I’ve finished reading.