Friday, December 29, 2006

Happy Birthday Aliya Irdina!

That's my baby girl.....pix taken during the dinner on the 27th Dec around 8:30pm with the family (Tok Mak & Tok Abah came - finally banjir dah settle, can escape from Segamat already!!)

She's a cheeky girl, my baby. Smart & fast learner. She's got really pretty eyes & her eye lashes, well that is something that would melt hearts of many in years to come.

Can't believe she's already 1 yr old! 27th. DEC 2005, 3:59am was a year ago already! Time is flying even faster than before!!!!

(Late entry - due to the earthquake that disabled the fiberoptics)

Monday, December 25, 2006

Through The Lense.....

My concentration for past few weeks has been more on my next journey – photography. Lepak
with the SFCS dudes and Ted. Interesting bunch of creative people. Some are really seasoned photographers - excellent photographers, while some are just starting their journey. What actually matters most to this bunch is – we love photography and we want to learn & improve in this art. This is my new circle of friends now! Photographers & creative people. Most of my free time is spent on research & forums on photography. It seems to me that I am dead serious to become a photographer when I retire, hoping to earn something from this new passion I acquire.

The only free time I have is actually after coming back from work – that means around 9pm. It is really a sad ting not being able to spend the evening with the babies. I really miss that. I guess that is why I am a bit reluctant when Ted and Amal asked me to go follow them for some shooting over the weekend. Maybe I am not really ready to sacrifice my time with the babies although I am dead serious about being in the loop of professional & upcoming photographers of this nation.

Have also been given the opportunity to try out my capability in shooting big event – Kimster & Sly asked me to co-facilitate with some leaders for the month’s Leadership Forum and at the same time I was also asked to help shoot the “moments” for the grand finale montage. Good thing Sly let me use his D70, SB800 and two cool lenses to do the job….my old faithful Panasonic Leica would not be able to make the cut.

It was quite a demanding one but I managed to pull it off very decently I think. I might be getting a wedding job coming for my team too! Wooohoo!! Alhamdulillah…

I though it is time to “reward” myself after what…more than a year or so of hard work (I did not reward myself anything from my Bonus…farking kedekut punya employer & bloody tax hungry punya nation) so I decided to spend rather lavishly for my self this year end…regardless of what amount of cash I was given this month, aku tak HALALkan satu sen pun the gomen took from my account for tax purposes or whatever - yeah I got much less than I expected this year....whatever reason the employer wanna say, whatever reason the gomen wanna say, I say - Haram is Haram so go f*** your own duck.

So...got myself a brand new D70S for my journey into the future…..heheh!

The package includes the D70S kit pack (18-70mm), SB-600 Speedlight, 50mm f1.8, extra original battery, CF card, Hoya filters for the lenses, Nikon promo bag, Nikon Pro-Photog Vest....basically, I am ready to rock lah! Images will be up later in this address.....

Today went to Pencerita's kenduri aqiqah and met Saiful Nang and some of the otais for the first time.....no turning back from here, it IS going to be interesting!

On the other hand, work has been hectic & relaxing – two conflicts lingering in the air with total harmony. There are senses of urgency but I manage it properly (read: After years of working you should know when to put real action, when to just simply react and when to just purely act!). Anyway, the zoo is empty, very empty. The only constant noise you will hear would be from my area – just a handful of us are yet to take leave, soon. The only annoyance I have been struggling to live with is coming from two colleagues – one is new in the zoo but a seasoned employee and another one has been just too long in this zoo. But one thing unite them both – the ability to annoy other effortlessly, which they actually put full effort everyday, so just imagine the horror.

The ultimate tank-top was when I was trying very hard to up skill this new “older” guy who seems to be in total lost even after a couple of month in the zoo (we’ll call this guy Mr. Zero) and the guy who has been too long in the zoo (we’ll call him Mr. Kepoh). My intention was to up skill Mr. Zero in order for him to take up one task specifically assigned by the leadership of the zoo – which Mr. Zero kept on insisting it was me & the rest who put up his name on the list. The session was only supposed to be attended by a bunch of other colleague but somehow or rather Mr. Kepoh crashes into the meeting and started to make some smart-arse remarks and statements. One round, ok I can stand it, let us not make him look like an idiot even though what came out from his mouth was totally ridiculous and unprofessional – stating the obvious, finishing or repeating other people’s sentence, rephrasing it is you may in some words that sounds more intellectual (NOT!)…..Second round, there we go again, same crap…third round, that is it – Could you please not interrupt my discussion? Frankly I do not remember inviting you for this meeting, is it really necessary for you to be here?

Mr. Kepoh tried to joke about it but I kept my face and asked him to move on and please have respect on other people’s time.

Ok. That part was done. The days after that Mr. Kepoh tried to look important and hang around my place – I totally ignore the guy and every single word he utter. Damage was done. Wait for the next financial year for reconciliation. The whole year of annoying behavior have finally taken the toll. This kind of a person does not deserve any respect. Don’t know about you but definitely not from me. Well at least he has the intelligence to not enter another discussion I called for the Mr. Zero and the rest a week after the first one. Good. He’s learning something at last.

Mr. Zero on the other hand, is really a big question mark. At the position he’s in – a position higher than mine, I do not expect to have his kind of leadership (or shall I say UNleadership). Ok that may sound to much but hell, we tried to help him put with this simple high profile assignment assigned by the leadership of the zoo and all he kept lamenting was he’s in the wrong zoo and he should have not accepted the position. At one point I actually asked him to stop making such annoying childish remark and act as what he was supposed to be – a position higher than me and bunch of others trying to help him out. Blaming, lamenting, unfocused, unable to think or at least try to think in strategic manner, always reflecting the negative without any hint of how to handle the issue in hand, always ANNOYING.

And he drives a luxury car….and the other dude car’s is worth 3 times the car I am driving everyday!

DAMMIT!

Monday, December 11, 2006

Lensa Persona...huh?


P1160295
Originally uploaded by torqxic.
The days have been very hectic since I last posted any update on this blog....apart from the office works, been learning to cope up with the limitations of my prosumer class Leica lense and the new zoom/bounce external flash I bought couple of weeks back.

The image I post here is one of the recent well "masterpiece" I managed to compose with the camera. Funny thing, with those limitation I can say I still managed to deliver acceptable results for some events - tehn again, I maybe just syok sendiri!

Anyway, after the outing with some other photographers for Street Buskers Party last weekend, I realized (apart from I need to catch-up on my sleeping & resting time!) I cannot rely too much anymore on my trusted prosumer class camera, not for night, low light & fast shoots...just to name a few situation at least.....

After talking to some real professionals in this field and showing them some of my works I have done on this Panasonic-Leica prosumer, I can conclude it is time for me to move on to the the next level.......time to get really serious after all these years of "searching".......and somehow or rather, I realized my answer to the question I have been asking myself all these years is starting to materialize, I am starting to be able to visualize the answer, maybe not a complete one but it is much clearer then before!

Time for another new journey Torque!