Picture of the Day - Rhine Valley
Sunday, October 08, 2006
In a previous post, I mentioned that my hostel in Rudesheim was at the top of the valley overlooking the Rhine River. Here is the view that you will get from the top. The neat rows of plant are grapevines; the water body is the Rhine River.
posted byWilliam at 1:31 PM 0 comments
Fantastic Photography Seminar
Saturday, October 07, 2006
Jiatong (Thanks bro!) invited me to a fantastic photography seminar organized by the SMU Photographic Society yesterday night.
Here is a short recap of the contents of the seminar:
Tay Kay Chin talked about his personal work on a pictorial of Singapore which he has just published. He brought me on a Singapore journey through his emotionally provocative works; he brought me to sites and sights which I have never seen. These provocative works have brought him some trouble. Apparently, he depicted a man sleeping on the street and this picture was sensored in his book: Panoramic Singapore. The reason given by the authority: there isn't any homeless people in Singapore. Lesson learnt from K. C. Tay and Richard Avedon: All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth (quoted from Richard Avedon).
Darren Soh, a commercial and editorial photographer commissioned to produce pictures in a gift-pictorial for IMF-World Bank Seminar VIPs, talked about balancing work and photography.
Samuel Seow, a lawyer, gave a super entertaining presentation on copyrights.
Wong Maye-E and Terence Tan were supposed to give a presentation together. Terence was absent due to last-minute work duty. Maye-E (Associated Press) and Terence (Straits Times) are both photojournalist and married to each other. It was very interesting to know that the couple actually keep ground breaking news from each other to maintain a certain degree of exclusive coverage. JT and I were thrilled to see the high-quality version of photos of photojournalists; newspaper prints don't give justice to the captured quality.
Ken Seet, a commercial photographer, described his transition from film black and white to digital. I thought he was the most practical speaker of all when he gave a live demo on digital black and white conversion. In the Vineyard was converted from RAW and post-processed based on tips given by Ken. A very, very entertaining speaker; I especially like his quiet B&W landscape.
I asked the question of whether a formal education in photography is important to a professional. The unanimous answer was no, except if you want to teach photography in an institution. To learn on the job, observe the masters, never stop learning, and keep taking pictures were the advices given to me by the panel.
posted byWilliam at 8:36 PM 0 comments
Picture of the Day - In the Vineyard
This picture was taken in the Rudesheim, Rhine Valley. I remember it being my first day in the Valley and I took a freaking long walk from the train station to the tourist office with a 18kg backpack of food, toiletry, clothes, and equipment. Well, maybe, it wasn't so far but the load on my back definitely made the distance feel long.
I ended up booking a taxi with the assistance of the tourist officer and taking the vehicle up to the hostel. At the moment when I made the hostel booking, I never knew the phrase "overlooking the Rhine Valley" would be the curse of the location. The thought of having an overview of the Rhine Valley was just too great a photographic temptation. I had forgotten about how I am going to get up there with my barang barang. Nevertheless, I met three gal backpackers who took up the challenge; this happened when I was taking the picture above. There is a short-cut down the vineyard from the hostel to the town center. I saw the backlighted leaves of the grapevine and thought it would be an interesting picture of the details of the veins.
posted byWilliam at 7:59 PM 0 comments
Friends
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Anita
Grace
Valerie
BK
Jiatong
KC
Xiaoling
Ying Kit
posted byWilliam at 10:53 PM 0 comments
Article Archive
Welcome to the attic of my mind.
Here is where you can find an archive of my thoughts loosely categorized so that they are not so random. If you want everything, you can crawl through the long-ago archive where you can find everything in reverse chronological order.
Sam Honours Connect
Blog
4th Sino-Singapore Exchange 2007
Hangzhou
Xiamen
Guangzhou
Yunnan
Team-Blog
Sweden SEP
Willy in Sweden
Europe Tour 2006
Hofbräuhaus In-House Performer
Backpacking Outfit, Luggage and Equipment
White-washed Church with Blue Dome-Roof (Santorini)
Santorini Overview
Prague Bellmaker
Prague Square
Cologne - Drag Queen @ Gay Pride
Rudesheim - Wine and Coffee
Rudesheim - View of the Rhine River
Rudesheim - Vineyard
Jungfraujoch
Montreux Cruise
Rhine Falls
Berlin - Graffiti Art
Burano - Window
Santorini - Sunset
Prague - For Beer
Vienna - Silhouette Sunset
Cologne - Kölner Dom
Krakow - Birkenau Death Camp
Relationship Rattles
Issue of Attraction Continues
Issue of Attraction
More of Falling in Love
Proximity as a Hidden Matchmaker
posted byWilliam at 4:34 PM 0 comments