makumaro.net

2007 in Review

• Listening to: Joe Hisaishi - The Wind Forest

Starting off with today’s breakfast. One of my classic mushroom and sausage sandwiches. Depending on how many calories you want to pile onto it, it would have tasted a little richer with some mayo on top. Add it with a mug of hot chocolate and you can ignore food for a couple more hours.

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It is that time of the year again. 2007 was quick for me, perhaps because I had more flashbacks of things that seemed to have just happened yesterday.

2007 felt like it rushed passed me. There were extreme highs and extreme lows. Got my Honda Jazz (yay!) and finding out my colleague was engaged, all this being trumped by an offer for the chance to work in New York (high), and landing in New York wondering what I have got myself into (low). Being back in Melbourne in August for Vyanne’s graduation and spending time with friends and family (high), and spending the year end alone without anyone (low). It has been an emotional year and I was constantly worrying about everything. My attitude of letting things sort itself out failed me miserably. There were so many times I did not know what to do, and there was no one to tell me what to do. Even being told what I should do, it didn’t help at all.

Heh, I wrote last year how 2006 felt so settled and how unsure I’d be of 2007 as I wanted to make progress in life. 2007 was indeed like a hurricane and it left me lurching. In some situations, you either float or you sink. I didn’t want to sink and there were times I’d just survive getting through the day. As bad as it was, there were also good days in the year, when I’d get to experience new things, like a first baseball match in the best seats of the stadium, or to dine at one of the finest restaurants in the city. Work here has been a rollercoaster ride, sometimes I’m very enthusiastic and get a lot of things done, and sometimes I’d just idle away, not sure of what my purpose is.

It has been a lot of uphill trudging for me, and it has made me a better person I hope. So 2007 is the year I had to lift my game and for everything that was thrown at me, I had to respond to it in a way. Sometimes I did poorly, but I was always given another chance to prove myself. So here I am now, having survived almost 7 months in NY being physically alone here. For 2008, it would be more of the same until May, when I would have done my year and am able to go back to Melbourne. At the moment, so many things are beyond my control that I don’t really dare to wish for much to happen next year. I just want to continue to grow and discover what I want to be doing. The subprime mess of this year and the subsequent credit crunch that followed has made reality in the finance world stark at times. The only plus side is that it has provided a good learning ground.

Heh, for all the excitement and drama of this year, I’m just looking for happier, simpler times next year.

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On the photography side of things, I acquired two extra lenses this year, one is the Sigma 30mm f/1.4 and my bread and butter Nikon 17-55mm f/2.8. I also plonked down for a D300 and I keep telling myself I should stop buying new equipment, but there’s always something interesting to test out. Heh, still eyeing Nikon’s own 70-200 VR lens (I already have a Sigma version), and also the 135mm f/2 DC lens. When I first picked up my D70, I had never imagined that one day I’d be spending a few thousand a year on camera equipment. After getting the D300, I just realised that I should be spending more time taking photos and testing different subjects and techniques. So I did in a way, and now I’ve set some goals for 2008. I want to print a few more albums of photos, as I made one prior to my trip to New York. One to do some black and white stuff, test different paper prints and get that whole workflow thing right. Been using Adobe Lightroom and it’s a great productivity tool once you figure out how it works. You can edit, tweak without changing the original files, do batch saves on the files you want to convert for web usage. Took my photography class, and that nudged me along. It sort of opened the door to new things and after that, I had more imagination putting searches into Google to learn new techniques and stuff. There’s still a long way to go, but at least I feel I can make mundane, everyday stuff look picturesque. Heh.

Major highlights of the year other than the ones mentioned above? I went to New Zealand, which was rushed but fun. More fresh perspectives on work and learning new programming skills. Found out that it is possible to cook for one person without having to eat leftovers 5 times in a row, although it requires more cooking effort on one’s part.

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Am I happy? At the moment, a little indifferent. Maybe I just need a change of pace. I hear it’s 36 degrees Celsius in Melbourne daily these days. Is it preferable to ice and frost? Not really, but at least i will be sharing the weather with good company. I am looking forward to that trip home.

Not So Merry

Tonight’s dinner. Pork chop on rice, with the complementary vegetables fried with garlic and dried shrimp. That’s the last of the brussel sprouts and it will be a while before I have any craving for it.

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It’s raining blocks of ice or water at the moment but I’m not quite sure. All I know is that there is a constant pitter patter of rain, and sometimes it’s louder than it should be. The water was quite cold earlier, and by the time I finished washing the rice grains, I had to use my left hand to test the level of water relative to the rice as my right hand was already frozen numb.

It’s been a crummy Christmas so far. I shouldn’t complain, but at least I want to remember how bad it’s been. I usually look forward to this time of the year, when you sort of tidy up everything you’ve done and there’s always something to celebrate. Sadly, there isn’t much to celebrate about this year, nor is there anyone to celebrate with. I recall over the years, that if I’m in Malaysia, there would be plenty of feasting at my relative’s place during Christmas and on New Year’s eve. In Melbourne, even the time I had to work crazy shifts at the fish shop (circa 2004), my then boss had a BBQ at his place on Christmas day. Everyone would get together and we’d be eating and be merry.

I managed to devolve into a grumpy sourpuss over the last few days. I’ve never bothered very much with being alone in NYC just experiencing and exploring. Work has slowed down due to the holiday season, and everyone has packed up to go visit their family or have friends around. I don’t know which is worse, spending time alone or with people you don’t really know and can’t be yourself with. So I opted for the former, as I didn’t bother trying too hard to go out and mingle.

It just got more depressing that everyone I know had plans to do stuff and it reminded me more of my ‘plight’. It’s supposed to be a fun and cheerful time, and I can’t respond to cheerful people with my personal dissatisfaction of things, but the cheerfulness of the season is jarring against my senses now, like having listened to the same jingle over and over again.

Right now my only cure would be a deviation from the daily routine. Would like to go catch a movie or something, just to do something different. Everything else I’ve done lately seems to have been a disappointment, like being grumpy, for one, so I want to just do something where my only interaction is to just give my full attention. Heh, will see how it goes.

Keep Trying

My brain is aching.

Heh, been spending the entire evening reading up on flash photography. Urgh, it’s like opening a can of worms. Reading about it led me to topics on light sources, external strobes, when to bounce flash, or use a diffuser etc etc etc. The combinations are endless. For me, learning something new is due to being dissatisfied with what you currently know. I have always preferred to shoot with available light and not using my on camera flash only because it gives unnatural looking light on your subjects and darkens the background. That is of course, until I found out you about dragging the flash.

Techniques aside, I’m amazed what creativity exists among the many photographers out there who shoot events for a living. I guess the best analogy I can come up with is creating a perfect 3 course meal. If you were a total beginner, you might not even know how much heat to apply to your frying pan before you can pop your egg in. I am thinking back on my experiences with cooking. How do you carve up vegetables quickly? How do you do it quickly and evenly and without chopping off digits in the process? It all comes with practise. Being able to cook your main dish does not make you an expert on knowing how to make dessert. Desserts are sweet and use an entirely different range of ingredients. How do you know if the flavours will go together?

This is just how photography feels to me sometimes. I can fry my egg with one hand. It isn’t the perfect egg but it still looks and tastes good. I am good with certain ways of taking photographs, but I’ve been trying and experimenting on so many different forms of it, I’m a little confused on the ideal approach at times.

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Heh, it’s the frustration. You know what you want, but not quite sure on how you are going to achieve it. One thing I do know, is that if I want to learn anything properly, I will just have to keep at it. Unfortunately I’m not smart enough to know things on my first experience with it, but I am persistant enough to dig at it until I finally figure it out.