The Reunion Dinner

The reunion dinner on the CNY eve is a very important dinner for a family. All family member will have to make their way back to home to re-unite with the rest of the family member. It is the time where everyone update their latest happening in their life; from work to love, from health to wealth.

It's our tradition to have steam boat for our re-union dinner. Why steam boat? Since we are living in such a hot and humid country? The reason why steam boat is chosen is beyond my understanding, but I reckon that preparing steamboat is much easier, and of course it's healthier. :D

This dinner is so important so I wish to keep a photo record of such reunion dinner. Photographing a dinner event under yellowish bulb condition would be a nightmare to me. The only light source available in the room is a ceiling hanging yellowish bulb. Low light means I have to bump up my ISO and shooting at very low shutter speed. Yellowish bulb means I have to custom set my WB.

Slow shutter speed means I have big chance to capture ghosting effect. Wrong setting means I'd have a very yellowish skin tone and everything would look "hot"!

I've read how to light in a big room in strobist's Christmas Game Plan. I was sceptical about Dave's way of lighting his living room with two flashes. Since I have a reunion dinner event to shoot, why not give it a try.

I was depending on my memory about the settings and where to set my flashes. All I remember was to position my flashes across the area where I was shooting the event.

With my light stand, I mounted my two F42 flashes position in such a way that the flashes are aiming to each other, but slightly pointed upward toward the ceiling.

A test shot as can be seen in the photo on the left, you can see a single flash could actually light up the whole dinning room ! With the flash at the same position, I could have "side lightings". Cool, eh ?

I adopt how strobist explained where to position his flashes. During the dinner event, I put my flashes as shown in the sketch on the left. Flash A was set to a corner near our dining table, and another flash B, position almost opposite to flash A as shown. Both flashes were pointing upward onto the ceiling.

Both flashes were fired wirelessly using my A700's onboard WL function.

Wait a minute, don't we need the sight of light to trigger the flashes? Strangely I do not need so. I could able to trigger the flash even it's behind me. Well, I guess the flash pulse from A700 is strong enough to fill up the whole dinning room.

So, how's the result ?

That's my mother hugging my son, Ee Young with my father in the foreground munching a shrimp. Base on my father's expression, I am sure that the shrimp must be pretty tough to chew.

Well, pretty good for my own standard. With two flashes nuking the dinning room, I could capture everything with high shutter speed at 1/250th of a sec without worrying of blur image because of hand shaking.

In the photo on the left, flash B has become the main light where flash A has become the hair light. Cool, eh !

A very important aspect to look into would be the colour of the ceiling that I am going to bounce. I do find the due to some yellowish ceiling colour, all my photos are hotter that it should be. However, it's easily corrected in post processing.

Later on, after the dinner, we hang out in the living room. Similar lighting set-up for the living room with different flash location as shown in the sketch on the left.

I moved my flash A to the new location as shown. This time, the flash was pointing to the nearest wall so the flash could bounce from the wall hence creating a wide broad directional light coming from side. A soft box effect so to speak.

Flash B was a main fill flash during the dinner event, but it became a back fill light in the living room. This is because most of the time our activity happened in the living room where our face were facing to the wall where flash A would bounce from.

My father and his two grand sons, David and Ee Young. David is my elder brother's and the little fella with red chinese costume is my son. Flash A was position at their front right and flash B was at their back left. I was in the middle of the flashes where flash A was on my left and flash B was on my right.

Flash A bounce from the wall, hence creating a soft box effect falling onto their faces. You can see from the shadow of my father's leg. Flash B bounce from the ceiling above to cast a soft light falling onto their hair.

This method proven work to me. At least I have no worry of shooting at low shutter speed. I guess this method could be very useful for a wedding shoot as most of the great action would happen inside the house. By placing two flashes, or may be three, on strategic locations, shooting a chaotic in-door event with fast shutter speed no longer a mission impossible.

Oh, by the way, Happy Chinese New Year to all. :D

A Family Portrait

One kid, a father, a mother, a camera with self timer, one flash with shoot through umbrella = self made family portrait. As easy as that.

Oh, one very important element of doing this kind of shiok sendiri photographs is have fun ! Having a photo with my love ones should be fun to do so.


I enjoyed the shooting very much. I bet my little rascal enjoyed it too, so did my wife. :D

He Crawls

It's his 7th months old, and he knows how to crawl like a professional baby already.

He is crawling on the floor where once upon a time I was playing my toy cars some 20 years ago. That's the spot where exactly I lined up my toy cars collection when I was a child back then.

He is a champion in crawling now. And he likes to play hide and seek with us already. Sometime, we just couldn't find where is he hiding. Sooner or later, he will just crawl out from his hiding place, crying for help. I guess he must had found something creepy somewhere in the corner there and cry for help.....

Nightmare had just begun.

Nothing stop him from his nauthyness...

Even he got a little bit fever after his injections last week. He didn't like the taste of the medication our doctor provided, we have no choice and bought this bye-bye fever sticker on his head.

First, he was like what is that ? Look like a new toy to play with. Many times the sticker fell and we had to stick it back again and again. He remained active and playful even though his body temperature was above the safe limit.

Anyway, he is ok now, and becoming very naughty. He had learned how to move around by using his belly and legs, and our nightmare is coming very very soon !

Wish us good luck ! LOL

Age: 5 Months

Long path awaits you.
Be strong, be good and be nice.

^_^

My In Laws

They are my in-laws. They came all the way from Johor to pay us a sort visit during the long holiday last week.

My wife brought them to Ikea on Sunday and I was baby sitting my son. That was my first ever time that our baby was left to me in house and he was away from his mother for quite a long period. I thought it would be a disaster to me but to my surprise, this little monster was so tame that he slept through all the way until my wife came back.

As expected, my mother in law was so worried and felt guilty to leave me at home taking care of my son. She was relief to see us "in one piece". LOL

Hey, I can be a pretty well baby sitter one ! LOL

Anyway, here is a photo of my little monster at his 4th month in age.
And I think he was rapping when I took this photo. LOL

Yo man ~~ Check it out ~~

LOL

Oh, I'm so tired.....

ZzzZzzZzzZzzzz .....

The Purest Stare....

Well, I do agree that beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. How could I say not beautiful when looking at him staring at me like that ?



I am not sure what he wanted to say, but I guest he might say: "what is papa doing with that big big black thing on his hand? And the 'kak-chak, kak-chak' sound so loud one !" and all these words were spoken in a very short baby language as "eh~~ya~~~". Haha...

Ok, I am actually in battle station with someone. Looking at his blog, he has a model posing with a bag, and the photo is blur blur one.

I also has one what. See the photo above, also blur blur one, and has eye catch light somemore. His one no catch light one ! So, I win ! LOL

It's a Winter Solstice Festival!

Time do flies like the Enterprise flying in Warp 8 towards the final frontier. Without much realise, 2008 really is coming to its ending already. And 4 days before the very commercialised Christmas is the Winter Solstice Festival; the winter festival for Chinese and the last festival before the CNY.

This year's Winter Solstice Festival is quite special to me because I'm celebrating the festival with my son. He had been discharged from the Hospital, and he is getting well everyday.

Yes, he may look cute at this moment. When I wish to rest my arm from holding him too long (hey, he is a 4kg++ baby !), this is what I get :

He literally transform from a pretty angel to a crying devil ! I think he is a Transformer fans already ! LOL

So, how was the tang yuan his grandmother cook during this festival ? Little Ee Young gave her these faces :

I think he likes the soup made by his grandmother. So do I! :D

Anyway, I wish all of you, Happy Belated Winter Solstice Festival ! :D

I wish I could bear the sickness....

I wish, I'm the one who sleep in the hospital, not you.
I wish, I'm the one who need to take that medication, not you.
I wish, I'm the one who need to suffer the sickness, not you.
I wish, I'm the one who take all the pain, not you.

Let me suffer, my dear sickness.
Let me host you, my dear bacteria.

Please leave him and come to me, my dear bacteria,
I could provide you good food, good accommodation and good playground.
I am a better play field than him, come to me please.
I will give you what ever you need, I'm swear to fulfil all your requirements.
No 2nd questions asked, your request is my command.
Please come to me, and leave Ee Young.

Please.

Time to miss him.

Yes, I do miss him.

Separating from him really made me think of him every hour. I do miss his crying sound, and the way he wonder this world with his bright eyes. He has such a cute way of sleeping, and he is my cure to all those stressful incidents that happened to me recently: the broke in, Double Exposure etc etc.


Such a small fingers but he do grab my finger pretty strong. I felt there is a bond between us, and I have the responsibility to guide him, and to bring him to this world, and to protect him from any harmful threat.

No matter what, you shall not left un-notice, my dear son. Though we are separated 360km apart, you always in my heart.

Thinking of you every time, any where.

Be well with your mother, Ee Young. She nurses you with her precious mother milk, and you shall be strong and healthy.

Be well, my dear son, be well.

He sleeps....

This little one sleeps with his left hand cover his left face. What a cute way of sleeping !

We did notice Ee Young has this cute sleeping habit when he was in his mother's womb; we saw him posing his left hand on his left face through the scan ! We didn't understand what he was trying to do, but we do now.


I do miss you, my little one. Especially what happened last night. I was relief that you were not with me when the robber broke into our apartment. No worry my little young one, I'm safe and sound here 360km away from you. Your mother had been sending your pics to me through handphone, and I'm glad you are well taken care of.


Sleep well, my son. Sleep well. You are unharmed from any danger. You are well protected. And you are loved.

Miss you so much, my dear Ee Young ! And do be gentle to your mum, will you ? :p

How do you feel ?

Were you in pain when the doctor vacuum you out?

What shoe size will you wear when you've grown up ?

Which is the lucky girl's hand you will hold when you've grown up?

Sleep well, my dear son.
Don't worry about the future.
The future is full of unknown.
But what I know at the moment is,
you are safe and sound with us.

Sleep well, and be a healthy boy. :)

His Name is Ee Young

His name is Ee Yong.
He is 3.49kg in weight, and 51cm in length.
He is my son. :D

He was born on the 30th day of 10th month of the year of Rat.
And he is our very first son. :D


And we are trying our very hard to breast feed him !

To Ee Young, my son.
We are very proud of you.
You have bring joy to us, and those who are with us.
Please bare with us, and we shall succeed in breast fed you.


And to my son,
Welcome to this World ! ^_^

Balik Kampung ~~~ But not me.

My wife is.

This is her 37th week of pregnancy. We could expect to meet our son soon, "very soon" as told by the doctor from her last Monday check up.

Yup, we are preparing to go back to my hometown in Perai, Penang. I always wanted my child to be a Penangite. Well, once a Penangites will always be a Penangite, no ? She will be doing all the one-month long pantang thing in my hometown with the help of my mother.

And that's mean, I'll be home alone for almost 2 months !

So, is it a good news ? Or a bad news ?

Good news is I can start to do lots of things without my wife's knowledge, such as..... *ahem* secret. LOL
And the bad news is I have to do my own laundry ! LOL

Not so easy, Lover Man, said my wife. I'll bring back the laptop and have a 24 hours civilian scout on you ! She grinned evilly ! LOL

Yup, this is the good o'laptop that she's gonna scout me 24 round the clock !

Anyway, we are expecting our son in just one or two weeks time. My feeling is such a mess up that I couldn't tell either I'm in happy stage or in worry stage. Things will be not that easy already, and I shall have to switch myself from a loving husband to a loving father.

"No more gears ! " said my wife.

Well, I guess I have to live with my current toys for a very very long time, eh ? :p

My Post α Journey - New Kid-to-be in The House!

OMG ! I hear he says:"Ai ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya !"


He talks to me !

But, what did he say ??

Can someone care to spare me a baby talk translator ?

I'm urgently need it !

^_^

OMG ! He is invading my space !!

Without much notice, I do find he has started his invasion into my space ! All of the sudden, these small small things had occupied quite a large area of my house !!

Help ! The little one is coming !!! ^_^

While I started to buying a bigger waist pants, we started to look for a smaller size things for him. Even his pillow is so small that just fit for my fist only!

He is coming, the little monster is coming !!! ^_^