A&W Abstract

This is yet another one of my never ending attempts to photograph abstract stuff. Took this with the HTC Desire while dining at A&W SS2.

Thought this 3 section thing would look nice - the spinning fan, the wall graphics and a little bit of the dining indoors.

Seahorse Reproduction

This National Geographic article carrying an award winning photo of a male seahorse giving birth to a fry (this is what their young is called) spurred an interest in seahorses.

Another link from the same page led to a deeper insight into seahorses. First, the male and female would engage in a mating dance (see video below) which eventually leads to the female depositing her eggs into the male's pouch. The male will then fertilise the eggs in his pouch.

This male pregnancy typically lasts for 10 to 25 days depending on the species. During this process, the father regulates water salinity as the eggs hatch within the pouch. The male undergoes some fantastic and energy consuming contractions as it gives birth to the young (known as fry) at the end of the pregnancy, as can be seen in yet another video below:

Some other seahorses trivia: 

• A male seahorse in some species can give birth in the morning and get pregnant again by evening!
• Seahorses inhabit tropical and temperate coastal waters worldwide.
• They range in sizes from 1cm to 30cm.
• They have a prehensile tail for clinging to underwater vegetation.
• Seahorses have a tubelike mouth for sucking in planktons.
• They have protective bony plates in their skin.
• There are 32 known species of seahorses.

Using DSLR In Public A Crime in Kuwait

It has finally happened. Taking photos in public is now a crime but I guess maybe only in Kuwait. And it's a crime only if you are using a DSLR. If you use a camera phone or a digital compact or one of those excellent long zoom digital cameras, it seems like it is legal and if you use film SLR, it also appears to be legal... that is what I am understanding from this article from Kuwait Times. Wow.

via Kuwait Times through Ken Rockwell.

Attempted Simulated HDR

While on the way back from a one day Southern trip, I noticed that the evening sky was kind of interesting. In addition to that my HDR-obsessed bud kept mentioning about clouds, clouds, clouds in recent days so I whipped out my HTC Desire which was loaded with the free version of Camera360, selected "HDR Simulation (Heavy)" and got this:

Abstract Drain Grating?

Took this photo about a week or so ago:

It's a crop of a big photo that shows a drain cover with water running through. Trying to train myself to look at things in an abstract way and photograph them because I'm so impressed with those really nice abstract photographs taken by all the good people out there.

So far, I'm not anywhere near there but shall keep trying... until I find something else to try out. :P

Aftermath of the inspiring trunk

After being overly impressed by the bulky Proton Inspira, I fell madly in love with this cuddly Android plush:

I had previously expressed my love here.

via Mashable (again!).

The Trunk, The Plants and then Inspiration

Photographed this tree trunk with two layers of plants earlier today:

I had a good interesting image of it but then it didn't turn out the way I wanted it to. Damn, I'm lacking in skill.

But anyways, viewing the all new Proton Inspira about an hour ago is also quite rewarding. Sexy, this thing:

Vroom, VROOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

Happy Happy Deepavali!

And here's another kolam, taken at KL Sentral:

Taken with HTC Desire

Happy Deepavali!

Deepavali is what we call the Festival of Lights in Malaysia. In other places, I believe it's also Diwali or Divali? Regardless the name, have a great one and to those who do not celebrate, happy holidays!

Kolam taken from Uptown 5 lobby with HTC Desire.

Suffer the jerk who used my Hotmail to spam!

That's what I was thinking when my Hotmail sent spam to everyone in my address book and then all my contacts in that address book got deleted. Logged in to MSN Messenger and no one was visible because all my contacts were removed. Freakin' evil, whoever did that. May you suffer and the only way out is to hope to die but I'm sure you will still be hanging there and have a long and suffering life. A billion curses to you!

Here's that spam e-mail:

Hello, my dear friends:

   I would like to introduce a good company who trades mainly in electornic products.
Now the company is under sales promotion,all the products are sold nearly at its cost.Original Products + Best Quality + Brand New + Warranty + Quick Shipping + 100% Secure . the price is a surprising happiness to you!It is realy a good chance for shopping., please contact them as soon as possible!!!! The web address:

I removed the web address. Think I would advertise for that piece of shit? Not a chance!

Compound Eyes?!?!

I never knew flies look at things this way!!!

Miniature Rojak Buah?

Was at the newly reopened SS2 McDonald's earlier today and took this photo of SS2 with my HTC Desire from the new outdoor seating area (and uploaded to Twitpic on-site):

After reaching home, I had a thought of trying to digitally apply some tilt-shift effect on the photo. I did not use any specialised software but instead used the freeware Gimp (the free Photoshop for poor people who don't want to pirate and have no money to buy Adobe's brilliant program). Here's the result:

Interesting that by blurring the top part of the photo to achieve this miniature effect, a big "Japanese flag" was produced as a side-effect. It was actually a signage with Chinese characters in front of the reddish circle. :P

The Nikon Temptation

I've been tempted to buy a Nikon DSLR for years starting from the time of the D40 to supplement (or replace?) my Lumix DMC-FZ30. Am not sure how long more can I hold on to my Vulcan-like emotional suppression from the temptations of Nikon with the current entry level D3100 and/or as they belt out the delicious D7000 in a matter of weeks (in Malaysia).

Over the years, my dilemma remains the same. What lens would I buy to complement my eventual DSLR? And what DSLR (cheap body or expensive one which would take longer time to outgrow?) would I buy to complement the lens? A chicken and egg thing in photography world, I suppose. I love wide angle because I never had any from my FZ30. I always felt I needed more wide angles. My exploration into wide angle lenses led me to the Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 but that wouldn't auto-focus with the D3100. And then, I came across the even wider 8-16mm variable aperture Sigma lens. Even wider but at a higher price.

At the current point of time, I'm most likely going to settle for a D3100 body and the Nikkor 16-85mm variable aperture lens. A cheap body with an expensive lens (and also the kit lens that comes with the D3100) and to save up more money over the next few years to build up an inventory of lenses. The ultra wide angle Sigma would be at the top of my list...

... or could it be the Nikkor 70-300mm VR lens? I've been pampered by the long zoom that came with the FZ30 and couldn't get the telephoto reach out of my mind. Maybe I could settle for the slower autofocus consumer lens from Nikon - Nikkor 55-300mm VR? Or should I be bolder and go for the latest 28-300mm VR?

Maybe I should just forget about all of them and settle for a single D7000 with the 18-105mm kit lens. HMPH! A D7000 has a body complicated enough that I would not get bored of unlike the simpler D3100...

What a lot of thoughts... perhaps I could hold out on any purchase for another eternity...

Carnivorous Android

Not meaning to promote Android nor demote Apple, I find the image below amusing while at the same time, not liking the taste of one OS attacking another OS.

Image via an article from Android Community.

Falling In Place

Have you ever felt at times that everything would just mess up on bad days and on some good or ok days, things tend to go your way? Today seemed to be an ok, not a good nor excellent, but ok day for me. Work was piling up as I was outstation for work very often the last two weeks but schedules for meetings for the rest of this week were all automatically set up without clashing with one another.

I did not even need to intervene or reschedule them. I did not forget I had one meeting and then accept another in the same time slot. Pretty interesting and I am talking about no less than 6 meetings throughout the week. I wouldn't have realised this in normal circumstances but it just came to me when I was having a quiet and late dinner alone just now. Hmmm...