You’ve heard the music, seen the crazy dance (and the 20,281 parodies of it!), but have you seen one incorporated into a wedding? We’re not insanely crazy over the craze, but this is quite hilarious and sports good production quality.
Oppa gangnam anyone?
Don’t you just love the creamy background blur that Grace and the team get on our pictures? :)
I remember one of the deciding factors that drove me to purchase my first DSLR is the ability to produce bokeh. The word “bokeh” is essentially a Japanese word for blur. In photography, bokeh is used to describe the blur that is behind the focused subject. It is typically produced when one shoots with a large aperture, like f2.8 and below. Therefore, prime leses, such as the 50mm f1.8, 85mm f1.2, 35mm f1.4 and others will give you pretty bokeh.
Normally bokeh is round, sometimes it’s hexagon, according to the shape of your aperture opening. Well, they are great, but boring. (Yawns) So I am going to show you how to change the shape of your bokeh to look like this:
You will need:
1. Cardboard. Go green, don’t have to purposefully purchase it. Use your unwanted cereal box. They work great!
2. Your DSLR with a prime lens. (the nifty 50mm f1.8 will do!)
3. Pen, marker, scissors, pen knife and clear tape.
I read this article from a friend’s blog, and unfortunately, I do not know who to credit, but it’s such a great article that I felt I needed to share it here. It’s worth your 5 minutes reading this article on marriage. Deep down in my heart, I feel truly satisfied and happy that I married Alex. In almost random moments throughout the day, I tell Alex that I love him. I break into a silly grin when I hear him say the same thing… almost like young kids in love.
6 years of marriage and counting… Love you, dear!
PARTNERS AND MARRIAGE by Eduardo Jose E. Calasanz
I have never met a man who didn’t want to be loved. But I have seldom met a man who didn’t fear marriage. Something about the closure seems constricting, not enabling. Marriage seems easier to understand for what it cuts out of our lives than for what it makes possible within our lives. When I was younger this fear immobilized me. I did not want to make a mistake. I saw my friends get married for reasons of social acceptability, or sexual fever, or just because they thought it was the logical thing to do. Then I watched, as they and their partners became embittered and petty in their dealings with each other.
I looked at older couples and saw, at best, mutual toleration of each other. I imagined a lifetime of loveless nights and bickering days and could not imagine subjecting myself or someone else to such a fate. And yet, on rare occasions, I would see old couples that somehow seemed to glow in each other’s presence. They seemed really in love, not just dependent upon each other and tolerant of each other’s foibles. It was an astounding sight, and it seemed impossible. How, I asked myself, can they have survived so many years of sameness, so much irritation at the other’s habits? What keeps love alive in them, when most of us seem unable to even stay together, much less love each other?
The team at Stories is making a stand to stop violence against women! Together with a few other photographers under the branding of Bloom, we have decided to participate in a campaign that fights for this cause.
“Portraits for Pixels” is a collaborative fundraising campaign with photographers worldwide to raise funds for The Pixel Project, a non-profit organization whose mission is to raise awareness, funds and volunteer power for the cause to end violence against women (VAW) worldwide.
The “Portrait for Pixels” campaign involves participating professional photographers to hold special “Portrait for Pixels” charity portrait sessions in their community where they will take family/individual portraits/headshots for a one-off special price.
In support of the Pixel Project, Bloom will be running the “Portrait for Pixels” campaign for the month of September, 2012. For every “Portraits for Pixels”shoot, RM100 will be donated to the Pixel Project and photos of the campaign will be published online to raise awareness about VAW.
We hope that you will stand alongside us and help us make a difference to those in need. Do email us if you’d like to book a portrait session with us. Thank you in advance for your love!
My dad turns 79 today. It almost felt like yesterday that I sat on his lap as a child. I remember those moments when I refused to go to bed at night even when I was exhausted – I would pretend to be awake in front of the TV, but then he knew better. There were times when he picked me up and carried me up the stairs to my bedroom, and I was probably about 20+kg at that time! Not a bad feat for a 5 foot man whose frame is pretty small too.
I also remember moments when I was studying for my exams and would stress out completely about it, but his words to me were… “Just do your best.” He was proud when I did well, but when I didn’t do so well, he would just say, “Just do better next time.”
My dad loved playing golf. Once, he got a hole-in-one and proudly hung his certificate on the wall of our home to show it off to everyone. There was one time too, when he swung his golf club a little over-enthusiastically inside our living room and accidentally knocked the chandelier, breaking it into a million pieces! (don’t ask me why he was doing that INSIDE the living room).
Unfortunately for my mum, my dad was a typical old-school ‘man’ who never really lifted a finger in the kitchen. My mum was a great cook but the kitchen was her domain, so she never got much help there. My mum’s a workaholic (just like how I am now!) so I do remember instances when he would lecture her into taking things easy and not stress out in the kitchen. Especially after she began having heart palpitations, but would still wake up at 5am to make hundreds of Chinese New Year cookies to fulfill the orders made by friends and neighbours.
Since I am the 3rd and final child in the family (with a huge age gap between my 2 older siblings!), I got away with a lot of things and was pampered as I was growing up. I used it to my advantage a lot (and also, though embarrassing to admit, I had temper tantrums too when I didn’t get my way). I don’t remember the rotan (cane) very much, like how my other siblings described their childhood, but now that I think back about it, I must have been a handful.
Due to my dad’s Alzheimer’s, I don’t really talk very much about these things to him anymore. He doesn’t realize it’s his birthday today, but just because he doesn’t remember, doesn’t mean that he cannot feel. So we’ll pop a small candle on Alex’s home made brownie later and sing a birthday song to him.
* Photos by Anna-Rina
