Family Shoot

It has been some time I did a paid shoot. (I think I stopped once I started my new job at DC actually). Anyway, this was a 2nd shoot I did since I started my service again. Family photo of a good friend of mine which we knew each other in NAAPL. Had a great day and since I still can't get to sleep. Decided to start the montage album for him. Patched the first page up. Still a bit rough but glad to see my Photoshop skill is still there. :P

Here's the preview. More to come later.

Kidz Club Photography Workshop

I have been busy working on this project since last week. Thus, never found the time to update my blog. I even Pong Tang (AWOL) for RT yesterday. :P Anyway. It was a 2 day simple workshop for the children at Kidz Club. Luckily my master's wife and Shi Di Andrew tagged along to help. Or else jia-lat already.

Think kids in Singapore are damn lucky. Most of their cameras their parent loaned to them are quite powderful one leh. One kid even got a DSLR (Canon 400D) which is a latest model some more. Anyway, anyone who had tried teaching to a bunch of kids from 7 to 12 will know that their attention span is quite short. So have to keep things simple.

The first day (Monday)was a simple lecture on photography. Later in the afternoon we went to the nearby playground to shoot. Havoc liao. hehehe. Lucky they all scared of Ms Teo (teacher in charge). After the shoot, we all returned back to the center to wash up, while we load the photos into our laptop. Then we went through all their photos to point out their mistakes. Most of them make the same mistakes anyway. And that concludes Day 1.

On day 2, we are suppose to go to Botanic Garden in the morning for a competition shoot (got prize leh). But it was raining, so change of plans and we head down to Takashimaya to shoot instead. Took some fountain and the big Christmas tree. Again a lot of havoc. hehehe. Kids running up and down and complaining to you that they are hungry. Some are really hardworking and willing to learn while some just bo-chap. Anyway, we head back to the centre at noon and we picked the 5 best shots for each kid. Now dunno wat happened but some of the kids camera does not contain any pictures at all (or little of them). It seems that they either accidentally deleted all their photos while on their journey back or most probably their memory card is full.

So some of them quite disapointed that they lost their photos (especially those hardworking one). Anyway, we showed their photos and I am personally quite pleased that most of them did improved after their first day.

Quite an interesting experience but a bit shiong leh. Yesterday went back home, eat dinner, bath then sleep liao. Anyway, miss my girl very much, just 5 more days to go!

A Malaysian in Maesai

Here's an entry of another interesting character I met here in Maesai. We met at the cafe and chatted. He used to stay in Singapore and he's here in Thailand because he run into the law in Singapore.

He has been doing Visa runs for almost 2 years and now due to the new visa regulation, he might be going back to Malaysia. In Singapore, he used to have a start up with a few other Malaysian friends in doing carpentry. And he was making money in early 1990s from Punngol 21 project. But after the collapse of property market in Singapore due to financial crisis. They got piratically no job (very little people want to spend so much on renovations) and as they are compulsive gamblers. Which means he has to find new ways to make more money. "And the easiet way to make money is to make it illegally" he said. So that's what he did precisely, go into illegal business, smuggle cigarettes!

Things was fine when they started as they even got Lobang from the Custom officers to Kua Chui or give them the time(when there will be no checks) for them to come in. Money flowed in and they gambled it mostly away. Things turn sour when one day, the driver got caught and gave them the names of all the accomplices. They fled. My friend here was the first to bail with 2 more of his buddies. He fled to Thailand here as he has a girlfriend here.

So I wonder, is the police in Singapore still searching for him and he said most probably not as his friends already returned. And they did not catch them at the customs.

I have talked to him and he's around my age. He is a very nice and down to earth guy and works hard. (Now he's helping out in his girlfriend's restaurant in Chiang Rai) . He still likes to gamble (though he confide to me that nowadays he's not as heavy as he used to be) but he did told me he never regret his decision in smuggling. "I need the money and I choose to risk it." Importantly, he is the first person to prove to me that our police or custom officers still have people in our law enforcments that are actually corrupted.

The good thing about being in a tourist area like Maesai and working in a cyber cafe. You get to meet lots of interesting people.