On the weekend

Saturday after pole, I met my friend David at Dome for coffee and sandwiches.  I'm always starving after a workout and a big, hot meal is the most appealing thing ever.

This Saturday was very nostalgic - when I was a kid, I used to come to the Dome at the Art Museum with my parents and brothers.  It was an expensive meal for us, a special treat.  We always got foccacia sandwiches and I always went for the mushroom and cheese one, a hot, crispy semi-circle of oozing cheese and tender, savoury mushrooms.  The sandwich would come with a huge pile of shaved carrot on the side and I picked it up and added it to the sandwich for some crunch.

They're still serving the same sandwich, even though it's about $8 more expensive!  At least it still tastes the same.

Also nostalgic, the Zo cards we used to take piles of until they became covered with ugly advertisements.  I still have files of postcards that people wrote me back in school.

David practised the look of disdain that my brother HW and I used to give each other.  A pressed nose indicates disgust, a pressed nose with tongue, ultimate distaste.  Think about it.  There are just no words as eloquent.

Afterwards, we took a walk through Bugis Plus and I stopped by the Craftholic shop to look at the plush rabbit and bear pillows.  The funny, morose little creatures moved me and I poked David and asked him if I should buy one.  While he dithered, I spotted a grey and white striped bear that seemed to recede among the rainbow fabrics. 

"Hey what about that one?" I asked.

"That bear looks so sad!"  David protested.  "He looks like he's going through the holocaust!"

"What?!"  I was shocked.  "Well, if he's going through the holocaust, then I have to save him!"

And so I did.  Meet Moshe Shlomo Finkelstein.  He's huge!

Toldja!

EDIT, March 29th: David wanted to me to add that when we were in Craftholic, he expressed his disdain by flattening his nose with his third finger and I violently told him off for his rudeness.  Don't mess with a teacher!

Tonight for supper...

Cheese toast, a hot cup of tea and... black pepper crab left over from my parents' posh dinner.  Yes, sometimes miracles really do happen.

I ate it all.  Every last peppery bit of it.

Gratitude list: Day by day

If you're out there and you're sad, and wondering why this is taking longer than you thought it would, you're not an anomaly.

I'm working on it.  I really am.  But things are sometimes harder than ever.  I have moments where I feel like I'm almost out of the valley, I can forget all the days we'd spent together, how close we used to be, how much I trusted him.  There are times when I think, yes, the only person you can lean on is yourself, and I'm almost used to it.  Almost.

It all comes crashing down in the stupidest moments; a text from a mutual friend asking if I can make my way back to London.  The launch of a friend's book we spent hours reading together.  An email from a school colleague to say he'll be in town in two weeks.  

And I think, I know I shouldn't think it, but I think: why keep reminding me of the one that got away?  Then I'm furious, furious for even considering bestowing that title on someone who kicked me around when I was at my most vulnerable, who once held me and whispered, "I promise I will take care of you.  Will you take care of me?" and asked me if I felt safe so that in that short moment, I did.

All these people from our shared past who can't see me, who only guess my feelings from texts and emails riddled with cheerful exclamation marks think I'm okay.  Selfishly, I want to shout at them, "I'm not!  Why can't you possibly guess that and leave me alone?" and curl up and cry and cry until it just doesn't hurt anymore.

So I stop. 

I take a deep breath. 

I pull myself back, because it's not their fault.  It's not their fault that I sometimes want to appear stoic and it's not their fault that I still want their friendship even if it means being reminded of the connection I once had with him.  

I think of the people I have here.  I think of how many times they've had my back and I feel ashamed of myself. 

And I remind myself that we all have our trials and tribulations and we are, many of us, just pushing through, just living day by day.  I look at the clock, and today's almost over.  Tomorrow it all starts again, but that will be over too.  And so on, and so on, putting one foot in front of the other, I'm helped out by small daily moments of cheer that remind me that by and by, I'll walk my way back home.

1)  Cheese on toast 

 

I'm partial to smoked cheese of any kind and the simple act of melting it on toast and enjoying it with a hot cup of tea can make my morning.  Even better, since I told my father about the smoked cheese preference, he started keeping the larder regularly stocked with it.

2) The excellent office pantry

There's even a wishlist nearby that we can fill up with suggestions.  My poison?  Wasabi prawn crackers.  Sweetest pantry ever.

3)  And what really makes me smile: preparing some love to send to friends.

The friendlier skies

Kim, Libby, Dawn and I hadn't met up as a group in ages so when we found that we all had a sudden opening on Monday night, we jumped at the chance to have dinner together.

Dawn suggested a restaurant called Sushi Airways at Arab Street that sells Japanese food in an airplane-themed setting.  I love Japanese cuisine more than life itself, but my first reaction was that surely no one would pay to be fed in an aeroplane.  

Full disclosure: I hate flying.  I hate it with a passion because it terrifies me.  (Amanda and I had a very lively conversation at the office because we're both plane-phobic to the same degree.  Each time a plane takes off or lands, I grip the armrests and my palms go slick.  I have come very close to having panic attacks in turbulence.  But I fly anyway because.  You know.  How else would I get to my friends or see the world?)

Anyway, in my mind's eye I saw tiny cramped seats with those awful metallic armrests that bruise your elbows and oddly-scented trays of food with rock hard rolls and limp vegetables.  

Dawn, however, has a very good nose for restaurants, so I decided to put my uncertainty aside.  (We had a quick tea together before dinner and she looked wonderful, fit and hot as always!) 

Of course, I was just being silly because, well, what restaurant would pay such a literal tribute?  Instead, the joint was all sleek metal with capsule-like windows and black swivel chairs.  Cute!

(The counter is actually not that reddish colour.  I'm just playing with tweaking colours because my friend at work, Rebecca, inspired me when she told me that she once unrolled an entire roll of ISO 400 film under her blanket in the dark and then respooled it backwards.  Film.  That's dedication, folks.  Apparently, shooting on the back of the film gives you something called redscale.  I wanted to emulate the reddish-yellow cast using iPhoto.)

Before we started eating, they let us choose our sake cups to match our personalities.  Dawn chose the classy cracked-jade one, Libby chose the sweet pale pink and I went for the clean lines of the dark blue.  Kim came late so I didn't get her cup, but I think it had a floral sort of pattern on it as well. 

The food was a little pricey, but very fresh and tasty.

I love salmon in almost any form.  Here it was thinly sliced with crunchy vegetables and the kind of umami dressing that the Japanese excel at.

That's Dawn pointing excitedly at the sashimi in the background.  I loved the fish and scallops but the squid was a little gummy for me.  For some reason, I don't like prawn sashimi either.  Otherwise, there is nothing more delightful than a cold, firm, salty piece of good-quality sashimi between the teeth, just before it explodes with the kick of wasabi.

Because the other two at the table are pescetarians, Libby and I had this very tasty fried breaded pork to ourselves. 

As usual, we laughed ourselves silly, three former Straits Times people and one still an editor, talking about old times and new adventures.

What I find funny is that Libby and I are actually blog friends as well.  She writes a beautiful blog called Little Bow Girl, which you can find here.  Many people that I've recommended her blog to love it, and we read each other's sites fairly often.  So even though I hadn't actually seen Libby in upwards of six months, I knew exactly how she was keeping.  We had a few laughs about all the vain things bloggers do, like taking self portraits, and Libby's camera which has a makeup function that makes your skin look like silk!

Among other scandals, we covered the Joanne-Bobby split, which Kim had been dying to read about.

Before leaving, we made massive fools of ourselves by posing with the food serving cart, thankfully the only thing that actually looked like it came off an airplane. Kim is supposed to be an air stewardess, albeit one that cares more about her image than her passengers.  (I don't know if you noticed Libby peeking through the sake cups in the photos above but I jumped when I first saw her.  She looks a little ethereal!)

We finished off with dessert at the Cafe Rouge downstairs.  Chatting with girlfriends over some very dark chocolate, orange cake, sea salt and creme brulee is the perfect remedy for a long day.

All in, I thought it was a delightful outing.  To cap the evening, I got a ride home from Libby's husband, and sat, warm and full in the back of the car cradling her darling schnauzer, Benjy in my lap while he gently nipped my wrist.  As Benjy and I trundled along sleepily, I thought about what Libby and Kim had said earlier. 

It's so nice to meet with friends that you can reminisce with and who understand the weird hold that the past has on you because it happened to them too.  And of course, it's just as nice that we still take the time and trouble to have fun together in the here and now. 

My phone lit up in my lap - Kim proposing that we choose an equally interesting place the next time round.  I can't wait.

The best earrings known to man

We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming to bring you this amazeballs find from Etsy: Swirly Girly Goddess.

I'd been looking for a pair of fake gauges for the longest time, the kind that look like they've been strung through your ear.  In my mind they were going to be slightly serrated, bone-coloured spirals, different from the generic studs and hooks you find in every store.

I didn't see what I wanted in places like Topshop, Urban Outfitters or even in piercing stores, so I eventually went on Etsy.  When I saw Swirly Girly Goddess's versions, I was absolutely delighted.

Not only does she makes the standard spirals, but also tendrils, swirly clefs, shamrocks and best of all, get this, octopus tentacles.

Although I own an octopus necklace, I never thought I'd be able to find fake gauge tentacles!  I'm not ashamed to say that I ordered them right away.

There is a whole palette of colours to choose from.  I went for black with purple accents and a delicious purple shimmer running throughout.  

The earrings are also made of polymer clay so they're incredibly light.  I've never worn earrings of this size and actually forgotten that they were there.  When I took one off and passed it around the classroom (the kids I teach were fascinated), I forgot to put it back on and didn't even notice the difference in weight.

And of course, they look pretty damn good.

I've been wearing them constantly and people have actually stopped me to comment on them.  Whether they're shocked or love them, tentacles are always a good conversation starter.

And... that's all!  As you were.

Gratitude list: Fun

Life has been full of fun little moments lately and I truly relish them.  Every time I feel a little down or drained, I spend time with friends or recharging and I automatically start to feel better.  Even short ten minute interludes help.

Maybe right now it's all about facing life that way - just taking things a day at a time, and stopping for breath occasionally.  Anyroad, resting in the here and now stops me from thinking too far into the murky future.  That's just what I need. 

1)  Brunch with Edie and Shirin

We decided to meet at Wild Honey for brunch (my favourite meal of the day) and Shirin and I entertained ourselves by serendipitously turning up in the same colour.

The first time I went to Wild Honey, I was not amused by the stack of Canadian pancakes.  Since then, I've ordered nothing but eggs benedict (either Norwegian or European style) and I'm always delighted with my choice.

Edie started off by ignoring me in favour of her Candy Crush obsession.

Then she took my portrait...

... before we spent a long moment staring at the phallic glass chandelier outside.  (I'm pretty sure it's a Dale Chihuly and also that a resident of Sentosa Cove has a similar glass sculpture spilling from the façade of his house.)

Eventually, we went a little bit crazy running around outside and trying to take pictures looking like abstract statues.  None of those (slightly sexual) poses made the cut, but I loved the pictures Edie took of Shirin and me.

More than once, we've been mistaken for sisters.  Occasionally, we are even mistaken for each other.  We've considered dressing in each others' clothes and teaching each others' classes just for the fun of it.

And finally, a couple of details from Shirin's outfit that day.  I really enjoy Shirin's fashion sense.  She wears clothes that are both classic and chic - shirtdresses, slouchy knit tops, slim-cut cigarette pants - and dresses them up with quirky and surprising accessories.  In San Francisco, my favourite thing that she wore was an oversized cowl with a tougher looking biker jacket.

2)  Amanda and Snowy

We have two rabbits in our office that sort of act as mascots.  Sometimes, they hang out in our section of the staff room and so we get to play with them.  Snowy, the older and more sedate of the two, will sit quietly in anybody's lap and give off occasional wafts of white fluff.  Amanda and I love animals, so we spent a little time cuddling with Snowy.

And of course, because we can never let anything be, we also decided to pretend we were making a pet food advertisement.  I'll let you be the judges.

I know, it's award winning stuff.

3)  Breakfast

Of course, there are times when a quiet breakfast is the best medicine.  Just give me some hot noodles, cold coffee and a good book and I'm all set, thanks. 

Perth, Part 3: Photos at Point Walter

I'm going to preface this by saying that I am by no means an expert.  Everything that I do, everything that I've learnt was gleaned from talking to people and reading things and trial and error.  I've still got a long, long way to go and I would never dream of being prescriptive about anything.  

On one of the many drives I took with Beck and Marty, we headed out to Point Walter to take a look at where the wedding photos would be shot in between the ceremony in the afternoon and the reception at night.  It was a stiflingly hot day and I drowsed in the backseat until we pulled up along the shore.  

A dazzling white sand spit stretched and curved out into water that spit sparks in the afternoon sun.  I was instantly wide awake, thinking about all the photos I would take the next day.

Bec and Marty said that I could come with them if I liked, and I had fully intended to try and help as much as possible with the dress and with holding things.  I'm sorry to say that I ran off quite a bit, greedy to still and capture every moment that caught my eye.  

Jimmy, the photographer, put up with my running around a lot and even made some helpful suggestions for photos.  I know it must be annoying for pros to have random hobbyists skipping round them and constantly getting into the shot, and he was incredibly patient.  

I thought I'd talk about some of the photos here, both ones that I like and ones that I think could be improved.  Of course, like anything else, photography is very subjective.  These are just pictures that happened to catch my eye.

The Likes

This is one of my favourite photos that I took that day.

The spit was beautiful, but people tramping up and down it not so.  I wanted to capture the shape and scale of the spit and every straight-on shot that I took was nondescript and formless.  I tried to think about what I wanted to catch and it occurred to me that the light was falling onto the rocks in a very pretty way.  I thought about raising the horizon as high up as possible to convey length and the texture of the rocks and water and before I knew it, the two kids had crossed the top of the picture at exactly the right moment.

I love that they're wearing such cheerful swimwear and that the girl is clearly trying to goad her less gung-ho brother into exploring with her.

Another serendipitous moment when this boy ran into my shot.  I was practising with a repeated pattern and trying to think about capturing angles and movement.  Just when I thought the camera was perfectly positioned, the adorable little boy shot out onto the pier to look at the ducks.  Look at how eagerly he's leaning!

First of all, don't they look adorable together?

I like everything about this picture.  Jimmy set it up, so I can't take credit for that, but I enjoy the depth of field, the white on the brown and green, the fact that they're nuzzling - a moment I don't often see in wedding albums.  Because of the angle at which I'm standing, my ineptitude and my equipment, there's a shadow on her face but not such a strong one that I wasn't able to save it in post.

It might not be acceptable for professional level wedding photography, but I wouldn't call it a bad photo and I like enough about it that the lighting doesn't bother me... too much.

I love the fact that the boat blatantly says "Safety Boat" on the side.  I like the texture of the water, the fact that I caught a little wave crashing into the shore with some clarity and the framing provided by the dark rocks in the foreground and the light pier in the distance.  The same shot doesn't work nearly so well in a portrait setting or from a higher angle (I tried both).

I felt that my squatting position made the slight bob and rock of the boat a little more intimate and accessible.

This picture really amuses me because a) I got everybody in this lovely, soft afternoon light and it looks like a Greek island in the background and b) no one ever sees this part of the picture.  Wedding albums always look so lovely and clean and fresh and everyone is so perfectly scrubbed and coiffed and in love.

No one ever sees the photographer with a hundred and twenty one lenses on his belt, standing under the boiling sun in his long-sleeved shirt because "it's disrespectful to be too casually dressed at a wedding".  Bless him.

The pictures always look stunning, but no one imagines that there is a massive, very close camera pointed at the bride's schnozz as the photographer calls out weird instructions like, "Put your foreheads together!  Leaning in!  Closer!  As close as you can get!  Kiss!  Touch noses!  Nuzzle!" for a slightly unromantic two hours or so.

To be fair, Marty and Bec looked very much in love and the kissing didn't seem a whole lot like a chore for them!  Anyroad, I just liked the reality of the working man next to the softness of the dreamily happy couple.

Another Jimmy composed photo, but I'm proud to say that I had the same idea in my head the moment I saw the tree.  I don't know if I'm crazy about this picture.  The lighting's great, yes, and I like the way the couple is positioned and how their whites stand out.

But I was taking it slightly off to one side, I kept getting dogs and people in the shot and because I was in my bridesmaid dress, full hair and heels, I couldn't lie down on my stomach like the photographer did.  I'm dying to see how his angle turned out and how different the lighting was.

All the same, I do think it's pretty and I keep coming back to look at it.

The Much-to-be-desireds

Even though I managed to get some very palatable photos (in my opinion), this shoot is one of the most frustrating things I've ever done.  And happily, because it was frustrating, I learned a whole lot from it.  You never pick up as much from the things that turn out well.

To start with, I had to be very careful not to get in Jimmy's way, even though I suspect I did a fair bit.  That meant not getting into the shot, or standing too near where he was standing, or insisting on taking the exact same angle or asking the couple to stay put for a minute longer than was necessary.

That meant each time he got a prime location, I was always at least 30 degrees off to one side.

Secondly, stumbling round in heels and full garb can be slightly detrimental to how well you can hold a camera.  (Not that I'm complaining, I was happy to be there at all!)

At times, I felt like my equipment wasn't up to the tasks I was asking of it, and to recompose would have meant causing some small disruption.

Finally, I confirmed, as I've always suspected, that I really don't know light at all (a little Joni Mitchell humour for you there).  I mean, I'm getting there slowly and I understand it a little better than I did two years ago, but it's going to take a whole lot more practise in all sort of different conditions to really get me to where I want to be.

Take this pair of pictures for instance.  I love the lighting situation.  I even love the pose in the second photo, which is totally candid.  Bec and Marty turned to listen to Jimmy's instructions, but I love how the drama conveys the idea that something more interesting going on.

But because of the angle I was sitting at, there was all kinds of nonsense in the background and the shadows were falling every which way.  In comparison, the pro shot was a massively wide angle art shot, with the couple in the shadows in one corner and the energy of the rows of stark white pews surrounding them.

My picture was also horrendous in colour because of the intensity of the light and shadow.  I don't know if it's a lens issue or I'm just not metering it right, but I could definitely have done better.

This picture is great in theory and poor in practice.  There were a couple of boys kicking a ball around and I wanted to see if I could capture them in motion.  I had no problem getting them moving with the ball in the air several times, but the sun was an issue.

If I'd been positioned a little bit higher with a much better zoom lens, it could have been a really dynamic shot of a boy in energetic motion.  As it is, the trees are distracting and he's not in focus enough.  I'm not too fussed about the lack of zoom right now though.  This is a problem easily remedied with my legs.   

The three photos above didn't make the cut because of lighting issues.  Here's where I experienced the most frustration.  Obviously, the photos were all meant to be backlit.  I don't know if it's the angle I was at, my lighting incompetence or just my equipment, but anything that turned out to be nicely backlit was woefully dark in the front.

At one point, Jimmy pointed a shot out to me and said that if I took one from that angle, I could get some nice lens flare.  I took a picture and was upset at how dark the bride and groom were in the front.  Jimmy showed me his picture on the camera screen and the lighting was beautifully balanced, warm and almost creamy right across the picture.  The blown out sections were so gradual that they hardly called any attention to themselves and the trees were an impressive shade of olive green.

I kept encountering this problem again and again, walking round in tight circles trying to improve my perspective and it was driving me nuts.  The second picture is clearly meant to be a joke - the couple pulled faces for me in between snaps and I think they look adorable in it - but it still illustrates how far I have to go with lighting.

The third picture was a particular nuisance.  It almost works.  Almost.  Obviously I'm too short for it.  Had I been shooting from a little to the right, there wouldn't be the problem of the annoying, blown out top right corner either.

I tried to watch the way Jimmy worked - he walked round staring at the floor to check where shadows were falling and just how much light was coming through the trees.  When he positioned Marty and Bec, he asked constantly if the sun was in their eyes, a sign that their faces would likely be well lit.  He angled his camera upwards and downwards to check for a decent background.  And standing behind his shoulder and ogling his camera screen helped me learn as well.  

I've come to the conclusion that while I really do need to work more judiciously with shadow, my dinky kit lens, with its maxiumum aperture of 4, is partly to blame.  To run out and get a new zoom lens right away isn't my style - I prefer to try my best with the equipment I have first.  So I've decided that while I try to figure out how to balance the metering better, I'm going to work on composition instead so that my subjects aren't so aggressively backlit.  I'm not sure the lens can handle it.

At the end of the day, I think the struggle was good for me.  I was super grateful for the location and the chance to follow the pro around.  Plus, it's always good to know what you don't know.  Best of all, instead of being discouraged by the experience, I came away with steely resolve.

My friend, Wei-Yuen, also takes photos and we had a conversation the other day about doing things.  "If you want to do something, why not just do it well?" she said.  "What's the point of doing it halfway?"

I wholeheartedly agree.  I want to keep working on taking pictures and not half-assing them.  I don't think my pictures are bad, but I really want to push myself so that they look as nice they possibly can.  For this month, my resolution is as follows.

I'm putting the 18-55mm kit lens away for now.  I'm going to work solely with my 50mm, 1.8 prime lens for a while (except at concerts) because at a maximum aperture of 1.8, it should give me all the light I need.  To add to that, I want to push the lens to see just how much more it can take than portraits.  Then, I'll keep working on composing better so that I make the light work for me despite my limits.

Ultimately, I'm eyeing a mid-priced 28-75mm, constant 2.8 lens for when I actually know how to use the glass to kick things up a notch.

Not a bad plan, and I feel pretty good about it.

I hope you've enjoyed these photos (if not the long, random ramble!).  In the meantime, I leave you with a picture that's neither here nor there, but that I managed to get through good timing and that cracks me up each time I look at it.

I call this photo: Envy.