Category: Nature

Nature

Glory Past

Glory Past
You know that “winter” has arrived in Singapore when… it’s raining non-stop for the sixth consecutive day in a week 😛 As the rainy season continues, here’s looking at an old picture I took a while ago (when it was sunnier)…

MacRitchie Reservoir presents numerous opportunities to create pictorial/visual art kind of pictures such as this study of a fallen leaf by the reservoir edge. I love the details captured in the leaf (I have a nice enlargement of this — you can actually see beads of water on the full-size version of this shot) contrasting with the dark background of the water. This was taken in May 2004.

Exposure information: Camera – Canon EOS 300D DIGITAL, ISO – 200, Exposure Time – 1/160 sec, Aperture – f/13.0, Flash – Off, Focal Length – 190mm, Lens – Sigma 70-300mm f/4-5.6 APO II Super Macro, Exposure Program – Manual, Metering Mode – Center Weighted, Auto Focus Mode – AI Focus, White Balance – Auto, Capture Format – RAW (processed with CaptureOne DSLR Rebel Edition)

Mating Damsels


It has been a while since I last took macro-shots of insects at the Botanical Gardens. While the rest of the northern hemisphere is having cold weather for now, we are experiencing the rainy / monsoon season which makes photography almost impossible. In fact, the skies were pouring non-stop for the most part of yesterday!

I took this picture of mating damselflies at the Botanical Gardens in 2004. I had quite soft lighting for the initial few shots I snapped. As luck would have it, the sun decided to make a strong appearance, bathing the two in warm and bright lighting. Lots of post-processing done on the original RAW file in boosting the colours and saturation… Wanted to give a Velvia-feel to the final result 🙂

Zen

Notice anything new here? 🙂

I came across the free blogger tool WordPress a couple of days ago at Photoblogs.org. I have never used the PHP functionality of my webhosting service so far. The friendly documentation and the support forums at WordPress got me hooked on trying the PHP-based software out on my photoblog. A few quick configurations and I managed to get my former Blogger posts (with comments and all) migrated with no problems. Exploring WordPress further, I came across the excellent photoblog template at Razzi’s Photolog and have since adapted it for use here. I like the stronger organization and categorization tools WordPress gives me compared to Blogger. The other big benefit is of course being able to log in from my workplace (since the Blogger domain has been blocked by my workplace server)!

The above picture was taken at the MacRitchie Reservoir boardwalk more than a year ago. I love the sense of peace and tranquility the picture evokes 🙂