Time to say goodbye ....

Sarah Brightman:

When I'm alone I dream of the horizon and words fail me.
There is no light in a room where there is no sun
and there is no sun if you're not here with me, with me.
From every window unfurls my heart the heart that you have won.
Into me you've poured the light,
the light that you found by the side of the road.

Time to say goodbye.
Places that I've never seen or experienced with you.
Now I shall, I'll sail with you upon ships across the seas,
seas that exist no more,
it's time to say goodbye.

Andrea Bocelli:

When you're far away I dream of the horizon and words fail me.
And of course I know that you're with me, with me.
You, my moon, you are with me.
My sun, you're here with me with me, with me, with me.

Time to say goodbye.
Places that I've never seen or experienced with you.
Now I shall, I'll sail with you upon ships across the seas,
seas that exist no more,

Both:

I'll revive them with you.
I'll go with you upon ships across the seas,
seas that exist no more,
I'll revive them with you.
I'll go with you.

You and me.

Oh dear! Time to revive it again....

I am encouraged by the comment of a new follower and decided that today, I will revive this little old blog of mine, and start posting new photos again. It has been 9 months since my Monkey Business posting.

This time, let me show you how I took night shots in Singapore without the tri-pod (",)

The Man Behind the Camera

Occassionally, I present the man behind the camera in a photo...

It's me - the Photography Blogger (",) at Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion @ Heritage Penang.

Happy New Year 2009 (",)

I am back to blogging again, after a pause of more than a month. The month of December has been the busiest time of the year for me for the past many years. Closing of Q4 results, preparing budgets for the next year, presenting the budgets for boss' approval, staff appraisals and annual increment (or no increment) discussions with staff amidst the Christmas mood made the month of December swift by in a blink (",)

I received a beautiful new year text message from my childhood friend Stephen Chin, and I made this message my new year text message as well.

Here is how it goes:

"May the year 2009 be like an aeroplane, with God as your pilot, dreamz as your wings, hope as your fuel, love as your jet engine, good relationship as your cabin crew, faith as your seat belts, happiness as your passengers, to take on another challenging year. Happy New Year to you and your family."

Another new year message which caught my attention was:

"Life is short, break the rules, forgive and forget quickly, love truly, laugh loudly and uncontrollably, never regret the past, trust God for the future, and smile always (",)"

"May you be as handsome as your mother thinks, so rich as your child believes, and may you have as many women as your wife suspects...!!" Ha Ha... funny one.

Happy New Year... Dreamz

My Camera Khakis...

The most enjoyable part about this photography hobby is the photography outings with the camera khakis. Everytime we meet up for Teh Tarik, these outings are talked about just as golfers talk about their golf games. I would like to post on this blog and introduce to you a few of the camera khakis... starting again from an introduction of me (laugh).

In most occassions, I would be driving my feel young cabriolet and my friend Chan took this shot of me, looking through the rear view mirror. Looks cool, isn't it?

and we drove through these beautiful country roads....

That's yours truly, enjoying the breath taking view at the sandy beach of Kuala Muda (river mouth of Muda River). Suddenly, I heard a click behind me...

Turned around.... and it was Ridzuan, my photography sifu and friend. These 2 photos above were uploaded from ridzuanismail.blogspot.com.

...and saw this camera man!

This is Chan Kar Ming, the very serious photographer (and very technical too).

Our youngest khaki - Ning.

The 3 camera men... photo taken by Ning and uploaded from ridzuanismail.blogspot.com.

That's Me at Changi Airport

The Classical Look!

The 1970's Look!

The Cool Look!

These are photos of me with different flavors, taken on my camera by Chan Kar Ming @ Changi Airport. We were on transit to the Golden Land where we went for a short trip, and yet I was armed with my camera. It doesn't matter how the photo is taken and what color tone it is given, it is the same old smiling face :-)

It was also during this trip that I came across a very profound "words of wisdom" in one of the comic strips in The Star, which says "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things that I can change, and the wisdom to tell the difference between the two.

How profound.

...lets move on now to the classical series.

Hakuna Matata too...

This photo was uploaded from ridzuanismail.blogspot.com. It is me and my Fiat Punto which I use during weekends to feel young! Yes, Hakuna Matata was posted at Ridzuan's blog, and indeed, today we experienced "makes life great, no worries" as our photography day was foiled with heavy rain in the morning. We paused and decided to be happy. So, we started off drinking a cup of good coffee at Ridzuan's before we moved on to Transfer Road Mamak Stall for Roti Canai and half boiled eggs. Then the sun came out, and the rain stopped and our cameras popped out.

As we had quite a fulfilling and enjoyable experience today, laid back and relaxed and rich, I just have to blog it down before I go to sleep (yawn).

I realized that Photography is such a great hobby and decided to plunge in with a Nikon D80 only to find out that Photographers are also great people. When we go out to shoot, we let our hair down and just have fun (and along the way, we brag a lot too). It is fun to go photo shooting with Ridzuan... as he always had to bring along his "full set of weapons" where sometimes we can get a chance to borrow (just like that Prime 50mm lens which I borrowed from him).

Trotting around at Fort Cornwallis, Ridzuan was trying to find a good scene or object to shoot while I was distracted by some tourists (smile). As for me, it is just see, aim and then click. For Ridzuan, there is a 4th dimension to it. You will see what I mean in the photo below.

The image that Ridzuan has dedicated to my increasing enthusiasm took great pains to take. While if you see the image of the same object that I had taken by just standing there, aim and click, you will see the significant difference (smile).

Actually, not too bad huh (hmmm).

But, because I see, aim and click without having to set up the tripod, bend down low and make a stance, I get more shots of this same old cannon from different angles. I also have a ship in the background (Kiasu Syndrome, Ha Ha).

Same cannon, but from below.

Same cannon, but from below front view.

Ridzuan, I dedicate my images of cannons to you. You have made my day enjoyable and fun.

The Next Inspiration... Family Photos

The long Hari Raya break this time has really made me lazy. After eating and sleeping and going through 2 days of almost doing nothing but watching the clock tick slowly, I decided to pick up my camera again (the Nikon D80, in case you forgot) and started on my solo expedition. Today's photography expedition was a rather unusual one, as I was the solo photographer and I had to drive for 1.5 hours, reached the destination and then walked around rather aimlessly, clicking here and there until I found the theme for the next gallery. I started off clicking shots of people, thinking that it will be another people photo collection again, but a twist of fate happened at noon.

You might think that I have run out of photos to post on Dreamz and therefore had to go out to click new ones. Buzzz... wrong! I still have plenty of photos to post on Dreamz from my collections. But nothing beats taking out the camera, with the aim of finding a theme for the collection, and then putting them up on this blog. The full works! This new hype makes photography so exciting and challenging for me.

I will be posting a series of photo collection, featuring family and extended families. Family denotes a group of people (in today's case, animals) affiliated by consanguinity, affinity, or co-residence.

The next series will be about families....

Hope you will like it :-)

What Comes After 100?

Crossing the 100th blog, I feel it is time to take stock of what I have so far in my photography gallery DREAMZ. I have posted the following main categories of photographs in my blog:

1. Scenery & Unique Objects
2. Animals
3. Birds
4. Fishes (just Dolphins)
5. People
6. Sunrays
7. Skies
8. Trains
9. Scenes of Georgetown, Penang

I have more....

Today, I just feel like putting up the photoshots of a beautiful sunset that I took just a few days ago. Hope you will like it.

100 Blogs.

Today I achieved 100 blogs in Dreamz. Today, the Photography Exhibition at RBS Bank was also reported in The Star, and I am proud to be a part of the photo in the newspaper report. See The Star to find out (smile).

The 100th blog is the post of my prize winning photo.

I am going for 200 soon.

I Am Inspired Again...

Yesterday, I was invited to a photography exhibition by RBS Bank. The exhibition was entitled "Jahabar Sadiq's Photographs - People and Places." The Penang Chief Minister officiated the event. It was truly inspiring for me to see how the professionals do it. The real stuff.

Me... a long shot amateur photographer is nowhere near this league. But, this inspired me to put up some of my photography shots of people. So far... for this blog I have put up scenic, birds and animal shots.

My next blogs will be about photography of people...

My Nikon D80 Just Wouldn't Click...

This morning, armed with my camera bag I went around Georgetown to do a trial run of the Heritage Sites around town before I bring along my troop of photography enthusiasts on a walk- -on-foot photography outing which we have been chatting about but have not gotten to do it yet ever since the city was awarded Heritage City by UNESCO.

Seeing my first opportunity to shoot (not easy though, as the sky was not friendly the whole day), I took out my camera and opps... it just wouldn't click. The message was F-- (no pun intended) on the LCD screen with an error message of r09 when the shutter is depressed. Well, I was really depressed with a reading of up to r100!

I quickly took my camera to the Nikon shop, and the pro at the shop told me that my lens has a problem. Fortunately it is still under warranty (smile). I have been using that 18mm-135mm lens for most of my shots and I have been dreaming of a 70-300mm lens to add on to my lens collectionz. Today, I just could not resist it anymore. I gave in, and bought a Nikkor 70mm-300mm lens. I had to leave my 18mm-135mm lens there for 3 weeks. Wah... 3 weeks! How to live without my lens for 3 weeks?

To ease my pain, I had to borrow from my fellow photography enthusiast good ol' friend his Nikkor 50mm 1:1.8 for my indoor shots temporarily. It is very frustrating though, to use the 70mm-135mm lens indoors (frown).

The good news is that I now have great lens for the outdoor, but the bad news is that there is a big dent on my wallet. I spent almost the whole morning in the Nikon shop, and lost the chance for any trial shooting.

Armed with my new lens, I clicked a few shots before calling it a day. I shall post it in my blog.

The Mouse Trap

I received email circulation of this profound story more than once, and yesterday I received it again from my ex-classmate. Since it is so true in our daily life, I would like to share it in my blog. It is about the mousetrap.

A mouse looked through the crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife open a package. What food might this contain?" The mouse wondered - he was devastated to discover it was a mousetrap. Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse proclaimed the warning. There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!"

The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head and said, "Mr. Mouse, I can tell this is a grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me. I cannot be bothered by it."

The mouse turned to the pig and told him, "There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!" The pig sympathized, but said, "I am so very sorry, Mr. Mouse, but there is nothing I can do about it but pray. Be assured you are in my prayers."

The mouse turned to the cow and said "There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!" The cow said, "Wow, Mr. Mouse. I'm sorry for you, but it's no skin off my nose."

So, the mouse returned to the house, head down and dejected, to face the farmer's mousetrap alone. That very night a sound was heard throughout the house like the sound of a mousetrap catching its prey. The farmer's wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see it was a venomous snake whose tail the trap had caught. The snake bit the farmer's wife.

The farmer rushed her to the hospital, and she returned home with a fever. Everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup, so the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard for the soup's main ingredient. But his wife's sickness continued, so friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock. To feed them, the farmer butchered the pig. The farmer's wife did not get well; she died. So many people came for her funeral; the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide enough meat for all of them. The mouse looked upon it all from his crackin the wall with great sadness.

The next time you hear someone is facing a problem and think it doesn't concern you, remember when one of us is threatened, we are all at risk. We are all involved in this journey called life. We must keep an eye out for one another and make an extra effort to encourage and help one another. [Author: Unknown]

Truly profound, and it is real in our everyday lives.