Putrajaya 2011

I think Putrajaya has been shot to death by any photographers in Malaysia with any camera irrespective of being a DSLR or a Point and Shoot. However I think about 2-3 months back, the ladies (Sharon, Saw Wen and Amy) went clothes shopping which left the guys (De Way and I) at home with nothing much to do. I needed to go down to Putrajaya JPN to sort out some Marriage Registration stuff, so we decided to make a trip out of it. 

1. Go down to JPN to confirm our (Amy and I, not De Way and I) single status
2. De Way wanted to sort out some information about his on registration with Saw Wen
3. Go out shooting

So we set off and I was armed with 2 cameras which was my trusty Canon 5D and film camera the Canon 5. After we got all the information we needed. It was time to go into the heat armed with our lens.

We started at the JPN office where we parked and we started walking around. One difference between this trip and my other trips is this time I was walking in between the building and shoot stuff other then the building itself. I was armed with my macro so I did some macro shooting.

Without a LCD to confirm that what I shot was in focus, it was pretty much a hit or miss affair. Lucky some of the picture I took came out relatively focused. When shooting on film, you have to really take your time and ensure you have composed the picture and also the focus is spot on. There is almost no repeat and like I mentioned a few times, you do not know the result until it is way too late.

After some macro work, I swapped my lens to the wide angle to do some "street shooting". There weren't many people around so there is no one to shoot at.

From shoot the street, I went to shoot some "artistic" stuff...

The picture above is actually a shot of a bench. Now guess what the next picture is...

Give up? Well actually it is a facade of one of the new building in Putrajaya. Check it out

One thing that I realised this time around shooting in between the building and all is that most of the building are not fully occupied. In fact most of them on ground floor were pretty much empty. The other positive thing is that in between the buildings, there were quite a few cafes, makan area and also general stores. I have never seen this side of Putrajaya before. I guess the people working there need a place to eat after all.

While walking through one of the building, I came to a clearing and right in front of me was this nice looking building. I didn't know what it was but walking nearer I found out it was actually a mosque. Nice Mosque in the middle of all the buildings. One thing I have always wanted to do was walk into a mosque and take some pictures. However I think it is a sensitive issue since it is a place of worship and more so since my racial orientation is different.

Right at this point, I ran out of film and then it is time for the Canon 5D to come out and show why digital rules. Here are some macro shots I took with the 5D.

Of course with the almost free shooting of digital, I am able to shoot multiple angle of the same object and also check my focus and exposure. This allowed me to take more risk and to go nearer and a real close up of the subject without fearing of the focus being out or something like that. When I talk about taking a risk and getting close, I am able to do this...

I have been trying to take the filaments on a hibiscus flower for a while now. However never been able to get a nice and clear shot. I think this is maybe a half decent attempt at it. I think to get that shot above, it took me about 10-15 tries. I can never do it with a film camera unless I was super rich of course.

As again for the shots above it took me close to 20 shots just to get the tip of the "flower" within the flower to be focused. If you did that with film, there goes most 3/4 a roll of film and you do not even know you got it right until much much later.

After all the macro on the 5D, I once again slapped on the wide angle and went building shooting.

This time the shoot we had in Putrajaya was very much different to the ones I have gone on. This time there is no standard pictures of bridges, PICC, Prime Ministers Department, etc. We went down the way where not many people went.

De Way you said your pictures will be up in a week after the shoot. Apa macam bro?

Yet another Milestone

Oh yea this is Hog's Thoughts 2.0 and not Bersih 2.0. Hogs Thoughts just reached another milestone today as today's post Old Technology is the 200th post for Hog Thoughts since it was started on the 20th of January 2010. 

It took over 2 years to reach the 200th post but slow and steady wins the race. Thanks for all the supporting Hogs Thoughts and coming back for more each time. Hope all of you will tune in to Hogs Thoughts for more of my Rant, Complaints and maybe some nice pictures for the foreseeable future.

Thank You.

Old Technology

I have posted some photos which I took on film before on this blog, I finally got my other set of films scanned by my colleague and it was so long ago I totally forgot what I shot with it. I think that is the one thing I love about shooting film is that well you do not know what you going to get until you get the film developed. In my case developing is fast but getting it scanned takes a longer while.

This particular set of films, I used it while I was back in Sitiawan and took some pictures around my grandmother's shop.

I was told by one of my relatives that one of these set of shops in the above shot used to belong to my paternal grandparents. Unfortunately it was sold a long long long time back and now this set of 3-4, 3 story shop lots has been converted to a birds nest. In fact this is most likely one of the pioneers in raring birds nest in a commercial building in Sitiawan. Apparently it is also one of the most successful and can rake in 100,000-400,000 bucks on harvesting month.

What caught my eye about this particular shot was the nice blue shutter and metal door which was a stark contrast to the white walls around it. I imagined the shot would come out slightly different but that is the thing with film. You do not know what you gonna get until much later on. So you cannot "re shoot" it after previewing it on the LCD of a modern digital camera.

The wall to the left of the shot above also captured by eyes because of the color...

This particular shot also showed how bad the distortion on my lens was because I had to do alot of corrections on the shot so that the bricks and walls were all lined up straight. Now we go for some black and white shots.

The first shot above is a shot of the main doors that are still being used in some of the shop houses in my hometown. They are still using the wooden doors that can be folded inwards to open the doors of the shop. My maternal grandparents shop is also using the same sort of door and it located right beside the first shot above. The second shot is actually a shot I took inside my maternal grandparents shop house in the hall. The picture hung on the wall is actually a family photo of all the sons and daughters of my maternal grandparents with my grandparents in the photos as well.

Last but not least is a uh... blur shot of something.

I shot this with an extremely low shutter speed and hoping that I was steady enough to get the shot. My maternal grandparents opened a general store selling all kinds of things from buttons for clothes to sationary. It was later taken over by my aunt and uncle who till this day runs a very successful commisioner of oath.

Project KU Ku Week 5

It has been 1 month and it looks like it has flew by just like that. Second progress payment has been paid and suddenly progress at the house is much slower then at the start. This week the tiling work continues and finally the apron has tiles as well.

This is the cheapest tiles we bought and it is looking good. Unfortunately after they completed the tiling of the apron, it was found that the apron is 6 inches higher then the man hole covers. Reason for that is because we tiled all the way to the drain and also the fact that the ground sank quite a bit. So we had to fork out some cash to increase the high if the man hole covers. If not it would look weird.

Besides that they are also starting to install our plaster ceiling. It is a superb mess in the house because of the plaster ceiling installation.

Once the plaster ceiling goes in, they will start to cut holes for the downlights. I can't wait for that to happen then they can start the painting. That should be almost the last part of major works that they need to do.

We also got delivery of our masterbed room king size bed....

Unfortunately it still have to be under wraps because we still have yet to grind and polish the floors upstairs.

One good news about Week 5 is that they have found the leaking and lucky for us, it doesn't involve hacking into the tiles of bathroom. They found out that the leak was actually because of the overflow valve from the water tank. Phew.

Week 6 is all about plaster ceiling and depending on the weather, they will start painting the walls. I shall not singing this whole week so that they are able to paint the walls.

Amy's 29th Birthday

Update: Sorry everyone. Actually Amy is only 28 this year. I incremented her age just so that she fits in with my group of friends. :)

Once again the mid point of the year comes and has gone. This also signifies that someone has become one year older, one year more matured, one year more experienced and one year knowledgeable. Who am I speaking about, well it is not other then my darling wife.

This year the celebration was more mellow compared to the previous 5 years we have been together. Usually, I will try to get Amy a usable/meaningful present for her birthday. However this year, I didn't get her anything and NO this is not because we are married and all the romantic stuff goes down the toilet. It is just that this year we have agreed we will take one year off to settle our house renovation and also our wedding.

So last night we went for a simple dinner at The Blue Cow Cafe in Plaza Damas. The thing that attracted us to this place is because Number 1 is they are non-halal and serve PORK. The other thing is also because a couple weeks back I saw groupon offering a voucher for all day BBQ breakfast for 30 bucks instead of 50 and I bought 2 of them.

After we did our ordering of the food, I wanted to be a little artsy fartsy and took some pictures with my parent's S95. Oh yea sudah downgrade from my SLR to a canon S95.

For some reason after coming back to Malaysia and about 5 years later, I started to like drinking Ginger beer. The funny thing is that in Australia Ginger beer is dirt cheap and they have a heck alot of varieties. Initially I saw the gingerbeer was selling for 5 bucks and I thought hey that is a pretty good deal. So I ordered it and the guy said they only have the bottle one. I was thinking well what is the difference, it should still be 5 bucks. Unfortunately apparently the bottle one cost a cool 13 bucks.

If I added 2 bucks more, I could have been drinking real beer. Nevertheless, the ginger beer actually tasted pretty good. Crazy expensive but pretty good. Soon after our meal arrived and man it was a whooper. Please people prepare a bip. I am not joking you, keep your mouth closed and I would not be held responsible for any failing laptops and phones due to excessive drooling.

What you see there is the All Day BBQ breakfast set which we have ordered for dinner. Who say you cannot eat breakfast for dinner. It is called breakner. Basically this puppy consist of 3 slices of seriously good bacon. It has been fried till crispy and it is not overly salty. This is the real deal people, not crappy turkey or beef bacon. This is pure unadulterated pork bacon with the fat all over it.

The bacon is complemented with 2 pieces of juicy PORK sausage and yup it taste dem freaking good as well. I am sitting here in the office blogging and drooling at the same time. Where is my bip? The pork sausage here is just as good as any. The sausages were nice and juicy and the most important thing was they were also firm and "springy". To top off all the nice and juicy meat, they also threw in a piece of steak to make this a big huge meal. The steak unfortunately was ok ok only. It was a little tough and didn't have much taste to it, but heck we were here for the pork instead of beef.

Other then meat, they also had scrambled eggs, grilled tomatoes and also sauteed button mushrooms. The scrambled eggs where delicious and the star performer were the button mushrooms. Sauteed with some butter and completed with some ground black pepper. Absolutely perfection.

This was my plate at the start of the dinner...

This was what was left...

But before that we also ordered the Irish lamb stew...

Unfortunately, this dish didn't live up to its name. For some reason nowadays when someone mentions to me Irish Lamb stew, I think about the Secret Recipe Lamb Shank. 2 completely different dish but that is what I picture in my head when someone says Irish stew. This Irish stew however was a little bland. Not enough taste of the spices and even the ground black pepper couldn't help. The lamb however was pretty good. It was really tender and soft that it breaks down once it goes into your mouth. However it is not overly tender that it becomes mush. You can still taste the muscle and sinew of the lamb as you chew on it.

After all that.....

Satisfied burp! The best thing is this meal didn't really cost a bomb as well.

Plus the 30 bucks I paid for the groupon that makes this meal about 80 bucks. For the amount of food we had, I think it was pretty worth it. The All Day BBQ breakfast is a winner but the Irish Stew is not. We should have ordered the Sausage platter instead. That would have been superb considering the pork sausage was already fantastic.

To top the night off, we went to Ah Bean Kopitiam to sing a birthday song to Amy and what birthday is complete without well a cake and some candles.

Happy Birthday Amy. Not as great as the years gone by but I promise it will be better next year.