One of my favourite shots so far, taken on 3 Feb this year after my second outing at the Singapore Airshow. I love this shot for many reasons. The first one is obviously the interesting shadows on the wall and their reflections in the glass and floor. The second reason is if you look closely at the left glass wall, you will be able to see the reflection of the partially-hidden control tower, but if you look to the right of the picture, where the tower actually is, you'll see it's over-exposed. This little detail I hadn't noticed until it was accepted, haha. And here's the thing - you have to be at the right place to get the tower in the shot, something that I hadn't planned for.

The third reason is the timing of the shot. One cannot take this photo at any time due to the different angles of the sun throughout the year. I believe the beginning of the year is when you'll get this kinds of reflections. I went back to the airport recently and took the same photo from about the same spot and here's what I got:

Definitely not as interesting as the shot above. Maybe the lack of shadows is due to the overcast weather. But even if it is so, not everybody can wait for the sun to come out for a good picture. I just happened to be there at the right time. ^^v

The fourth reason is that the photo made it despite containing a lot of noise (you can see it in the black part of the 'Changi Airport' sign). I shot this at ISO400 and strained lots of eye muscles removing the noise, only to have it added back when I uploaded the photo onto A.net. I took it from the queue, but a few days later I said what the hell and uploaded it again. I'm glad I went for it.

And that's the happy story behind my 15th photo on A.net. In future PotWs, I will try to describe the photo in greater detail, like why I took it, and what it means to me etc. I realise my posts have been rather short and boring and it's always nice to know a little story or two behind a photo. So I shall try to do that. In the meantime, I am going to plan my next photography outing and then dream of my 5D Mark II.

(Be sure to check out my sunset project!)

I know what you're thinking now. Why the hell upload to flickr when I already have this blog, a Photobucket and also regularly upload to Facebook? Well, let me tell you that Facebook is for the everyday shots that I'll never upload here, Photobucket is for the slightly better ones that I'll showcase on this blog, while flickr is for the very few that I actually like. So although I took hundreds of photos during my trips to the bird park and the zoo, there're only a couple that are uploaded to flickr, and I plan to keep it that way.

And another thing. I just had my 15th photo - woohoo!! - accepted on A.net! I know, it's irritating of me to post something every time I have a shot accepted but the feeling's just awesome! You have to experience it to understand it!

My photo made it to A.net's front page!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Considering how I got that photo... It makes it even sweeter!!! Woohoo~ *inserts A.net's champagne smiley* :D

f/9, 1/125s @ ISO100, 116mm

The subject of this post is Celly Belly, my very awesome cello. I love it to bits although I get my fingers sliced open every time I play it. Especially when I change positions on the A string. It's like sliding your fingers along a knife blade.

Being such a beautiful instrument, Celly Belly is very photogenic. I had a lot of fun a few months back, photographing it from various angles.

f/3.5, 20s @ ISO100, 21mm

Obviously, a tripod was used. I used Live View to get the composition I wanted, and adjusted the focus manually. Then I switched off the light and activated my phone's torchlight application. It gives off a red light, which complements Celly Belly's brown body. Haha. Then for 20 seconds, I swept the torch around Celly Belly, trying to illuminate every part of the instrument. It took a few tries. The trick is to keep moving and shine the same amount of light on every part, or some parts will look brighter than the other. As you can see from my photo, I didn't do a very good job, as some parts are thrown into the shadows. But the shape of the cello is visible (I hope!). I'd have taken more pictures if it weren't the middle of the night.

f/2.8, 1/8s @ ISO200

I took this photo with my phone, because I never use ISO200 on my camera if I can help it. Here you can see orange light shining on my cello. It is the light of the setting sun. I had to position myself so that the shadow of my phone wouldn't appear on the cello. You can still see my arm's shadow though. Haha.

That's all I have about Celly Belly! Before I sign off, I'd like to tell you people that I now have 11 photos on A.net!!!!!! I just got 2 photos accepted this morning! Check them out...

f/11, 1/4s @ ISO100, 18mm

I know, I shouldn't have used f/11, but I guess I did well here and managed to avoid camera shake!

f/11, 1/200s @ ISO100, 55mm

TBH, one of my least favourite shots. But I just submitted it for the hell of it!

I'm disappointed by the number of views as I thought that this photo was one of my better ones. Maybe it's because there were many interesting shots uploaded on the same day, thus diverting viewers away from mine.

I just got my new laptop but because of monitor calibration problems I can't edit photos on it. I guess my old desktop computer will have to stay on for quite some time...

f/11, 1/250s @ ISO100, 79mm

Just got my 6th shot accepted on A.net! So far, 5 of my 6 photos on A.net are from the airshow! However, I have a bad feeling that once I go back to boring side-ons, the rejection emails will come flooding in...

Until then, I'll have to enjoy my acceptances while they last!

f/8, 1/6s @ ISO400, 18mm

And my accepted shots:

T-50 Golden Eagle.

f/11, 1/250s @ ISO100, 214mm

C-17 Globemaster.

f/11, 1/160s @ ISO100, 123mm

Now I'm off to upload more shots!!! :DDD

:DDD

Here's the link!

Yay!

On a side note, I recently found out that 'foxy' means 'sexually attractive' (for a girl). Well, all I can say is that it wasn't my idea (it's yours, Xu Xue Kun!!), and despite what my A.net profile may say, I'm indeed a girl (I can't change my profile gender, dammit!). And besides, I don't mind being foxy! Haha!

f/11, 1/250 @ ISO 100, 18mm

However, it's not recognised as my photo :( On my Photographer Administration page, it is said that I only have 1 shot in the database, when in fact I have 2. So I can only upload 2 photos at one go instead of 5 (photographers with 2-10 photos in the DB can have 5 pictures in the queue). What's more, the photographer of that shot is still X Y Foo, when I've since changed the name to Foxy. Apparently I'm not the only one with this problem, as can be seen from the forum posts, but it still sucks. I have a whole bunch of photos waiting to be uploaded but I can't because of the bug!

Oh well. I hope A.net sorts things out soon. In the meantime I shall wait for my 2 photos to be screened.

Let me show them to you:

f/11, 1/200 @ ISO 100, 25mm

f/11, 1/160 @ ISO 100, 18mm

Click for full size.

And that concludes my first post (not counting the one below) of my photography blog. In future posts, I'll show you people my older photos, and I hope that you can comment on them.