Monthly Archives: June 2006

Expressive

★ Posted on at 07:22 pm ★

There is the anticipation waking up each morning. My first action is to check my web browser and see what the scores are for the latest World Cup matches. Heh, this morning England drew again with Sweden, prolonging their 38 year jinx of being unable to beat Sweden. The game was still on as I checkd the live scores, and I thought England had finally won when Gerrard headed in a goal, only for Henrik Larsson to equalise with a goal that shouldn’t have gone in. The first goal by Joe Cole (as I watched the replay at work) was stupendous, and whether it was skill or luck, it was a spectacle to behold.

Heh, doing my assignment now, and this is as close as I’ve got to it since I started looking at my notes a week ago. Usually come home too late or spending too much time chatting on MSN to worry about it. It’s due soon and I don’t want to spend my weekend couped up at home, so here I am flipping papers and doing calculations on Excel and my calculator. It’s during these moments that I have a sudden spark of interest in everything I’ve ever considered a hobby.

There’s been a new release in Linux, Ubuntu Dapper 6.06. I’ve been intrigued by Linux ever since I got my first PC, but my flirtations with it have been short lived and my longest run with it was during my third year subject doing ASP for Information Systems. Since then, I’ve found it a hassle to dual boot a PC and waste space to run Linux on a separate partition. Heh, contemplated a cheap box to run it, but then it’d only take up space and be left to gather dust. As much as I’m intrigued by new operating systems, the time constraints with work, sleep and play these days limit my interests to the things that I find most fascinating. Linux has always been a steep learning curve and even with the improved useability and compatibility, productivity is now a key ingredient to what I use for doing things, as I’d like to be able to cram in as much work in as little time possible. So this interest will just be a passing fad that I don’t even want to consider at the moment. Just a thought to remain in the background for a while.

Also have ideas for my website, and I figure that ideas remain ideas until I put it down on paper, or at least in this sense, digital bytes. Need to work on it to have a reference point and to move on from there. At the moment, the redevelopment of my website is like a floating point in space, always changing in a starting point as nothing solid has yet been defined.

Back to the assignment, it deals with foreign exchange and interest rates, the two fundamental things that define money transactions in today’s global economy. Heh, the terminology isn’t as foreign as it used to be in Uni when I did Finance, as I come across these things quite frequently at work now. However, the topics covered in the subject I’m doing now are a little more detailed and specific. Still flipping between notes trying to piece this puzzle together. Heh, it’s gonna be a slow night.

Carrot on a Stick

★ Posted on at 09:52 pm ★

Australia play Brazil tonight in their 2nd group match. It is a futile attempt to support Australia to even beat Brazil but they’ve managed to get this far, anything is possible. Heh, I might be a little disappointed later, but that’s what sports fans do. They pick a team and they support it to the very last bit, even if they are underdogs and may not have a chance. Being able to play Brazil, I’m sure the Australian team will give it their all to see themselves through.

* * *

Went jogging yesterday, and the only detrimental effect I’m having now is a slight sniff in my nose. Maybe it’s the lack of sleep as I stayed up to watch Holland oust Ivory Coast out of the World Cup on Friday night. Or could just be the cold weather not being very good for me after sweating it out during the jog. Heh, proud of myself for once, as I managed to complete ONE round around Carlton park. I have never been able to complete one round, and it’s a measly round (still want to conquer Prince’s Park nearby, but that is for another day), but yesterday I had a little more motivation than normal.

You’ve probably heard about how to get a mule to move it’s ass. Dangle a carrot on a stick in front of it and the hungry, greedy mule will take two steps forward, hoping to get closer to the carrot and eat it. Well, since it’s hanging from a stick, the carrot goes along with the mule and is perpetually ahead of the mule. Heh, one way to motivate someone to move.

My motivation for yesterday’s jog came from one of the most unlikely sources. My mind was preoccupied with Nikon’s 70-200mm VR lens. You might think it is a joke, but my mind was deadly serious contemplating of acquiring this lens. Sure it carries a hefty RM6,000 price tag, but it’s a good lens, quick focus and the ability to shoot in low light due to the VR (vibration reduction for sharp images) and the large f-stop of 2.8. You might ask if it’s worth spending that kind of money on a piece of glass? Well, parents would plonk down RM7,000 for a laptop for their kid if it would help them in their studies. It’s all about what value it is worth to you.

You might think it is excessive to spend that kind of money on a lens, but lenses last longer than laptops. Talk to any photographer who has been shooting pics for the last 20 years. They still hang on to their manual focus lenses and camera bodies they bought so long ago. A good piece of glass is built to be durable, and the sharp optics command the hefty price tag. If you are into taking pictures and would really like that extra sharpness, you will appreciate every cent spent on that lens.

Heh, thinking about the lens lasted me about two thirds of my run and I forgot about my fatigue. Having run so far, I just pushed myself to go the last few hundred metres, and my legs felt like jelly after that. Athletism has never been my thing, but I envy people who are agile physically (maybe it’s the effect of soccer being on now). It’s quite silly to motivate myself with something as lofty as wanting a good lens. Heh, but results do count and I’ve seem to have found my carrot on a stick to move towards.

Plateau

★ Posted on at 09:03 pm ★

It’s like scheduling was put on hold for a few days. Finally get to sit still to write a post, but my mind is a little unsettled with all the activities and work going on of late. Nothing much coherent will come out in the next few paragraphs. Heh.

It’s been a hectic number of days since the beginning of the World Cup. The only match I’ve caught so far in its entirety was Australia vs Japan. Heh, it wasn’t one of the most beautiful matches, with both sides making mistakes all the way. The result was a 3-1 win for Australia, after going a goal down and coming back in the last 10 minutes. It’s amazing how Guus Hiddink manages to make substitutions that become more of an attacking threat.

* * *

Soccer aside, been spending a lot of time reading about camera equipment and technique. It’s been a few days since I’ve taken my camera with me, as my bag had been occupied by a laptop instead, to get some work done. There are many times I’ve read in forums about people and their equipment reviews, and you have a 50/50 view on a lens. Some say it’s sharp, some say it’s crap. Heh, the Internet has made a wealth of information accessible to people, but sometimes there’s so much of it a part of it becomes noise.

I do believe in spending more time taking pictures than just criticising certain certain lenses for lacking sharpness, contrast yadda yadda. Then you will also note the photo galleries online that show astounding pictures of what people have taken around the world. Sometimes it’s just a point and shoot camera, but the results are still stellar. It’s better to be there with a so called crappy camera, than not be there at all with the best equipment.

Photos I feel can be technically impressive, and I’ve improved my shooting skills in that sense. In terms of getting my pictures to tell a tale, I still fall flat on that. I’ve been focusing a lot on taking pictures that just look nice, but you don’t really get any kick out of it. Heh, I recall the times when I went travelling while younger. All the photographs involved people standing in front of a place and the shutter goes click. It’s more an exercise to prove that you visited the Great Wall of China than it is to capture the scenery untainted by a human figure covering most of the frame. Most people think that pictures should have people you know in them to have any value (and some would argue that instrumental music is boring because there are no vocals, which is a story for another day). Heh, ironically, many pictures that have won awards are pictures of people. They usually come with a caption, describing where the picture was taken and what the context is about. You see just a face, but that face tells you many things you would not be able to discover in a narrative passage.

Heh, I like reading about lenses, and I have a number of lenses that ideally, I would like to add to my collection. You know that these lenses will perform up to the task you set them on. Then again, I keep reminding myself about the crappy camera but being there to take the shot issue. My lenses may not be the best, but they can still do the job, so if you can’t change that variable, you have to up your own creativity and passion to get that perfect shot.

Just going back to the title of the post, I previously had the whole story mapped out in my mind but my fingers typed something else out. Plateau in this sense conveys the idea that I have somehow reached the pinnacle of what I can achieve with photography (or with any other hobby I’ve done so far). I may be good, but not excellent, and you feel a certain emptiness there. There seems to be a lack of conviction to take yourself one step higher. Then you feel more frustrated as everytime you try, you seem to hit a brick wall. I have learnt the basics for a lot of things I’ve done, but advancing myself into new techniques seem elusive. The problem is you sometimes feel comfortable with the set of tools you already have (in terms of ideas and practices) and you just use whatever you know to make the picture. Step outside the box I keep telling myself. I grow little by little eveyrtime I do that, but only if I’ve been focusing on the topic continuously.

* * *

Heh, rant out. Will stop envying people who make great pictures, and go take some great photos myself. Just need the discipline to go explore a bit more.